If you aren't angry, you haven't been paying attention

Ian Welsh lays it out just about right. And David Lindorff further discusses the monsters in our midst.
The Skipper has been criticized by a few under the Godwin's Law argument, but I agree with him and with Welsh that we too often fall into the trap of reasonableness, that by going along to get along we too often normalize extremist opinion and outrageous attitudes by our tacit acceptance.

We grossly overvalue civility when we condemn people for using strong language to describe reprehensible actions and attitudes. Right-wing radio hosts and  tea party activists make horribly racist statements on a regular basis, but somehow calling them racists  is verboten. The American and Canadian government now routinely step all over basic human rights and openly embrace plutocracy, but to call them fascists is somehow considered beyond the pale. Somehow, somewhere along the line it became unacceptable in the mass media to declare the emperor is stark naked.

We, as a society, need to start calling people out and making them take responsibility for the things they say. I'm all for free speech. When someone starts casually talking about murdering people, about 'bombing them back to the stone age," I think everyone else should be free to to call them a monster without being lectured about how its impolite to do so.

Lindorff's example is a classic:

I brought my son and a friend last year to the notorious Army Experience Center, a multi-million state-of-the-art virtual war recruiting wonderland located in a mall in working-class Northeast Philadelphia. Filled with an array of very fast computers and video screens on which kids as young as 14 could blast away in realistic war scenarios, and featuring two darkened rooms that had the real bodies of an armored Humvee and a Blackhawk helicopter where kids could man the guns and operate in a 3-D video environment with surround sound so that you felt like you were moving through hostile territory and had to “take out” the “bad guys” while quickly identifying innocent civilians and avoiding shooting them. My son, his friend and I tried the Humvee out, and at the end of our “mission,” the recruiter, an Iraq vet, congratulated us, saying we were “the best gunners all day!” and that our error rate had been “only 30%.”

I asked him what “error rate” meant, and he said, “Collateral damage--civilians killed.”

“Thirty percent of the peope we just killed were civilians?” I asked, aghast.

“Oh yeah,” he said matter-of-factly. “Don’t feel bad. That’s not a bad percentage.” 

When did it become okay for soldiers to murder civilians? Why is torture, murder  and repression any more acceptable when embraced by Barak Obama than it was when it was done by George W. Bush, or for that matter Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot. How can we as a society decry the use of gangs of armed thugs and secret police to suppress dissent in Iran, while applauding the same tactics in Toronto?

We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!

Squid TV Coming to Your Tube ? ? ? ?

Are there no depths Goldman Sachs - or as Matt Taibbi refers to them: "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" - will not go in the pursuit of power and $$$?

Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge has the story of GS' involvement in CanWest via financial and programming decisions. Amazing, but true:

Why Is Goldman Advising CanWest On Its Programming Line Up?

_______________

(Quoting from a Globe and Mail article):

Goldman Sachs sees no reason to revisit its arrangement with CanWest, which has been blessed by Canadian regulators, according to several sources close to the investment dealer.

To date, Goldman executives have not been invited into restructuring talks, a subject of considerable frustration at the investment bank, sources say. Financiers working with Goldman said that over the past year, the investment bank put forward programming ideas for the TV networks, and offered strategic advice on restructuring, but was ignored by CanWest management and its creditors.

One concept that’s been tossed around, but couldn’t move forward until CanWest recapitalization was set, would see Goldman Sachs provide programming and financial support to the conventional television network as part of a larger deal that reworks the entire ownership structure to more closely align all the TV holdings.

_______________


Earmuff time: why the fuck is Goldman even considered to provide "programming ideas and support?" Granted this is a case where the firm obviously has extensive and deep tentacle reach, however it is the biggest Canadian media company. And if Goldman can act with impunity to determine what the channel line up and who can and who can't be on TV, does this not raise a huge ethical problem straight out of modern version of "1984"? Although CNBC anchors can rest assured that if the Comcast deal does work out and they all end up jobless, there will be a willing home for them to spin their propaganda.

Also if this is true for CanWest, just where else does Goldman Sachs provide "programming idea" advice? Granted, the gullible audience does not care as it is brainwashed into the next massive paradigm, be it securitization part 2, or "buy, buy, buy any stock on the dips," in fact max out your credit cards just so you can own the next pets.com for the short period of time before even that is worth zero. After all, those fine TV people said so, compliments of Goldman's TV station content line up brigade.

My hope is that the Canadian public will pay attention to this chilling development in broadcasting. A friend of mine here whom I respect greatly in "all things Canadian" (and you know who you are) told me: "Unfortunately, Canadians have lived with media concentration for so long we take it for granted."

I hope that's not the case . . . .

H/T Joylene

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

G&M editors pull noses out of Harpers ass... and endorse a liar in BC

Toronto's "newspaper of record" the CTVglobmedia owned Globe and Mail has come out with a resounding endorsement of Gordon "I won't sell BC Rail" Campbell.

From W.A.C. Bennett and Dave Barrett to Bill Vander Zalm and Glen Clark, British Columbia was long known for its colourful and often dysfunctional politics. The greatest achievement of Gordon Campbell, who will seek his third term as premier on Tuesday, is to have brought a measure of calm and stability to his province. That is reason enough for British Columbians to resist any impulse to change government, at a time when economic tumult calls for a steady hand.

Coming from a newspaper that endorses the Harper party federally, that's something. Dysfunctional indeed. Look around your own newsroom Mr. Greenspon.

But to suggest that Gordon Campbell has brought "calm and stability" to British Columbia?! That goes beyond the pale.

Recessions always pose a risk to incumbent governments. But British Columbians could make matters considerably worse by forgoing Mr. Campbell's calm leadership in favour of a party that is mostly telling them what it thinks they want to hear. Now is not the time to risk a return to erratic governance.

Return?!!!
We have an erratic government in BC. From one minute to the next, one never knows what Campbell and his "Bought and paid for by big business" party are going to spring on unsuspecting British Columbians.

There's nothing calm or stable about it.

I personally dislike all other options available but that doesn't elevate Gordon Campbell to a position of favour. To suggest that Campbell is anything but a lying, arrogant elitist, out to give away everything he can to his big-business buddies, is a deviation from the truth.

For a list of Campbell's real accomplishments, go visit Creekside.

And for further adventures of how Campbell is in the pockets of big-media, follow the links at The Gazetteer.

In the meantime I have a suggestion for the G&M's Toronto-centric Greenspon and Geiger: Put your faces back where they're comfortable.

Can You Say "Photo Op" ? ? ? ?

"Every Picture Tells a Story" - apologies to Rod Stewart.

Talk about your cheesy photo ops to promote your home renovation tax break:

Photo Credit: Reuters

Too bad it's not the last nail in the coffin of his government that stevie's workin' on there.

Feel free to enter your captions . . . .

Media Mumblings . . . .

Have you ever wondered why the news doesn't seem very newsworthy anymore?

Well, Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why -- though we want to know more about the world than ever -- the US media is actually showing less. This 4 minute video is quite revealing and an eye-opener based on the graphical analysis:





H/T Bob the Other

Warning to Acer: You may have already seen this on the web. Our sincere apologies.

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Tattooing an "L" on Chris Matthews forehead

Air America Radio host Rachel Maddow injected a branding iron into the room full of extended lower lips at MSNBC. The bag-full of pundits, having mis-read the New Hampshire primary so badly that they possessed not an ounce of credibility were actually talking about, not how they got it so wrong, but what someone did to screw up their predictions.

So, Rachel laid it all out and got right into Tweety's face.

BUCHANAN: My guess is this: the New Hampshire voters said ‘look the press has been telling us Obama is the second coming. We don’t think so. The press has been telling us she’s gone.” And the women came out and said, “no, she’s not.” What New Hampshire did was stand up and body slam the national establishment, the press corps, the pollsters, the whole bunch who came in here as well as Barack Obama’s folks, who must be in a state of shock tonight.

MADDOW: Pat, I will tell you that on the influential-influential, perhaps, on the left-website Talking Points Memo today, you want to know who they’re blaming for women voters breaking for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, who they’re blaming for this late showing and a big vote for Hillary Clinton? They’re blaming Chris Matthews. People are citing specifically Chris-not only for his own views but also for…as symbol of what the mainstream media has done to Hillary Clinton.

MATTHEWS: What website is this?

MADDOW: This is Talking Points Memo dot com. And it’s a…it’s a…you’re being cited anecdotally, not specifically…

MATTHEWS: My influence over American politics looms over the people. I’m overwhelmed myself.

MADDOW: People feel the media is piling on Hillary Clinton and they’re coming to her defense with their vote.

Which would put the pundits in the same busted chuck wagon as the Republicans. It is becoming knowns as The Tweety Effect.

An interesting note is that Tweety gave the impression that he was not aware of TPM. (As in... it's a blog... can't have any influence... must shut this down now... ).

Tweety, after all, has a pretty short set of bookmarks.

Video at Crooks and Liars.

Cut them off at the knees.

Skdadl revisits a comment made by Alison back in August when the Harper jellybean statement became the focus of those watching the developments of the very clandestine Security and Prosperity Partnership meetings.

I don't usually pay all that much attention to year-end retrospectives but Skdadl takes the very incisive point made by Alison and drives it straight into what should be an explosive issue.

The media in the United States has been co-opted as propagandists and it is starting to happen in Canada.

Without question, the curious adventures of Judith Miller of the New York Times made life hardest for those of us who believe profoundly in the first article of every democrat's Bill and Charter and Declaration. Why would we offer members of the fourth estate special constitutional protection if they have decided to make careers out of laundering government propaganda? That wasn't, y'know, the point of enshrining freedom of expression. Almost every other journalist who took the stand at the Libby trial or was even mentioned came off looking like an absurd, grovelling courtier to a snivelly, smirking, grubby regime whose time, we have to hope, is fast coming to an end.

The problem is that the Harper regime is using the Republican playbook. That includes media relations and the release of information. The carbon-copy behaviour of the Harperites should be a continuing media story in itself.

Sandra Buckler has wreaked havoc on the national press gallery by basically stating that if a reporter wants access, he/she had better play the game - the Conservative Party game. While the body of reporters got up in arms for a short time, that quickly died and information from the Harper government lives in a hermetically sealed jar, released in small, controlled doses.

Media ownership and convergence may have helped the bottom line of the news industry but it has done nothing for the independence of reporters and editors. Take the example Bob Kreiger and Dan Murphy of the Vancouver Province. Both have been effectively gagged by the publisher by having their often scathing political cartoons removed from the editorial pages of one of the Asper publications.

It's happening.

Reporters and editors, if they expect to retain their privileged positions of trust with the public, had better get off their asses. It is their job to critically question those in power, no matter who they are. And when a Sandra Buckler comes along, it is their duty to completely neutralize her.

Read all of Skdadl's post.

Give Big Media a one way ticket to the garbage disposal

I'm sure there are a large number of others pointing this out, but for the time being, Red Jenny and Canadian Cynic have the direct links to deal with this problem.

In the past month six different Big Media groups have merged to create three. The Canadian media landscape is now a virtual oligopoly and everything you read, hear and see in the media originates with a handful of large corporations.

Media convergence, where Big Media owns the TV stations, the radio stations, the newspapers and the online sites under the same corporate banner stifles the flow of information and reduces the diversity of voices.

Big Media is about maximizing profit; not about reporting the truth and not about offering diversity. Further, the corporate head offices have already demonstrated that they are unable to remain neutral with respect to the editorial policy of their media enterprizes, regardless of promises to the contrary, and they inject the political will of the corporation, not the local editorial board, on the full range of their media organs.

It needs to be stopped. Now.

Media diversity is the cornerstone of democracy. But media ownership is more highly concentrated in Canada than almost anywhere else in the industrialized world. Almost all private Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates and, because of increasing cross-ownership, most of the daily newspapers we read are owned by the same corporations that own television and radio stations.

This means a handful of Big Media Conglomerates control what Canadians can most readily see, hear and read. It means less local and regional content, more direct control over content by owners and less analysis of the events that shape our lives. It also means less media choice for Canadians and fewer jobs for Canadian media workers.

We must also be wary of the impacts mergers have on the diversity and neutrality of new on-line media. We need to reverse this trend before big media gets even bigger!

Send a pre-formatted message to the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission by going here. It will only take a minute and with enough input, it will make a difference.

Go. You've spent enough time here. Go now.