Murdoch's Fox News North in Canada reveals the depths they will go to, in their bid to turn people off, while rallying hate groups. The scandals in UK, show the depths they will go to, to get a story.
Al Capone got away with his crimes, but was sent to prison for tax evasion. Whatever it takes to put an end to this.
This week, CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, Kai Nagata, resigned over the horrible state of the Canadian media.
Coverage of Will and Kate's visit stumped legitimate news, but there was so much more.
Stephen Harper is literally getting away with murder. Says Nagata:
Right now, there's a war going on against science in Canada. In order to satisfy a small but powerful political base, the PMO is engaged in a not-so-clandestine operation to dismantle and silence the many credible opponents to the Harper doctrine. Why kill the census? Literally in order to make decisions in the dark, without the relevant data. Hence the prisons. Why de-fund scientific research? Because whole branches of the natural sciences are premised on things like evolution, a theory the minister responsible made it clear he doesn't understand -- and likely doesn't believe in. Why settle for weak platitudes on climate change? Because despite global scientific consensus, elements of the Conservative base don't believe human activity could warm the planet. Centuries of rational thought and academic tradition, dating back to the Renaissance, is being thrown out the window in favour of an ideology that doesn't reflect reality.
When are we going to wake up?
Last night on my local television news (CKWS), they briefly discussed Harper's new border security deal with the U.S., which in part demands that U.S. Homeland Security be notified every time a Canadian citizen takes a flight to third world country, including Mexico, if that citizen flies over the United States.
A known drug trafficker and underworld boss, he was also the man given a $50 million contract to provide "protection" for SNC Lavalin as they fulfill another military contract.
Part of the quagmire that Stephen Harper has created.
Ahmad Wali played a key role in the war as the most powerful man in Kandahar, so his death will no doubt have a negative affect on the "mission".
Having a war monger as prime minister is bad enough, but having a war monger with no military experience, yet still trying to control every aspect of the war, is insanity.
This was why I was so skeptical when the NDP agreed to bombing the hell out of Libya for oil, in exchange for an increase in humanitarian aid. Karzai's brother was providing such aid.
Rupert Murdoch, the man who has done so much to poison politics, is now trying to defend his "honour", after a scandal with one of his tabloids.
News of the World routinely hacked phone lines and even bribed cops to allow them to track 9/11 calls. And it was not the first time that the publication was in trouble.
Murdoch, 80, has been widely criticized for refusing to fire [Rebekah] Brooks who was editor of News of the World in 2002 when its reporters deleted phone messages left for a missing murdered schoolgirl, leading her family to believe she was still alive.
The scandal is also threatening the government of David Cameron, who was promised a daily television spot if Murdoch was able to take over British Sky Broadcasting, 'the biggest deal of his storied career'.
When it was discovered that the Harper government had spent almost a quarter million dollars to advertise their 'Canada Action Plan', I spent a few days researching, emailing and calling others who had initiated stimulus programs, and not one saw the need to bilk taxpayers for self-promotion ads. Some were quite surprised that Harper was being allowed to get away with it.
And to better understand the modus operandi, of Murdoch, let's compare:
Stephen Harper had lunch with him and his team, after which Harper's communications director, Kory Teneycke, was named to head up the project, now dubbed Fox News North (Sun TV).
David Cameron arranged a meal with Murdoch and his press spokesman, Andy Coulson, was plucked from News of the World. We'll call it 'The Eat, Bleat and Cheat club'.
Jolly Berlin crowds in the brightly-lit Kurfürstendamm nightlife district had more fun last week than these beery, sausage-stuffed revelers have had in months. Well-dressed German women and their swank, duel-scarred escorts vied with shopgirls and mechanics in spurring on with laughter, cheers and songs the most savage Jew hunt since those which immediately followed Adolf Hitler's elevation to power ...
The Jew hunters; tall, blond, mighty-muscled Nazi youths in civilian clothes, appeared suddenly on the Kurfürstendamm but seemed at first not to know quite what to do. Soon group leaders dashed up in snorting Mercédès and the Jew hunt was on, a peculiar feature being that the sidewalk crowds joined in a hunting chant taught them by the hunters. This was roared out one line at a time by the group leaders, all present then repeating in a fervent chant: Perish Jew! Get the Hell out! Blood-running noses! The best Jew is a dead Jew! Perish Jew! Suiting action to words, the Jew hunters plunged into night clubs, theatres, and cafés, dragged out every customer who looked like a Jew, beat him bloody on tho sidewalk, and slugged any women who seemed to have been with Jews irrespective of whether they were Jewesses or not.
The above is from a Time magazine article published July 29, 1935, under the heading 'Jew Hunt'.
We are all well aware of that horrible time in history, but what might be surprising is that while the Nazi youth appeared to be doing the beating, "well-dressed German women" spurred them on with "laughter, cheers and songs" and that "the sidewalk crowds joined in a hunting chant".
Ordinary Germany citizens desensitized to hatred.
The poster above is from the Young Americans Foundation, a conservative youth movement that has become increasingly volatile, especially toward non-white immigration and of course Muslims.
I've written of them before, under their other banner 'Young Americans for Freedom', both simply referred to as YAF. They have links to Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, on which Preston Manning fashioned his Manning's Centre with a single corporate donation of ten million dollars.
Both Karl Rove and Harper MP Rob Anders graduated from Blackwell's school and Rove was once a member of YAF. Enough said.
In the poster above the group tells students how to identify a Muslim with things like "lasers in their eyes, venom from mouth and a peg-leg for smuggling children and heroine".
This is not unlike a children's book, The Poisonous Mushroom, written by Nazi Julius Streicher.
- One can tell a Jew by his nose. The Jewish nose is bent at the tip. - ...the lips are another distinguishing feature; they are usually puffed up - From the eyes one can see that the Jew is: A false, deceitful person
So how are the teachings of YAF and Streicher any different?
Both promote xenophobia. Xenophobia that can lead people to accept horrifying things.
Fox News North and the English Defense League
So what does all of this have to do with us?
In the following piece from Sun TV, the station that came about after Stephen Harper's taxpayer funded lunch with Rupert Murdoch, Brian Lilley presents an interesting commentary.
He says that he had no interest in the Royal wedding until he learned that there was a group of Muslim protesters planning to disrupt the event.
Says Lilley: "Hopefully, maybe some soccer lads would take them out if they were to go ahead - rip them limb from limb..." Then he mockingly reminds his viewers that England is a Christian nation.
The video earned 42 'likes' and only 8 'dislikes', with one comment that someone should report Lilley to the CRTC. Fat lot of good that would do. Harper has appointed 11 of the 14 members, so I imagine that Lilley and his cohorts will be allowed to say pretty much anything.
However, this story is even more disturbing.
First off, the Muslim group was not the only one planning to protest that day. There were anti-capitalist groups, environmentalists, anti-poverty activists. But the only ones singled out were the Muslims.
The police themselves said that the biggest threat came not from any of the groups but from 'fixated' individuals.
While terrorist groups, anarchists and other political extremists are the most obvious potential security threats to the royal wedding, the most potent danger comes from obsessive lone operators, say experts.
These 'fixated' individuals are such a threat that in a small office not far from Buckingham Palace in central London a team of psychiatrists, psychologists and police officers are busy trying to counter that threat. The team is part of the Fixated Threat Assessment Center (FTAC), a unit established in 2006 with the responsibility of identifying and the power to indefinitely detain individuals who harass, stalk or threaten the royal family and others in public life.
However, if radical groups still concern Lilley and his faithfuls, I would be more concerned with the English Defense League, who promised to be on hand to take care of the Muslims.
The English Defence League uncovered: Formed less than a year ago, the English Defence League has become the most significant far-right street movement since the National Front. The Guardian spent four months undercover with the movement, and found them growing in strength and planning to target some of the UK's biggest Muslim communities.
As warned the video contains coarse language, but it's the message that I find more disturbing than the profanity.
If they break through "they will murder them all."
As Canadians we should also take note that these guys use Geert Wilders as a role model. The same Geert Wilders who was given permission by the Harper government to speak at this year's Tulip Festival in Ottawa.
The Tulip Festival for heaven sake. Why were Canadians not outraged? Are we also now becoming desensitized to hatred?
In Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, he speaks of our immigration department specifically stating "NO MUSLIMS" in their recruitment ads. Why do we accept that?
The G-20 in Toronto is now best known for the largest number of domestic human rights violations in Canadian history, where citizens were beaten, strip searched, and held in cages. Where was our outrage?
Instead we shrugged and said "well, you shouldn't have been there".
Social activist Joe Levitt once stated that he had "lost confidence in the common man". And Gerald Caplan, NDP insider and columnist, laments that we are "going backwards into a world that we thought would never exist again." (p.12)
Why are we standing on the sidewalk cheering on the attack of everything that Canada once stood for? We might as well put on the jackboots and join in if we are going to do nothing.
What if Geert Wilders had spoke out against Jews at the Tulip Festival? Christians? The disabled? Would we have reacted differently?
This government is not only condoning hatred, but encouraging it.
In reading books and essays written by, and not just about, the neoconservatives, I've found many common elements, from the philosophers they quote to the people they hate.
One common desire most share, is to return to the 1950s, when women knew their place and everyone went to church.
And just as they tap into Alexis de Tocqueville to justify the government getting out of the business of helping the poor, they use his observations about religion, noted during his travels to the United States, as reason for a theocratic state.
De Tocqueville wrote that most Americans were not only Christian, but spoke the common language of the Bible. "The people's voice was the voice of God". Few mention, however, that he also commented that this would create a lot of hypocrites.
Touche.
But why the 1950s as the target decade?
I suppose the 1920s, while roaring, was an age of high income disparity and heavy gambling on Wall Street, that created the "crash". The 1930s was a decade of poverty and the 40s, synonymous with war.
They can't jump to the 1960s, because of the civil rights movement, that they believe was the beginning of the end. The 1950s on the other hand, invokes memories of sock hops, soda fountains and mom in her apron baking cookies.
Who wouldn't want to live then?
Don Cherry, in his interview with Sun TV, says that he believes in what the right-wing station is doing, trying to recapture that decade (with all of its Cold War mentality), because the 1950s was when Canada was at its best.
OK, I'm game.
Because the wonderful life that these guys remember, was the result of the creation of the Welfare State.
William Beveridge, the engineer and author of the Welfare State, believed that if people were expected to rally behind their country during war, then their government should take care of them during peace time. Show them what they had fought for. A better life.
Canadians were also ready for a society free from poverty and inequality, and demanded social reform. The government responded by introducing several social welfare policies, many borrowed from the CCF (now the NDP).
Liberal prime minister Louis St.Laurent, established the Canada Council to support the arts, and expanded social welfare programs, like the family allowance, old age pensions, government funding of university and post-secondary education and an early form of Medicare termed Hospital Insurance, laying the groundwork for Tommy Douglas' healthcare system in Saskatchewan and Pearson's nationwide universal healthcare in the late 1960s. (Wikipedia)
In the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, expanded social security and reduced military spending, even warning against the "military- industrial complex.
Yet these things from the decade that Cherry so fondly remembers, are anathema to the neoconservative movement, he so loudly endorses.
It was not a decade when people were expected to take care of themselves, but one where the government stepped in to make sure that all people were taken care of.
It was also a period when trade unions were strong, fighting for better wages and benefits, that allowed families to thrive. In the U.S. the average worker income increased 61% between 1950 and 1959.
Those are the 1950s that the neocons aspire to recreate, and yet they are fighting against the very things that gave us that decade.
Paul Weyrich, another man behind the success of the movement and Stephen Harper, is a co-founder of the Religious Right. At a meeting of the controversial Heritage Foundation that he helped to create, he stated: "We're not here to get into politics. We're here to turn the clock back to 1954 in this country. And once we've done it, we're going to clear out of this stinking town."
If that means a return to strong labour unions, caring governments and the strengthening of the welfare state, I'm in.
I'll be the one marching down the street, carrying a sign: 'Women are people too'.
My right-wing followers keep sending me links to Sun TV and to articles by right-wing columnists, but this interview with Don Cherry on Fox News North just makes me incredibly sad.
This is so beneath him.
I have mentioned the wonderful memory we have of Cherry, when my kids were young, but since he's entered the political arena, I find it hard to remember that he is a kind man.
My son ran into him recently at Canadian Tire, spotting him in line, looking nervous. He didn't recognize him at first, because he said he looked like a little old man. No one appeared to notice or care and he went through the line without so much as a wave or a nod.
So my son followed him out to the parking lot to say hello and noticing that he was wearing a Tampa Bay Lightening hat asked "what, no Boston Bruins"? Cherry laughed and said "No. I'm not going to jump on that bandwagon".
They shook hands and when my son told me that, I wondered if Don Cherry knew that he had just shaken the hand of a "left-wing pinko". Because like me, my son cares about things like poverty and homelessness, and worries about the impact of the ignorance revolution.
I love Brian Lilley's introduction, referencing an article from the Toronto "red" Star. Yes, the Star, that communist rag. What a goof. This from a station that, if you look at about the one minute mark, announced underneath that the new cabinet would be "nameded" today.
Instead of bashing "pointy headed academics", they might want to take a few spelling lessons.
One of my favourite Youtube channels is that of The Young Turks, and they also cover the ignorance of the new right. Discussing Pat Buchanan, and Harper mentor Peter Brimelow, at about the three minute mark, you'll see that these "white nationalists" also suffer from a brain cell deficiency.
They almost make Don Cherry's "multiculturalism baloney", "left-wing pinkos" and "these types of people" sound intelligent. And "university professors who have never worked a day in their life"? Where is that coming from?
Cherry's brother, Dick, who was my children's elementary school principal, is the total opposite of his brother. Quiet, intelligent and caring. I wonder what he's thinking now?
Had I been in that line-up at Canadian Tire, I probably would have just ignored this outrageous character, afraid of what I might say to him. I prefer to keep the fond memories.
After putting our soldiers in the most dangerous places in Afghanistan (A Soldier First, Rick Hillier) and blasting Libya back to the stone age, the Harperites are ready to flex their muscles with Russia.
As Canada's combat role in Afghanistan comes to an end -- as is being ably reported by Sun Media's Thane Burnett -- Canada's Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced our quid-pro-quo to the Russian invasion of the Arctic will be an enhanced one-month-long Canadian military exercise involving 1,000 of our soldiers.
This is a must-do.
Five against one may seem unfair but we see the other way around, particularly since our Far North sovereignty exercise has been an annual event since Prime Minister Stephen Harper mandated a strong Canadian footprint along our most inhospitable coastline. In other words, what's ours is ours, and the message is clear.
We won't back down
This idiot won't be happy until he gets us all killed.
Conrad Black destroyed Canadian media, by shifting it to the right. He ended up in prison, not for crimes against journalism, but for fraud. 
