Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and James Laxer

The above video is from James Laxer, the 5th finalist in Rabble's not Rex Murphy contest.

James Laxer is a lecturer and author, and has a blog that you can visit here. And be sure to go to Rabble to vote.

Mr. Laxer mentions not just the Afghan detainee issue, but the horrendous trade deal that Harper signed without debate, preventing provinces and municipalities from granting contracts to local or Canadian companies first. They must instead tender out to American firms, who will no doubt be able to undercut our own people.

I always thought he'd need a majority to sell us off, but all he needed was a sleeping public, who sadly woke up too late.

Be sure to visit Rabble, watch all the videos and vote for your favourite. These types of contests are an excellent way to engage people in the political process.

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Michael Keene

As I mentioned in a few other postings, Rabble is having a Not Rex Murphy contest and have chosen their top five finalists. You can view all of the entries here.

Michael Keene , in the video above, discusses the 'climategate' not so much a scandal as an attempt to discredit the Copenhagen, climate conference.

Doesn't he look like a young Donnie Osmond? He does a very good impersonation of Rex Murphy though. Very funny.

And of course deniers in the employ of Stephen Harper, had a feeding frenzy over the emails, using them to justify doing nothing about global warming.

So be sure to listen to all the videos and vote for your favourite. These types of contests are an excellent way to engage people in the political process.

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Humberto Da Silva

As I mentioned in a couple of other postings, Rabble is having a Not Rex Murphy contest and have chosen their top five finalists. You can view all of the entries here.

Da Silva, in the video above, brings up some very valid points about our media, and their shift to the right.

And as he indicates, we used to be able to at least depend on our public broadcaster, CBC, to keep us informed and promote the things that mattered to Canadians.

Things like health care and social services. But now as he states, it's mostly crap. No wonder social media is becoming so popular.

Humberto also has a website, with the same irreverent humour that I love. You can visit it here.

So be sure to listen to all the videos and vote for your favourite. These types of contests are an excellent way to engage people in the political process.

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Lalo Espejo

So I already highlighted Muriel Wiens and her entry for Rabble's not Rex Murphy contest.

The above video is from Lalo Espejo. His bio says that he is a writer, monologist and political satirist whose work has appeared on CBC radio, campuses across Canada, and most recently as a regular contributor to the Vancouver Review.

He also has a great satirical blog that you can visit here. And be sure to go to Rabble to vote. They have the five finalists' videos all posted there.

Contests like this are a great way to get people engaged in the political process, and Mr. Espejo nicely summarizes the Afghan Detainee issue and Rex Murphy's ridiculous diatribe suggesting that Canadians have blown this entire thing out of proportion.

Chretien had a majority and prorogued when the legislative business was taken care, except once; when he wanted to give Paul Martin an opportunity to get his feet wet before the next election.

Of course, it meant that Martin had to wear the Sponsorship Scandal, while Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien were able to wash their hands of it.

And Espejo is right. The way the Reformers treated Richard Colvin was criminal. Now they are trying to claim that it's the lawyers who won't release the memos, like they couldn't have said that 2 1/2 months ago.

Of course the whole thing is bunk, and they really need to find a new line of defense, not that I believe there really is one.

Even before the Globe and Mail broke the story in 2007; Linda McQuaig wrote in her book "Holding the Bully's Coat", that:

...Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, describes the Canadian arrangement as a "detainee laundering agreement" that "has no adequate safeguards to prevent torture from occurring. In an interview, Lieutenant Carole Brown, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of National Defence, acknowledged that Canada doesn't follow up on what happens to its detainees. "It would not be our mandate to track them in any way." She also refused to reveal any information about Canada's detainees, including even how many there have been.'In fact, Canada has left its detainees in a particularly dangerous situation.

Attaran notes that, by refusing to reveal any information about these people, Canada is actually making their situation even more perilous than those held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon at least lists the names of Guantanamo prisoners on its website. By not revealing the names of those it hands over to Afghanistan, Ottawa makes it impossible for lawyers or human rights organizations to contact them or their relatives or to in any way take up their cause, thereby denying them any hope of access to the courts.

They simply disappear into a black hole, beyond any possible legal protection. Says Attaran: -We are doing something [denying them access to the courts] that has not been done in the common law in centuries."This alone should make our involvement in Afghanistan intolerable. (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 20-21)

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Muriel Wiens

Rabble currently has a 'Not Rex Murphy' contest, where challengers can present videos of their own broadcasts, to replace this horrible news personality.

Voting has started and it is time for you to select the winner(s) of the Not Rex Murphy contest. Tens of thousands agree: We have had enough of Rex Murphy and his reactionary, mean-spirited attacks on all the things that make Canada a great place to live. Since CBC hasn't put any balancing voices to Rex on their flagship news show The National, rabble.ca will do our part.

The winner(s) of the Not Rex contest will be featured presenting a video commentary on rabble.ca on the same nights as Mr. Murphy presents commentary on CBC.

The voting is taking place now, so you can watch the five finalist's tapes and then choose your favourite.

It was tough for me, because they are all very good, and bring up important elements of the Harper government. However, I chose Muriel.

She makes some very compelling statements, not the least of which that all of our watch dogs, experts, diplomats, etc. are warning us of the DANGER of this government. This is not just about their corruption and incompetence, but the DANGER that they have put this country in.

Their unprecedented secrecy should be raising a lot of alarms. Sadly, the alarms are not nearly loud enough to awaken the media, though many Canadians are finally coming out of hibernation, and asking themselves how they let this happen.

I also liked her references to the Buy America/Sell Canada trade deal that Harper inked during his 2 1/2 month vacation. "Permanent and traitorous" and "we will now pay our taxes directly to foreign corporations."

The Reformer's not so much a budget as a regurgitation of old ideas, most from Mike Harris, (the former Ontario premier, whose name can still cause many of us to run for cover) was just enough to keep them in power. However, I hope the opposition parties can work together to take control of the agenda.

If not, I'm afraid of what is going to start taking place these next few months, as Roger Douglas, John Hagee and Leo Strauss, take over. It won't be pretty.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the Canadian Media

“We are so cleverly manipulated and influenced by the media and establishments on both the right and left, that the truth has become hopelessly lost in semantics.” Jules Carlysle

Canada has one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the world.

As corporate mergers and takeovers, that began in the early '90s, increasingly swallowed up smaller news outlets, independent sources have become almost obsolete.

For example, in 1990; 17.3% of daily newspapers were independently owned. By 2005, just 1% were.

In his book Traitors among Us: The Betrayal of Canada, Raymond Samuels states that this began with Brian Mulroney.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had dysfunctionally inspired a new generation of greed-driven mercenaries who operate in the mass-media, in the likes of CanWest Global owners (who help fund the Conservative Party), TorStar, Quebecor Sun Media, and other such neo-conservative public relations outlets. Only BellGlobe Media, inclusive of the Globe and Mail, CTV, and CHUM, (as well as in particular, a handful of community and campus media outlets) have maintained any semblance of journalistic integrity, in the present sea of elite-managed propaganda.

However, even this is no longer true, because in 2007, "CTVglobemedia, Astral Media, Quebecor, Canwest Global and Rogers all expanded significantly, through the acquisitions of CHUM Limited, Standard Broadcasting, Osprey Media, Alliance Atlantis and Citytv, respectively." (Wikipedia)

And CTV has joined the Harper family, with the acquisition of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Steve Murphy. And the fact that Peter MacKay is now engaged to an executive of CTV, our chances of any of that 'journalistic integrity' are all but gone.

This is very problematic for a country that has never been right-wing, because we are no longer being informed but indoctrinated.

Frances Russel wrote a piece in the Winnipeg Free Press, entitled Right-wing media covering up political scandal. In it she discusses the rightward migration of Canada's news sources.

Lawrence Martin has written several articles about the Canadian media's rightward migration. In a January 2003 column headlined It's not Canadians who've gone to the right, just their media, he quoted an unnamed European diplomat saying "You have a bit of a problem here. Your media are not representative of your people, your values." Too many political commentators are right of centre while the public is in the middle, the diplomat continued. There is a disconnect.

A disconnect indeed.

So as part of my mission to help restore democracy in Canada, I've started calling out some of this country's so-called journalists, while recommending some of the better ones.

They are a huge part of the problem, and not just because they allow Stephen Harper to control them, but because they write crap. And I mean absolute crap. Many of them don't even try anymore. They get the copy from the PMO, they add a bit of a personal touch, publish the photos taken by the PMO, and call it news.

Well that is simply not good enough. We deserve better than this, but we won't get better than this, until we start demanding it.

Lawrence Martin, Don Newman, Murray Dobbin, James Travers, Frances Russell, Antonia Zerbisias, to name a few, are credits to their profession.

Don Martin, most of the time. Anyone else from the National Post, are absolutely ridiculous.

Jane Taber, is usually only interested in the gossip. Angelo Persichilli, Norman Spector and Rex Murphy, don't get me started.

If we are going to get our country back, we have to start being diligent. If you read a story that is pure crap, tell them so. Better yet, tell their editor that you deserve better.

We deserve better, and we will get it dammit.

********************

Giving Credit Where's It's Due

Another Winner James Travers. But ... but ... but ...

Thank You Ralph Surettes For Proving There Are a Few Good Journalists Left

James Travers Hits the Nail on the Head: Harper's Speech Was Rhetorical Hokum

Calling Out the Culprits

Dear Mr. Spector. It Was Childish Manouvers That Got Him Into This Mess

Update on Norman Spector's Admiration for Childish Manouvers

Canadian Soldiers Should Not be Dragged Into This Jane Taber. You Should be Ashamed.

Angelo Persichilli Really is the Quintessential Lazy Columnist

To All Media Out There Trying to Spin the Tax Issue: A Pox on Your Houses!

Stephen Harper Lives Like a King While Peter Zimonjic Becomes Another Court Jester

Sorry David Akin But Again You are Dead Wrong