Tag Archives: TV

If Money Buys Things and Minds

Posted on by John Klein

You can find no shortage of angry Conservatives who are absolutely livid with the Prime Minister or Rachel Notley for not yet expanding a pipeline to the BC coast from Alberta. Why did they get so mad, and who paid for them to think this way?

There’s a BC “researcher” who claims it was because of a few million dollars gifted to Canadian charities from outside of Canada that swayed public opinion against new pipelines just enough to delay them. That might be possible, if money changes minds, and I think money absolutely can change minds.

So if you accept that money changes minds, how do you explain the minds changed by this money:

Remember, a billion dollars is a 1000 times more than a million. A trillion is a thousand times more than a billion.

If media is spreading this sort of public opinion, then who has the facts upon which we can make good, rational decisions? CBC?

Mansbridge, Murphy, Mesley, Cherry
What do they have in common?
CBC.
What else? They’ve all either supported climate change Denialism, or outright subscribe to that and have used their massive platforms to push it onto unwitting Canadians.

Who do I turn to for rational analysis of energy and economy news? CBC (surprising eh?), National Observer, Walking Eagle News. I threw that last one in there to see if you’re paying attention. Where do I not look? Financial Post (Postmedia), Sun (Postmedia), Leader-Post (Postmedia)… are you seeing a trend here?

A Little Humour Too Much For The White House Press

Posted on by John Klein

The WHCD has always included a roast, so long as I can remember back to the W Bush years. Colbert’s roast of Bush is among my most favourite moments in history.

Anyway, Michelle Wolf did a great job of holding truth to power in a funny way, and some in the Press are having none of it. One wants a “singed” roast, but not too burnt. Well sorry, but if the media was roasting the crooked politicians like their jobs dictate, then comedians could stick to the simple light roasts.

Nazis Ruling News Cycle In USA

Posted on by John Klein
The “loons” on the right wing really stuck their foot in their mouths this week, so better balance things out so they don’t seem so violent and crazy by bringing up some possibly comparable event from years ago on the left wing. Main stream media continually proves it’s unwilling to be a reasonable adjudicator of the truth. Simply condemn the violent and idiotic rhetoric of the Conservatives, and if you need context, please find a better analogy.
· Dec 7, 2016 1:55pm

That was my response to the Leader-Post’s Columnist Murray Mandryk’s “Left or right, wingnuts unwelcome” #BothSides column last year. I saw it as a tepid defense of Rebel and Conservative Party wingnuts, by saying “What About” the radical left wing?

His comments on Twitter in the past days have been far more blunt as it’s become mainstream to call The Rebel out for its naked hatred.

Let’s At Least Do What The Premier Wants/Wanted

Posted on by John Klein

“Saskatchewan will choose what we call a tech fund approach, where we have levies for those who emit, but the levies stay in our province, and again companies can apply to that fund that’s created, to that technology fund to do something about the problem. If I may, we prefer that over Cap and Trade, which seems to be to us to be more like a general tax that may fund other government activities, but not get us any closer to the answers around sustainable energy by funding new technologies.”

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2017 Tobacco Company Ad-buy For YouTube

Posted on by John Klein

My YouTube viewing on TV was interrupted by an ad. I uncharacteristically watched it because it seemed political. It was an astroturf ad by what looked like JTI-Macdonald Corp. in the disclaimer flashed at the end of the ad, and it had a spiky haired older guy going by “Mike” (I think), who said he quit smoking on his own (unlikely, but that’s what Tobacco companies want you to believe is possible), and plain packaging is the government interfering in personal decisions. And the result, he claimed, is that illegal tobacco trade will only increase, which is at least six year old nonsense, of course. He wanted people to visit his website to write MPs and Senators.

Laughably, their Twitter bio states:

“We don’t advertise or promote our tobacco brands.”

I thought I’d mention this, since others may see the ad where JTI are surreptitiously arguing they should have the right to promote their tobacco brands. The intention is for people to not realize it’s paid for by Big Tobacco, but shot to look like a home video by a wealthy-libertarian/concerned former smoker.

This is another ad by the same astroturf campaign:

bothsidesoftheargument[dot]ca/open-fact-based-discussion-7

Yep, JTI is going to need all the money they have, for the lawsuits against tobacco companies.

Can we stamp out the tobacco threat to our health? Can we convince Regina to catch up to other municipalities?

#JeffWeCan!

First tweet was at the end of August:

bothsides-tobacco-astroturf

In conclusion, why is Big Tobacco fighting plain packaging?

Trudeau’s Broken Reform Promise

Posted on by John Klein

At the Parliamentary Committee I spoke at, I told Nathan Cullen I was disappointed he wasn’t running for the NDP leadership.

Global really holds the Liberals feet to the fire in this report.

“Trudeau says consultations have made it clear that Canadians are not interested in a new electoral system.”

Here’s that video, with me and others commenting. Minister Goodale wasn’t available for comment, apparently.

Look At Who They Leap

Posted on by John Klein

“Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries” – NYT

What are we going to do about it? Let’s pillory the people with the only plan capable of decarbonizing the economy in time, says Canadian MainStream[Corporate]Media.

“Naomi Klein and the usual cadre of left-wing reliables want the NDP to ..” – National Post

Looking at the issue with a longer view, you’ll come to realize Engler’s opinion must win over the ad hominem attacks on Leap supporters.

Across Canada for the past three days the right wing media has been attacking the NDP for passing a resolution agreeing to “discuss” over the next two years the Leap Manifesto, a common sense document that calls for taking global warming seriously, actually doing what is necessary to prevent our planet from being cooked and trying to create a better world while we attempt to ensure our collective survival.

“These ideas will never form any part of our policy,” Notley said Monday. “They are naive, they are ill-informed, and they are tone-deaf.” – Notley in CBC

“Her Environment Minister, Shannon Phillips, called the document “ungenerous” and “short-sighted.” – Glib and Male

Short-sighted? Seriously!? What sort of environment minister thinks planning for a quick end to fossil fuel use is “short-sighted”? (One that is tone deaf, and forced to speak in short quips to minimize partisan twisting, I suppose.) Anyone with a long view realizes if we don’t build carbon-free systems right now, this decade, we’ve little chance of maintaining a climate responsible for supporting our civilization and countless species.

Lewis said jobs in the green economy can be created faster and in greater numbers than those in oil and gas.

“I think we as a Canadian family, we’re slipping into these deeply divisive ways of talking about these eternal tensions instead of focusing on what we can build together,” he said.

“And I think we could build new jobs in new industries for 10 years, put hundreds of thousands of people back to work across the country, before we need to have this … divisive debate about pipelines.”

Trusty Sun:

[…] many members of the federal NDP would like to adopt Naomi Klein’s Leap Manifesto at their convention.

This raises the question of whether many of them have read it. The Leap Manifesto, Klein’s eleventh-hour plunge into the climate change debate says, among other things,…

Macleans:

Avi Lewis on the ‘ideological battle’ over the Leap Manifesto
Avi Lewis on the climate crisis, Naomi Klein, and how he didn’t mean to ‘blow up the NDP convention’

The media is clearly making this about the people leading the ideas in Leap, not whether they are sound ideas or likely to be effective at creating the quick changes required to save our civilization. It’s all about Notley, Klein and Lewis, instead of carbon pollution, pipelines, economics, and our climate’s chances.

Wouldn’t you rather the media talk about the issue?

Saskatchewan Democracy’s Unsolved Problem Didn’t Fix Itself

Posted on by John Klein

Please show you support democracy in Saskatchewan.

Last Saskatchewan election, this happened instead thanks to our lackluster media ignoring the Greens who fielded a full slate of 58 candidates.

A snooze fest of a debate took place, and CBC couldn’t find anyone not involved in the broadcast who watched it. Basically it had the viewership my blog has on a Sunday morning.

I made some effort to fix the problem by showing the broadcasters there was public opposition to their method. Even newspaper columnists who usually have a rosy view of the world were disappointed in the prospects of the following four years.

#CBCbehindthestory at UofR

Posted on by John Klein

image

CBC talking about how they cover stories.
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