Should the CBC Show “Those” Pictures?

I just came across a bit that says some of the Harper Party MPs are speaking out about the CBC decision to not show the Charlie Hebdo pictures that are supposed to be the reason for the extremist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices on Wednesday.

Maybe they just don’t get it.  These pictures are offensive to some people.  There are a few that find them so offensive that it pushes them off their axis so far as to fire bomb buildings and kill people.

There are two things at play here.  Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press.  Freedom of expression allows me to write my blog and think that there are some Class A Idiots running around Ottawa who say “Yea” when Steve Harper says “Yea” and “Nay” when Steve Harper says “Nay”.

Freedom of the Press means that the news people should pursue and tell the news that they think is relevant to people without interference from elected people.  They answer to their editors, not you and not Steve Harper.

I totally agree with the stance that the CBC has taken.  The story is about the horrid killing of the 10 people inside the office of Charlie Hebdo and the 2 police officer assigned to protect them, not that they publish what a lot of people would consider trash. 

If pictures weren’t worth putting on the air last week, are they worth putting up today?

Maybe we should ask why the CBC isn’t showing the pictures from that magazine that caused an anti Semitism law suit?  Or how about showing the pictures that generated lawsuits from other religions? 

The CBC also decided not to show the one attacker walking up and killing the wounded police officer in cold blood after the attack on the office.  That too is an important part of the story.  Or do mere words suffice there?

We recently had the Magnotta trial here in Canada.  Should the CBC have shown the images and videos from that?  Do we need to see the cut up victim to show people that Magnotta should be in prison for a very long time?

The bottom line is that if you don’t like the CBC coverage of the story, watch another channel.  I don’t give a damn that “taxpayer money” helps fund the CBC.  The news is supposed to be impartial, the standards are set by the editorial staff at the CBC.  If enough people change the channel, CBC News will change its policy.

And if you think that it is so all fired important that your constituents see these pictures, maybe you should post them on your own damn site.  The party pays for it, and it won’t cost me a dime.  At least it had better not.

If you’re really interested in freedom of expression and freedom of the press, maybe you should be speaking out about other things….

How about the 7 year sentence of Mohamed Fahmy and two of his fellow Al Jazeera correspondents for covering the Muslim Brotherhood protests in Egypt?

How about the 10 year 1,000 lashes sentence for Raif Badawi for “insulting” Islam in his blog?

How about making all candidates show up for All Candidate Debates at election time?  At least the ones on your team…

And how about having Ministers stand and answer questions in Debate, in Oral Question Period, and live press gatherings instead of reciting PMO approved talking points?

Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo, mais il est mon frère.

C’est tout, Salute!

BC

Has Tony Clement Twitter Blocked You Yet?

In the last while I’ve seen more and more people wondering why they have been Twitter blocked by Tony Clement.  Quite a few of them seem perplexed as to why Tony blocked them.

Well I was blocked by Tony ages ago, I didn’t even realize it for a while.  I didn’t stalk Tony, but if I saw him comment I sometimes replied.  I don’t agree with Tony on many things, I don’t expect him to agree with me. 

Democracy.

We live in a Democratic country.  Part of that means we should have the ability to exchange ideas, and disagree.  Just because we disagree on Twitter is no reason to block someone, I don’t even bother blocking trolls.

I ignore them.

If someone sends me a tweet that is not worth replying to, I don’t reply.  It’s that simple.  I have blocked a few on Twitter, most of them tried to send me to a corrupt website to try and steal my Twitter information or infect me with a virus, a few were trying to raise money for nonexistent causes.  I blocked and reported them.  Done.

What I think that Tony doesn’t get is that Twitter is a communication medium, a crappy one, but it is a means to getting your ideas out.  If you decide that you don’t want people seeing your thoughts and ideas it’s like you’d prefer to preach to the choir or to the “Amen corner”. It doesn’t help get your idea out, it just gives you a false sense that what you are saying is right. 

It’s a bit like the old saw, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”.

The other thing I don’t think Tony realizes is that if he is involved in a Twitter conversation with someone who I follow, I get to see snippets of that conversation.  If it interests me, I can just click to see the conversation and lo and behold I can see what Tony is typing!

Now for those of you thinking big deal, you can’t interact with Tony, that’s not why I reply to those tweets.  I’m sending my message to the others who are following the same conversation.  I’m not talking to the “Yay” people or the “Boo” people, I’m looking for the people in between, the ones that don’t drink anyone’s Kool-Aid.

So should you take it as a badge of honour that Tony blocked you?  I don’t really think so.  I think it’s sad that a Cabinet Minister doesn’t want to hear from his constituents and doesn’t want them to hear his message, he doesn’t want you to know what he thinks.

Maybe Tony failed civics or maybe he just forgot how government is supposed to work.  If one is named to a Cabinet position, one no longer represents the riding that elected him.  A Minister represents all of Canada, not just a small segment.  And in the same vein of MPs sending updates to their constituents, Tony should be communicating with us, all of us.

And he should be listening.  He doesn’t need to agree, but he should hear what people are saying.

I guess what I’m saying is that if Tony thinks this is going to shut me and other people up, he’s got another thing coming.  That, and if you’ve got something to say, say it.  Who cares if Tony sees it, other people will.

TTFN

BC

BTW I don’t mean Twitter is crappy, it’s just a bugger to try and get a point across in 140 characters or less, especially with long twitter handles like @canada_bearcat.  Cheers!

UPDATE:  I am no longer being blocked by Tony Clement.  Not only that, he's following me now... Welcome aboard,  Tony.

What Happened to Political Discourse in Canada?

As a rule, Politics and Religion are two things that we don’t talk about in polite company. Both excite passions and can easily get out of hand if we don’t respect our fellow debaters.

Generally I don’t talk politics (or religion) in person.  I don’t need the headaches, I don’t need the hassle.

There was a time that I would discuss politics on occasion.  I recall a time when I sat with a friend and we were on opposite sides of an issue.  We discussed the merits of our sides, pointed out the defects in the other’s argument and when we were done, neither of us had won.  We both learned a little bit though and saw that our stance on either side was not perfect.

In the end the issue was decided at the polls, Mulroney won a majority and the GST was born.  One thing I took away from that discussion was that the GST was not set high enough.  Had it been higher, Personal Income Tax could have been lowered and even eliminated for entry level incomes.

But that was then.

Today, I don’t even bother.  The respect is all but gone. 

That was most evident this week when Paul Calandra made a mockery of Question Period.  QP has a long history of non-answers and some politicians have made a pretty good living out of dancing around questions or deflecting them into the corner leaving the Opposition little room to mount an attack. 

The media is now reporting that both the non-answer and the apology were handed to Calandra prior to both events happening by the PMO.  In my opinion, if the staffers in the PMO want certain answers provided in the House, they should run for a seat and give those answers themselves.

Let’s put it this way, had Calandra said something along the lines of “I acknowledge the question of the Honourable Member” and then segued to something along the lines of “it mirrors the acts of terrorism that the people of Israel recently faced” and finally going to wondering “why the Members of the Opposition were not as concerned about the attacks on Israel as they are about the threat of ISIS” or something along those lines we probably wouldn’t have said much.  It still answers not a single thing and even finds a way to poke at Mulcair but still within the limits of debate in QP.  Most of us would have been annoyed at the non answer, but it tries to contain the question and deflect it. 

I don’t have the silver tongue required to pull this type of thing off, but I hope you get the idea.  It’s why some MPs are remembered as legends for their gift of non-answers and others are going to be remembered as “Jackasses” (Helloooo Skippy!)

It doesn’t stop there, some like to blame the Internet, but the problem is the people.

How many times have you seen (or heard) people saying “don’t read the comments” on stories that involve politics?  It certainly doesn’t take long for the thoughtful answers (and there are some) to be pushed down the page by trolls of all different flags slagging each other and the politics they represent with strawmen, ad hominems and all the other tools designed to take the argument away from the issue at hand and direct it into whatever the devil it becomes.

I’ve been guilty of some of these offences, and I try hard to not stoop to using them and I’ll tell you it’s an uphill climb.  Another that I try to avoid is the name calling.  It’s the same rule that you followed when you were a kid.  When you resort to name calling, you’ve pretty much lost the argument and that goes for calling the politicians and the parties by derogatory names.  It cuts both ways folks, you might have noticed that I rarely use “Conservative” but instead use “the Harper Party”.  This is out of deference to my friends (yes I have some) who are conservatives (yes to that too) but find themselves without a party.  The Blue Flag has gone way over to the right and now they’re standing in the void between that one and the Red and Orange ones to the other side.

Of course all this goes in the dumpster if you want to troll and I’m in a mood to engage or if you want to use half truths to support your argument.  A Yiddish proverb runs “A half truth is still a whole lie.”  Don’t use them OK?

Look, if you want to talk politics and debate policy, be my guest, I might even partake, but furl you flag when you come in the door.  When we argue over what the best thing to do should be, the only flag we should really be worried about is the one with the two red stripes and a big red maple leaf in the middle.

Now if we could only get the folks in Ottawa to buy into this.

Cheers!

BC

Stephen Harper, Nobel, and Me

When I first heard about Stephen Harper’s “nomination” for the Nobel Peace Prize I laughed.  Actually I did a quick Google search about it.  Other than the B’nai Brith announcement, there was only one other hit.  A RWNJ blog about how the Lefties’ heads were going to collectively explode over this.

“Yeah,” I thought’ “explode with laughter.”

Well it looks like he was partly right.  A bunch of people really do have their knickers in a knot over this.  There are petitions and blogs and Twitter Wars and all sorts of ranting and raving about this.

What I’m going to do is to ask you to step back a bit and look at this without kneejerk reactions and vehemence.

What does this “nomination” mean? 

Nothing much, really.

Other than the fact that some guy (Frank Dimant) is putting up Stephen Harper for the award.  There isn’t a lot here to talk about.

When I checked the Nobel site, there are a record 278 nominations this year.   47 of these are organizations and the rest, I assume, are people.  What this says to me is that there are going to be a lot of losers.  If you are interested in the list of 2014 nominations, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) has a partial list.

This year’s short list, according to PRIO, includes Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, the Afghan girl shot by the Taliban for going to school, and others. 

Another nominee for the 2014 award is Vladimir Putin.  But he’s not on the short list, at least not according to PRIO anyway.

A Nobel nomination is usually for disarmament, or for peacemaking but can also include things like multicultural understanding or food security.

Being a cheerleader for Israel’s retaliation on Palestine or shouting at 2014 Nobel Prize nominee Putin doesn’t really seem to make the cut.  Even if Steve wore a short skirt and ferociously waved his blue pompoms, I don’t think he’s going to be a Nobel Laureate.

I’m sure that Harper sees it much differently than I do, but a Nobel nomination is not a huge deal.  There have been a few people besides Harper and Putin that most people wouldn’t want to have over for dinner.  Past nominees include Hitler, Mussolini who was nominated twice and Stalin who was likewise nominated twice.

So how do you nominate someone?  The Nobel Prize Organization’s website gives the rules.  Basically, if you or your group want to submit a name, there is a list there of who you need to submit it for you.  Your MP is one, a judge or a University Professor (like Frank Dimant) would be another. 

So if you want to nominate me for the $1 Million paycheque… kidding, just give it some real thought and don’t go rushing trying to nominate anyone simply because they aren’t Harper.  Deal?

Laters!

BC

On second thought, if you want to sign a petition or send an angry email then fire away.  Someone needs to take Steve down a peg or two.