Doug Finley Reminds Harper That Freedom of Speech is the Bedrock of Democracy

Another Harper insider has lent their voice in support of Canada's media, who are currently battling Stephen Harper over the right to information.

Harper patronage senate appointment and top dog in the pit bull kennel, Doug Finley says.

“I rise to call the attention of the Senate to the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada." “There could scarcely be a more important issue than this.

“Freedom of speech is, and always has been, the bedrock of our Canadian democracy.“The great Alan Borovoy, who was the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association for more than forty years, calls freedom of speech a “strategic freedom”. “Because it is the freedom upon which all of our other freedoms are built. “For example, how could we exercise our democratic right to hold elections, without free speech? “How could we have a fair trial, without free speech? “And what would be the point of freedom of assembly, if we couldn’t talk freely at a public meeting? “It is the most important freedom. Indeed, if you had all of your other rights taken away, you could still win them back with freedom of speech.

Clearly Mr. Finley agrees that elected Members of Parliament should have free speech. That civil servants should have free speech. And our media should have freedom of the press to report what those people say.

If Doug Finley understands this, why doesn't Stephen Harper?

And James Travers agrees with Finley:

Stephen Harper’s sudden conversion to ministerial accountability would be refreshing if it weren’t so sinister. Silencing political staff tightens the screws on an administration already consumed with managing its message and adds an essential layer of secrecy to the cover-up of Afghanistan prisoner abuse.

Stephen Harper Claims That "It is the Absolute Right of the State to Supervise the Formation of Public Opinion"

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"Why should you have the slightest difficulty in adjusting the trend of what you write to the interests of the State? It is possible that the Government may sometimes be mistaken—as to individual measures—but it is absurd to suggest that anything superior to the Government might take its place. What is the use therefore of editorial skepticism? It only makes people uneasy." Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment, Nazi Germany(1)

It would appear, dare I hope, that the Canadian media is finally waking up, and fighting back against Harper's attempt to not only silence the press but manipulate public opinion.

A few weeks ago, many journalists nodded knowingly at this Tweet by Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn. "My Friday giggle... a spokesperson who emails me 'on background' and then says: I can't answer your question." It's a bit of gallows humour about a problem that began as a minor annoyance for reporters working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and has grown into a genuine and widespread threat to the public's right to know. (2)

From Time Magazine 1933 concerning Joseph Goebbels: He held in his thin, knob-knuckled hands last week a new National Press Law making it a crime to practice journalism in Germany except as a licensed member of a nationwide closed shop. The law covers "all persons who take a share in forming the mental contents of any newspaper or political periodical through the written word or pictures." (1)

From the Ottawa Press Gallery:

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Cabinet ministers and civil servants are muzzled. Access to Information requests are stalled and stymied by political interference. Genuine transparency is replaced by slick propaganda and spin designed to manipulate public opinion. The result is a citizenry with limited insight into the workings of their government and a diminished ability to hold it accountable. As journalists, we fear this will mean more government waste, more misuse of taxpayer dollars, more scandals Canadians won't know about until it's too late.

It's been four years since Harper muzzled his cabinet ministers and forced reporters to put their names on a list during rare press conferences in hopes of being selected to ask the prime minster a question. It's not uncommon for reporters to be blackballed, barred from posing questions on behalf of Canadians. More recently, information control has reached new heights. Access to public events is now restricted. (2)

From Time Magazine 1936:

Because Adolf Hitler's speeches may be used to prove almost anything, the Nazi Commission of Inspection of Nazi Literature announced that Hitler's speeches may not be quoted in print hereafter without the Commission's express permission. Hearing that the rebellious pastors of the German Evangelical [Lutheran] Church plan to print and circulate privately their unanswered protest to the Reichsführer against practically everything going on in Nazi Germany, the Gestapo (secret police) raided Confessional Synod offices, lugged off typewriters, mimeograph and printing machines. (3)

We are now one "lugged off typewriter" away from the Gestapo:

Photographers and videographers have been replaced by hand-out photos and footage shot by the prime minister's press office and blitzed out to newsrooms across Canada. It's getting tougher to find an independent eye recording history, a witness seeing things how they really happened -- not how politicians wish they'd happened. .. Those hand-out shots are, unfortunately, widely used by media outlets, often without the caveat that they are not real journalism. In the end, that means Canadians only get a sanitized and staged version of history -- not the real history. (2)

From 1934 Time Magazine:

Perhaps Germany's Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, compelled the publication of a report in Berlin newspapers last week that a Nazi anatomist had discovered the precise cause of cancer. At least that is what scientists who respect Wilhelm von Bremer of Berlin's State Biological Institute would like to believe ... When he read the Berlin news, Professor Francis Carter Wood, director of Columbia University's Institute for Cancer Research and editor of the American Journal of Cancer sneered: "This is all rot. There's nothing to it. Plenty of this sort of stuff is coming out of Germany just now." (4)

From the Ottawa Press Gallery:

Meanwhile, the quality of factual information provided to the public has declined steadily. Civil servants -- scientists, doctors, regulators, auditors and policy experts, those who draft public policy and can explain it best to the population -- cannot speak to the media. Instead, reporters have to deal with an armada of press officers who know very little or nothing at all about a reporter's topic and who answer tough questions with vague talking points vetted by layers of political staff and delivered by email only. (2)

The point is that Canadians really have no idea who or what this government is. We have no idea what they are really doing and we have no idea who Stephen Harper is:

Adolf Hitler in repose can look as flaccid as a circus fat lady, but so far as the German people know he never rests from his heroic labors, dashes constantly up and down the Fatherland in multi-motored planes, never smokes and subsists wholly on fruit, vegetables, nuts, and dairy products... In unlacing this straitjacket of a national inferiority complex no Nazi has helped Adolf Hitler so much as the taut, vivid, sometimes hysterical, little man whom all Germany knows as "The Doctor," famed Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, now Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. To an amazing degree Herr Hitler and Dr. Goebbels possess in common the trick of talking to grown Germans as if they were children ... (5)

We are not children and Stephen Harper is certainly not our father. We need to see him in repose .. in a natural light that will allow us to pass judgement based on information, not manipulation and spin. Because for the record, Adolf Hitler was NOT a vegetarian (6). He hate mounds of sausages and the only time he went off them was when his doctor would say "Adolf you are eating too many mounds of sausages". But Germans never knew that. "Journalists aren't looking to judge the policies of the Conservative government. Rather, we want to ensure the public has enough information to judge for themselves." (2)

One time girlfriend of Leo Strauss (who is deemed to be the father of the neoconservative movement), Hannah Arendt, herself a respected political philosopher, once questioned whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". Their success depended on directing and exploiting public opinion, and they did it masterfully. (7)

So is Harper a dictator or simply a master of directing and exploiting public opinion?

But not everything Harper does is based on Goebbel's brilliance. There is another master of manipulation that we are all familiar with.

The Bush White House's media operation was top flight. His handlers often arranged for him to strike heroic-looking poses. The trip to the USS Lincoln was one of their well-plotted attempts at image enhancement. When Bush delivered a speech at Ellis Island on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the White House rented three barges of giant lights and floated them in the New York Harbor, so the Statue of Liberty, appearing behind Bush, would be illuminated just right. When tornadoes struck the Midwest in May 2003, Bush stood stoically in the Missouri rain—without an umbrella—and expressed his concern. With water running down his face, he also defiantly vowed to bring to justice the terrorists that had recently blown up several compounds for Westerners in Saudi Arabia and killed eight Americans. "They understand the visual as well as anybody ever has," Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan's chief image man, told the New York Times. (8)

I'm not sure who's worse.

Sources:

1. Foreign News: Consecrated Press, Time Magazine, October 16, 1933

2. How to Lift the PM's Muzzle: Under Stephen Harper citizens' right to know has been smothered. Journalists must take a stand. By Helene Buzzetti and Press gallery colleagues, The Tyee, June 11, 2010

3. GERMANY: Tyranny, Time Magazine, August 03, 1936

4. Medicine: Cancer Rot, Time Magazine, September 17, 1934

5. GERMANY: WE DEMAND!, Time Magazine, July 10, 1933

6. Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover, By: Ryn Barry, Pythagorean Books, 2004

7. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, By: David Welch, Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-203-93014-2.

8. The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, By David Corn, Crown Publishers, 2003, ISBN: 1-4000-5066-9, Pg. 313

Without Freedom of the Press in Canada How Can we Call Ourselves a Democracy?

Much has been written about China and their media's struggles to obtain information, and reprisals for sharing that information.

However, what we have neglected in this country for the past four years, is our own media's struggles with the very same thing.

There is an interesting paper written by undergraduate Jeffrey Wartman, entitled Freedom of the Press and Democracy in China. He begins:

Many people have different ideas about the true nature of democracy. One school of thought believes that democracy is the act of the people electing representatives to make decisions, held accountable through elections, for the populace. Others believe that democracy is rule by the people, in which the will of the populace is the almighty sovereign. Yet , while to many people the word democracy may mean many things, there is no doubt that if democracy is truly going to exist, there must be a free flow of ideas, both majoritarian ideas and those in the minority, so that people may make proper judgments when choosing their leaders. “The role of the press stands out in every major democratic transformation in modern time” (Xiaogang 212). Without a free press, a free flow of ideas and a minimal tolerance of dissent, the Democratic ideal of governance by the people can not occur if the people do not know much of what is occurring. In the People's Republic of China, some citizens understood this.

'Without a free press, a free flow of ideas and a minimal tolerance of dissent, the Democratic ideal of governance by the people can not occur .... '

Interesting words those. However, while written about China, how exactly does Canada differ now?

OK, our media is not being imprisoned, but they are being banished, which could often mean their careers. As a result they live with the constant fear that they will suddenly remember that they are journalists, and ask a question not on the list.

David Akin discusses this after being held hostage on a plane in Newfoundland.

Harper's detractors may think we should just give the metaphorical finger to such directives from the PMO but, at one photo opp while we were here, a reporter who did just that and asked a question at a photo opp, despite warnings not to, was immediately warned that, if she continued, reporters would no longer be allowed to attend such photo opps. That would not be good for our access would be curtailed even further.

PMO staff also made veiled threats that that individual's organization might suffer further sanction -- all because of the impertinence of asking a question. If you are a media organization in Ottawa, these are no small consquences. If the PMO doesn't like you, you can bet that every cabinet minister is going to give you the cold shoulder, too. I know, I know: Those who hate Harper say, tough! Ask away and bring on the consequences! Well, ... maybe: But if we did yell at him and disrupt his schedule and annoy his rather large RCMP bodyguards, what would we get for our trouble?

Akin is rather dismissive, by suggesting that it is 'those who hate Harper' who object to this.

But you don't have to hate Harper. You don't have to dislike Harper. Heck, you don't even have to know who Harper is; to know that this is simply wrong.

There was an editorial in the Cornwall Free Press recently entitled The Stephen Harper Government Burning the Edges of Democracy – Flirting with Facism in 2010

... Without true freedom of the press, and true freedom of speech unspeakable horrors can be brought down on society.

We need to really look at issues like this. It’s not about partisan politics because frankly there have been moments in Liberal Governments that are in the same family of some of these behaviors, but never in Canadian history have such a total combination of Undemocratic energies been focused.

'Never in Canadian history ....'

So why is our media allowing this? Why are we allowing this?

I often wonder what student in the not too distant future will write of Canada's loss of democracy ... of the rise of our dictator .... of our plunge into fascism.

Who will write of the time when Canada was a free and independent nation, proud of it's sovereignty and joyous in it's so-called second rate status.

And what will the final chapter be?

I guess we are the only ones who can write that.

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More Postings on Harper's Control of Information

Harper Declares War on the Media and Paralyzes System

Conrad Black, Stephen Harper and Media Manipulation

The Murder of Television News Was Premeditated

How Harper Got Caught in the Spin Cycle

Did Harper Learn How to Silence the Press from Mike Harris?

Stephen Harper Promotes Freedom of the Press. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha

Harper Using RCMP to Control the Media While He Controls the Message. Why are we Allowing This?

Stephen Harper's Weak Performance at Business Round Table Raises Red Flags

Is it Any Wonder Stephen Harper Likes Fox News? He's on it All the Time!

Stephen Harper's Weak Performance at Business Round Table Raises Red Flags

On February 8, Stephen Harper held a business round table in Calgary. In true fashion, the press got very little advance notice, were given barely a minute for photo-ops and were told absolutely no questions.

As one reporter noted:

Business reporters don’t usually write about press restrictions (or freedom of press) but my experiences in reporting on prime minister Stephen Harper’s two events in Calgary this past Monday left this reporter no option but a discussion of freedom of press and that “pink elephant in the room."

Kempton was experiencing what the Canadian media has been forced to live with for the past four years, as their role in covering our government has been reduced to cutting and pasting from PMO press releases, and publishing photos that have already been airbrushed and deemed fit for public consumption.

Kempton was spared however, being roughed up by the RCMP, who travel with Harper to protect him from embarrassing questions or candid snapshots.

He suggests that the elephant in the room is the fact that Harper is shutting out the media, in a democratic country, where freedom of the press is essential. However, we already know that government secrets are now a whole herd of elephants, that most in our mainstream media have accepted as the norm.

This business reporter also says tongue in cheek:

Of course, this reporter is being facetious in suggesting the PMO to NOT inform the local media and simply distribute “approved photos and videos”. In fact, if PMO takes on the role to distribute “approved photos and videos”, then it is functioning no different than the China’s government controlled mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency (the sole government approved news source if and when the Chinese government declare a news as “embarrassing/sensitive” including the 2008 Sichuan earthquake).

Welcome to Harper's world. He has been taking his own photos and providing his own video for some time now, which is clearly no different than the China’s government controlled mouthpiece .

But for me, the elephant in that room was not the suppression of the media, but how awkward Stephen Harper looked. Almost embarrassed, as he fidgeted and spoke barely above a whisper.

What is he afraid of?

Is he now realizing that his poor judgement has tanked this country's economy. From high-risk mortgages, to pork barrelling. From signs, TV ads and big cardboard cheques, instead of an honest effort to stimulate the economy?

Is it the fear that once these local businessmen realize what he's done in this horrible Buy American trade deal, that they will dicover that he's a fraud?

Is it the brewing scandal over lobbying practices that is threatening to bring down his government?

The public works scandal that may involve the secret selling of government buildings, though guess what? They're not talking.

Is it the possibility of being charged with war crimes?

I suppose any or all of the above, but this nasty man who has become the poker of eyes, is clearly off his game.