Category Archives: Media

We Need to Prepare for Those Worse Than Trump

 

It’s one thing to lower the bar, but with Trump, someone pulled out the jackhammer and has dug through the floor.

Donald Trump Went On A Baffling 3AM Twitter Rant About Sex Tapes ...But let’s not assume that Trump is the low ebb or an aberration. He signifies another level altogether of political contempt.

Politicians have a sense of entitlement and natural objection to transparency and accountability, having spent generations rigging the system to let them slide easily into power. Add in rich, white and male entitlements and we see the majority of politicians more than doubling down on arrogance.

But we can’t just presume things will get better after Trump.

  1. He has established a new realm of political behaviour that will allow equally or more repulsive and anti-social miscreants to seek their populist masses to champion.
  2. Current contemptuous politicians will see new capacity to dig even further into the slime in the political culture of their region.
  3. Politicians with integrity will find even more competitors dealing in abject lies which will increasingly go unchecked by corporate media that has been whipped into submission/irrelevance by the brashness of lying politicians and the self-immolating corporate media and their brand new level of apathy towards to truth and fact-checking all to serve the profitability of the corporate media owners’ agenda to serve the interests of their political compradors.

Solutions!

  1. We need to support media with integrity. Don’t expect this to come from corporate media. Look for independent media and amplify their voices. Remember, it was CANADALAND that broke the Jian Ghomeshi debacle.
  2. Use your own personal social networks to share information critical for participating in our civic duty. Not Facebook posts which must meet the elements of their fancy algorithms to even reach your people, try email or text messages or cocktail parties [we should have more of these] or brunches or phone calls to talk about life. And include political truths your people need to know. You don’t have to BECOME the media, you just need to amplify the positive messages.
  3. Next, go directly to political parties’/candidates’ websites to see where they really stand and what they’re saying in particular and in context. Amplify that, criticize that, augment that, demand better policy than that. The same goes for the contemptuous politicians: read their policy, compare it with what they say, and note the contradictions.
  4. Remember, you and me and all of us are the employers of these politicians. They constantly try to encourage us to obey them. This is nonsense. We need to resist that abusive stance and recognize our own power.
  5. Bernie Sanders almost became the Democratic nominee for president. He did that despite the successful work of corporate media and the Clinton/Party coalition to shut down and censor his message. Once he lost the California primary, the Democracy for America movement mobilized to nominate progressive Senate and House candidates. Controlling/influencing Congress could be a powerful element in fixing America. You will encounter people of integrity and vision who could lead us, not necessarily as elected leaders, but mobilizers who can help liberate us all from our pasty, weak democracy and the rise of soft fascism.

Get busy, and don’t be afraid.

And plan a cocktail party!

Update, and a new solution:

Read this #FacePalm piece, and look at this:

trumpeducation

 

When Misogynists Are So Bold, They Skip Anonymity

The state of backlash against feminism has become newly bold. Likely because feminists are gaining traction in society, so men are doubling down on their fight to keep their sick entitlements.

The fact that most of the guys hurling the abuse used their real names, showing a passion and conviction in their argument that’s not there with anonymous comments, is unsettling and shows the depth of their misogyny. I don’t think they even realize it’s there.

Click the Tara Bradbury quote above, read the article, and boldly declare your feminism! In any way you like. In person, at coffee shops, at work, in social media, on patios. Whatever. Be the change!

The DNC Superdelegates Can Fix Party Corruption This Week

superdelegatesIn case you missed it, Clinton and the DNC are corrupt, and have been for a long time. They and their media partners have worked hard to keep Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

And still, he almost won in the primaries and caucuses. What could he have accomplished if the DNC wasn’t corrupt. How much earlier would he have become the presumptive nominee if the media gave him more than a tiny fraction of coverage compared to what Clinton received.

And what about those anti-democratic superdelegates, many of whom had sided with Clinton before anyone else had even started a campaign?

It turns out that the superdelegates are in a unique positions to fix the corruption of the Democratic Party by switching their choice to Sanders.

How? It’s easy. Look at the math in the graphic above, sourced just today.

Sanders already has 47 superdelegates. He needs 504 of Clinton’s 604 superdelegates to flip to him to win the nomination.

So the “how” isn’t the problem. The problem is the “why.”

These superdelegates are in that position because they’re loyal to the DNC and its cabal of operators and insiders. THEY are embedded in the corruption of the party itself, and their inherent anti-democratic status just reinforces that.

So why would they throw their political masters under the bus?

  1. Trump’s convention bump is massive. And disturbing. But it does reinforce the view that Americans are sick of corrupt, rigged, insider politics. Unfortunately, they see Trump as the one to burn down that house, as opposed to Sanders who could help rebuild America and democracy differently from how Trump would. Check out Turkey this month to see how Trump would wield power.
  2. Clinton dodged an indictment on her email server scandal, but her trustworthiness continues to suffer, especially among key demographics. The leaked emails only reinforce how she likes to cheat. And the party does too: serious credibility and legitimacy problem.
  3. Trump now polls ahead of Clinton. Sanders polled further ahead of Trump than Clinton did.
  4. If the DNC crisis inflames further this week, perhaps with more Wikileaks emails, the “party establishment” may have to call in more fire trucks to put out the fire, right up to throwing Clinton under the bus. They would do that by making the superdelegates flip to Sanders.
  5. If the Democrats are betting that people vote for Clinton to keep Trump from winning, they’re seeing that as every hour goes by, that hope is transforming into delusion. It’s no empty threat that people will vote Trump because Clinton and the DNC are so corrupt.

The party may figure this all out. If they feel the pressure enough this week, and they can see a strongly credible route to defeat by Trump, even Clinton is expendable.

Remember, political parties want power more than anything else. Even a Sanders Democratic presidency would allow the people really in charge of the DNC to control the country.

And in the end, they want it not because they can’t stand Trump. They want it because they want power, with whatever horse can get them across the finish line.

And here’s your Easter Egg: the DNC’s non-apology apology. So galling.

On Tuesday, Corporate Media Played You. Did You Catch It?

Is this from the movie" UP " awesome :3 I miss those days (\o|o/) Lawl ...Which was the most important news story on Tuesday this week? And which news story was overshadowed by corporate media coverage of the other 3?

  1. Donald Trump was officially nominated and elected as the Republican candidate for president, despite attempts to derail that surreal event.
  2. Donald Trump’s wife plagiarized Michelle Obama in her speech.
  3. There was something going on between Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. I still don’t know what. And no, I won’t seek a link for this. Please.
  4. And the soon to be big[ger] story that Mrs. Trump Rickrolled the Republican convention and the country.

The answer to both questions, obviously[?], is #1.

But the media pointed out some squirrels with which to distract us from the torturous reality that a major American political party is in such a state of delusion that Mr. Trump is their gift to the White House.

This is something we should all be debating and planning to avert! But we can’t if the Kanye/Kim/Taylor/Melania show is on.

So. Did you catch it? Or did corporate media get you again on Tuesday? If you caught it, you are allowed to like us in the Facebook.

Spoiler: yesterday we learned that Trump thinks the president’s job is to Make America Great Again while letting his vice-president take care of domestic and international policy. It’s now the Texas Bush-Cheney Chainsaw Massacre, Part Deux!

Oh. And here’s your Easter Egg.

Spring: the Season of Sexism and Dress Codes

Over the years we have written about sexist school and sports dress codes.

But since it’s spring, we should expect a great deal of attention in the non-progressive media to what is either inappropriately dressed teen girls, or the increasingly less subtle slutshaming and sexism that we heap on women.

Sydney Bear
Sydney Bear, 14, is calling into question a dress code at her school that she says objectifies young women. (CBC)

This year’s keynote is from Manitoba, where schools are once again covering up the girls because of boy hormones.

We know this idiotic school behaviour needs to stop, but I read the CBC comments section anyway. Mistake.

The most bothersome on the first screen [I declined to click NEXT] is this full-bloom piece of fail:

I find it very hard to take seriously a fourteen year old girl who says, “as a feminist…”

Frankly, if your kids aren’t feminists BY the age of 14, you need to step up your game.

And for those of you at home keeping count, I’ve now trashed 14 sickly misogynist comments on this year’s Ghomeshi and IWD posts. Start your own blogs you sickos; you won’t pollute this one with your filth!

It’s time to have discussions in our families, schools, community and nation about consent and respecting others. Can you imagine if we lived in a country where consent were an actual norm, would we be dealing with the width of shoulder straps?

Permanent Delusion, Rex Murphy and Rob Ford

I can’t watch this. I can’t.

Rex Murphy’s ode to Rob Ford includes this quote:

“Mr. Ford was one of the most remarkable ordinary people Toronto has ever produced.”

Here’s another perspective; you decide:

To create and solidify their base, Ford and his backers used a strategy that has proven successful elsewhere. It is a strategy that worked well, at least for a time, for George W Bush, for instance: playing up a persona that people make a personal connection with. Let’s call it the blue-collar-lunch pail-millionaire phenomenon — a persona ironically co-opted by men who never worked a blue collar job in their lives. But it conveniently divided and conquered to send Ford to the Mayor’s seat. It pitted the so-called “elite” — the intellectuals, the artists, the environmentalists, even the unionists — against the other supposed “ordinary” citizens of the Greater Toronto Area. Downtown versus the ‘burbs.

Source: Rob Ford and the blue-collar-millionaire myth | rabble.ca

If Beyonce…

If Beyoncé could do THAT at the Superbowl, what could happen at the oh, so white Oscars?

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Sanders’ Iowa “Win” and Clinton’s Entitlement

Clinton breathed a sigh of relief and spun the result: thanks for the “win.”

Source: From Iowa to New Hampshire: Latest Updates on 2016

This was no win. Despite the massive corporate media campaign to ignore Sanders, he did exceptionally well because he resonates with actual people.

Democratic Results in Iowa »

  Pct. Delegates
 Hillary Clinton
49.9% 22
Bernie Sanders
49.6 21
Martin O’Malley 0.6

If Clinton were to switch back to the Republican Party right now, I’m sure she’d win the White House easily. But being the corporate candidate in a leftward drifting Democratic Party, she has everything to lose.

With Sanders’ lead in NH polling, a win there may cripple the Clinton campaign.

By the way, have you read Michael Moore’s endorsement of Sanders yet? There’s a great image that explains how Clinton loses, if she does.

And a special note for Canadians…A Sanders presidency is the best hope we have of scuttling the TPP for Canada!

d3546c23-7099-49a0-b38b-881a84f11110

 

Harper’s Campaign Against a Mythical Netflix Tax Backfires, Badly

Check out our savvy PM, getting all hashtaggy on us all!

But to quote Mr. Layton from 2011, it’s become a #Fail, or, “Hashtag-Fail” if you will.

You see, our PM has decided to say that others want to bring in a Netflix Tax.  So he opposed it. But he just made that up.

And now social media is punishing him. With the aplomb we’ve come to expect…remember #TellVicEverything?

Try the trending #NoNetflixTax to see what people are doing to our lying PM.

Some unlucky social media intern is going to get heinously fired for this!

And, because FUN, there’s a new hashtag game called #HarperANetflixShow.

https://twitter.com/PatOndabak/status/629135939508441089

And you’d think the PM would be more careful with the blindfold and the loaded semi-automatic pistol that is social media. I mean, it’s not like there’s a leader’s debate tonight or anything…oh wait!

What could possibly go wrong?

But wait, there’s more!

What got me doing a little Cape Breton jig last night was the possibility that Harper’s plan to call such a long election campaign has dissolved parliament in such a fashion that he may be required to testify to whatever he really did in the Mike Duffy bribery scandal!

It’s like Christmas in July, and not in a Pierre Poilievre way!

Enjoy the debate tonight!

11 Weeks of Daily Harper Protests

The Harper Re-election Disaster Bus Totalitarianism: daily, for 11 weeks!

Get used to this.

People hate Harper and his Conservatives. We will see through his weak attempt to wedge oppositions parties by running a long election campaign because he has more money to spend.

Saturation will come fast.

We will remember how much contempt he holds for people and democracy.

We will listen to his 5 non-answers to 5 media questions each day and we will be constantly reminded of how much we can’t stand what he has done to Canada.

And we will see this. Every day: