[empson7]

[QUOTE BY= badsector]<br /> <br /> I wonder how many Canadians are beginning to understand that comrade Harper and his cronies want a controlled media that will only say what they are told. This is reminiscent of Eastern Block communist regimes and quite frankly unacceptable.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> I don't get it...since when has the Media ever been a friend to the Progressive?<br /> <br /> Funny in all this criticism by Progressives none have bother to ask exactly what is the media doing about it's 'access' problems vis a vis the public.<br /> <br /> You think Progressives might take the bull by the horn and suggest the media practice of 'pre-selecting' from the public gallery is to blame...?<br /> <br /> You think Progressives might offer a solution to the Media that there is a whole whack of politicians elected to city councils in every town in this country that would be MORE than happy to talk to a reporter just once. But of course Progressvies have seen local city coverage completely excised (censored?) because municipalities talk about land-use questions and public access issues and that conflicts with the 'message' of local advertisers to which the media corporations are dependent on. <br /> <br /> Now when I see controversially insane proposals coming before council that are actually 'sponsered' by media companies, then why wouldn't the public be as hostile to that unequal interference and propaganda of these corporations as they would when reading the latest enrgy thinktank piece on global warming (which is never clearly indentified by the media as the ultimate source of the information and that is usually left to media critics to point it out)<br /> <br /> Hasn't the media contributed to the decline of public debate? Well putting aside the irony of progressvies defending the 'right' of a free? press at precisely the same time a major component of that free press freely placed doomsday headlines about to push war with Iran in most Goebbel-esque manner, should the fact that the PMO is not returning Torstar's phonecalls be a side issue for Progressives?<br /> <br /> What is being defended here? The right of reporters to ask Harper if he loves this country and place neo-con propaganda on their frontpages without retraction or explanation?<br /> <br /> At a certain point, progressives should be aware that IF the public is more annoyed with the media (for very very same reasons that HONEST progressives have noted for decades due to their own problems of getting their message out via the corporate press), then attacking Harper as East Bloc tyrant is nuts.<br /> <br /> If the national press can't get access to one of the more lucrative branches of the news product divisions, then they are free to ask the Opposition. In fact, one would think that a smart strategy for the National Press would be to talk ONLY to the Opposition parties and heightened their coverage and frame their issues as a way of making Harper play ball. But no, that doesn't seem to be neither an option or feasible (there is no Opposition at the moment)<br /> <br /> The other way of looking at this situation is that the media is hated and so in absence of a real Opposition for Harper to frame, he needs to make an Opposition and the national media handed him a punching bag for the summer until the Liberals are finished bumbling around.<br /> <br /> If I read some of the comments here I would figure that the fact public debate has fallen by the wayside it is because politicians talk in 'soundbites'. What an interesting bit of revisionism.<br /> Politicians tend to talk in soundbites because that is the 'for-profit' format demanded by the media which decades ago decided that the public will only get the portion of the message that makes the news programme more attractive to it's advertisers. <br /> It's the media that claims the public is not interested in what the leaders of the country have to say and have told us we much prefer the antics of Paris Hilton. It is the media that FREELY decides that Opposition members (esp out in BC) get NO time or as much time on a news cast as a woman blubbering over dead kittens in a house fire.<br /> <br /> It's the media that has decided that what politicians say is less important than what the weather girl has to say...so where does that leave the public in a democratic society that needs to hear what the various politicians have to say.<br /> <br /> Are the media companies, in exchange for access to public officials, also willing to say publish the entire transcipt of the press conference so that the public has all the information.<br /> <br /> No...the media and their supporters here are demanding that we trust them to shift through whatever THEY think is important and fits the profit dictates of their shareholders which they are obliged to turn a profit for legally. <br /> <br /> If you notice there is press freedom, but there is NO corresponding press responsibility to provide the public with information outside of what has been mandated by the CRTC through public service announcements, which incidentally has been interpreted by one huge media company as being 'crimestopper' ads.<br /> <br /> Freedom of the Press simply means that the government can't limit or dictate to the press. Unless the government is constraining the Press, then where's the problem. The press is still free to report on Harper's press releases or NOT report on his press releases (that's their constitutional right and the public has no power to compel private citizens to publish anything if the OWNER of that media decides otherwise.<br /> <br /> So where does this freedom of the press translate into the public's right to know? That's not in ANY Constitution or Charter or anything...media companies exist under 'propreitary' law and have used 'press freedom' as a wedge to expand their monopolies into everything from making jet fighters to data mining...?<br /> <br /> Does the public not have the right to tell Murdoch and his employees to go fuck themselves? Don't politicians have that same right? I hate Harper, but if Harper doesn't want to sit down with a hostile reporter, then that is the same right you or I or Jack Layton has not to sit and give drop quotes to some 'guy' from CTF or purchase the National Post.<br /> <br /> Can the public not get their information which is vitally important to the life blood of a democracy, the original INTENT of press freedom, any other way than having it sold to them through large integrated media corporations?<br /> <br /> We progressives like this now do we?<br />

[Brent Swain]

Harper conservatives are anything but progresive.If anything , their desire to take us back to the more conservative past on womens rights is regressive. It appears that Fotheringhams name for the tories as "Regressive Convertibles " accurately describes them. Describing them as "Progressives " is a bare faced lie and they dropped that name for a good reason. They have no intention t o make the slightest effort to live up to what it denotes.<br /> Harper promised to use the Mulroney standard as his guideline for ethical conduct, and is a great admirer of that corporate warmongering dictator to the south of us. So what did you expect?

[badsector]

I expected exactly what's happening. Hey, how about the latest? Harper, leader of the weakest minority government in Canadian history, the guy who won narrowly through a non-confidence vote, says, the next election will be in 2009. He says it's unfortunate that opposition parties can use a non-confidence vote to bring down the government. The man has elephant skin on his face. Unfortunately a lot of Canadians don't pay attention to what the Alliance government is doing. It's time to wake up and get the freaks out the door before they'll wreck everything.

[empson7]

[QUOTE BY= badsector] Unfortunately a lot of Canadians don't pay attention to what the Alliance government is doing. It's time to wake up and get the freaks out the door before they'll wreck everything.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Good rap...you have anything else to go with it?<br /> <br /> Beside blaming Canadians for voting, anything suggestions how to get rid of them? Something that might make a Canadian vote against them perhaps...there have been two elections in the last three years? <br /> <br /> So what happened? Why aren't we winning?<br /> <br /> Anything other than showing indignant outrage and calling the voters 'freaks', you have anything to suggest to those other 4 parties that might get them elected? Anything?<br /> <br /> One of the lessons the Left forgot while they allowed the capitalists to appropriate their history, is that you never 'dehumanize' the enemy...it ultimately trivializes you and the people whose respect you are trying to gain.

[Brother Jonathan]

[QUOTE by empson7]</b> So what happened? Why aren’t we winning?<b>[/QUOTE]<br /> Fair questions. If you ask people whom they voted for, and they didn’t vote for a progressive candidate, what reasons would they give for voting the way that they did? Did they prefer personal characteristics to platform characteristics? Did they have misconceptions on the platforms of progressive candidates? Did they not agree with certain planks of progressive platforms? Understanding Jane and Joe Voter’s points of view is essential to answering those questions.

[badsector]

Who exectly are referring to as "progressive candidates?" The concervatives officially dropped that name and their policies are everything but. They are taking us back to the middle ages. I am anxious to find out which party in which country you are calling "progressive".

[Brother Jonathan]

My use of <i>progressive</i> here was intended to be identical to empson7’s use of the term in his first post in this thread. Thus, my use of <i>progressive candidate</i> referred to any candidate who professes the ideals of that same progressive. I made the presumption that the <i>we</i> in <i>Why aren’t we winning?</i> also referred to people with the same progressive ideals. I don’t know which party empson7 had in mind when he made his posts, but I do know that had I specifically had the Progressive Conservatives in mind, I’d’ve used “Progressive Conservative candidate” (or “PC candidate”) in my post.<br /> <br /> Given that empson7 didn’t mention a specific party in his posts, why would you believe that I’d had a specific party in mind in my reply to his post?

[Armageddon]

[QUOTE BY= Brent Swain] Harper conservatives are anything but progresive.If anything , their desire to take us back to the more conservative past on womens rights is regressive. It appears that Fotheringhams name for the tories as "Regressive Convertibles " accurately describes them. Describing them as "Progressives " is a bare faced lie and they dropped that name for a good reason. They have no intention t o make the slightest effort to live up to what it denotes.<br /> Harper promised to use the Mulroney standard as his guideline for ethical conduct, and is a great admirer of that corporate warmongering dictator to the south of us. So what did you expect?[/QUOTE]<br /> I expected you to make an honest post. Come on, dictator to the south? How cliche. When a perosn is elected by the people, it isn't a dictatorship.<br /> Also, the Conservatives dropped the "Progressive" part because they weren't under any agreement to hold it. The reason why the Progressive Conservatives called themselves that was because in order for then Manitoba Premier John Bracken to be the Conservative party's leader, it would have to include "Progressive" in it.