Why Wikileaks Should be a P2P Network (and Not a Site)

We’ve all heard about Wikileaks over the past few weeks and we’ve all been introduced to the owner of the site, Julian Assange. We’re starting to hear details about his arrest, apparently for sex crimes (and by the time ‘they’ are done with him, we’ll all be believing that he had sex with pigs, too).

Unlike some people in this country and elsewhere who are calling for the ‘fatwa’ against Julian Assange (and why these people aren’t being fired, punished or reprimanded is beyond me), I believe that the intent of Wikileaks is more noble than vile.

The intent is to liberate information and to create a serious and adult conversation about diplomacy, foreign affairs and issues – yes – of national security.

That said, the concept should be taken to a new level. WikiLeaks should become a tour-de-force in the P2P environment.

As mentioned, many people are suggesting that Julian Assange seems to be the only person on the planet who is capable of launching a web site that allows others to post and share confidential or unique information and he should be punished for being an ‘enabler’ of such breaches of security.

The reality is that Julian Assange is a nobody and unfortunately, he’s become a blackmailer. Regardless, he’s taking the blows for the greater public and we should all step in to support the idea and not Assange, assuming of course, that we believe in information as a commodity that shouldn’t be locked in a vault somewhere.

The other issue that’s starting to rear it’s ugly head is the reminder that the Internet does not belong to ‘the people’. It belongs to a small collection of elites that want to massage what we collectively do on a day to day basis. They are not pleased with the release of documents that show that the world is dominated by an array of corporate cartels, including bankers, oil companies and other resource magnates.

Internet companies are starting to cut off the access to Wikileaks and most payment processing companies have ended the ability for people to make Internet donations to the organization. As such, we should all consider boycotting Paypal and Mastercard for their cartel-like actions, but that’s a whole other story!

Within a few days, it’s very likely that Wikileaks will likely be no longer and the ‘threat’ of revealed information (and embarrassment) will be over.

However, if the information were shared across the entire Internet like a P2P file-sharing network, who starts or runs the network is no longer relevant. What’s relevant is that the information is liberated, everyone around the world owns a chunk of the information and no one needs any money to keep it going because we’re all paying for it via our ISP subscriptions.

Of course, other information and sharing sites of this nature should also be converted to a P2P structure, where fragments of information are scattered across the digital universe, making it impossible for those that want hide their contempt towards society at large.

The End of the Internet As We Know It

As we progressives are well aware, THEY own the media which, in large part, includes access points to the Internet.

“They” being folks like Rupert Murdoch (Fox, NewsCorp), the Asper clan (once CanWest), the Peladeaus (Quebecor, Sun Media) and so on.

These stories, however, paint a very real portrait of things to come.

It’s bad enough that bloggers are posed to be considered the world’s biggest threat to economic and democratic stability since the Lenin years (aka ‘blogging terrorists’).

Now, we’re going to be shunted into the halls of oblivion, never to be seen or heard from as long as the douches at Microsoft and other corporations have their way.

Here are some sample stories to digest:

This map shows us just how few companies and organizations hold their fingers on the ‘delete’ button, threatening any act of dissent.

Folks, we have to get very serious about what the Internet means to us.

Battles like Net Neutrality and access are just the tip of the iceberg and are actually meaningless and miss the point.

The real point is that we have to get ready to start building our own public internet or THEY will take it away from us.

If only we could get George Soros to start investing in real infrastructure. That would be COOL!

2009 Zeroes

Lists bring a sense of order to the world.

More importantly, I look at lists like filters. They help me (and hopefully others that read this list and my Heroes list) identify what I think the most relevant activities / people / events in 2009 were. They help separate all of the noise that’s going on around us and get us right down to the fundamentals of who was naughty and who was nice during the last year.

Anyways, here goes (and apologies for the growing list):

#22: Scouts Canada

2009 was the first year that my son could enroll with Scouts Canada as a Beaver.

Having grown up with Scouts myself, I couldn’t wait. I was looking forward to reliving my own youth through my son’s eyes.

This was not going to happen.

Scouts Canada has failed to adapt with the times.

At the very basic level of the Beavers, they decided to ‘teach’ the young kids about soldiers, marching, using guns and even encouraging them to engage in gun play (with fake guns, of course) where they would chase each other and ‘shoot’ at each other in mock games.

To top it all off, it was on the night before Rememberance Day. I was disgusted and complained to the local leader, only to get a response that it was OK and that gun play is fun and harmless when done right.

I was furious and took my complaint to a local administrator, but was shut down and told to take it up with my local leader, even though I had forwarded the email from the local leader.

Scouts Canada faces extinction if it cannot adapt with the times. In the grand scheme of things, this was a small issue, but what happens when religion and the Queen enter the weekly running dialogue and series of chants that my son ‘must’ learn in order to ‘get the most’ from this institution?

What also bothers me is the constant ‘tithing’ or requests for donations that we receive every week. We already paid $150 for the year so that my son could run around a church basement. Yes, there are things that they provide without asking for more money, but we’re donating a loonie or toonie with every session, bumping up the annual commitment to something more like $250. There are also the endless fundraisers (Apple Day, Popcorn sales), all of which make me wonder why Scouts Canada needs so much damn money. I’d rather give this money to charity.

I now attend every meeting, but will not renew my son’s membership in 2010.

Also, I’m looking for a new group that my whole family can participate with. I’d like to join something that acknowledges and explores world cultures without being religious, but more importantly, something that we can join where we learn some basic outdoors skills while also learning how to be responsible about them.

Suggestions?

#21: Darlington Spill

The tritium spill at Darlingon in December 2009 was glossed over by the OPG, Ontario’s government and the general media in an unbelievable wave of simplicity.

We have been told that there’s nothing wrong, but should we believe this?

This story was a small glimpse into the hazards related to the nuclear industry.

Please never install another nuke again. To be honest, I don’t care, but the future of our planet depends on not being so stupid.

#20: Religious Zealots (especially as Political Advisors)

The Toronto Star finally did a tell-all about how people like Charles McVety are effectively controlling policy direction in the Prime Minister’s office. We need more exploration of a similar and more intense nature. We need all Canadians to understand how these people are shaping policy for their own profit and gain, with little regard for the population at large.

No Apologies blog offered a little more detail on the subject.

These issues have reawakened the desire of all Canadians to separate Church and State.

It’s time.

#19: Don Cherry

Canada’s hockey ‘Don’ is a frustrating ‘tour de force’ that perpetuates two things in this country:

I support our troops just as much as I support our doctors, public policy analysts, our nurses, road workers, and the millions of other people in Canada that provide public services to all of us all the while having deficit cuts and public inquiries hanging over their heads.

And hockey violence? I will never enlist my son with hockey so long as nothing is done to curtail hockey violence in Canada. Don Cherry could do something about given his stature as a Canadian commentator with Hockey Night in Canada, but he doesn’t.

Why?

#18: The Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize like I deserve an award for being the first male to give birth. Giving someone an award for something that they promise to do or might do is not the same as rewarding action. The likelihood of this happening, however, is marginal. I think even Obama knows this.

Therefore, the decision to give him the Peace Prize in 2009 is one made in error. Until the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are actually ended and the hundreds of US military installations around the world are untangled from the rubric of local affairs, I’ll insist that the man get the award.

Until then, find someone who is actually doing peaceful things.

#17: Asian Carp

Asian carp – a voracious and destructive breed of fish – threaten to invade the Great Lakes within the next few months to few years and this will spell disaster for the natural environment of these water systems.

The Toronto Star covered the issue recently.

The history:

Asian carp were first brought to Arkansas in 1963 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which wanted a natural way to control aquatic weeds, reducing the need for chemicals. Fish farms brought more carp to function as pond cleaners.

The fish started to escape as early as 1966, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service history. The Asian carp were spread by Mississippi River floods in the 1990s.

Once released, the insatiable fish quickly conquered local rivers and headed north to spawn and eat. Asian carp now dominate many parts of major rivers, including the Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, Columbia and Platte rivers. A survey in an offshoot of the Mississippi River near St. Louis found 97% of the fish were Asian carp.

The other sad part of this story: the Asian Carp represent just one of the more than 150 invasive species to occupy the Great Lakes since the beginning of the 20th century.

#16: The CBC

Yes, the CBC most certainly deserves a unique mention in this year’s list, mainly because the management has done everything it can to grind ‘the mother ship’ into the ground, buy American programming, and regurgitate all of the PR and spin that comes from various spin doctors.

I think they also deserve to be singled out since they made the exceptionally poor decision to join the hordes of corporate shills behind the ‘LocalTVMatters’ campaign. Not only is CBC extremely lacking in local content, but their support gives a level of authenticity to the campaign that it otherwise lacks.

To top it all off, they (through CBC Radio) continue to produce the most abhorrent piece of propaghanda known as Afghanada. It is the bottom of the content barrel and even Goebbels would be proud.

#15: IOC / VANOC

When I was a kid, the Olympics meant a lot to me. It was a brief moment in time when all of the world stopped to cheer on the youngest, strongest, fastest and most talented athletes that we could offer to amateur competition.

Today, the Olympics represent nothing more than a big drain on public coffers, a massive never-ending advertisement, support for repressive regimes (has anyone seen reforms from China yet?) and, worst yet, near-Fascist in the control of information that will come from the Games as they’re played out in February of 2010. And I haven’t even begun to touch the issues related to native land claims.

The latest casualty of censorship and control was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, which refuses to ‘mime’ their performance for the grand opening. Good for them.

I, for one, will not spend a minute watching the Games.

#14: Rupert Murdoch

In 2009, Mr. Murdoch of News Corp and Fox News fame essentially told Google to go screw itself and that all content produced by his companies would be hidden from search engines.

While thinking ‘hey, that would be a good thing, right?’ I also wondered if Mr. Murdoch had read the stock pages recently of his own Wall Street Journal for the list price of Google?

#13: The IMF and World Bank

2008 ended in near-complete financial anarchy. The economies of the world were barely pulled together only because the world’s largest economies and treasuries responded to the clarion call of a number of international institutions, particularly the World Bank and IMF, to generate a massive and unprecedented level of spend from public coffers.

I believe the action taken to encourage economic stability was misdirected in the form of incredibly large bailouts for companies and activities that needed them least of all (the banks and car manufacturers).

The short-term result was unprecedented deficits of all western governments.

The longer-term result: we will see 2010 and beyond be years of incredible slashing and burning of all public institutions.

I predict that anything that we hold dear in Canada – health care, the CBC, a legal system, etc – will be put on the block by Jim Flaherty. The entire array of government-owned property will be sold off at fire-sale prices to finance a fraction of the inappropriate spending on home renovations and tax-free savings accounts for the rich and roads for the mob. In fact, this story will prove to be a scandal of much larger proportion in 2010 than the Ad Scam was, assuming someone has the stones to do something about it.

#12: Dalton McGuinty and Gleb Campbell

The HST will sow the seeds of ruin for both Dalton McGuinty and Glen Campbell. It is Harris downloading at its best and will help the Cons shine while the rest of the country gets mired in political wrangling and the perception that it’s the provincial leaders brining about a tax increase.

Both of these men got screwed by the Cons, but we’re all going to get screwed by downloading.

Thanks for nothing, gents!

#11: Elizabeth May

“Where’s my home?”

Elizabeth May has run in 4 jurisdictions (London North-Centre, Central Nova, possibly Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, and in the next election, the Saanich-Gulf Islands in BC) since being elected leader of the Green Party and she needs to settle down.

Of course, I like Elizabeth. I like her broad knowledge base and ability to cite specific details in relation to environmental issues, legislative challenges and other elements related to her party’s platform. I like her the fact that she seems approachable.

In fact, I think that the Greens should still consider some way to partner with the NDP (despite vast political and ideological viewpoints) and find a way to minimize the destruction that both parties bring to each other at the benefit of the Cons. If they do, it will guarantee that either May or Layton will be top-ranked as Heroes in 2010.

And those are the only reasons why she didn’t get graduated to the Top 10 list of curmudgeons in 2009.

#10: Michaelle Jean

In 2009, Canada’s Governor General proved that the office was redundant and an insult to Canadians. Stephen Harper leveraged the office of the Governor General to prorogue, or effectively cancel the notion of democracy in Canada.

The situation proved that Canada is nothing more than a blob on a map for monarchists to do with as they please.

Thanks for another year of Conservative dictatorship, Michaelle! Thanks.

#9: Alberta’s Tar Sands

I don’t think I’m going to say much about the Tar Sands with the exception of this: Ed Stelmach is right in that we all have Tar Sands muck on our hands. As long as we accept transfers from the Wild Rose state province, we all have to accept responsibility.

#8: 10 Percenters

It used to be that Parliamentarians tried to communicate the wonderful things that they did in the House of Commons using what are called ‘10 Percenters‘. These mass mailings could go to households in other ridings – at no cost to the politician sending them – so long as the distribution did not exceed 10 percent of the households in their own constituency.

This ‘perk’ has proven to be a complete sham and is being abused by every single federal political party in Canada to spread malicious BS about anyone else that is a Parliamentarian.

Will 2010 be the end of the 10 Percenter? Let’s hope so.

#7: The CRTC

During 2009, the CRTC proved to Canadians that it doesn’t have a purpose.

Whether it was rules and regs about Net Neutrality, licensing and copyright issues or policies related to broadcast television, they clearly demonstrated that they are not connected with Canadians, but with the monopoly institutions that lobby the CRTC day and night.

Canadians are being lead to believe that we need things like CanCon or rules related to content programming for our broadcasters. Unfortunately, neither of these or other rules have done little to benefit Canadian artists.

If you feel the same way about the CRTC, call for its demise and support DissolvetheCRTC.ca.

#6: H1N1 ‘Hysteriosis’

The insanity that surrounded H1N1 vaccinations, the clinics, the media and people that were threatening violence if they didn’t get their shots was beyond obscene. All of the actors involved did nothing less than depreciate the human experience in 2009 and they should be ashamed.

2009′s H1N1 mania exceeded the insanity we saw with 2000′s Y2K. It was a mess that was compounded by the media’s inability to apply scrutiny to an awful situation. Moreover, several company did their best to act in their own interest and not with that of the public. It opens up the likelihood that any federal party that promises a public medical research institution will gain credibility with a wide array of Canadians that don’t believe companies should profit from hysteria.

The hidden story with the H1N1 fiasco: it highlighted the ways in which certain privatization zealots would attack Canada’s revered health system. Because private institutions were given medication ahead of public flu shot clinics, many wealthy and powerful Canadians will do their best to continue to get front-of-the-line access like they might at a Lexus dealership.

#5: Canadian Broadcasters

Read this article. It will change your life. Save Local TV, but for what?

The dark side to the whole Canadian broadcast story the past decade or so has been the limitless, reckless overspending – especially by CTV – in order to attain total dominance in the marketplace. CTV has owned the Canadian Top-20 nationally the past decade with its deep line-up of American hits – American Idol, the CSIs, The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, the list goes on and on.

During – and, really, because of – that drive to dominance, the cost of importing American shows skyrocketed. Still, it seemed, no price was too high to keep a potential hit away from arch rival Canwest Global.

…

Now CTV wants you to cover their losses after recklessly overspending on the rights to the Olympic Games. The CTV-Rogers consortium paid a record $153 million U.S. when you include the rights to 2012. It was, some estimate, about $50 million more than CBC was prepared to bid at the time.

Times have changed. The companies that used to race to sponsor Olympic TV – mainly car companies and banks – got in ahead of the broadcasters for bailouts. The grand plan by CTV and Rogers to charge the highest ad rates in Olympic history ran smack into a stiff recession.

So now they’re going for the gold by asking Canadians – also hard-hit by the recession – to reach into their pockets and help them cover their losses.

If overspending was an Olympic event, CTV would win the gold, Global the silver, City the bronze. Don’t get taken for another ride in the KITT car, Canada. Let the buyers beware.

Now … go out and give some money to the folks with Net Neutrality.

Along with the need to abolish the CRTC, we all need to send a signal to our politicians and broadcasters that we’re really not interested in watered-down pablum from the US.

Canadians can produce good content, but you have to let us go.

#4: Jim Flaherty

When this man talks, I have to turn off the radio or TV (although I have to admit that I don’t watch TV much anymore).

I’m left with a single question: did the people in Oshawa not learn their lesson when Flaherty was Michael Harris’ axe-man in the 1990s?

Shortly after Parliament was dissolved for the holidays, ‘Diamond Jim’ crouched over the collective fire pits of millions of Canadians and took a dump on their Christmas by threatening unprecedented cutbacks in public programs in order to finance the growing deficit. This was most likely a tactic done to appease the Conservative base but also avoid any real public scrutiny in the House of Commons. Bold move, Jim. Bold move.

What’s next? Stealing presents from under the tree and ‘taking burned out lightbulbs to repair them there and bring them back here’? When’s the moment when you and Max ride to the top of Mount Crumpet to discover that your heart is three sizes too small? Is there anything that will make your heart grow to normal proportions?

Probably not.

#3: Christie Blatchford

I’ll give her this: blogging in Canada wouldn’t have taken on the relevance that it has in just the last few weeks if Christie Blatchford hadn’t trashed Richard Colvin the way she did.

Her unfortunate acts against Colvin have not only ruined his character, but they’ve damaged the reputation of the Globe and Mail to a point where I believe there will be an internal riot that will ultimately destroy one of Canada’s most influential media institutions.

In fact, I would argue that her acts of bias have pushed the Globe into irrelevance, much like Rupert Murdoch has pushed Fox into a world of ‘Faux News’.

Congratulations!

#2: Stephen Harper

I’m honestly not sure where to start.

Stephen Harper spent 2009 being at the centre of Canada’s rapid descent into last place with pretty much everything on this planet unless, of course, you’re talking about the world’s worst and we’re at the top.

The great thing about Steve is that he’s helped the world of bloggers develop a broad new lexicon to describe him and the Conservatives:

“Harpooned” – anything that gets in Steve’s way gets Harpooned (democracy, Parliament, environment, etc).
“Slippery Steve” – to date, nothing has stuck to Steve, but give it time. You can’t be mired in so much shit and not stink.
“Harpocrisy” – the constant state of saying one thing and doing another (example: destroying the Liberals for their efforts to bring a carbon tax to Canada and then suggesting it might happen here simply because the US might want us to).

#1: Jack Layton

That’s right. I’ve saved Jack Layton for the very end. We all know that Stephen Harper is the most manipulative politician since Macchiavelli himself, and that Michael Ignatieff will continue to lead his party sideways for the rest of 2010 and beyond.

However, Jack Layton deserves the #1 spot for zeroes in 2009 for one simple reason: he helped the Conservatives retain their hold on power in Canada. I think Jack is the ‘friend’ that Stephen is singing about here.

I love the man, but the NDP made a single bad choice in the fall of 2009 by not stepping in to defeat the Conservatives when they could have.

Of course, an election wouldn’t have helped us collectively avoid our shameful disgrace in Copenhagen. However, we could have opened up the books on the Afghanistan detainee issue. We might have even been able to get what Jack wanted (EI reforms) if we simply pushed the Cons over the edge and brought on a new election in Canada.

That’s right: I would have welcomed an election in Canada again so that I could celebrate the fact that I live in a democracy and not in a tempestuous brine of political swill that swallows my sense of pride and dignity when I say I’m Canadian.

Maybe you’ll be reading this Jack and you’ll get the message that if you don’t want to lead, please step out of the way because there are lots of Canadians who believe our country is more than just about political aggrandizement and power grabs.

And if you’re reading this Jack, please take a note from your ‘friend’ and start thinking ahead 4 or 5 steps like Stephen Harper does. I don’t like the man, but I’ll give him this: he and the rest of the Cons are exceptional strategists. If you’re ever going to bring the NDP to power, you have to start thinking ahead instead of having knee-jerk reactions to various ‘turdblossoms’ that the Cons hurl at you because it’s exactly what they want you to do while they work behind the scenes on dismantling this country.

Another consideration (which I mentioned above) is that Jack needs to talk with the Greens. Together, they could come to rule this country if they work out some way to cast aside differences and stop chipping away at each other’s base. If they do, it will surely be an exceptional action worth noting in 2010.

In fact, I believe the future of our depends on it.

Conclusions

I’m sorry about writing such a massive list. However, after several days of effort and a lot of thought, I’m happy with my list, but I know that I missed a thousand examples of people being small, petty and miserable in 2009.

Please share your thoughts about who deserves the crown as a zero in 2009. I look forward to it!

P.S. I expect to have my list of ’2009 Heroes’ polished and published within the next few days.

Local Media Madness

Our national broadcasters and media conglomerates really think we’re idiots, don’t they?

First, they launched savelocaltv.ca. At ‘launch parties’ they had lots of local politicians making speeches and doing their best to get local air/face time.

Then, they launched LocalTVMatters.ca (with a theme song, nonetheless). I think because it had a cute little ditty from Dave Carroll, many people I know dropped their sense of media savvy and said it was time to start supporting this campaign, including a lot of my friends in more left-leaning camps. This is good propoganda that even Goebbels would admire!

Now, they have the StopTheTVTax.ca campaign trying to get us to petition the CRTC to end the fee for carriage charges supported by TV networks that will be levied against the cable and satellite subscribers.

Ugh. Where to start?

How about with the CRTC petition. I went to this page and posted this complaint to the CRTC:

I do not subscribe to cable, nor do I watch a lot of TV so I don’t care about the ‘TV Tax’.

In fact, it should be illegal for large broadcasters and cable companies in this country to use their air time to protest issues that go before the CRTC without giving fair voice to the other parties involved.

If you’re going to eliminate any ‘tax’ or additional fees on services, please reverse your recent decision to allow Bell, Rogers and other ISP companies to increase the cost of accessing the Internet.

If you can’t do that, reconsider your existence, because you’re proving to be very ineffective to average Canadians.

I suggest you do the same. Use content from this post if you don’t like mine.

In fact, I suggest it’s time we Internet users start our own campaign called ‘Pull the Plug’ which would be committed to educating people that it’s OK to cut the cable cord and to use the Internet as your sole media outlet. Such an effort could also be committed to finding ways to improve Internet service in Canada in lieu of expensive and bloated cable and satellite bills.

Next, I suggest you read this article from Clickz.com. The author is exceptionally adept at explaining that producers of mass content have bypassed all of the traditional channels and that broadcasters, print producers and other traditional media companies are f**ked. The term the author uses is ‘implode’.

In other words, it’s inevitable. It’s like a big recession that our MA-in-Economics-holding PM didn’t see coming, but hey folks, we can see this one coming. We’ve been suitably warned so throwing more resources after a dying industry is like spending billions of dollars on useless car companies (oops … we already did that, didn’t we?).

Social platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, WordPress, Facebook and other networks are allowing citizens to produce, share and enjoy any kind of content, regardless of location, access points and without heavy subscriber fees like cable bills. They also facilitate discussion, something we’ve never had with newspapers and TV shows.

Trying to defy this trend shows that these companies would rather bury their heads in the tax trough than push forward with innovative solutions that encourage everyone to participate with the creation of content.

Education and awareness are also central to understanding why the ‘LocalTVMatters’ campaign is a sham. As an aside, to my knowledge, there are no independent media awareness organizations in Canada, but it’s time we had at least one. Several would be better.

Central to this awareness effort would be the notion that Local content (and not TV) DOES matter, but not when it’s in the hands of our not-so-friendly media conglomerates. The educational process might also look at how it was bad business strategy that got our broadcasters where they are (ie. broke), with CTV and CanWest gobbling up local stations for billions of dollars. Such an organization could explore how their intended strategy of streamlining their content and force-feeding us with crap like ‘So You Think You Can Dance (Canada)’ all the while inundating us with Conservative propoganda about how well they’re spending our money has been a complete bust.

As another aside, there’s a critical issue to discuss here: if broadcasters fail (and they will), the Con propoganda machine will fail as well, because all they know is broadcast. They don’t know how to start conversations and they don’t want to because people will poke holes through their crummy economic facade in social forums.

Right now, the Cons are spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on campaigns promoting the ‘Canadian Economic Action Plan’ as an indirect subsidy to these companies. This must end.

We also have to be aware that it is bad business strategy to force local TV stations to convert to digital broadcast. Analogue’s just fine, thank you very much. In fact, analogue is essential to getting a broadcast out to local users who can’t afford cable or who simply don’t want it.

Now, if we really want to do something with local TV, we would demand that all broadcasters, cable and satellite companies and other mass-media outlets allow citizens to generate and promote their own content.

Oh yeah … that’s what YouTube (and Vimeo and other online video services) is for.

It looks like we don’t need TV after all.

Ottawa Looking to Fund Partisan Propaganda

The folks in Ottawa have been dying to figure out an ‘innovative’ way to bail out Canada’s biggest media companies (besides the CBC, of course) without creating a massive voter backlash. With that in mind, another hairbrained scheme has materialized: spending taxpayer money on advertising (story details are pasted below).

The absurdity of this plan is laughable for a number of reasons:

I normally try to avoid programming by Global, CTV or stations that are owned by these conglomerates. A wide array of other Canadians have made a similar choice.
You might as well just burn the cash because spending money on dead air to reach an audience that is gone or declining is nearly as wasteful.
Using advertising to shout at existing watchers translates to paid propaganda. This is morally reprehensible.
Shouting at people with ad breaks and other interruptions is an antiquated mode of communication.

It’s the last point that I want to talk about. We entered a massive transition more than a decade ago when technology made it easy for consumers of content to avoid advertising:

TIVO = avoid TV ads.
DVDs = avoid 20 minutes of previews, along with ads for mobile phones, cars and shoes.
iTunes & CDs = avoid radio ads.
Search = avoid online ads.

A good part of the mess that we’re in today is related to the notion that individuals can now think for themselves rather than have marketers and governments instruct them how to think and what to buy.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped people with large agencies from buying media and placing it with these companies for the Cons, largely in the form of ‘public service announcements’. Our governments have a long history of spending oodles of taxpayer cash to inform us about ‘staying prepared for emergencies’, ‘how to spend your tax credits’, over-produced Department of Defense ads encouraging people to sign up for the reserves, etc.

Add that to the multi-billion funding of programs like the Canadian Film and Video Tax Credit which goes to channels like ‘The History Channel’ so they can show us ‘Red Dawn’ (I guess because fear mongering about Cuba has so much to do with history).

To think that we’re currently void of propaganda is excessively naive, but adding to the pile shows considerable contempt for the people of Canada.

=========================

Source: Globe and Mail

BRIAN LAGHI

The Globe and Mail

April 14, 2009 at 6:53 PM EDT

OTTAWA — Ottawa has a new option on the table for helping local TV stations make it through the recession: buy more government ads.

The idea, which is under discussion at the cabinet’s powerful committee on priorities and planning, is seen as a way to replace private advertising revenue that has fled since the onset of the financial crisis, a source told The Globe and Mail.

“In the short term, the most efficient way to get money out to broadcasters might be through advertising, because that’s where the initial loss was,” said the source.

“That’s where things have gone.”

Although a good number of MPs and cabinet ministers support help for the industry, the question of how best to deliver it is the subject of significant discussion. The government has talked about shelling out between $150-million and $75-million this year and $75-million next year in an effort to get money into the hands of the broadcasters quickly. However, some MPs are concerned that funnelling money directly to the broadcasters would not do much to prevent cuts. At least the government could benefit from the ads.

CanWest, CTVglobemedia and Quebecor have been lobbying the government for help as some of them consider closing or selling stations.

The broadcasters are looking for both short- and long-term aid as they battle to keep local stations and programming. Some MPs fear that the loss of local stations would rob them of a way to deliver their message to voters. It’s of particular concern to MPs representing rural areas and small towns, where communications outlets are fewer.

Simply providing more ad money won’t resolve broadcasters’ larger, structural problem, one industry source said. Revenues have been reduced through fragmenting of the market and competition from specialty cable networks and the Internet.

Another option to aid the broadcasters would be for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to allow cable companies to charge for transmitting their signals.

The companies have warned that at least part of such charges, known as fee-for-carriage, would be passed on to consumers, making the issue potentially difficult for the governing Tories.

“That’s becoming a bit more popular within the government, although there are points of reservation, to be sure,” said the source.

“But people recognize if they want to have their local television, there are structural issues that have to be dealt with.”

The concept of fee for carriage is expected to come up when industry players appear before the House of Commons heritage committee. The government could direct the CRTC to review the issue, or it could decide to look at it on its own. The CRTC could also consider reducing or removing certain fees broadcasters pay to the government.

It’s not clear whether the ad-buying idea would also apply to the CBC. The public broadcaster is planning 800 layoffs to cope with a $170-million shortfall.

Net Neutrality Video – Please Share With Friends

A lot of Canadians are relatively unaware of the issues associated with what’s called ‘Net Neutrality’. In the last election, the only party that even dared make it a modest political issue was the NDP. If the Liberals are seeking ways to get Canadians on board with their new leader, this would be a great issue to support. It’s a seemingly small issue, but it would differentiate themselves from the Conservatives, something they’ll desparately need in the coming months. Universal support for Net Neutrality would also ensure that we take action against Canada’s largest media companies and their poor Internet management habits.

For those who are unfamiliar with the issue, this video explains a lot of the concerns raised by SaveOurNet.ca :

A neutral Internet acknowledges that the world of media and content creation has changed. Significantly.

The last decade has seen a shift in the ability to influence the public. We’ve seen mainstream media lose its grip on control of our ‘mindshare’ as individuals have gladly leveraged the tools at hand to create content and send messages to the public that are inconsistent with those of Bell, Rogers, Videotron and others.

With content creation (and ownership), comes the power to influence the markets through advertising and mass appeal. Now that companies like Bell and Canwest no longer control the content – either from their own ‘pundits’ or from corporations selling us more ‘stuff’ – they no longer control the message either. They have lost the ability to ‘massage’ people into following specific agendas and this is the central reason why net neutrality is so important to average Canadians (and people all over the planet, for that matter).

Another important element related to net neutrality is the notion of innovation and ecommerce. It may sound like a severe statement, but the two will not survive without a neutral net. Innovation – and a lot of new wealth creation – in the last decade or so has come in the form of new web sites selling unique products and services to Canadians. Many of these sites and services help Canadians bypass inefficient structures like big box retailers and those that don’t believe in basic principles like fair trade and environmentally friendly product development. For the same reason, the future of ecommerce in Canada relies on net neutrality. Forcing Canadians into single channels of consumption (be it for content, products or anything else) is undemocratic to say the least, but more importantly, it strangles the ability of Canadians to launch their own businesses in the online environment.

It’s this latter notion that should inspire ALL Canadian entrpreneurs that rely on the Internet for their web sites, their blogs and their online stores to support a cause like SaveOurNet.ca. If you profit from the web, please consider giving a small portion of that profit to SaveOurNet.ca (I’m not sure if similar organizations exist in Canada – this is the main one that I’m familiar with).

With so many people balking at the notion of leaving regulation and control to the government – which is at the very least elected by the people of this country – I’m always stunned to see that the alternative is to leave our future in the hands of a select few that only want to shout at us and sell more crap.

Broadband Tax?

The RIAA has recently settled a number of actions related to DRM issues. However, don’t expect them to stop. This blog has pointed out (and rightly so) that we should expect the RIAA to start to lobby the US government to impose a blanket broadband tax to penalize everyone for pirates.

A similar thing was tried by the Canadian version of the RIAA. Here’s a Slashdot story (there are some great discussions there and are worth reading). Given that it was as late as Dec 2008, it’s obvious that SOCAN and ACTRA are still trying to make this work. By the way, the core info source for all of this is Michael Geist .

I’m opposed to this kind of measure. Once you agree to a tax on broadband use for the music industry, you immediate suffocate the use of the web. More importantly, you provide precedent for every other whiner to say, ‘hey, I’m losing money to because of that damn interweb thingy. Where do I line up for my hand out?’ Video game producers. TV shows. Music companies. Journalists. Newspaper publishers. Thousands of other organizations will be knocking on the doors of government expecting a handout.

Let’s talk about the real issue for a moment. All of the major publishers of content are suffering because people aren’t paying attention to them any more. Whether you’re a big label selling new pop ‘idols’ or a newspaper or TV network that’s censoring important news, you’re suffering because you can’t shape opinion as easily as you used to. This sucks for these folks because they’re no longer able to manipulate the public the way they want to.

So they lobby to have the Internet ‘shaped’.

The emergence of digital media as competition to analog thinking is a massive issue and will have an impact on how all of us use the Internet. Copyright rules and content control are superficial arguments for keeping the cash-flow strong with Canada’s mainstream media. We already see it with restrictions on access to sites like Hulu in order to appease the CTVs and Global’s of the world and we’ll see much, much more in the future.

One day, the RIAA, SOCAN and other publishers will realize that the gig is up and that they should try to find a different way to play with the public.

Until they do, I maintain that it’s really important that we all find ways to boycott traditional media outlets (and spread the word).

Last dig: if we’re going to have a tax on anything, let’s start with a decent carbon tax, OK?

The Power of the Internet and the End of Rovian Politics

This is an inspirational piece . I read it with glee. Before reading below, here’s a great example of what Ms. Huffington is talking about.

Here are some of the details:

Thanks to YouTube — and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails — it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed.

But the McCain campaign hasn’t gotten the message, hence the blizzard of racist, alarmist, xenophobic, innuendo-laden accusations being splattered at Obama.

And it seems that the worse McCain is doing in the polls, the more his team is relying on the same gutter tactics. So over the next 15 days, look for the McCain campaign to become even uglier. That’s what happens when following Rovian politics is your only strategy — and Rovian politics isn’t working.

McCain has stockpiled his campaign with Rove henchmen, including not one but three of the people responsible for the political mugging inflicted on him in 2000.

Just last week he brought on Warren Tompkins in an "unofficial" capacity to see how receptive North Carolina would be to some Rovian slime. After all, it’s right next door to South Carolina, where in 2000 Tomkins and his buddies in the Bush campaign spread race-baiting rumors about McCain having an illegitimate black daughter (referring to McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget).

And those disgraceful robo-calls that McCain is running ? They were done with the help of Jeff Larson and his firm FLS-Connect — the same firm that created the robo-calls smearing McCain in 2000.

At the time, McCain’s reaction to the attacks on him was: "I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like these."

His reaction now? I have a special place in my campaign for people like these!

So the Karl Rove specials keep coming. Obama and Ayers. Obama the Socialist. Obama and ACORN "destroying the fabric of democracy." Palin (herself the manifestation of Rovian decision-making) delineating which parts of "this great nation of ours" are "pro-American." (Interestingly, the sites of the 9/11 attacks didn’t make the list.)

And, did you hear, Obama is also… black! And he wants to give your money to all the poor black people! McCain didn’t come right out and say that, but it’s surely what he insinuated in his radio address this weekend: "Barack Obama’s tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency." Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling, Richard Nixon’s southern strategy is waxing nostalgic, and John McCain’s missing moral compass is getting steamed about John Lewis’ evocation of the civil rights struggle.

But there is a diamond amidst all this dung: the lack of traction this Rovian politics is getting. It’s as if Rove and his political arsonists keep lighting fires, only to see them doused by the powerful information spray the Internet has made possible.

The Internet has enabled the public to get to know candidates in a much fuller and more intimate way than in the old days (i.e. four years ago), when voters got to know them largely through 30-second campaign ads and quick sound bites chosen by TV news producers.

Compare that to the way over 6 million viewers (on YouTube alone) were able to watch the entirety of Obama’s 37-minute speech on race — or the thousands of other videos posted by the campaign and its supporters.

Back in the Dark Ages of 2004, when YouTube (and HuffPost, for that matter) didn’t exist, a campaign could tell a brazen lie, and the media might call them on it. But if they kept repeating the lie again and again and again, the media would eventually let it go (see the Swiftboating of John Kerry). Traditional media like moving on to the next shiny thing. But bloggers love revisiting a story. So when Palin kept repeating her bridge to nowhere lie, bloggers kept calling her on it. Andrew Sullivan, for one, has made a cottage industry of calling Palin on her lies. And eventually, the truth filtered up and cost McCain credibility with his true base: journalists.

The Internet may make it easier to disseminate character smears, but it also makes it much less likely that these smears will stick.

As a result, the McCain campaign’s insinuation-laden "Who is Barack Obama?" was rendered more comical than spooky. Who is Barack Obama? The guy we’ve been watching over and over and over during the last two years. We’ve seen him. We know him. And we can remind ourselves about him with a quick Google search and a mouse click.

Obama "has shown the same untroubled self-confidence day after day," and "over the past two years, Obama has clearly worn well with voters." Those are the words of David Brooks, who has gotten to know Obama just like the rest of us.

Four years ago, McCain’s Rovian race-based appeals to our darker demons might have worked. This year, they are blowing up in McCain’s face. And in the face of the entire GOP.

Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama as "a transformational figure" was powerful. But even more powerful was his withering indictment of the state of the Republican Party and the cancer of Rovian politics.

It was similar to the diagnosis of Christopher Buckley following his endorsement of Obama: "To paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan, I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me."

There are many other anti-Rove Republicans abandoning their party. I’ve had several Republican friends tell me privately what Powell and Buckley told the world publicly: that they’re voting for Obama. Most of them not because they like Obama, but because they can’t stand what Bush, Rove and now McCain and Palin have done to their party.

Rovian politics may or may not end up destroying the GOP. But, thanks to the Internet, with a bit of luck it will no longer have the power to befoul our democracy.

One thing that Adriana Huffington is exceptionally humble about is, of course, the rise of independent media in North America. Without the rise of sites like the Huffington post, rabble, The Tyee and others, we’d still be relying on political-profiteering bull crap from CTV, CNN, FOX and the small handful of broadcasters that say they aren’t political and then at the 11th hour, endorse certain Conservative politicians.

Dan Rather Slams Corporate Media

At the National Conference for Media Reform held last week in Minneapolis, Dan Rather unleashed some rather unfriendly (and well deserved) feedback on the state of news reporting in the US (and, by extrapolation, the rest of the world).

Full story here.

These were some of my favourite quotes:

In the wake of 9/11 and in the run-up to Iraq, these news organizations made a decision — consciously or unconsciously, but unquestionably in a climate of fear — to accept the overall narrative frame given them by the White House, a narrative that went like this: Saddam Hussein, brutal dictator, harbored weapons of mass destruction and, because of his supposed links to al Qaeda, this could not be tolerated in a post-9/11 world.

In the news and on the news, one could, to be sure, find persons and views that did not agree with all or parts of this official narrative. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, comes to mind as an example. But the burden of proof, implicitly or explicitly, was put on these dissenting views and persons… the burden of proof was not put on an administration that was demonstrably moving towards a large-scale military action that would represent a break with American precedent and stated policy of how, when, and under what circumstances this nation goes to war.

So with this in mind, we look back to the corner of our screen where the White House Press Corps is asking their questions. I have been a White House correspondent myself, and I have worked with some of the best in the business. You have an incentive, when you are in that briefing room, to ask the good, tough questions: If nothing else, that is how you get in the paper, or on the air. There is more to it than that, and things have changed since I was a White House correspondent — something I want to talk about in a minute. But the correspondents — the really good ones — these correspondents ask their tough questions.

And these questions are met with what is now called, euphemistically and much too kindly, what is now called “message discipline.”

Well, we used to have a better and more accurate term for “message discipline.” We called it “stonewalling.”

…

America’s biggest, most important news organizations have, over the past 25 years, fallen prey to merger after merger, acquisition after acquisition… to the point where they are, now, tiny parts of immeasurably larger corporate entities — entities whose primary business often has nothing to do with news. Entities that may, at any given time, have literally hundreds of regulatory issues before multiple arms of the government concerning a vast array of business interests.

These are entities that, as publicly-held and traded corporations, have as their overall, reigning mandate: Provide a return on shareholder value. Increase profits. And not over time, not over the long haul, but quarterly.

One might ask just where the news fits into this model. And if you really need an answer, you can turn on your television, where you will see the following:

Political analysis reduced to in-studio shouting matches between partisans armed with little more than the day’s talking points.

Precious time and resources wasted on so-called human-interest stories, celebrity fluff, sensationalist trials, and gossip.

A proliferation of “news you can use” that amounts to thinly-disguised press releases for the latest consumer products.

And, though this doesn’t get said enough, local news, which is where most Americans get their news, that seems not to change no matter what town or what city you’re in… so slavish is its adherence to the “happy talk” formula and the dictum that, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Traffic Throttling Bell Canada Opens Online Video Store

Bell has made efforts to reassure Canadians that their throttling strategy is in no way linked to any other business strategies.

Their goal is to take the high road and reduce the volume of spammers, P2P thieves and so on.

This article takes issue with that perspective and offers a different angle on Bell’s general strategy.

Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Category Archives: Internet