Unlike many people, I don't think the media hacks who cover politics in this country are part of a shadowy Con conspiracy.
I just think many of them are not too bright, they live in the inbred village of Ottawa, where reality rarely intrudes, and little is BIG.
They know most media organizations are in trouble, their jobs are on the line, their big bosses want corporate tax cuts, so who are they to rock the boat?
But holy Big Brother, surely this column by John Ibbitson is his master's voice.
On all the major files – the key priorities for this government through the fall and next spring – the Prime Minister’s team is in place and doing its job. One can applaud or abhor the direction of the Harper government, but the cabinet is generally performing as a cabinet should – especially in a world where so much power is tightly held by the Prime Minister himself.
John Baird is a highly regarded foreign affairs minister. (Several senior diplomats report that, for the first time with this government, they feel they are talking to a foreign minister who has the ear of the Prime Minister.) Joe Oliver, if a bit over-the-top at times, is a passionate advocate of new pipelines, and Peter Kent has been a good and faithful servant at Environment.
For who could ever describe the grubby, scandal ridden Con cabinet as "performing as a cabinet should? " Who could call John Baird a "highly regarded foreign affairs minister?"
When the man is a joke, wandering around the Middle East, licking the boots of the right-wing Netanyahu regime, cheerleading for a war with Iran.
Or promoting his absurd Office of Religious Freedom...
To please the rabid Con base who would hang or burn a gay man like him.
Who could ever describe Joe Oliver as simply "a passionate advocate of a new pipeline?" When he stumbles around accusing decent Canadians of being terrorists, and urging people to drink his oily waste.
Who on earth could call the dilapidated Peter Kent a "good and faithful servant?" When he's just a tool of Big Oil, who slimes his opponents, and badly needs a pair of these.
And why does it take one of the few courageous journalists in this country to declare that the Emperor has no clothes?
What kind of message is being sent to the public when so many in the Conservative government are not held to account for their actions? What is it about Mr. Harper that makes it so difficult for him to show a degree of contrition or humility that would sit so well with the public? How much hubris is in that tank?
Or a foreign publication to call Stephen Harper a bully?
Oh yeah. Our pathetic media may not be a Con conspiracy, but the effect is the same. For in a time of darkness, what is the difference between a hack who can't see the forest for the trees, or one who doesn't dare to call a dictator a dictator, or a bully a bully, and Orwell's Parsons?
"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms-one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended."
All hail Big Brother.
One day people like Ibbitson will claim that they too were fooled. But they helped fool Canadians. We will not forget.
And history will never forgive them...
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13 comments:
Great post. Ibbitson is a shameless hack and an amoral scumbag.
May his career end in obloquy and his retirement consist of deserved poverty.
"inbred village of Ottawa,"
I'll never forget I read it here first!
Cheers Mount Simon:)
I'm gonna spread it far and wide........
The first thing Harper as a dictator must do, is control the media.....Then they grab control of, everything they get their dirty hands on.
Dictators are obsessed with control. Harper's Ministers can not say nor do anything, everything has to go through Harper first.
Harper's Ministers should know, the Nuremberg defense won't work in Canada either.
No decent sane person, with ethics and morals, would ever support Harper.
The media, are merely propaganda rags for Harper. The media does what Harper tells them to do....Or no government ads for you.
loved the analysis by the writer on how well the cons are doing. It gave me a great laugh. Like who would believe that drivel?
stevie slime & his slimers need to go. They don't know how to do the job of governing in a democracy & don't care about the majority of citizens of this country. They are interested in keeping China happy, selling off as much of Canada as possible, & trying to close down freedom of speech, if you oppose them. Cutting tax free status of organizations who oppose you is just bullying, nothing more. Stevie slime & his slimers are a bunch of cowards, in my humble opinion. If they truly believed what they were saying they might engage in open government & tell the truth some times.
Stevie and the Reformers can't even cheat in elections competently; they keep getting caught. So it should surprise no one that they can't run the Canadian government in a competent fashion.
As much as I enjoy the post and sympathize with your opinions (almost every time), I must disagree with the "conspiracy" question. I think, as Chomsky has said, the media is rightwing because the people who own the media are rightwing. It is not so much a conspiracy as a straight out expression of their ideological beliefs. The people who own the papers and the radio and TV stations hire people who share their beliefs and that is more or less all there is to it.
hi thwap...I'm glad you like the post. As I said, I don't usually take aim at the media, but this latest Ibbitson column was simply the limit...
hi Mogs...I want to make it clear that I don't believe they are cohabiting with themselves, Ottawa is definitely not the Sodom and Gomorrah of Canada. ;) But I do think it's a parallel universe, and they do drink their own bathwater...
hi anonymous...I don't disagree with anything you say, I would say that like many Canadians they had never seen anything like the Harper regime, so they tried to fit it into their own experience. And as a result they failed to see the forest for the trees, and helped lead their country into the darkness of Harperland...
hi e.a.f....I must admit that my first reaction was to roar with laughter. But then the article pissed me off. How could a serious journalist write such rubbish? And for that I still have no answer. I've read other bloggers claim that Ibbitson is hoping for a Senate appointment. But quite frankly after that column he could probably qualify for a job in the PMO...
hi anonymous...you know sometimes we focus too much on the moral crimes of the Harper regime. Because unfortunately far too many Canadians just yawn at them believing that all politicians are the same. But if we put more of an emphasis on the sheer incompetence of the Cons, it might get their attention...
hi kirby...I'm not sure they hire people because they agree with them. I think it's more the case that as journalists get better paid,much more than they once were,they start sympathizing with their class interests, and become defenders of the status quo. So whether it's a conspiracy or not it amounts to the same thing. You see, I know we ALWAYS agree... ;)
Simon I understood you were using literary words not figurative.... :)
But I love the literature "inbred village of Ottawa" its not about the incest its about the stupidity that runs rampant in Ottawa...
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