March 30, 2011

MayDay 2011: Shut up. Democracy Belongs to the ‘Media Consortium’

By admin

In the early days of May Day 2011 (Canada’s 2011 Election), Canada’s media is doing a massive disservice to Canadian voters by asking the following questions with moronic levels of reptition:

  • Do we really need an election, especially when it costs so much?
  • What if we don’t get a majority?
  • Will it just be endless coalition talk amongst the opposition parties?

For the record, these are stupid questions and it’s essential that we all remind the media just what an insult they are.

Here are some sample responses:

  • Why does the election cost $300 million?  Who’s making $300 million to tally Canadian votes and why are they getting so damn rich off our democratic right to vote?
  • How come we can’t have more elections?  If we cancel the jet order ($30 billion and counting), we can have 100 elections and break even.  I’m all for that idea.
  • I’d much rather have a minority of parties that I can trust – including the Bloc – instead of the crooks that were in charge as of last Friday.  If Ignatieff didn’t pull the plug on Harper, he’d still be destroying the fundamental building blocks of this country.  Diplomacy wins out over dictatorship.

And now, to kick sand in the collective eyes of Canadians, Elizabeth May is being blocked from all public debate by the ‘Media Consortium’.  George Orwell couldn’t have created a better term to describe the control that the 5-6 media conglomerates have over our lives.

With all of this in mind, Canada desperately needs media reform before we need democratic reform.  Preferably by May 2, but I’ll take it after that date as well.

Yes, you’ve read correctly.

The media in Canada is controlled and it is loaded with people that are incapable of asking tough questions, particularly to the crooks and cheats that run the Conservative Party of Canada.

We need an unMedia consortium that would allow all leaders to post responses to specific questions generated by the public.  If you need to explore the question ‘why’ in a little more detail, please read this post by Global Research that speaks to the issues surrounding media and message control.

Here are a couple of tidbits from this article:

Two of the most “esteemed” sources of news in the U.S. are the New York Times (referred to as “the paper of record”) and the Washington Post. The New York Times has on its board people who are past or presently affiliated with: Schering-Plough International (pharmaceuticals), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chevron Corporation, Wesco Financial Corporation, Kohlberg & Company, The Charles Schwab Corporation, eBay Inc., Xerox, IBM, Ford Motor Company, Eli Lilly & Company, among others. Hardly a bastion of impartiality.

And the same could be said for the Washington Post, which has on its board: Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Warren Buffett, billionaire financial investor, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; and individuals associated with (past or presently): the Coca-Cola Company, New York University, Conservation International, the Council on Foreign Relations, Xerox, Catalyst, Johnson & Johnson, Target Corporation, RAND Corporation, General Motors, and the Business Council, among others.

Voters don’t have a hope in hell of standing up with a collective voice against these kind of forces because we’re fragmented and they want us to remain that way. They’re consolidated and THEY want to remain that way.

It’s not in the best interest of the corporations that run our lives to do anything but shift discussions away from relevant issues like ‘corruption’ and ‘contempt’ and into areas like ‘coalition’ and ‘need for an election’.

As you try to make up your mind about voting, Independent Media has a comprehensive list of publishers and sites that will bring objective reporting to the Canadian election.

Also, AdBusters and its readers have compiled a list of alternative media publications that might be of interest.

Please post your thoughts below on other alternative publications that we should all be paying attention, not just during the election, but afterwards as well.