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

Canada, The Movie. Starring ??? or Paul Calandra, answer the damn question!

If they were to make a movie about Canada today, what do you think it would be like?

Wide vistas, majestic mountains, roaring surf, hard working industrious people struggling to make ends meet, you get the idea.  It would probably look beautiful and be as boring as all get out.

OK, it would probably have hockey and nature trails and some beer drinking too, but outside of Canada it probably wouldn’t do well.

What if we decided to make the movie about the House of Commons?

What do you think?  A low brow comedy, a door slamming farce?

***

Originally I thought it would be great if we could dig up Peter Sellers and have him play both the PM and the Leader of the Opposition.  He’d kill it.  This is a man who could probably make the phone book (we still have those right?) hilarious.

But then again, after last week we’d probably be better off with the Pythons of the Monty variety.

Imagine if you will, the straight man stands and asks a sensible question… maybe something like “We have Canadian Soldiers currently in Iraq for 30 days, when does the 30 days end?”

And then we’d have the funny guy stand up and say “He’s pining for the” “We like Israel, Israel is good!  You don’t like Israel!  Neener neener!”

And then the straight man could get up again and ask “Is this the right room for an argument?”

And the funny guy would retort “We like Israel, Israel is good!  You don’t like Israel!  Neener neener!”

Not very funny, but it’s what supposedly passes as the thrust and parry of Question Period in the House of Commons these days, and we thought DDM was a pain to our ears.  Paul Calandra takes the cake, or should that be pie as in pizza pie.

It is pretty sad, don’t you think.  I mean we pay these guys a pretty good chunk of change to sit in the House and spout nonsense and 24% of us clap like crazy!  What in the name of Democracy is going on?

If Paul Martin or Jean Chretien had treated Stephen Harper to this kind of nonsense everybody would be screaming from the rooftops.  Steve would be in front of every microphone in Canada carrying on how the Liberal Government refuses to answer the most direct of questions and that they use an ill informed buffoon whose only claim to fame is that he saw his Daddy fire someone but somehow still managed to get in as an MP to spout irrelevant rhetoric about something else altogether.

Instead, Tom Mulcair turns to the Speaker of the House and pretty much says “You can take off the striped shirt, we can all see the blue sweater vest underneath it.”

***

Believe it or not there are rules governing Question Period.  Here’s a snippet from the government website.  

Ministers may: answer questions; defer their answers; make short explanations as to why they cannot furnish an answer at that time; or say nothing.

The same government website also says:

According to practice, replies are to be as brief as possible, to deal with the subject matter raised and to be phrased in language that does not provoke disorder in the House.

I’d suggest that Paul Calandra misses out on all three points. 

Not that non-answers are a new thing.  The Right Honourable Herb Gray managed to raise the non-answer to an art form.  Calandra reduces it to its lowest form.  When Herb Gray rose in response to a question, you thought that you received a real answer, but when you actually looked at it, you had nothing, but it sounded so good.

With Calandra, you get a headache and a twinge of nausea while he excitedly butchers his single talking point.  A band saw cutting galvanized tin comes to mind.

What it boils down to for me is who in the name of Heaven voted for these guys?

***

Look, when I first heard that our Forces were going to Iraq to be advisers, the first thing that popped into my head was Vietnam.  The US sent their boys there to be “advisers” and look how well that turned out.  It’s been 40 years since the end of that conflict and the scars in the US are still tender.

Tom Mulcair raises a valid question.  How many and how long? 

The response from the government is a sneering “Ha Ha, we’re in charge and you’re not.”

But then again, why should they care.  They make enough to ensure their kids will be in University until they are too old for conscription.  I doubt they’ll be lining up to enlist.

Nope, I don’t think even the Pythons could make this funny, even if they did institute a Ministry of Funny Walks.

BC

Maybe we could get a cross between Ralph Wiggum and Nelson Muntz to play Calandra?  Nah, still won’t work.

Harper Party Spies

To hear the Harper Party loyalists talk, you’d think that the Liberal Party of Canada has a problem.  Yet another Liberal has spoken words that don’t echo the words of their leader.

And this is a problem?

Let’s set the scene.  A woman asked retired General Andrew Leslie about his thoughts regarding the Israeli Palestine situation.  The General gave a long answer including the need for Israel to be able to defend herself from terrorists, such as Hamas, but he also blamed the Israeli military for the deaths of civilians in Palestine.

I guess the General didn’t realize that he was talking with a Harper Party spy.  Looking to get whatever dirt she could dig up on a noted Liberal contender for the 2015 Election and she hit the mother lode!  This guy thinks the Israeli military shouldn’t have killed Palestinian civilians!

What a horrid thought.  No mere MP much less a noted advisor to Stephen Harper would say such a thing.  No, Stephen’s troops would blindly parrot the talking points issued from the unelected, appointed, not ready for big boy pants crew in the PMO. 

Nope, they’d swallow their gumption and say whatever their Leader says they should say.  Here are your pompoms and here’s your script: “Israel is good, Palestinians are bad and they all deserve to die.”

Rah Team!

The problem with the Harper Party antics is that General Leslie is right.  As a professional soldier, trained in the military, he knows the rules and one of the biggies is that every effort must be undertaken to prevent civilian casualties or “collateral damage” as they like to say today.

What is even more horrid is the tactics that the Harper Team are stooping to in an attempt to try and demonize the Liberal Party.

While the Harper Party complains about the liberal media and “gotcha journalism” they are stepping down several rungs with these Secret Agent X19 tactics.  Sneak a recording device in and try and get the enemy to say something that can be used against them.  And then try to get the so called incriminating evidence into the public eye.

The Harperistas didn’t send their ill gotten booty to the media, not at first; they tried to hand it over to a prominent Jewish organization who put the kibosh on that plan.  They were smart enough to not get involved in petty politics, maybe they can read the writing on the wall or maybe they just don’t like the idea of being used as a dupe for the Harper Party?

So they went with Plan B.  Hand the audio over to the Sun News Network, the finest investigative journalists this side of 1972 Pravda.  And the Sun News Crew was more than happy to jump all over this.

The Harper People crow about this, they see nothing wrong, they just want people to know what goes on in the opposing camp.  What they don’t say is that this is putting a chilling effect on Democracy in Canada.

It is hard enough to get a politician to say anything in public now, they don’t want to annoy the Boss, but in the future, every politician of every stripe is going to be guarded in what they say lest there be a secret agent nearby.  And when they’re done with the named politicians, they can start on those who are merely considering running for office.

Seriously, it is hard to get a politician to comment on the weather anymore.  What with having to consider if this stretch of warm weather is bad for the farmers and so on it takes them tem minutes to come up with “Yep, nice weather.”  It is getting to the point that some politicians cannot scratch their butt without a note from the PMO.

Real boats rock, Steve.  Having people within a party who hold differing opinions is not a bad thing, it is part of Democracy.  Any Leader, be it in politics or business that surrounds themselves with kowtowing lackies soon finds themselves on the outside looking in.

But your echo boxes are half right.  How can Canadians decide on which candidate is best for their riding if we don’t know how they think and what they feel about the issues that we care about?  Simply put they can’t.

I am comfortable in voting for someone who has the wits and courage to speak their mind in public.  It means that they have the ability to speak up for me in the House and in the Caucus.  These are not your people, Steve.

They are mine.

And for what it’s worth, there are an awful lot of people like me who think that the killing and wounding of civilians is wrong.  It doesn’t matter which side does it.

I like General Leslie a hell of a lot more that any echo box you have to offer.

Ta ta for now,

BC