Of psychopaths/sociopaths,

the Great West takes over Canada

and other pecularities

Mediascout calls it

out and right

once again, folks!!

PM FISHES FOR MAJORITY,

BUT WILL LIBS CUT BAIT?

by Jordan Himelfarb
October 5, 2007

The Big Seven are so giddy in their continuing coverage of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s rare appearance at a National Press Theatre news conference yesterday, that MediaScout is reluctant to let them know the brutal truth: They’re being used, and to a strategically brilliant effect. Harper told the press gallery yesterday that he intends to designate a series of bills as confidence matters—a means of presenting opposition parties with an ultimatum: Let the Conservatives govern, or force an election; “fish or cut bait,” as the prime minister put it yesterday. In doing this, Harper has forced the opposition, and particularly the Liberal party, into a zugzwang position, in which both fishing and cutting bait are detrimental to their position. As the Globe reports, the Liberals are in no position to fight an election, having recently suffered demoralizing defeats in three Quebec by-elections and with the growing perception that leader Stéphane Dion lacks the necessary leadership qualities to be prime minister. At the same time, as the Citizen points out, allowing the Conservatives to stay in power would amount to an admission on the part of the Liberals that they could not win an election and have been forced by their own weakness to compromise their politics.

On The National’s At Issue panel, Andrew Coyne predicts that the Liberals will vote to uphold Conservative bills or abstain from voting at all, positing the “humiliation” of not forcing an election as a “less bitter pill to swallow” than getting crushed in one. According to a separate article in the Globe, Harper is anticipating the opposite reaction and has asked that federal Conservative election campaign offices be ready to open in case the government falls after the October 16 Throne Speech. For the most part, the Big Seven are so mesmerized by the tactical soundness of Harper’s gambit—the Post and a separate article in the Citizen depict a Liberal party in disarray, while this article in the Globe proposes several obviously unworkable solutions to the Liberals’ quandary—that sources forego any discussion of its likely policy consequences. Only Chantal Hébert, writing in the Star, describes what this parliamentary game-playing might mean for Canadians beyond a possible trip to the polls. According to Hébert, the fractiousness of the current minority government meant that Harper had no choice but to make the move he did. “If the House of Commons does not feature an impotent government this fall, then it will showcase an impotent official opposition,” she writes—a choice as unappealing for Canadians as to fish or cut bait is for the Liberals.

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THE LEADS:
THE NATIONAL: “Fishy Advice: We’ve all been told to be careful how much fish we eat, so why are pregnant women now being told to eat as much fish as they like?”
CTV NEWS: “Drug Strategy: Cracking down on drug dealers while going easy on users”
GLOBE AND MAIL: “Escape from Myanmar”
TORONTO STAR: “Court lets suspects sue police for negligence”
NATIONAL POST: “Investors to warn Alberta”
LA PRESSE: “‘Harper has boxed us in’”
OTTAWA CITIZEN: “Accountability act creates PS ‘Dilberts’”

THE STRAIGHT GOODS:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveils the Conservative government’s new drug strategy, which has already come under attack from addiction workers. High-ranking finance bureaucrat Mark Carney is appointed as the new governor of the Bank of Canada. The Big Seven celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik and the beginning of the Space Race.
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THE ONLY WAR IN WHICH IT’S ILLEGAL

TO SMOKE YOUR ENEMY

CTV News leads and The National fronts, while the Post, the Citizen, the Globe and the Star go inside with the Conservative government’s new drug strategy. At a press conference in Winnipeg yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Health Minister Tony Clement and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day re-declared a war on drugs, pledging nearly $64 million to a reinvigorated anti-narcotics campaign. Harper described the government’s strategy as “two-pronged”: tough on dealers and “compassionate” to addicts. The former prong will involve the establishment of minimum sentences for serious drug crimes, and increased funding for police and prosecutors focused on narcotics; while the “compassionate” prong, to which two-thirds of the allotted funds have been designated, will consist of a national awareness campaign and the development of new addiction treatment options, CTV News reports. The Star determines that addiction workers were pleased by the announcement, while all other sources on the story disagree.

In particular, today’s Big Seven sources point out that addiction experts are concerned with Harper’s rejection of harm-reduction measures, such as the creation of safe-injection sites. “Frankly, I’m skeptical,” Harper said of such an approach, arguing, “If you remain a drug addict, I don’t care how much harm you reduce, you are going to have a short and miserable life.” However, the Globe has Thomas Kerr, a professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Medicine, suggesting that the prime minister is ignoring the science surrounding harm reduction, which indicates that such measures often lead directly to detoxification. The Post quotes a statement by Canadian Medical Association President Brian Day, who writes, “This campaign has to be more in-depth than what we have seen in the past ... ‘Just say no’ is not enough anymore.” One wonders if Harper’s new catch-phrase—“It’s time to get straight with Canadians so Canadians who use drugs can go straight”—is quite what the CMA president had in mind.

‘BOY GENIUS’ TO RUN BANK

The Globe fronts, while The National, CTV News, the Post, the Star, La Presse and the Citizen go inside with the appointment of a new governor of the Bank of Canada. Mark Carney, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated economist from the Northwest Territories, has been made the new captain of Canada’s economy. At forty-two years of age, Carney, who is currently an associate deputy minister in the Department of Finance, will become the second youngest governor in the Bank of Canada’s history. CTV News describes him as a “boy genius of high finance,” while the Citizen dubs him an “ambitious charmer;” the Globe finds the new governor “quick-witted, canny,” while the Post provides us with the probably inessential detail that Carney wears a Swatch watch. Throughout the Big Seven, outgoing Governor David Dodge is praised for maintaining low inflation and presiding over outstanding economic growth during his seven-year tenure. At a press conference yesterday, Carney implied that he will probably not depart significantly from Dodge’s focus on maintaining the two-percent inflation rate target. CTV News and the Globe both cite Canada’s low unemployment rate, which exerts inflationary pressure, and the high dollar, which poses problems for manufacturers, as Carney’s key challenges in his new job.

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Jordan Himelfarb is a Quebec City-based MediaScout writer for Maisonneuve Magazine.

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Daniel Casey on the media coverage

of the

Montebello summit and demonstrations!!!

PUBLIC TRUST ABHORS A VACUUM
by Daniel Casey
August 20, 2007

The media’s coverage of the secretive Montebello summit calls to mind an Irish cop in an old movie: After having insisted that there’s nothing to see here, they now start telling us to move along. CTV News, the Globe, the Star, the Post, La Presse and the Citizen all go inside with their patient explanations of why a framework for tighter continental integration is good for us even if we don’t know what’s in it. Only La Presse and the Citizen put even the briefest of mentions of the summit or the protests on their front pages, a tiny box with a generic photo of demonstrators in each. Demonstrators on Parliament Hill—one to two thousand of them, according to the Post, a flat two thousand in the Star, and a mere “several hundred” in the Globe’s estimate—gathered to oppose the talks, which were never formally approved by any of the three national legislatures, and to oppose the exclusion of any outside representatives other than a hand-picked committee of chief executives.

The Citizen pulls off a trifecta of dismissal: a story about how boring the talks are, how so little of any consequence will be discussed there, accompanied by an interview with Canadian Chamber of Commerce head Perrin Beatty smugly opining that “protesters believe in a zero-sum game” in defiance of the iron-clad law of comparative advantage, and followed by a dry account of the protest itself. To cap it all off, there’s a piece from US ambassador David Wilkins on the editorial page, advising us to leave our leaders to their folksy tête-á-têtes, because “that’s what diplomacy is all about.” A conservative estimate would put the ratio of opinion to news content addressing the summit in today’s Citizen at five to one, which oversells the point to the extent that the paper loses credibility. When put together, Harper’s penchant for secrecy, the security bubble around a widely unpopular US president, and the divided Mexican electorate that voted in Felipe Calderon in a questionable poll last year, are all combining with the visible unpopularity of the continental-integration agenda to create a vacuum of information about the “Security and Prosperity Partnership.” When Harper came into power and changed press briefing rules, the media were up in arms for weeks. Now they see a vacuum about a much more consequential policy issue and fill it with reassurance; were it that the media was as concerned with our collective access to information as they are with their own.

Comment: These liar$ (overt and covert) in the press are going to be right sorry about their actions surrounding this in days to come.

This is going to prove to be the most riveting chapter in the fight for Canadian democracy yet!! You can mark my wordz on this.

There has been a very tenuous thread holding the social contract together in Kanada for a very long time. NO ONE I know trusts any politician.

No one I know here LIKES increasingly globalization; no one I know very well would ever shop at Walmart!! even if it's become the (high priced and nutritionally valueless) grocery store in their neighborhood. Staying away from transantional entities are a regular POLITICAL pasttime here - even if going to vote is not. So far that is.

And few I know want Canada increasingly militarized for any reason at all. Thus far the Canadian media is only REALLY talking about this "antiwar, anti-Afghanistan" sentiment in relation to the SPP protests; there is FAR more going forward than THAT.

My prediction is that with the NDP and the Greens (the latter being the only political entity saw getting TV coverage over the weekend) on side, we are going to come to a national referendum on the SPP/ North American 'issue" befor this is all over and people are going to V O T E against it in the biggest numbers ever shown at the polls.

People like me are going to bang away and bang away at what is at stake here; the press be DAMNED. I think we may see, finally, the start of some viable alternative media; I could not get press credentials for the event . this says something as hundreds of people read me on this topic.

For every reactionary (and it is) step taken by the media the reaction to social control will rachet up ever further.

We are going from deafening silence to Alfred E. Newman "what me, worry?" on the part of the mainstream media, that is ALL. They had better start paying attention themselves before total censorship sets in as it did every time a war or "national emergency" sets in, as people are going to only read a handful of journalists at that junction.

Over the weekend, I was shocked to find that I could only use the Globe&Mail of ALL Canadian information sources for reference to the financial meltdown situation. Not relevant to make that comment? you think. No, that IS the point - only there can one from information on finance and business in Canada TODAY to figure out what is going on. This is a travesty .. and the information THEY gave out on the SPP so bad, I wrote them a letter which of course never got published.

The item in The Star appeared on Page 19, no commentary whatsoever in the editorial pages. CTV made sure any protester quoted (with the exception of the head of the Greens) mad no sense to the viewer - the signs and banners selected for viewers CAREFULLY censored to mislead and misrepresent. (unfortunately there were any number of them to choose from) The Globe and Mail and the Sun have been taunting dissents for nearly two weeks now. Writing editors and TV stations can be a full time job.

I took a gander over to Garth Turner's site hoping to find some commentary. While the posters THERE are very knowledgable in the main and there is some very good discussion, the SPP is being IGNORED. His site is, afterall, the site for those concerned with middle income Canadians flocks; one would expect more. The North American Union (camoflagued for the time being as the SPP) is of strategic interest to them as they plan for their futures ...

As a general observation, I think the MSM (mainstream media) is going to make the battle over the NAU, and the SPP, more difficult, but their very silence and contortions are only going to make people more radicalized rather than less in the days ahead.

And the politicians who cover up are in more trouble than ever, too.

Time for a clean sweep!! of the lot of corporate apologizers.

Canada’s Largest Bookstore Retailer Bans Book Which Reveals

North American Union Agenda to Canadians

http://stopspp.com/stopspp/?p=152

By Peter Tremblay

Are you a concerned Canadian who is seeking a copy of the book entitled Traitors Among Us: The Betrayers of Canada in a Canadian bookstore. Well, you will not find a copy at Indigo Books. The ownership of Indigo books is associated with Canada’s largest corporations, that in turn, have reportedly sought to conceal information from Canadians about the North American Union (NAU) agenda.

The book entitled Traitors Among Us: The Betrayers of Canada features a compilation of articles from The Canadian National Newspaper. These articles both expose and also challenge an apparent assumption by many of Canada’s corporate and political elites. This apparent assumption, championed by large mass-media conglomerates in Canada like CanWest Global, is that the only “rational” course for Canadian society, is to assimilate itself into the U.S. political-military-industrial complex.

Canada, has been championed as an alternative society to “America” since time immoral. As Canada has evolved, since its cultural-political inception since 1535, the essence of its society has taken a distinctively socially progressive national identity. Jean Talon, Canada’s first Intendant in the “ancien regime” of New France, envisioned Canada as a Great and Powerful State, that was critically inspired by the Old World aboriginal civilizations of Canada, in synergy with “Old World” values of Europe. Prime Ministers of Canada before Brian Mulroney had all rejected so-called “Free Trade”, out of a now further substantiated concern that Canada’s vital social fabric and independence from the United States would be destroyed. Tommy Douglas’ championing of universal medicare vitally further affirmed Canada’s distinctively progressive social fabric. Former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, sought to further embrace the progressive identity of Canada, by seeking to champion the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He did that, in his efforts, as a Great Canadian, to fulfill Canada’s destiny as a Just Society, which would operate as a role model for the rest of the world.

In sharp contrast, current Prime Minister Harper cannot see any role for Canada other than that of participating in international affairs as a puppet of American Empire via “Globalization”.

Historically, the American Revolution had sought to destroy a connection to “Old World” values, symbolized by cultural-political ties with Britain. America’s elites sought to create an assimilating “melting pot”, which would be created by the idolizing of a gun culture of violence associated with the American Revolution, which has further embraced militaristic jingoism.

Canada’s political leadership, sought in response to the American Revolutionary context, to cultivate a society of “Peace, Order and Good Government” which would inspire a society that recognized the ideal of ‘civility’ in the development of our cities as communities; and where there was a positive constructive role for government in societal development. That sought role fundamentally embraces further adopted tenets of appreciating for example, multiculturalism, and ‘universality’ in relation to a comprehensive one-tier public healthcare system, within social justice, in general. That socially responsible role of government has vitally contributed to a reputed much better quality-of-life in Canada, as compared to the United States, which is plagued by horrific segregated poverty alongside elite affluence, and by accompanying prevalent violent crime in its cities.

Many of Canada’s corporate and political elites under the clandestine agenda of efforts to create a so-called “North American Union”, (apparently by any means necessary), seek to destroy Canada.

Canada’s corporate and political elites used to be among the greatest defenders of the need to defend Canada’s sovereignty. The elites had recognized that their institutions were the very creatures of the aggressive defence of Canadian institutions. These recognition among institutions included representatives of wealthy financial institutions, to smaller community-oriented initiatives and public agencies. However, thanks to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s successful proselytizing of greed and venality, to once politically loyal elites, via the “benefits” of “Free Trade” with the United States, much of these elites now elect to sell Canada out.

Prime Minister Brain 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.

Canada’s corporate and political elites now linked to the U.S. religious-political-military-industrial complex, which is operating in overtime, is trying to convince Canadians to accept the dysfunctional polices of the Harper neo-conservative minority government toward an elite sought right-wing majority government.

Dysfunctional policies which are supported by current Prime Minister Harper’s allies, include presiding over the sabotage of Canada’s universal public healthcare system to destroying treasured Canadian institutions like the well renown Wheat Board, so as to cause Canadian farmers to be ruled by U.S. agri-business privatization agenda. Additional policies include ignoring the plight of growing poor communities in Canada which include women, homeless peoples, immigrants, and aboriginal peoples, and also reckless pro-Global Warming policies.

The ‘Canadian Dream’ refers to the evolved collective aspirations of Canadians, as inspired by such recognized Great Canadians as Tommy Douglas and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, to fulfill the national destiny of Canada, as a socially independent society, that is independent from the United States. The prevailing systematized efforts to sabotage the achievement of the ‘Canadian Dream’, is the apparent betrayal of Canada to a traitorous agenda.

Source: AgoraCosmopolitan.com

Related:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Reisman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onex_Corporation