"We must fight back against these scams of disinformation."
Granted, you have described the problem: "deepening divisions and compounding of rage..." but I would like to hear more suggestions about what should be done differently, what the actual cure for the disease would be.
It has to be more than "stop slinging mud". I'm not impressed by the conservative party as being "not this" or "not that". You are correct in observing that this partisanship is causing blindness.
How about acknowledging good policy, or good results, or valid points wherever they exist and begin to show leadership in discussing items of consensus and open discussion? How about publishing results and stages and processes of parliamentary committee work? This would turn the spotlight on key issues that we see consensus building, and also help build a sense that the elected representatives are serious about finding ways forward that will help all Canadians.
Lets not forget the SNC Lavalin issues and the Prime Minister interfering in our rule of law and the RCMP never even investigating this. The resignation of three female Liberals. The WE scandal. The treatment of Admiral Mark Norman. The purposeful act of shuttering our Parliament for two years when we most needed it to be in use. The lack of transparency in general of the Government. The Winnipeg Lab fiasco with the CCP Army scientist working within and the transfer or deadly viruses to Wuhan. Then Trudeaus act of taking the Speaker of the House to court so he would not have to share that information with parliament. I could go on for hours and still have many unresolved issues created by the Government itself. The last one of putting in the Emergencies Act, the disgraceful name calling by the Prime Minister and partisan news media that pushed propaganda, the freezing of bank accounts by the banks. The words of the Liberals Attorney General who said that if you contributed to the convoy you should be worried as well. The complete corruption and funding of media and the partisan news that is more than noticeable, its right in everyone's face. Blacklisting the media that did not report what the Government liked, not just from the press gallery, but by the banks as well. The cancelation culture that thrives in media and against Conservative voices. To anyone who pays attention to the Liberal Government's actions and policies, I would say its not Conservatives spreading misinformation but the media and those who are in bed with the Liberal Government.
You missed my point. I did not say the conservatives are spreading misinformation. By implication I am calling out the Liberals who must by now think Canadians are stupid, for all the fumbled issues and BS that you so nicely listed.
I'm not buying the Liberal schtick, and I'm tired of it.
However it remains my point that conservatives seem to be (sadly) lacking the ability or strategy to overcome the vast amount of Liberal crap.
It goes past the MSM though. They are only selling what people are willing to buy. It's up to all of us to quit being so lazy and self satisfied with our own opinions and start to demand better. The standard is low because we allow it to be low.
The real problem is that the media hasn't been actually doing their jobs for years now. If they did, we wouldn't be in this quagmire we presently find ourselves in, and the Government would have been brought to account...
These are good suggestions! There are a lot of things we can and should start doing to correct course. I don’t have all the answers. I just think we need to start talking about it openly as a starting point.
Unless the mainstream media is willing to interview or even speak to Conservatives without demonizing or misrepresenting them, it will continue. They do not even cover any news that may look bad to the Liberal Government in Ottawa. Then to want to silence voices on the internet because they say it’s misinformation, leaving no avenue to discuss anything of importance without being cancelled, demonized, or belittled. You can not fix what you can not speak of in the public square. The Liberal Government and the media want the internet silenced. That is already in its second reading in the Senate. The media has made it impossible to even discuss this as everything Conservative is considered “misinformation”. It goes against the narrative the Liberal Government and the media are sending to the public. The Universities are spitting out media personnel today (you can not call many journalists or news casters today as they do nothing of the sort) who are to spread the narrative given to them through press releases. Repeat the stories they learned and follow the dictate of the progressive ideology and the master they learned under. They do not do news today. They do narratives and are called Government Storytellers.
You say that mainstream media does "not even cover any news that may look bad to the Liberal Government in Ottawa".
I would reply ... Bob Fife? National Post? The entire Sun Media chain? Maclean's? CTV? Global News? I could go on. Certainly all of these have been known to ruin my breakfast.
I would love to say the answer for the conservative movement is to do the media's job for them. Create a new media organization which does its homework, presents issues fairly and fully, challenges the official truth by seeking the most accurate take on what actually is true, shows epistemic humility, and avoids sensationalizing issues.
But would anybody actually pay attention? And can structures be created to keep these values going in a real, specific, institution? I am not sure.
There is Conservative media and they do do there homework and thus Trudeau despises them and refuses to grant interviews or parliamentary passage. Consider the Chinese news service can access parliament but not the Conservative's, True North, doesn't even manage to make Canadian's question the Federal Government. There are many great people out there in Conservative land but they are constantly being inundated with cancel culture to shut them down and stop them from speaking. Sad as that is. It should never even be an issue but somehow its become one in the new era of twisted thinking and woke folk.
My suggestion for Conservatives is to take a page from the Liberal play book. If you dislike anything you hear, phone the station and ask to have them cancelled but you have to be consistent and do this daily with many other people also sending in a complaint. Do it by the millions on every progressive left channel, paper, and magazine. Do it in droves. Hang out on Twitter and wait for one wrong word from the woke folk and have many bots to converge on any word you find offensive.
I know of many others that no longer waste their time in the twitter feed, Facebooks and other social media as the left dominate and cancel any Conservative views. You Tube as well. I refuse to give out names or it sends droves of the cancel culture trying to out them and get them cancelled as well. That is how pathetic its become and the Government plans on stopping all Conversations that do not follow the Government narrative. They can not control the peons if they can't control the internet and the narrative so they will do any and all things to ensure that other voices are shut down. The bill is already on its second reading in the Senate and with the aid of the NDP progressives you know its going to be sent right on through.
Media and government spread fake claims that the truckers were Nazis, fake claims that cloth masks work, fake claims that lockdowns worked, fake claims that healthy children were at risk from Covid, and fake claims that natural immunity didn't work.
There always were and always will be cranks making wacky claims. If the media made an effort not to lie, the cranks wouldn't be believed.
Worry about the beam in your own eye before complaining about the mote in your neighbour's.
I didn't say crazy, I said false. There is a big difference. Just like all your claims about Russia, facts can be checked. That's not gaslighting...that's a reality you chose not to be a part of.
But what is the source of your fact checking? If you've discovered a Bible of infallible facts please don't be stingy and share it with us so that we may all benefit. Also, I wasn't aware that I had made any easily falsifiable claims about Russia. Mine are mostly inferences based on my experience with Western media and with military conflicts and with NATO behaviour. This, combined with the facts that Ukraine is under a fog of war and barely two weeks into the fight. It's almost impossible to know exactly what is going on or predict with much accuracy what will happen.
Unlike you, I am encouraging skepticism and trying to infer the motives and thinking of all belligerents. You on the other hand are selling certainty based on your 'fact checking' -- do you simply go to websites that we haven't heard of? Does this make you feel more secure?
Regarding Ukraine, I agree. no one knows what is going on...except it's really bad. You suggested that what Russia is doing is for self-defence. I have countered that NATO has never attacked anyone without UN sanction. I don't hear any stories from you about any of Russia's 3 recent invasions being backed by anyone but Putin. The only certainty is Ukrainians will suffer in the near term, Russians in the longer term.
Regarding COVID, all one needs to do is look at the data provided by the province of Ontario, and note that we haven't had cold or flu seasons for two years. That is clear proof that masks make a difference. The information is all out there, and it's very easy to find. You call it gaslighting; I call it deliberate ignorance. Ponder where we'd be without vaccines....it's pretty ugly. Seems to me, when you go to the hospital, you want treatment from a medical expert. Might as well listen to their advice then too.
How ridiculous your claim to - we haven't had a cold or flu season in two years is proof that masks work? Where have you been living- you have failed to account for the behaviorial changes of the public, the restrictions and the mandates, most people were at home, they were not riding public transit, going to their office & the schools were closed most of the time. Take the blinders off man!
Yes, from the Russian perspective, what they are doing is self defense. NATO exists to counter Russia. NATO is an anti-Russian military alliance. People who want to be disingenuous call it an anti-Soviet alliance. As if that makes any difference. It turns out, that when a military alliance that exists to counter you assures you that you have nothing to fear from them, this is received with unreserved skepticism. Can you honestly blame the Russians for thinking this way, disregarding their invasion? By extension, the Russians see the UN as the same thing as NATO -- a club that exists to get its way and to brow beat Russia when they need to. Positing that aggressive NATO actions were sanctioned by the UN hold no water and at best are unpersuasive to Russia seeking its security. Why is an anti-Russian military alliance bombing random countries around the world in order to police and nation build? Is anyone asking this question? And the UN sanctioning these policing actions legitimizes them in your view? The UN is the moral arbiter and high authority of the world? As long as they ok it -- then it's morally good?
I am not disputing vaccines or anything to do with Covid. Though I disagree with your assessment that it was masks that prevented us from having flu seasons. People for the most part stay at home and do not congregate. This is why flu did not spread. And before you gloat and say 'see -- the lockdowns were amazingly effective', no one is saying lockdowns didn't slow transmission. People want us to ask, at what COST?
I find it odd that the mainstream media has not been putting out the information being put out by the FDA on the Pfizer vaccine. They had made it inaccessible to other scientists and the public for 75 years. Imagine that. They were taken to court and must have all the data released by August of this year. You might want to do some investigating on this yourself as its obvious the main stream media will not put it out to the public. The adverse events in the trials should have made them rethink putting the vaccines out to the public. You need to investigate it on your own. If I put here I am sure I will be booted off and be told I am spreading misinformation. FDA withholding trials of the Pfizer vaccine. Go check it out.
You claim it, you source it. Nowhere have I seen anything that suggests there is any comparison between the number of adverse effects in comparison to the good done by the vaccines. Have there been adverse reactions? Yes, you've had one. 10 billion shots have been given. How many millions more would have died without them?
If data is released in August, I'll wait until August. I'm more than pleased with the 3 doses of Pfizer I have in my system, and will happily take one every fall if it will keep me safer from COVID....which will be around forever.
I am not suggesting anything. I just wonder why they are not putting this out to the public. It is extremely important information. Do you not find it odd? So far they have only put out a small amount of information so there will be much more to come. The fact they were not going to release anything for 75 years is amazing in itself as other scientists wanted to see it as well. It boggles my mind why it is not front page news. They have put out the list of adverse effects in the trials. I would be curious to know how many people were involved in the trials? Then there is the law suit against Pfizer as the trial by a company that was contracted by them to do it were done badly. There is plenty of evidence shown by the complainant and it sufficient for the trial to go ahead. It’s not misinformation to speak of this but you will not see anything in the news about it. So by not saying anything makes them look complacent and wanting it kept silent. Then people say it’s spreading misinformation. It’s not misinformation. The media is not doing its job. They are either incompetent or don’t want this in the public. It’s insanity because I am sure I will be told I am spreading misinformation.
I mean no disrespect, but your constant conspiracy theories are becoming tiring. It's extremely important in your opinion, so go find out what you need to know. 99% of the information they put out I won't understand as medical in nature. We already know about the list of adverse effects, and since you had some, I can see it being of great interest. The vast majority of people didn't. I'll care about lawsuits when they're settled; not before, because that's meaningless. I think there are far more important front-page issues at the moment.
Of course, you are suggesting everything. Pfizer is releasing something like a 700-page report soon. You can probably read it on the Pfizer site. Health Canada may have it too. What I really want to know is how much of it do you plan on reading. Legal/medical. Would you like it released in layman's terms or are you willing to take advantage of the FB lawyers and doctors?
Why is what not on the front page? Would that be an MSM thingy—front-page breaking news! I guess you'll have to be boggled.
If I won't see something in the news about it, why would you? Have you seen the evidence?
"So by not saying anything makes them look complacent and wanting it kept silent. Then people say it’s spreading misinformation. It’s not misinformation. The media is not doing its job."
What are you trying to say? I'm not understanding you.
What do you say about Putin's social media skills?
How would you know propaganda when you see it? The propaganda on the Ukraine war is full force and not just coming from Putin but Ukraine and everywhere else, main stream and social media and across the globe. My goodness the complete blinding belief that the media is telling you pure truth and everything else is propaganda is absurd. This is stuff you hear from the Federal Government to discredit any other narrative. Yes only they know reality. That the truth tellers are all on one side. That Russia is the only bad actor and everyone else is squeaky clean in todays political land mine. Any other view is misinformation and derogatory and they must be shut down and silenced.
Why would the media speak of things that puts policy makers front and center due to the pandemic response that they participated, in is anyone's guess. Trying to save themselves from public scrutiny? Same with the Governments and the ridiculous lock down measures we have suffered from. Obvious you lost nothing or you would not speak in such away. Perhaps put yourself in the shoes of small businesses that lost everything due to the mess that was made with lockdowns. The Walmart's and big retailers could stay open. Think that through just for ten minutes and tell me how Walmart, where more people gather is safer than a small business? Just let that sit in your brain for ten minutes to mull over. I mean really, think about it. It makes zero sense but you will back that and everything else because your still alive. If you did not suffer any consequences and lived another day everything was done well. Every nation following in China's footsteps and no one even questions why? I could see them doing so until they got more information on the virus but that has been long past now and we just came out after two years.
It is easy to tell the laptop class working from home that did not miss any pay or lose your business as only someone who manage smooth sailing through this pandemic would speak as you do. " We are all in this together", is absolutely hilarious and for anyone to continue with that attitude and look down on those who have suffered so much, the suicides , overdoses, and other tragedies that occurred have been swept under the proverbial carpet. Its why the divide keeps growing between the classes, East and West, and left from right. The divisive nature of the entire Governance of the country and those that back that are still under the illusion all is well and everyone else is wrong and spreading misinformation. Yes. That comes straight from the Ottawa laptop class that has gained two raises and smiling all the way to the bank. The lets decry and demean those those who suffered the most even more especially those who wont follow the dictate of the Government and the elites of this country. We are not and have never been "all in this together." There needs to be inquiries into how this was handled and people who are in charge must face the consequences of their actions. They will not though will they, as they gave full power in those duties to the "experts". That was to save their own political careers as there is more than one "expert" but funny, they were silenced when it came to policy. Imagine losing your loved one and saying good bye on an iPad.
If Canada Health has the documents they seen to verify the use of the vaccine they most certainly do not have it out for the public to scrutinize as they will not even allow the public to see the contract they signed for the vaccines. If this information was shared, as it should be for transparency, I am sure that the other scientists and those in the medical field would not be asking to see the information on the trials of the vaccines. I suppose them wanting more information is just pure misinformation. Just like everything else that goes against the "official narrative". Yes everything other than what Canadians are told by their Government or the media is misinformation. I get that so why even bother questioning me. Just bring our your stamp and call it what it is "misinformation".
I watched hours of on the street footage (probably > 20) , and saw NO white supremacists. There was ONE swastika and ONE confederate flag, on the first day. Yet the narrative being pushed again and again, and you fell for it, is that was representative of the protest.
Cloth masks are a placebo, as pointed out by the Bangladesh study as well as most mainstream experts at this point. I wore a cloth mask too, thinking that would help. Medical friends of mine wore N95, and they were correct as we see now.
Lockdowns "work" in that they delay spread of the virus. However the consequences are significant. We still haven't accounted for that. Compare California and Florida.
Natural immunity was ignored with respect to vaccine passports. This was a mistake, it undermined trust in public health.
I'm not sure the media lied or not. What I'm certain of, is they are not as competent as we were expecting, and they certainly have an agenda. I no longer trust them.
So you didn't meet Pat King. I didn't fall for that narrative at all. What I saw at the protest was a bunch of selfish people tired of COVID rules. Guess what? 100% of the population are tired of the COVID rules. We just don't feel the need to torment our neighbours about it when we have no functional better ideas except pretend it's not real.
If you'd like to source your mask claim, I'd love to see it. But every metric I've seen anywhere says masks made a difference; the better the mask, the bigger the difference. Double masking also provided a significant benefit. There can be no doubt that some kind of mask was better than no mask.
Yes, lockdowns delay the spread allowing our fragile healthcare system to continue functioning barely. Since ours isn't as robust as other countries, comparisons are pointless. There were some pretty significant consequences here too; Saskatchewan suspending their organ donation program because of a lack of ICU space. Imagine losing out on an organ because of that?
A mistake in your opinion. Since people can get COVID more than once, I have no reason to disagree with the advice of public health experts. Natural can be good, but Omicron changed that theory in a hurry. Natural with a vaccine was the best....or a 3rd dose
What was known about COVID changed on a daily basis? No one could keep up. What was good one day, wasn't the next. That's how it goes with a virus that is a complete unknown. When was the last time a virus came along where you were contagious before you had symptoms? How do you deal with that? So they reported what they knew at the time, but the place to listen was the interviews with the medical and public health experts. Ignore everyone in government because they're just trying to parrot what they've been told; aka broken telephone. I don't believe they lied about anything. They reported what they knew when they reported it. The nature of COVID meant that big changes were possible. That's why this has been so difficult.
All I'm looking for is honesty. Pat King was not representative of the group. He wasn't an organiser. He wasn't a spokesman. Just a blowhard with a Facebook following. Yet he's portrayed as the face of the protest. Not honest. When he's given coverage in my mind it undermines the media covering the story. I no longer trust them. I'll get my news elsewhere.
Your last paragraph is key. We just didn't know. It would have been good to say that from the beginning. That would have been honest. And not panic and throw out previous pandemic planning. Just be honest and say we don't know what this will be like, so we're sticking to previous plans.
The most honest opinion I've heard from experts is "this is going to be a 5 year ordeal, and we're all going to catch it". I have not heard that from anyone in public health or public office.
I don't think there was any real pre-pandemic planning. Lots of warnings. Clearly, governments of all stripes didn't plan or react. It will be interesting to see if Canada finds a way to keep a homegrown supply of PPE in the years to come.
I suspect there are hundreds of studies with hundreds of varying conclusions.
I guess the question is how the public would respond to "we're not sure if this will make a difference, but we'd like you too..." Would anyone even be listening?
I've heard lots of public health experts say this is never going away but will become endemic. A booster will likely become past of the fall flu shot program. All are now saying we have to learn to live with it...I believe hoping that Omicron is COVID burning itself out. We won't know until we know.
Anyway, 2 years into this, I'm now open to being wrong about all of this. That's fine. I don't need to be certain to make decisions. I'll use something of a Bayesian approach to my decisions. Risk management.
You bring up the key point: *the public*. As in public health, as in public relations. We're way past the age of being able to get 100% agreement on anything. In the face of that, experts, journalists, politicians, etc, need some humility.
Maybe humility is the foundation of honesty, and through honesty trust can be restored. Until then we'll be thrashing from crisis to crisis, and the public won't believe what they're told. They'll fill in the gaps with whatever trash they find.
You didn't see Pat King's Sons of Odin sweatshirt?
After the initial flurry of removing the swasticas etc, there were few to see. What you fail to acknowledge is that you can't see the tats, the t-shirts, the chain around the neck with shiny ugly things dangling under the fuzzy beards because it was too bloody cold. No one fell for anything. They were there. Even your high white grandmaster does not foam at the mouth every day. You actually watched that much footage, damn but you're a sucker for punishment.
One study out of hundreds. You don't believe the mainstream experts but know you want to haul them outstaying them up then cut them down again. N95. We all learned things over the past 2 years. Why are you being such a crank about it. You aren't a doctor or a scientist or someone who knows how to run a proper study. But you think we should all listen to Norm.
Natural Immunity. BFD. Constant testing and pissing around wasting people's time. Get the bloody jab.
The media didn't lie. They may have made mistakes that were acknowledged quickly. You really expect every journalist to immediately become adept at medical lingo then put it together to run where people can read it. And do that from a cold start. They got better as they went along but think about where they get their info? How competent are you on a topic that is totally unfamiliar?
- *one* swastika, photographed on the first weekend, used as fodder to discredit the protest. See footage like this: https://youtu.be/T3tlFgwZzmE . He went there for 14 days, 3+ hours each time, talking to everyone. It was must-see TV. Interesting footage if you're interested in people and their stories.
Not to mention the skewing of the truth by the facts the media chose to report. ie. one Confederate flag at the Convoy protest that was run off vs. hundreds of Canadian flags and the anthem being sung every day.
A couple of swastikas painted backwards, that were photographed in the background off-site (and mocked by the Jew who was one of the three main convoy leaders - not reported) vs. Chrystia Freeland being photographed holding a scarf with far right colours at a Ukrainian march and then merely deleting the photograph and shrugging it off as an innocent misunderstanding.
The media throws away their right to be trusted when they try to paint pictures vs. reporting the whole truth.
I guess I'm not a reasonable reader then. But you said that; the press didn't. I saw a couple of flags. I heard Pat King. The vast majority aren't white supremacists or Nazi's.....none of them are public health experts. All of them are fools.
Or is this another example of "experienced it differently"? :)
Yes, a collection of people with no public health experience who think they are going to overthrow our duly elected government because their religious guide tells them so are fools. Ill-informed? Ignorant? misguided? Selfish? What would you call a group of people with no solution to a global health crisis who feel like whining about it with no functional solutions? Oh yes, and the genesis of their protest ignores that the US, the country they'd be driving into, has the exact same law.
Everyone is tired of it. Those with a shred of respect and concern for their neighbours wear their masks and do their best to get through it.
The fools; which is the most polite word I can think of to describe them, go and torment a downtown, led by a western separatist, a minister with zero understanding of Canada's law and a blatant white supremacist. They are allowed to stay for 3 weeks and complain about their loss of freedom. What a pathetic joke.
If you have points you'd like to make explaining how this group is anything more than a bunch of party-goers who are tired of COVID; which couldn't care less, I'd love to debate. Until then, fools will have to do.
So you were there and can verify there was only 1? The Nazi flags were all offsite, and not at the National War Memorial? Do you have any opinions on organiser Pat King's comments? The Bauder's?
Never heard anyone being called a Nazi, but white supremacists, and white nationalist, did enter the narrative. Why? Maybe because there was at least one white supremist propaganda spreading person leading the convoy. Secondly, please explain what was going on at the Coutts Border Crossing in Alberta, which was spawned from the Convoy, when RCMP arrested 4 people, armed to the teeth and threatening to kill nurses, doctors and police officers? You can choose to be ignorant and hide your head in the sand, but don't expect the rest of us to follow suite.
As a retired reference librarian with an ongoing professional concern for the quality and reliability of information sources, I have to ask how The Line even saw fit to publish this fact-free insult to its readers' intelligence. We don't need "foreign bad actors" to deepen "trust deficits" in Canada; our institutions do a thoroughly competent job of that themselves. If only "half of Canadians believe journalists are purposefully trying to mislead people," and that "media is [are] not objective," you have to wonder what happened to the natural skepticism of the other half. If "three-quarters of Canadians don’t trust the government," that's a testament to their good judgment, not evidence that they've fallen victim to 'disinformation' and conspiracy theories.
Canadians have an impressive degree of literacy, and they put it to use reading books (go to just about any of Toronto's one hundred library branches prior to opening hours and you'll find a line-up of people waiting to get in). They know how to outflank institutional propaganda and don't require a nudge from plotters in Russia or Iran to discern ideological bias in the pages of The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. They'd have to have the credulousness of medieval peasants to possess a higher level of trust than they do in would-be social engineers masquerading themselves as journalists, or in a Prime Minister who's so clearly revealed himself as the king of disinformation. The trust deficit Ms. Paradis finds so "staggering" has been well-earned: it's a consequence of institutional incompetence and duplicity, not a consequence of Canadians having been bamboozled by "thought scams" misrepresenting the misbehaviour.
I quite agree with you that this didn’t all come out of nowhere! I’d love to go more in-depth on that, but that would be another 800 word article! But yes, there is a lot more to this than I was able to get into. It would take a whole book.
Thanks for your reply... and I'm sorry if I came across as rudely dismissive. I do think, though, that the critique you lacked space for would be informing Canadians of things they already know (hence the stats you've cited). If 'disinformation' is truly a concern of yours, shouldn't you be going after the big players, the institutions themselves? Most of us would like nothing better than to be able to trust our institutions, but institutional trustworthiness is the necessary prerequisite, yes? How can social media be blamed for its absence? Well-researched books by Kevin Williamson, Christopher Caldwell, Matt Taibbi, Jonah Goldberg and a host of others (none of them Russians or Iranians) show that trust in institutions isn't currently merited, and social media is actually giving us a pretty accurate reflection of that reality.
I encourage the debate and didn’t find you rude at all. Trust is such a complex and fragile thing. You are right that trustworthiness begets trust, and breaking that trust is what for us here. But now that we have a deficit of trust, where do we go from here? How do we rebuild that trust in our institutions? We really need to or this will only get worse.
If media were to stop lying to us for our own good, that would be a start. Eric Weinstein said somewhere that he has no objection to a polite euphemism or two, but that he expects at least 'adult-level' fictions from The New York Times, not insults to his intelligence.
He may have been being too charitable. The more cynical view is that the elites who control institutional media are contemptuous enough of the rest of us, and sufficiently secure in their own invulnerability, to be beyond caring what we think. Like other scammers, they aren't particularly embarrassed that intelligent people see through The Narrative's incoherence and recoil from its coarser aspects. As long as there are sufficient numbers of dupes to keep them in business, that's all that matters to them. To that end, they will bestir themselves to pick off any astute critic who develops too broad a following, and their weapons won't be logic or counter-evidence but demonization, demonetization, and sometimes outright censorship.
And then, on the yet darker side...
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
--Theodore Dalrymple
I was a guest worker for awhile in Germany in the mid-1970s, and, being in central Europe, received a good earful from sources like Radio Moscow, Radio Prague and Radio Tirana. Every news item was, at bottom, telling you the same thing: that's how you knew it was propaganda. It was laughable, but also frightening to think what life would be like on the other side of the Iron Curtain, where the propagandists were in control. Never did I imagine that one day western media would come to resemble those sources in the uniformity and stridency of their messaging.
This is particularly poignant in what you have shared here: "their weapons won't be logic or counter-evidence but demonization, demonetization, and sometimes outright censorship." I am nodding along with that!
I hope that you don’t mind my asking, but I wonder why that statement resonates with you – particularly after you seemed to agree with Stella C that we should stop the media bashing.
To me the two views seem pretty opposite. In Stella’s view journalists are, although fallible and perhaps with some bias, trying to do their jobs with integrity – in investigating and reporting – and trying to hold those in power to some account. In the view you quote here, they are acting as agents of the elite to control our opinions and place limits on what we are exposed to.
Your essay here resonates with me – we ignore foreign attempts to widen divisions in our society at our peril. You may be familiar with the Guardian series on Cambridge Analytica, but as it deals with the issue of how what we think can be manipulated, (and is an example of the type of journalism that I admire) I will recommend it nonetheless. The related documentary “The Great Hack” is on Netflix.
Do you follow DarkHorse podcasts at all, Melanie? The extent to which mainstream media manages to ignore Bret Weinstein and others like Jordan Peterson, Daniel Schmachtenberger, David Fuller, etc.--except for occasional, dismissive hit pieces--is extraordinary in 2022; but Bret and his brother Eric may just be the sages of the age. Starting at the 2:25 mark, and for the next ten minutes or so, the answers Bret gives to the three questions he's asked here are well worth hearing:
As someone with a graduate degree in information science, and twenty-five years' experience helping people meet their information needs, my concern about issues that bear on information quality and accessibility is natural enough. But I know ideologically captured journalists are a subset of a far larger set of complex, often interrelated problems--political, cultural and economic. The voices currently addressing these problems are rarely heard on institutional media platforms, which collude not only in their failure to acknowledge the problems' existence but to shut down conversations and lines of inquiry that might lead to increased awareness of them.
Consequently, we see (or rather, some see and some don't, because they are prevented from seeing) splits in society not just between left and right but between groups who are appealing to different epistemological bases and very different conceptual vocabularies. In such circumstances dialogues of the deaf become inevitable, and it's my earnest hope we aren't engaging in one here. Somehow, we have to find ways to talk to each other, and my inclination is always to try.
There's a difference, though, between dialogues featuring persons of good will (one of whom you obviously are), who are seeking to expand their knowledge base, and pseudo-dialogues among people for whom conversation is less about information exchange than hewing to the one true path, brushing aside impediments to the conclusions they've already decided they're going to reach. To the extent that the latter kind of 'discussion' becomes the norm we have little hope of escaping information silos; and unfortunately there's an economic incentive for institutional media to keep those silos hermetically sealed, and their readers and/or viewers captive.
You have made a number of assertions in what you have said. I hope that you are willing to enlighten me. I am no fan of Trudeau, but you call him “the king of disinformation”. Can you give two examples of how he has disinformed me?
I pay attention to legacy media. Please explain how I am being duped by them – preferably by providing a specific example of how their duplicity has pulled the wool over my eyes.
I don't know how old you are, Ed, or how you've managed to miss the accelerating atrophy of institutional media and journalistic standards over the past two decades, but I never decline serious requests for information. It isn't my opinions you need, however, but the opportunity to inform your own. If you don't trust the internet (and you shouldn't, indiscriminately, though you can get the equivalent of a college education from some of its remarkable, long form interviews--a claim no one could make on behalf of mainstream media's offerings), then just go for the book links.
As for Trudeau, wasn't his recent performance in Parliament enough for you? The narrative of demonization he attempted to weave around protesting truckers plainly bore no relation to reality, and he's been justly pilloried for his deceit, here and internationally. Yes, the Freedom Convoy was disruptive and inconvenienced the public: so, historically, have strikes... and how often do you see liberals denouncing strikers as un-Canadian, or freezing their bank accounts? If it had been disruption that bothered Trudeau instead of the challenge to his policies, he could easily have defused the situation by showing truckers the courtesy of accepting their repeated invitations to dialogue. He's never objected to sitting in front of a tepee and letting equally disruptive aboriginal protesters air their grievances: those are good, politically correct photo ops. Instead, he chose to weaponize disruption until the situation deteriorated far enough to provide a pretext for crushing not disruption but political dissenters.
The irony--and the truth he sought to obscure--is that the dissent came from a diverse array of political viewpoints and ethnic groups: it was a truly multicultural protest, albeit a working class one, which seems to have been the real problem for patrician, aristocratically disdainful Trudeau. As it happens, I've always voted NDP or Green; but I'm no more reconciled to hypocrisy and propaganda that claims to speak for my views than against them. Just give us straight information, please, and we'll form our own judgments as to its reliability and utility. None of us needs would-be social engineers, in government or media, editing reality for us: they aren't competent to do so and their motives are deeply suspect.
The links come from all parts of the political spectrum and are obviously merely a sampling; so browse at will:
P.S. Terms like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' should be red flags to you. Everything that comes to your attention is information, and what normally concerns us about info are things like its relevance, accuracy and usefulness. The loaded prefixes, 'mis,' and 'dis,' imply that such evaluations have already been made, and all questions conclusively answered--and maybe that's true in the eyes of those spinning the narratives. It obviously can't be true for you or anyone else. In all cases, the reliability of any info we receive is precisely what's at issue.
Don't fall for institutional media's terminological subterfuge, which is transparently an attempt to forestall discussion, debate, and challenges to their narratives. Presenting us with the broadest range of data possible is media's legitimate role, not substituting their judgment for ours about the data's significance--and certainly not selectively amplifying and/or suppressing data to accord with political/ideological commitments of their own.
Thanks for the response. I agree with you that Trudeau is often, and was in this case, overly arrogant and dismissive. To jump from that to “king of disinformation” is too far a leap. (I find it a bit odd that you say, “Terms like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' should be red flags to you.” not that long after you use one of those terms yourself.)
I am not sure why you decided not to make a case. A statement like, “The narrative of demonization he attempted to weave around protesting truckers plainly bore no relation to reality.” expresses a point of view. You do absolutely nothing to illustrate that it is a valid one. “The Freedom Convoy was disruptive and inconvenienced the public: so, historically, have strikes.” If you are wish to suggest that what happened in Ottawa and the blocking of borders was a strike like any other, you are free to do that, but you should do something to substantiate the claim. “The irony--and the truth he sought to obscure--is that the dissent came from a diverse array of political viewpoints and ethnic groups: it was a truly multicultural protest” is a claim – again, which you don’t substantiate.
You are free, of course, to make all kinds of claims. Without providing evidence and explanation to support them, they are not more than that.
You have gone to a lot of work to provide links - to media about not trusting the media. Discerning bias or outright deception by media is not lost on me. Considering that the brush you are painting with is so broad, I was hoping, however, that you could yourself provide an example rather than relying on someone else to do it for you.
(?) Er, you're welcome... but don't you think you should investigate some of the materials provided, before deciding that the claims made are unsubstantiated? I'm not sure what would qualify as 'making a case' if providing relevant documentation is ruled out. What sort of case can I or anyone else make on his own authority, over and above the things we happen to have experienced personally? How do you propose we form opinions on public issues at all, and evaluate the worth of those opinions, in the absence of suitable citation, which is the portal to referred experience? The set of evidentiary criteria to which you make implicit appeal can't be coherently applied, even by you. It's like demanding to know what makes 12 while declaring ineligible as demos 7+5, 14-2, and every other combination that would do the trick, save 12 itself.
I wasn't in Ottawa for the protests, and I've never been inside the editorial offices of The New York Times; but I don't need to be, any more than I need to visit Warsaw to correctly claim it's the capital of Poland. It's enough that reputable reference sources confirm the truth of the proposition: they make it possible for me to know that truth as surely as I know France's capital is Paris, where I lived for a year. I wasn't in Canada's Parliament either, when Trudeau was disgracing himself; but if you doubt that he did the record is easily findable on YouTube, along with the near-universal negative reaction to his performance.
Hoisting Trudeau by his own 'disinformation' petard was, of course, an exercise in sarcasm, not an inadvertent fall into logical inconsistency. Why don't you read the books and view the links, Ed? Everything you need in the way of what epistemologists customarily accept as substantiation has been provided for you, including examples galore. They don't have to be mine, and would gain nothing if they were.
We all need to be part of the solution regardless of our beliefs. Thank you for this article. The poison that is spreading needs to be stopped and only by lifting our heads out of the muck that is social media and use our rationale thought can this happen.
I appreciate the perspective. I agree there have been many examples by the right to pass along misinformation - in particular the parked UN planes with reinforcements and the lady that was trampled had died. Egregious.
But other examples cannot be called misinformation (vaccine performance/safety) as a way to make the right seem more sinister. "Conspiracy" theories often start out as "misinformation" and some are eventually revealed as the truth. Let's take a few examples that were called conspiracies by the media and much of the populace:
1) The vaccines are safe with limited side effects. Evidence is emerging that side effect reporting has been suppressed, doctors have been muzzled. Pfizer and CDOA have been suppressing information and the truth is starting to drip the vaccines are not as safe as we are told. Until there is transparency you cannot call these claims conspiracies.
2) 2 years ago some were indicating governments will institute vaxx passports. HMMM.
3) The vaccines are gene therapy. I saw a video from a world health summit last Nov. that is now starting to circulate where the President of Bayer said the "vaccines" are gene therapy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D5KeniMzjg&ab_channel=derma.
I'd love to see a liberal/NDP columnist write a similar article about all the conspiracies from the left. Actually let's just call them bold faced lies such as:
1) Trudeau: the protestors are racists, white supremacists, misogynists, etc. and the protests were full of nazi and confederate flags. There is evidence a few such flags were flown but if you watched enough video you would see there were hardly any such flags.
2) The Ottawa police chief during the press Saturday press conference said protestors threw bikes at the horses. No video evidence. He went on to say he didn't know the health status of the lady who was trampled ~ 24 hours after the fact. How can he say with a straight face he had no idea what happened to her 24 hours later. This was the most serious injury during the protests. He would have known.
3) Fauci: The vaccines was 100% "efficacious" against spread of COVID. Untrue.
4) CNN: The BLM protests (in Kenosha I believe) are mostly peaceful protests. Meanwhile a building is burning behind the reporter and BLM protestors destroyed the city. Video and reporting was suppressed of significant rioting and violence in other cities as well to support the narrative.
5) Every liberal news channel, President of the United State, sports commentators, etc.: Kyle Rittenhouse is a racist and killed shot/killed the protestors in cold blood. Lie.
6) Joe Rogan used a horse de-wormer to treat COVID. Whether you believe in the effectiveness of Ivermectin or not is one thing. But for the media to call it a horse de-wormer and not tell the full story of its use in humans is total bunk.
I'm not trying to suggest Conservative get a free pass. But it's funny how all the conspiracies/lies are always associated with Conservatives.
The article should be rewritten by the same author providing a balanced POV on the misinformation issue illustrating it's a problem on both sides of the political spectrum. Or they could write the same article and do a find and replace with conservative --> liberal; and then replace every example of misinformation promoted by the right with examples from the left.
Until such time, the writer gets should receive a grade of incomplete with an opportunity for a re-write.
Or The Line should find a Liberal who writes a similar article showing the guilt of the left when it comes to misinformation. I'm not holding my breath.
You can disagree with my assessment with facts and poking holes in logic. It was very clear to me what the author said and I acknowledged and indicated agreement on key points. But I suggested there needed to be more balance to this perspective to strengthen the article.
I am, unapologetically, a fan of good journalism. I believe we have solid journalists in Canada. There is such a firehouse of information- no individual could possibly factcheck every story. Unlike Mark - I believe most journalists made every effort to represent what they are seeing and hearing.
Are they perfect? Like most of us - not by a long shot. I think Ms. Paradis is correct in stating - Conservatives need to be part of the solution. Part of the solution would be not to engage in media bashing.
Every story should be fact-checked or not reported or at least reported as not being fact checked. When reporters get it wrong they must spread the correction as loudly and widely and they spread the misinformation. How many reporters have their biases checked? Sure it is impossible to be totally unbiased but every piece should be as true as humanly possible and media outlets do well to have editors who have the gumption to question the woke narratives of the left and the entrenched bias of the right.
Sure but report the facts as known and tell what has changed and why. The opinion columnists can then opine on whether the changing science is showing the system works or why people should have doubts.
They did report the facts as known...and then when new information came out, people complained that the media had lied to them.
Opinions are just that. They have more value when backed by facts, and in reality, a lot of the direction on COVID was just that; expert opinion from people with deep knowledge of the science...but not the specific virus.
But when you look at the commentary on social media, people expected perfect information that would never change.....and from there is devolved to Soros and Bill Gates. The expectations were absurd and unrealistic.
For sure some people became unhinged. And I'm sure nefarious groups strove to seed disinformation but to say they reported the facts as known has proven to be untrue. Lies were manufactured about whether the cause was natural or otherwise and Fauci admitted to tell lies to "calm the public", and we know they lied about masks to preserve PPE for healthcare workers. Trudeau lied about our relationship with CanSino. The media became the PR arm of the government and did not challenge the government position enough. In fact, you were painted as a kook or conspiracy theorist if you thought that a virus that started within blocks of the Chinese Laboratory that was testing gain of function on the coronavirus was not a natural phenomenon. So yes, they reported the pablum that was dished to them as facts but in my opinion, they were not journalists.
Yes, they lied to preserve PPE for healthcare workers. Was that the wrong decision considering what happened with toilet paper?
Let's suppose the virus was made in a Chinese lab, and someone made an error and let it out. (I will not believe they did it on purpose without concrete proof). What would have changed? What would we have done differently?
Once the virus was out, we had to deal with it. At that point, getting through it became a team game. Donald Trump and his propaganda machine made that very difficult in North America. Social media, and people making money off it made it worse. The media did their best to keep up IMHO, but things changed pretty rapidly in the beginning. After all, when have we ever had to deal with a disease where you're contagious before you have symptoms? The first year was all about learning and trying to cope. You can only report what you know; we didn't know anything. So they did the best with what they had...while a lot of significant voices told the opposite story, making a bad situation far worse than it had to be.
Part of the problem is the absolute hatred of Justin which appears to be driving much of the drivel that passes for facts amongst those not of his persuasion. I cannot stand him either and he should not be PM. But he is PM and is also kept in power by others such as the NDP. Using “alternative facts” to bring him down or blame him for things that are none of his doing eventually backfires. The narrative has to be much more intelligent which means conservative leaders must call out non-factual criticisms of the Govt (any Govt) when they see it — instead of jumping on the bandwagon and then finding that vehicle really has no wheels. But finding out too late in the game, this embarrassing themselves and others following them.
It was disheartening to read comments from several subscribers who seem to be content to refute what she wrote by repeating exactly the same lies that the author described in this article (the claims about alleged mainstream news media lies regarding Covid-19 pandemic suppression measures, including vaccines, or refutations of news reporting about the brutal nature of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or claims that it was undertaken "in self-defence").
We were even retreated to "whataboutism" ("what about the Liberals and all the things they do"). I would note that Kremlin and pro-Xi Jinping trolls are infamous for resorting to such tactics... whatever they think works, I guess.
In every case, these perspectives seem to be based on a credulous acceptance of misinformation and driven, it would seem, by rage because of changes in society and government that such subscribers do not wish to see.
As sad as it makes me to say this, if self-described Conservatives do not push out such people, the party will be hard-pressed to win enough seats to secure control of the House of Commons during the next federal election.
He regularly misrepresents economic statistics. Just read any of Dale Smith's Question Period reports and you will find plenty of examples. But to take just one he blamed the rise in lumber prices on deficit spending by the liberals when any economist (and Poilievre is a good economist) knows that it is a demand problem as more people are renovating.
Its supply and demand, Tariffs, the shuttering of several mills in BC due to the policies of the NDP Government, the mass inflation caused by the over printing of money. Inflation has been caused by the Pandemic policies we were forced to endure and the Liberal Government of Canada's massive printing of money due to the lock downs that were implemented. So in a round about way it is due to the Liberals (inflation) but I get there are many factors involved due to other bad policy making and job losses.
"Justin Trudeau says — a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views” — and intentionally exploit that for political gain. Should he say those things? No. Are we helping the situation? Also no." So what are you really recommending? Trudeau should behave better and if he doesn't that's ok? We should just trust the government? We don't need to know why Chinese scientists were kicked out of the country? We should trust the press? They have no agenda?
We all know that there is a lack of trust. Trust is something that is earned over time by being as truthful and possible and honestly acknowledging mistakes. Something that is lacking in our institutions. Your article is dreadfully short on action items to fix the situation. But thanks for telling us stuff we already know -- after all, that's why most of us are reading this on substack.
Fair enough! The truth is, I think the first action needs to be talking about it. Talking about the broken trust and the misinformation that keeps piling on. How do we fix the trust now that it’s broken? You are absolutely right that it has to be earned. But how do our institutions - government and media - do that? Where do they start?
When you said conservatives have to be part of the solution I thought I was going to read about the solution that you want conservatives to be part of. Alas, you just reiterated the problem. I guess they earn it by being honest. Reporters reporting facts and leaving opinions to the opinion writers. Politicians representing their constituents and not slavish loyalty to the party. Having free votes on matters of conscience such as implementing the Emergency Act. Eliminating lobbyists and disallowing political donations from organizations and businesses. Limiting corporate monopolies and prosecuting the list of people that have escaped taxation using illegal offshore resources. Applying the rule of law equally. Make government transparent and ministers responsible. That would be a good start.
I think you've got a lot of ideas here worthy of further discussion, for sure! Some of them, like the corporate donations, are already banned federally and in Ontario - but I'm not sure about other provinces. The lobbying rules are pretty tight in Canada, it's nothing like the U.S. - but of course there are always examples of a disproportionate level of influence. I'm with you on off-shore tax havens and limiting corporate monopolies. Even rule of law. Transparency, etc. But some of these are such big themes, they become vague without tangible small actions that make a real impact. Anyway - this is just the starting point of what could and should be a wide ranging policy discussion on how to restore trust!
Lobbying rules may be tight but is compliance and enforcement? We had a peek behind the curtain with WE and SNC. As to corporate donations -- what do you call all the "cash for access" dinners? African vacations? Payments to family members? Then of course there is the money funneled into "advocacy" groups. As to tangible actions -- put someone in jail for the 14 years of bread price fixing, for bribing foreign officials, for tax evasion. Show us the names from the Banks that sent the name from Switzerland and Panama. Transparency shouldn't be hard. Start with telling us why 2 Chinese scientists were booted out of the country. Stop proroguing parliament to quash investigative committees.
Terry I was quoting the article. Having said that, disagreeing with another persons' view doesn't make their views "unacceptable". The truck convoy had the support of many thousands of Canadians who wanted some of the restrictions lifted. Every Canadian belongs to one minority or another and would not consider themselves as fringe and certainly the Prime Minister of all Canadians should work on inclusion rather than division. How hard would it have been for him to say "I disagree with you on the imposition of vaccine mandates, but I will hold a free vote in the house on the matter."? Instead, he painted himself into a corner because he couldn't possibly negotiate with fringe minorities with unacceptable views. As a result we got the ridiculous overreaction of the Emergencies Act.
What does it matter? If it was freedom from vaccine mandates, if it was removing restrictions, if it was to be allowed to work, if it was just because their kids were home driving then nuts -- who cares. They felt the government was going too far in infringing their rights and decided to protest. Do you ask what part of the Liberal platform -- or other party platform -- one votes for when you vote for a candidate. You either vote for her or you vote for someone else. When one of the planks is not really representative of your POV does that mean she supports fringe and unacceptable views? Bear in mind that less than 6 million Canadians voted for the current government. So I guess the majority of Canadians think the Liberals are a fringe minority with unacceptable views.
Firstly, I'm triple vax'd and would recommend everyone do the same. Secondly, I consider myself a liberal though it is true I do not support the current government ( but I don't support any of the opposition parties either). I did not support the blockades nor the occupation of Ottawa. I do support the peoples right to protest and for people to donate to whatever cause they want.
Now as to "What rights were trampled?" Well the right to refuse forced inoculations, the forced closing of businesses, the forced limiting of businesses. Allowing people to buy shoes at Walmart or Costco but not at you local shoe store. Jeez all kind of rights were infringed. We couldn't travel even within Canada to visit family at times.
Sure the majority of Canadians were fine with it and got vaccinated and we even stayed home and closed our businesses. But after two years it did become a little much. And I expect the majority of Canadians were fine with locking up the Japanese during WWII and charging head taxes on Chinese and turning back boatloads of Jews and marriage being only between a man and a woman ... but none of these were right and all were infringing on human rights. The whole point of a bill of rights is to protect the rights of the minority.
Btw as an interesting tidbit, more people didn't vote as voted for any particular party.
A badly-needed article, and they have to come from the conservative side; it's not like somebody who can admit to having voted Liberal/NDP/Green (60% of us) can tell them anything, without it being discarded. As coming from the desk of George Soros, in some cases.
The author is paying attention to surveys, not to behaviour. The surveys measure people's suspicion of those working for institutions; but their behaviour indicates their ongoing trust in the actual institutions themselves.
Example: many may express distrust in the police, concern over their many scandals, and go to a BLM march, show support. But we didn't even really discuss "defund the police".
Example: on the day that the anti-vaxxer protesters hit Ottawa, their numbers were at their highest, "8000 to 10,000". Call it 10,000. ELEVEN thousand Canadians took their first vaccination that day. 29,000 stepped up to another day of discomfort to reach full vaccination. And 50,000 sucked up those aches and fevers a third time to get boosted.
Vastly more Canadians have trust in our medical system than do not.
Which is why we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and one of the lowest death-rates in the pandemic - more trust and rules-acceptance than Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel.
There is a lot out there to work with, at healing those who've been infected. A lot of them have concerned family and friends.
I'm impressed with the intelligence, depth of knowledge and communication skills of most people commenting on and those posting commentaries on The Line. I agree with others that Melanie's article missed the mark in providing a high level of analysis. I barely follow legacy media now, as I find far better informed, more detail and superior context from people (professors, journalists, scientists, historians, philosophers, etc. ) posting on YouTube. I look forward to the day Justin Trudeau is no longer our PM, but I don't have any faith our other political leaders will do a better job.
This article is vauge to the point that I'm not sure I understand what is being argued against and what is being proposed.
I see the point that state-sponsored disinformation is bad and that social media serves to amplify this, but I see no tangible ideas on what can be done or what I could expect others to do. I also don’t have much faith that calls for better conduct to those creating disinformation, social media companies or politicians will have any effect.
There is a fundamental difference between a classic confidence scam like the Nigerian Prince or Tinder Swindler and the “scams of disinformation.” A classic confidence scam takes money from its victims, and we can almost all see that and recognize it as bad. A scam of disinformation takes (or introduces) something intangible, and that thing is much more difficult of for us to identify or to understand its impacts.
"This article is vauge to the point that I'm not sure I understand what is being argued against and what is being proposed." Really? It says: Conservative leadership needs to stop spreading garbage information for political points (and so does everybody else). Not that complicated, and not vague.
I mean that's a nice sentiment... But the article fails to call out any instances itself and the entire definition of "garbage information" isn't clear. Also, I imagine politicians tend to respond more to voters than to articles on a site like this, so calling out a class of people without naming any examples isn't going to put pressure on anyone to change.
Eventually the disinformation providers also ask for donations. Steve "flood the zone with s***" Bannon was arrested for profiting from "build the wall" donations, only saved by a last-day Trump pardon. Trump's own donations go into privately-controlled accounts.
Nobody seems to have asked the question what "would have" been done with the $10M in our convoy donations that were stopped - since the whole protest went on fine, for weeks, having a massive media and economic impact, without the donations.
Were the 'tyrannical' police simply saving the donors from a white-collar crime?
"We must fight back against these scams of disinformation."
Granted, you have described the problem: "deepening divisions and compounding of rage..." but I would like to hear more suggestions about what should be done differently, what the actual cure for the disease would be.
It has to be more than "stop slinging mud". I'm not impressed by the conservative party as being "not this" or "not that". You are correct in observing that this partisanship is causing blindness.
How about acknowledging good policy, or good results, or valid points wherever they exist and begin to show leadership in discussing items of consensus and open discussion? How about publishing results and stages and processes of parliamentary committee work? This would turn the spotlight on key issues that we see consensus building, and also help build a sense that the elected representatives are serious about finding ways forward that will help all Canadians.
Lets not forget the SNC Lavalin issues and the Prime Minister interfering in our rule of law and the RCMP never even investigating this. The resignation of three female Liberals. The WE scandal. The treatment of Admiral Mark Norman. The purposeful act of shuttering our Parliament for two years when we most needed it to be in use. The lack of transparency in general of the Government. The Winnipeg Lab fiasco with the CCP Army scientist working within and the transfer or deadly viruses to Wuhan. Then Trudeaus act of taking the Speaker of the House to court so he would not have to share that information with parliament. I could go on for hours and still have many unresolved issues created by the Government itself. The last one of putting in the Emergencies Act, the disgraceful name calling by the Prime Minister and partisan news media that pushed propaganda, the freezing of bank accounts by the banks. The words of the Liberals Attorney General who said that if you contributed to the convoy you should be worried as well. The complete corruption and funding of media and the partisan news that is more than noticeable, its right in everyone's face. Blacklisting the media that did not report what the Government liked, not just from the press gallery, but by the banks as well. The cancelation culture that thrives in media and against Conservative voices. To anyone who pays attention to the Liberal Government's actions and policies, I would say its not Conservatives spreading misinformation but the media and those who are in bed with the Liberal Government.
You missed my point. I did not say the conservatives are spreading misinformation. By implication I am calling out the Liberals who must by now think Canadians are stupid, for all the fumbled issues and BS that you so nicely listed.
I'm not buying the Liberal schtick, and I'm tired of it.
However it remains my point that conservatives seem to be (sadly) lacking the ability or strategy to overcome the vast amount of Liberal crap.
I am not willing to listen to more mudslinging.
I get it. I blame the mainstream media. One sided coverage creates silence on one side or seemingly silence.
It goes past the MSM though. They are only selling what people are willing to buy. It's up to all of us to quit being so lazy and self satisfied with our own opinions and start to demand better. The standard is low because we allow it to be low.
The real problem is that the media hasn't been actually doing their jobs for years now. If they did, we wouldn't be in this quagmire we presently find ourselves in, and the Government would have been brought to account...
These are good suggestions! There are a lot of things we can and should start doing to correct course. I don’t have all the answers. I just think we need to start talking about it openly as a starting point.
Unless the mainstream media is willing to interview or even speak to Conservatives without demonizing or misrepresenting them, it will continue. They do not even cover any news that may look bad to the Liberal Government in Ottawa. Then to want to silence voices on the internet because they say it’s misinformation, leaving no avenue to discuss anything of importance without being cancelled, demonized, or belittled. You can not fix what you can not speak of in the public square. The Liberal Government and the media want the internet silenced. That is already in its second reading in the Senate. The media has made it impossible to even discuss this as everything Conservative is considered “misinformation”. It goes against the narrative the Liberal Government and the media are sending to the public. The Universities are spitting out media personnel today (you can not call many journalists or news casters today as they do nothing of the sort) who are to spread the narrative given to them through press releases. Repeat the stories they learned and follow the dictate of the progressive ideology and the master they learned under. They do not do news today. They do narratives and are called Government Storytellers.
You say that mainstream media does "not even cover any news that may look bad to the Liberal Government in Ottawa".
I would reply ... Bob Fife? National Post? The entire Sun Media chain? Maclean's? CTV? Global News? I could go on. Certainly all of these have been known to ruin my breakfast.
I would love to say the answer for the conservative movement is to do the media's job for them. Create a new media organization which does its homework, presents issues fairly and fully, challenges the official truth by seeking the most accurate take on what actually is true, shows epistemic humility, and avoids sensationalizing issues.
But would anybody actually pay attention? And can structures be created to keep these values going in a real, specific, institution? I am not sure.
There is Conservative media and they do do there homework and thus Trudeau despises them and refuses to grant interviews or parliamentary passage. Consider the Chinese news service can access parliament but not the Conservative's, True North, doesn't even manage to make Canadian's question the Federal Government. There are many great people out there in Conservative land but they are constantly being inundated with cancel culture to shut them down and stop them from speaking. Sad as that is. It should never even be an issue but somehow its become one in the new era of twisted thinking and woke folk.
My suggestion for Conservatives is to take a page from the Liberal play book. If you dislike anything you hear, phone the station and ask to have them cancelled but you have to be consistent and do this daily with many other people also sending in a complaint. Do it by the millions on every progressive left channel, paper, and magazine. Do it in droves. Hang out on Twitter and wait for one wrong word from the woke folk and have many bots to converge on any word you find offensive.
I know of many others that no longer waste their time in the twitter feed, Facebooks and other social media as the left dominate and cancel any Conservative views. You Tube as well. I refuse to give out names or it sends droves of the cancel culture trying to out them and get them cancelled as well. That is how pathetic its become and the Government plans on stopping all Conversations that do not follow the Government narrative. They can not control the peons if they can't control the internet and the narrative so they will do any and all things to ensure that other voices are shut down. The bill is already on its second reading in the Senate and with the aid of the NDP progressives you know its going to be sent right on through.
Media and government spread fake claims that the truckers were Nazis, fake claims that cloth masks work, fake claims that lockdowns worked, fake claims that healthy children were at risk from Covid, and fake claims that natural immunity didn't work.
There always were and always will be cranks making wacky claims. If the media made an effort not to lie, the cranks wouldn't be believed.
Worry about the beam in your own eye before complaining about the mote in your neighbour's.
No, that's not what the media said at all. But there were white supremacists there. That's a huge difference.
Cloth masks do make a difference, but I'd love to see your evidence that they don't.
Lockdowns also worked....lowering the transmission rates in every location they were imposed.
Have young children gotten terribly sick with COVID or its long haul version? Yes. Maybe it's not many, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
No one said natural immunity didn't work; they said vaccination made it even stronger.
The media didn't lie. It reported the facts as they were known at the time. COVID didn't come with an owner's manual.
In short, sir, spinning everything to your anti-vax narrative simply makes you part of the problem here. Every claim you've made here is false.
This post is a sublime example of the sort of paid gaslighting that our media engages in. 'These things didn't happen. You're just crazy.'
I didn't say crazy, I said false. There is a big difference. Just like all your claims about Russia, facts can be checked. That's not gaslighting...that's a reality you chose not to be a part of.
But what is the source of your fact checking? If you've discovered a Bible of infallible facts please don't be stingy and share it with us so that we may all benefit. Also, I wasn't aware that I had made any easily falsifiable claims about Russia. Mine are mostly inferences based on my experience with Western media and with military conflicts and with NATO behaviour. This, combined with the facts that Ukraine is under a fog of war and barely two weeks into the fight. It's almost impossible to know exactly what is going on or predict with much accuracy what will happen.
Unlike you, I am encouraging skepticism and trying to infer the motives and thinking of all belligerents. You on the other hand are selling certainty based on your 'fact checking' -- do you simply go to websites that we haven't heard of? Does this make you feel more secure?
Regarding Ukraine, I agree. no one knows what is going on...except it's really bad. You suggested that what Russia is doing is for self-defence. I have countered that NATO has never attacked anyone without UN sanction. I don't hear any stories from you about any of Russia's 3 recent invasions being backed by anyone but Putin. The only certainty is Ukrainians will suffer in the near term, Russians in the longer term.
Regarding COVID, all one needs to do is look at the data provided by the province of Ontario, and note that we haven't had cold or flu seasons for two years. That is clear proof that masks make a difference. The information is all out there, and it's very easy to find. You call it gaslighting; I call it deliberate ignorance. Ponder where we'd be without vaccines....it's pretty ugly. Seems to me, when you go to the hospital, you want treatment from a medical expert. Might as well listen to their advice then too.
https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data
How ridiculous your claim to - we haven't had a cold or flu season in two years is proof that masks work? Where have you been living- you have failed to account for the behaviorial changes of the public, the restrictions and the mandates, most people were at home, they were not riding public transit, going to their office & the schools were closed most of the time. Take the blinders off man!
Yes, from the Russian perspective, what they are doing is self defense. NATO exists to counter Russia. NATO is an anti-Russian military alliance. People who want to be disingenuous call it an anti-Soviet alliance. As if that makes any difference. It turns out, that when a military alliance that exists to counter you assures you that you have nothing to fear from them, this is received with unreserved skepticism. Can you honestly blame the Russians for thinking this way, disregarding their invasion? By extension, the Russians see the UN as the same thing as NATO -- a club that exists to get its way and to brow beat Russia when they need to. Positing that aggressive NATO actions were sanctioned by the UN hold no water and at best are unpersuasive to Russia seeking its security. Why is an anti-Russian military alliance bombing random countries around the world in order to police and nation build? Is anyone asking this question? And the UN sanctioning these policing actions legitimizes them in your view? The UN is the moral arbiter and high authority of the world? As long as they ok it -- then it's morally good?
I am not disputing vaccines or anything to do with Covid. Though I disagree with your assessment that it was masks that prevented us from having flu seasons. People for the most part stay at home and do not congregate. This is why flu did not spread. And before you gloat and say 'see -- the lockdowns were amazingly effective', no one is saying lockdowns didn't slow transmission. People want us to ask, at what COST?
Yes, journalists and reporters and editors etc are all paid as they should be.
For gaslighting, you want FB, Twitter, Rumble, 8chan, and Reddit.
Sublime? Accurate, you are projecting.
I find it odd that the mainstream media has not been putting out the information being put out by the FDA on the Pfizer vaccine. They had made it inaccessible to other scientists and the public for 75 years. Imagine that. They were taken to court and must have all the data released by August of this year. You might want to do some investigating on this yourself as its obvious the main stream media will not put it out to the public. The adverse events in the trials should have made them rethink putting the vaccines out to the public. You need to investigate it on your own. If I put here I am sure I will be booted off and be told I am spreading misinformation. FDA withholding trials of the Pfizer vaccine. Go check it out.
You claim it, you source it. Nowhere have I seen anything that suggests there is any comparison between the number of adverse effects in comparison to the good done by the vaccines. Have there been adverse reactions? Yes, you've had one. 10 billion shots have been given. How many millions more would have died without them?
If data is released in August, I'll wait until August. I'm more than pleased with the 3 doses of Pfizer I have in my system, and will happily take one every fall if it will keep me safer from COVID....which will be around forever.
I am not suggesting anything. I just wonder why they are not putting this out to the public. It is extremely important information. Do you not find it odd? So far they have only put out a small amount of information so there will be much more to come. The fact they were not going to release anything for 75 years is amazing in itself as other scientists wanted to see it as well. It boggles my mind why it is not front page news. They have put out the list of adverse effects in the trials. I would be curious to know how many people were involved in the trials? Then there is the law suit against Pfizer as the trial by a company that was contracted by them to do it were done badly. There is plenty of evidence shown by the complainant and it sufficient for the trial to go ahead. It’s not misinformation to speak of this but you will not see anything in the news about it. So by not saying anything makes them look complacent and wanting it kept silent. Then people say it’s spreading misinformation. It’s not misinformation. The media is not doing its job. They are either incompetent or don’t want this in the public. It’s insanity because I am sure I will be told I am spreading misinformation.
I mean no disrespect, but your constant conspiracy theories are becoming tiring. It's extremely important in your opinion, so go find out what you need to know. 99% of the information they put out I won't understand as medical in nature. We already know about the list of adverse effects, and since you had some, I can see it being of great interest. The vast majority of people didn't. I'll care about lawsuits when they're settled; not before, because that's meaningless. I think there are far more important front-page issues at the moment.
Of course, you are suggesting everything. Pfizer is releasing something like a 700-page report soon. You can probably read it on the Pfizer site. Health Canada may have it too. What I really want to know is how much of it do you plan on reading. Legal/medical. Would you like it released in layman's terms or are you willing to take advantage of the FB lawyers and doctors?
Why is what not on the front page? Would that be an MSM thingy—front-page breaking news! I guess you'll have to be boggled.
If I won't see something in the news about it, why would you? Have you seen the evidence?
"So by not saying anything makes them look complacent and wanting it kept silent. Then people say it’s spreading misinformation. It’s not misinformation. The media is not doing its job."
What are you trying to say? I'm not understanding you.
What do you say about Putin's social media skills?
How would you know propaganda when you see it? The propaganda on the Ukraine war is full force and not just coming from Putin but Ukraine and everywhere else, main stream and social media and across the globe. My goodness the complete blinding belief that the media is telling you pure truth and everything else is propaganda is absurd. This is stuff you hear from the Federal Government to discredit any other narrative. Yes only they know reality. That the truth tellers are all on one side. That Russia is the only bad actor and everyone else is squeaky clean in todays political land mine. Any other view is misinformation and derogatory and they must be shut down and silenced.
Why would the media speak of things that puts policy makers front and center due to the pandemic response that they participated, in is anyone's guess. Trying to save themselves from public scrutiny? Same with the Governments and the ridiculous lock down measures we have suffered from. Obvious you lost nothing or you would not speak in such away. Perhaps put yourself in the shoes of small businesses that lost everything due to the mess that was made with lockdowns. The Walmart's and big retailers could stay open. Think that through just for ten minutes and tell me how Walmart, where more people gather is safer than a small business? Just let that sit in your brain for ten minutes to mull over. I mean really, think about it. It makes zero sense but you will back that and everything else because your still alive. If you did not suffer any consequences and lived another day everything was done well. Every nation following in China's footsteps and no one even questions why? I could see them doing so until they got more information on the virus but that has been long past now and we just came out after two years.
It is easy to tell the laptop class working from home that did not miss any pay or lose your business as only someone who manage smooth sailing through this pandemic would speak as you do. " We are all in this together", is absolutely hilarious and for anyone to continue with that attitude and look down on those who have suffered so much, the suicides , overdoses, and other tragedies that occurred have been swept under the proverbial carpet. Its why the divide keeps growing between the classes, East and West, and left from right. The divisive nature of the entire Governance of the country and those that back that are still under the illusion all is well and everyone else is wrong and spreading misinformation. Yes. That comes straight from the Ottawa laptop class that has gained two raises and smiling all the way to the bank. The lets decry and demean those those who suffered the most even more especially those who wont follow the dictate of the Government and the elites of this country. We are not and have never been "all in this together." There needs to be inquiries into how this was handled and people who are in charge must face the consequences of their actions. They will not though will they, as they gave full power in those duties to the "experts". That was to save their own political careers as there is more than one "expert" but funny, they were silenced when it came to policy. Imagine losing your loved one and saying good bye on an iPad.
If Canada Health has the documents they seen to verify the use of the vaccine they most certainly do not have it out for the public to scrutinize as they will not even allow the public to see the contract they signed for the vaccines. If this information was shared, as it should be for transparency, I am sure that the other scientists and those in the medical field would not be asking to see the information on the trials of the vaccines. I suppose them wanting more information is just pure misinformation. Just like everything else that goes against the "official narrative". Yes everything other than what Canadians are told by their Government or the media is misinformation. I get that so why even bother questioning me. Just bring our your stamp and call it what it is "misinformation".
I watched hours of on the street footage (probably > 20) , and saw NO white supremacists. There was ONE swastika and ONE confederate flag, on the first day. Yet the narrative being pushed again and again, and you fell for it, is that was representative of the protest.
Cloth masks are a placebo, as pointed out by the Bangladesh study as well as most mainstream experts at this point. I wore a cloth mask too, thinking that would help. Medical friends of mine wore N95, and they were correct as we see now.
Lockdowns "work" in that they delay spread of the virus. However the consequences are significant. We still haven't accounted for that. Compare California and Florida.
Natural immunity was ignored with respect to vaccine passports. This was a mistake, it undermined trust in public health.
I'm not sure the media lied or not. What I'm certain of, is they are not as competent as we were expecting, and they certainly have an agenda. I no longer trust them.
So you didn't meet Pat King. I didn't fall for that narrative at all. What I saw at the protest was a bunch of selfish people tired of COVID rules. Guess what? 100% of the population are tired of the COVID rules. We just don't feel the need to torment our neighbours about it when we have no functional better ideas except pretend it's not real.
If you'd like to source your mask claim, I'd love to see it. But every metric I've seen anywhere says masks made a difference; the better the mask, the bigger the difference. Double masking also provided a significant benefit. There can be no doubt that some kind of mask was better than no mask.
Yes, lockdowns delay the spread allowing our fragile healthcare system to continue functioning barely. Since ours isn't as robust as other countries, comparisons are pointless. There were some pretty significant consequences here too; Saskatchewan suspending their organ donation program because of a lack of ICU space. Imagine losing out on an organ because of that?
A mistake in your opinion. Since people can get COVID more than once, I have no reason to disagree with the advice of public health experts. Natural can be good, but Omicron changed that theory in a hurry. Natural with a vaccine was the best....or a 3rd dose
What was known about COVID changed on a daily basis? No one could keep up. What was good one day, wasn't the next. That's how it goes with a virus that is a complete unknown. When was the last time a virus came along where you were contagious before you had symptoms? How do you deal with that? So they reported what they knew at the time, but the place to listen was the interviews with the medical and public health experts. Ignore everyone in government because they're just trying to parrot what they've been told; aka broken telephone. I don't believe they lied about anything. They reported what they knew when they reported it. The nature of COVID meant that big changes were possible. That's why this has been so difficult.
All I'm looking for is honesty. Pat King was not representative of the group. He wasn't an organiser. He wasn't a spokesman. Just a blowhard with a Facebook following. Yet he's portrayed as the face of the protest. Not honest. When he's given coverage in my mind it undermines the media covering the story. I no longer trust them. I'll get my news elsewhere.
Masks: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2021-11/working-paper-64.pdf
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-11/did-mask-mandates-work-the-data-is-in-and-the-answer-is-no
Your last paragraph is key. We just didn't know. It would have been good to say that from the beginning. That would have been honest. And not panic and throw out previous pandemic planning. Just be honest and say we don't know what this will be like, so we're sticking to previous plans.
The most honest opinion I've heard from experts is "this is going to be a 5 year ordeal, and we're all going to catch it". I have not heard that from anyone in public health or public office.
Bloomberg is an opinion piece. Omicron also changed all the rules. Mask mandates are on the way out now, but the jury is far from unanimous that they did nothing. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449
I don't think there was any real pre-pandemic planning. Lots of warnings. Clearly, governments of all stripes didn't plan or react. It will be interesting to see if Canada finds a way to keep a homegrown supply of PPE in the years to come.
I suspect there are hundreds of studies with hundreds of varying conclusions.
I guess the question is how the public would respond to "we're not sure if this will make a difference, but we'd like you too..." Would anyone even be listening?
I've heard lots of public health experts say this is never going away but will become endemic. A booster will likely become past of the fall flu shot program. All are now saying we have to learn to live with it...I believe hoping that Omicron is COVID burning itself out. We won't know until we know.
I agree. The science isn't settled on masks. New study today, btw: https://twitter.com/tonisoriano66/status/1500943995257643009?s=20&t=3vSlBvdk2QFlKsjvIzGtfg
FWIW, Alberta had a plan put together in 2014: https://open.alberta.ca/publications/alberta-s-pandemic-influenza-plan
Anyway, 2 years into this, I'm now open to being wrong about all of this. That's fine. I don't need to be certain to make decisions. I'll use something of a Bayesian approach to my decisions. Risk management.
You bring up the key point: *the public*. As in public health, as in public relations. We're way past the age of being able to get 100% agreement on anything. In the face of that, experts, journalists, politicians, etc, need some humility.
Maybe humility is the foundation of honesty, and through honesty trust can be restored. Until then we'll be thrashing from crisis to crisis, and the public won't believe what they're told. They'll fill in the gaps with whatever trash they find.
They did say that at the beginning of the pandemic. They kept saying it.
You didn't see Pat King's Sons of Odin sweatshirt?
After the initial flurry of removing the swasticas etc, there were few to see. What you fail to acknowledge is that you can't see the tats, the t-shirts, the chain around the neck with shiny ugly things dangling under the fuzzy beards because it was too bloody cold. No one fell for anything. They were there. Even your high white grandmaster does not foam at the mouth every day. You actually watched that much footage, damn but you're a sucker for punishment.
One study out of hundreds. You don't believe the mainstream experts but know you want to haul them outstaying them up then cut them down again. N95. We all learned things over the past 2 years. Why are you being such a crank about it. You aren't a doctor or a scientist or someone who knows how to run a proper study. But you think we should all listen to Norm.
Natural Immunity. BFD. Constant testing and pissing around wasting people's time. Get the bloody jab.
The media didn't lie. They may have made mistakes that were acknowledged quickly. You really expect every journalist to immediately become adept at medical lingo then put it together to run where people can read it. And do that from a cold start. They got better as they went along but think about where they get their info? How competent are you on a topic that is totally unfamiliar?
- Nope
- *one* swastika, photographed on the first weekend, used as fodder to discredit the protest. See footage like this: https://youtu.be/T3tlFgwZzmE . He went there for 14 days, 3+ hours each time, talking to everyone. It was must-see TV. Interesting footage if you're interested in people and their stories.
- Lots of studies. Back and forth. It's a fun debate. More today: https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1501570978450657280?s=20&t=ryoTbmLE8EZuL4ctPIlqow
- It is a big deal. Anything with potential side-effects is a big deal. A confirmed infection should count as a shot. Don't ask me, ask https://substack.com/profile/21798998-vinay-prasad?r=2bwy3&s=r&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=web
- Media don't have to lie to be untrustworthy. They just have to be disingenuous, or dishonest, or distorted.
Exactly.
Not to mention the skewing of the truth by the facts the media chose to report. ie. one Confederate flag at the Convoy protest that was run off vs. hundreds of Canadian flags and the anthem being sung every day.
A couple of swastikas painted backwards, that were photographed in the background off-site (and mocked by the Jew who was one of the three main convoy leaders - not reported) vs. Chrystia Freeland being photographed holding a scarf with far right colours at a Ukrainian march and then merely deleting the photograph and shrugging it off as an innocent misunderstanding.
The media throws away their right to be trusted when they try to paint pictures vs. reporting the whole truth.
And then make it worse by playing motte and bailey games:
Say something that any reasonable reader would interpret as "They are all a bunch of Nazis".
When called out, say "We didn't actually say they are a bunch of Nazis, just that there were some white supremacists there".
Then, again, say something that any reasonable reader would interpret as "They are all a bunch of Nazis".
This kind of argumentation destroys trust, instead of building it.
I guess I'm not a reasonable reader then. But you said that; the press didn't. I saw a couple of flags. I heard Pat King. The vast majority aren't white supremacists or Nazi's.....none of them are public health experts. All of them are fools.
Or is this another example of "experienced it differently"? :)
Ahhh, there we go with the name calling. The final piece of any argument that can't stand up to reasonable debate.
Yes, a collection of people with no public health experience who think they are going to overthrow our duly elected government because their religious guide tells them so are fools. Ill-informed? Ignorant? misguided? Selfish? What would you call a group of people with no solution to a global health crisis who feel like whining about it with no functional solutions? Oh yes, and the genesis of their protest ignores that the US, the country they'd be driving into, has the exact same law.
Everyone is tired of it. Those with a shred of respect and concern for their neighbours wear their masks and do their best to get through it.
The fools; which is the most polite word I can think of to describe them, go and torment a downtown, led by a western separatist, a minister with zero understanding of Canada's law and a blatant white supremacist. They are allowed to stay for 3 weeks and complain about their loss of freedom. What a pathetic joke.
If you have points you'd like to make explaining how this group is anything more than a bunch of party-goers who are tired of COVID; which couldn't care less, I'd love to debate. Until then, fools will have to do.
So you were there and can verify there was only 1? The Nazi flags were all offsite, and not at the National War Memorial? Do you have any opinions on organiser Pat King's comments? The Bauder's?
Some things have explanations. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/freeland-nationalist-scarf-1.6372995
The two places I'd love to hear the whole truth are Question Period and during an election campaign. I'm quite certain I never will.
I thought this article was about dis/misinformation which is the point I was making, but yes I am willing to confirm.
`There always were and always will be cranks making wacky claims'. Sir, look in the mirror.
Never heard anyone being called a Nazi, but white supremacists, and white nationalist, did enter the narrative. Why? Maybe because there was at least one white supremist propaganda spreading person leading the convoy. Secondly, please explain what was going on at the Coutts Border Crossing in Alberta, which was spawned from the Convoy, when RCMP arrested 4 people, armed to the teeth and threatening to kill nurses, doctors and police officers? You can choose to be ignorant and hide your head in the sand, but don't expect the rest of us to follow suite.
As a retired reference librarian with an ongoing professional concern for the quality and reliability of information sources, I have to ask how The Line even saw fit to publish this fact-free insult to its readers' intelligence. We don't need "foreign bad actors" to deepen "trust deficits" in Canada; our institutions do a thoroughly competent job of that themselves. If only "half of Canadians believe journalists are purposefully trying to mislead people," and that "media is [are] not objective," you have to wonder what happened to the natural skepticism of the other half. If "three-quarters of Canadians don’t trust the government," that's a testament to their good judgment, not evidence that they've fallen victim to 'disinformation' and conspiracy theories.
Canadians have an impressive degree of literacy, and they put it to use reading books (go to just about any of Toronto's one hundred library branches prior to opening hours and you'll find a line-up of people waiting to get in). They know how to outflank institutional propaganda and don't require a nudge from plotters in Russia or Iran to discern ideological bias in the pages of The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. They'd have to have the credulousness of medieval peasants to possess a higher level of trust than they do in would-be social engineers masquerading themselves as journalists, or in a Prime Minister who's so clearly revealed himself as the king of disinformation. The trust deficit Ms. Paradis finds so "staggering" has been well-earned: it's a consequence of institutional incompetence and duplicity, not a consequence of Canadians having been bamboozled by "thought scams" misrepresenting the misbehaviour.
I quite agree with you that this didn’t all come out of nowhere! I’d love to go more in-depth on that, but that would be another 800 word article! But yes, there is a lot more to this than I was able to get into. It would take a whole book.
Thanks for your reply... and I'm sorry if I came across as rudely dismissive. I do think, though, that the critique you lacked space for would be informing Canadians of things they already know (hence the stats you've cited). If 'disinformation' is truly a concern of yours, shouldn't you be going after the big players, the institutions themselves? Most of us would like nothing better than to be able to trust our institutions, but institutional trustworthiness is the necessary prerequisite, yes? How can social media be blamed for its absence? Well-researched books by Kevin Williamson, Christopher Caldwell, Matt Taibbi, Jonah Goldberg and a host of others (none of them Russians or Iranians) show that trust in institutions isn't currently merited, and social media is actually giving us a pretty accurate reflection of that reality.
I encourage the debate and didn’t find you rude at all. Trust is such a complex and fragile thing. You are right that trustworthiness begets trust, and breaking that trust is what for us here. But now that we have a deficit of trust, where do we go from here? How do we rebuild that trust in our institutions? We really need to or this will only get worse.
If media were to stop lying to us for our own good, that would be a start. Eric Weinstein said somewhere that he has no objection to a polite euphemism or two, but that he expects at least 'adult-level' fictions from The New York Times, not insults to his intelligence.
He may have been being too charitable. The more cynical view is that the elites who control institutional media are contemptuous enough of the rest of us, and sufficiently secure in their own invulnerability, to be beyond caring what we think. Like other scammers, they aren't particularly embarrassed that intelligent people see through The Narrative's incoherence and recoil from its coarser aspects. As long as there are sufficient numbers of dupes to keep them in business, that's all that matters to them. To that end, they will bestir themselves to pick off any astute critic who develops too broad a following, and their weapons won't be logic or counter-evidence but demonization, demonetization, and sometimes outright censorship.
And then, on the yet darker side...
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
--Theodore Dalrymple
I was a guest worker for awhile in Germany in the mid-1970s, and, being in central Europe, received a good earful from sources like Radio Moscow, Radio Prague and Radio Tirana. Every news item was, at bottom, telling you the same thing: that's how you knew it was propaganda. It was laughable, but also frightening to think what life would be like on the other side of the Iron Curtain, where the propagandists were in control. Never did I imagine that one day western media would come to resemble those sources in the uniformity and stridency of their messaging.
This is particularly poignant in what you have shared here: "their weapons won't be logic or counter-evidence but demonization, demonetization, and sometimes outright censorship." I am nodding along with that!
I hope that you don’t mind my asking, but I wonder why that statement resonates with you – particularly after you seemed to agree with Stella C that we should stop the media bashing.
To me the two views seem pretty opposite. In Stella’s view journalists are, although fallible and perhaps with some bias, trying to do their jobs with integrity – in investigating and reporting – and trying to hold those in power to some account. In the view you quote here, they are acting as agents of the elite to control our opinions and place limits on what we are exposed to.
Your essay here resonates with me – we ignore foreign attempts to widen divisions in our society at our peril. You may be familiar with the Guardian series on Cambridge Analytica, but as it deals with the issue of how what we think can be manipulated, (and is an example of the type of journalism that I admire) I will recommend it nonetheless. The related documentary “The Great Hack” is on Netflix.
Do you follow DarkHorse podcasts at all, Melanie? The extent to which mainstream media manages to ignore Bret Weinstein and others like Jordan Peterson, Daniel Schmachtenberger, David Fuller, etc.--except for occasional, dismissive hit pieces--is extraordinary in 2022; but Bret and his brother Eric may just be the sages of the age. Starting at the 2:25 mark, and for the next ten minutes or so, the answers Bret gives to the three questions he's asked here are well worth hearing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIFCjB0cH3E&t=0s
As someone with a graduate degree in information science, and twenty-five years' experience helping people meet their information needs, my concern about issues that bear on information quality and accessibility is natural enough. But I know ideologically captured journalists are a subset of a far larger set of complex, often interrelated problems--political, cultural and economic. The voices currently addressing these problems are rarely heard on institutional media platforms, which collude not only in their failure to acknowledge the problems' existence but to shut down conversations and lines of inquiry that might lead to increased awareness of them.
Consequently, we see (or rather, some see and some don't, because they are prevented from seeing) splits in society not just between left and right but between groups who are appealing to different epistemological bases and very different conceptual vocabularies. In such circumstances dialogues of the deaf become inevitable, and it's my earnest hope we aren't engaging in one here. Somehow, we have to find ways to talk to each other, and my inclination is always to try.
There's a difference, though, between dialogues featuring persons of good will (one of whom you obviously are), who are seeking to expand their knowledge base, and pseudo-dialogues among people for whom conversation is less about information exchange than hewing to the one true path, brushing aside impediments to the conclusions they've already decided they're going to reach. To the extent that the latter kind of 'discussion' becomes the norm we have little hope of escaping information silos; and unfortunately there's an economic incentive for institutional media to keep those silos hermetically sealed, and their readers and/or viewers captive.
Thanks for engaging with the audience.
Trust can only be rebuilt over a long time. Imagine a marriage where someone is unfaithful. It takes years to heal from that.
Trust is built on honesty, and honesty is hard.
You have made a number of assertions in what you have said. I hope that you are willing to enlighten me. I am no fan of Trudeau, but you call him “the king of disinformation”. Can you give two examples of how he has disinformed me?
I pay attention to legacy media. Please explain how I am being duped by them – preferably by providing a specific example of how their duplicity has pulled the wool over my eyes.
I don't know how old you are, Ed, or how you've managed to miss the accelerating atrophy of institutional media and journalistic standards over the past two decades, but I never decline serious requests for information. It isn't my opinions you need, however, but the opportunity to inform your own. If you don't trust the internet (and you shouldn't, indiscriminately, though you can get the equivalent of a college education from some of its remarkable, long form interviews--a claim no one could make on behalf of mainstream media's offerings), then just go for the book links.
As for Trudeau, wasn't his recent performance in Parliament enough for you? The narrative of demonization he attempted to weave around protesting truckers plainly bore no relation to reality, and he's been justly pilloried for his deceit, here and internationally. Yes, the Freedom Convoy was disruptive and inconvenienced the public: so, historically, have strikes... and how often do you see liberals denouncing strikers as un-Canadian, or freezing their bank accounts? If it had been disruption that bothered Trudeau instead of the challenge to his policies, he could easily have defused the situation by showing truckers the courtesy of accepting their repeated invitations to dialogue. He's never objected to sitting in front of a tepee and letting equally disruptive aboriginal protesters air their grievances: those are good, politically correct photo ops. Instead, he chose to weaponize disruption until the situation deteriorated far enough to provide a pretext for crushing not disruption but political dissenters.
The irony--and the truth he sought to obscure--is that the dissent came from a diverse array of political viewpoints and ethnic groups: it was a truly multicultural protest, albeit a working class one, which seems to have been the real problem for patrician, aristocratically disdainful Trudeau. As it happens, I've always voted NDP or Green; but I'm no more reconciled to hypocrisy and propaganda that claims to speak for my views than against them. Just give us straight information, please, and we'll form our own judgments as to its reliability and utility. None of us needs would-be social engineers, in government or media, editing reality for us: they aren't competent to do so and their motives are deeply suspect.
The links come from all parts of the political spectrum and are obviously merely a sampling; so browse at will:
https://www.amazon.ca/Smear-Shady-Political-Operatives-Control-ebook/dp/B01JYX44LE/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2YZJUO3JXPNF6&keywords=Sharyl+Attkisson&qid=1646763923&s=books&sprefix=sharyl+attkisson%2Cstripbooks%2C180&sr=1-5
https://www.amazon.ca/Hate-Inc-Todays-Despise-Another/dp/1682194078/ref=sr_1_1?crid=LO8K8VPPRRZM&keywords=hate+inc&qid=1646768170&s=books&sprefix=hate+inc%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.ca/Liberal-Media-Industrial-Complex/dp/1943591075/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2U2Q2Y3WJ2RJA&keywords=mark+dice&qid=1646768238&s=books&sprefix=mark+dice%2Cstripbooks%2C84&sr=1-2
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/does-journalism-have-a-future
https://unherd.com/2021/10/the-medias-betrayal-of-the-poor/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=d123391a31&mc_eid=079e736786
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD6nRiPDtAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezKb_AFvU4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDmdfZ3lOvI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O_7O9_nV10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNMFXQ_PqA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8F7HFoQI4
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/another-humorous-substack-panic?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQxMzM3NjEsIl8iOiJGdUVLZCIsImlhdCI6MTYzNzEyMzk3NywiZXhwIjoxNjM3MTI3NTc3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.odVnzW5zCu-SzTdVCs4QOnBDKCGOj3Gje8foi2BN38A
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-rittenhouse-verdict-is-only-shocking?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQyOTAwNjEsIl8iOiJRWjloMCIsImlhdCI6MTYzNzM4MTkxNiwiZXhwIjoxNjM3Mzg1NTE2LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.S2IOGwbqSU6RaKCR2qnNFTqSruOG2RCU4VdbTsmfMGg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHHAH08xvyM
https://freebeacon.com/media/everything-the-media-told-you-about-kyle-rittenhouse-was-wrong/
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/11/24/five_trump-russia_collusion_corrections_we_need_from_the_media_now_-_just_for_starters_804205.html?utm_source=rcp-today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&mc_cid=3b6896cb85&mc_eid=f1a295b104
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8F7HFoQI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaGIfQ5vsRQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80nVRtiUoc
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/will-twitter-become-an-ocean-of-suck?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQ3MzI3NzksIl8iOiJRWjloMCIsImlhdCI6MTYzODI5NDY1OCwiZXhwIjoxNjM4Mjk4MjU4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.8yFvxR0CZg7gUfvRiuY8s3gni1yf5JFwknGhScATQ0M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkx82LyNUHM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzY7YY3hato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdIYERQXCk
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/inside-omicron-variant-fear-factory-new-york-covid/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zg1j7Zquoc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz-BWU_rtkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvfn_Q4nan4
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/when-all-the-media-narratives-collapse
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tara-henley-why-i-quit-the-cbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kRrGNKaaUY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEcu04Setns
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/look-behind-the-curtain-discussion?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDcxNjU0NzEsIl8iOiJuL3MyWCIsImlhdCI6MTY0MjI4MzU0MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQyMjg3MTQwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.rbwZfn6BYzyvC5NvN8gPiYPsYhESc6WuasLRlIKv4NM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UHvwWWcjYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArYtup2o_qU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIZw_95PjHM
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-folly-of-pandemic-censorship?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc3MzEyMjYsIl8iOiJuL3MyWCIsImlhdCI6MTY0MzMwMDQ3MiwiZXhwIjoxNjQzMzA0MDcyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.jVyOKTINJIWpTPsZWUXSz2Hpz3qQDEdaNkdueBhabfg
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-british-medical-journal-story?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc5OTU5MDQsIl8iOiJuL3MyWCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Mzc2MzA1NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQzNzY2NjU1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.OFH9E29pZkJqfvBAMf8yuq_3n_zA0PJvRFBaQvXFdWo
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/tk-mashup-the-lab-leak-conspiracy?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDI5MjIzNywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDgwOTc3NTYsIl8iOiJuL3MyWCIsImlhdCI6MTY0Mzg0MTU2NCwiZXhwIjoxNjQzODQ1MTY0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.LJHHMAqbuTjw1L_DyKlETU_vr8agdAmo5LAjyHoyaW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrbO9ljs7Us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9dTReu3bvw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ierJtxcv_Cw
P.S. Terms like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' should be red flags to you. Everything that comes to your attention is information, and what normally concerns us about info are things like its relevance, accuracy and usefulness. The loaded prefixes, 'mis,' and 'dis,' imply that such evaluations have already been made, and all questions conclusively answered--and maybe that's true in the eyes of those spinning the narratives. It obviously can't be true for you or anyone else. In all cases, the reliability of any info we receive is precisely what's at issue.
Don't fall for institutional media's terminological subterfuge, which is transparently an attempt to forestall discussion, debate, and challenges to their narratives. Presenting us with the broadest range of data possible is media's legitimate role, not substituting their judgment for ours about the data's significance--and certainly not selectively amplifying and/or suppressing data to accord with political/ideological commitments of their own.
Thanks for the response. I agree with you that Trudeau is often, and was in this case, overly arrogant and dismissive. To jump from that to “king of disinformation” is too far a leap. (I find it a bit odd that you say, “Terms like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' should be red flags to you.” not that long after you use one of those terms yourself.)
I am not sure why you decided not to make a case. A statement like, “The narrative of demonization he attempted to weave around protesting truckers plainly bore no relation to reality.” expresses a point of view. You do absolutely nothing to illustrate that it is a valid one. “The Freedom Convoy was disruptive and inconvenienced the public: so, historically, have strikes.” If you are wish to suggest that what happened in Ottawa and the blocking of borders was a strike like any other, you are free to do that, but you should do something to substantiate the claim. “The irony--and the truth he sought to obscure--is that the dissent came from a diverse array of political viewpoints and ethnic groups: it was a truly multicultural protest” is a claim – again, which you don’t substantiate.
You are free, of course, to make all kinds of claims. Without providing evidence and explanation to support them, they are not more than that.
You have gone to a lot of work to provide links - to media about not trusting the media. Discerning bias or outright deception by media is not lost on me. Considering that the brush you are painting with is so broad, I was hoping, however, that you could yourself provide an example rather than relying on someone else to do it for you.
(?) Er, you're welcome... but don't you think you should investigate some of the materials provided, before deciding that the claims made are unsubstantiated? I'm not sure what would qualify as 'making a case' if providing relevant documentation is ruled out. What sort of case can I or anyone else make on his own authority, over and above the things we happen to have experienced personally? How do you propose we form opinions on public issues at all, and evaluate the worth of those opinions, in the absence of suitable citation, which is the portal to referred experience? The set of evidentiary criteria to which you make implicit appeal can't be coherently applied, even by you. It's like demanding to know what makes 12 while declaring ineligible as demos 7+5, 14-2, and every other combination that would do the trick, save 12 itself.
I wasn't in Ottawa for the protests, and I've never been inside the editorial offices of The New York Times; but I don't need to be, any more than I need to visit Warsaw to correctly claim it's the capital of Poland. It's enough that reputable reference sources confirm the truth of the proposition: they make it possible for me to know that truth as surely as I know France's capital is Paris, where I lived for a year. I wasn't in Canada's Parliament either, when Trudeau was disgracing himself; but if you doubt that he did the record is easily findable on YouTube, along with the near-universal negative reaction to his performance.
Hoisting Trudeau by his own 'disinformation' petard was, of course, an exercise in sarcasm, not an inadvertent fall into logical inconsistency. Why don't you read the books and view the links, Ed? Everything you need in the way of what epistemologists customarily accept as substantiation has been provided for you, including examples galore. They don't have to be mine, and would gain nothing if they were.
We all need to be part of the solution regardless of our beliefs. Thank you for this article. The poison that is spreading needs to be stopped and only by lifting our heads out of the muck that is social media and use our rationale thought can this happen.
I appreciate the perspective. I agree there have been many examples by the right to pass along misinformation - in particular the parked UN planes with reinforcements and the lady that was trampled had died. Egregious.
But other examples cannot be called misinformation (vaccine performance/safety) as a way to make the right seem more sinister. "Conspiracy" theories often start out as "misinformation" and some are eventually revealed as the truth. Let's take a few examples that were called conspiracies by the media and much of the populace:
1) The vaccines are safe with limited side effects. Evidence is emerging that side effect reporting has been suppressed, doctors have been muzzled. Pfizer and CDOA have been suppressing information and the truth is starting to drip the vaccines are not as safe as we are told. Until there is transparency you cannot call these claims conspiracies.
2) 2 years ago some were indicating governments will institute vaxx passports. HMMM.
3) The vaccines are gene therapy. I saw a video from a world health summit last Nov. that is now starting to circulate where the President of Bayer said the "vaccines" are gene therapy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D5KeniMzjg&ab_channel=derma.
I'd love to see a liberal/NDP columnist write a similar article about all the conspiracies from the left. Actually let's just call them bold faced lies such as:
1) Trudeau: the protestors are racists, white supremacists, misogynists, etc. and the protests were full of nazi and confederate flags. There is evidence a few such flags were flown but if you watched enough video you would see there were hardly any such flags.
2) The Ottawa police chief during the press Saturday press conference said protestors threw bikes at the horses. No video evidence. He went on to say he didn't know the health status of the lady who was trampled ~ 24 hours after the fact. How can he say with a straight face he had no idea what happened to her 24 hours later. This was the most serious injury during the protests. He would have known.
3) Fauci: The vaccines was 100% "efficacious" against spread of COVID. Untrue.
4) CNN: The BLM protests (in Kenosha I believe) are mostly peaceful protests. Meanwhile a building is burning behind the reporter and BLM protestors destroyed the city. Video and reporting was suppressed of significant rioting and violence in other cities as well to support the narrative.
5) Every liberal news channel, President of the United State, sports commentators, etc.: Kyle Rittenhouse is a racist and killed shot/killed the protestors in cold blood. Lie.
6) Joe Rogan used a horse de-wormer to treat COVID. Whether you believe in the effectiveness of Ivermectin or not is one thing. But for the media to call it a horse de-wormer and not tell the full story of its use in humans is total bunk.
I'm not trying to suggest Conservative get a free pass. But it's funny how all the conspiracies/lies are always associated with Conservatives.
The article should be rewritten by the same author providing a balanced POV on the misinformation issue illustrating it's a problem on both sides of the political spectrum. Or they could write the same article and do a find and replace with conservative --> liberal; and then replace every example of misinformation promoted by the right with examples from the left.
Until such time, the writer gets should receive a grade of incomplete with an opportunity for a re-write.
Or The Line should find a Liberal who writes a similar article showing the guilt of the left when it comes to misinformation. I'm not holding my breath.
Oh Ms. Sandra Kiss, you SO do not get what the author was trying to say to you.
You can disagree with my assessment with facts and poking holes in logic. It was very clear to me what the author said and I acknowledged and indicated agreement on key points. But I suggested there needed to be more balance to this perspective to strengthen the article.
I sincerely apologize for the “Ms.”. I misread your name as Sandra and actually was trying to be respectful, not denigrate. My bad.
Thank you've. I've edited my comment to acknowledge your note.
I am, unapologetically, a fan of good journalism. I believe we have solid journalists in Canada. There is such a firehouse of information- no individual could possibly factcheck every story. Unlike Mark - I believe most journalists made every effort to represent what they are seeing and hearing.
Are they perfect? Like most of us - not by a long shot. I think Ms. Paradis is correct in stating - Conservatives need to be part of the solution. Part of the solution would be not to engage in media bashing.
Every story should be fact-checked or not reported or at least reported as not being fact checked. When reporters get it wrong they must spread the correction as loudly and widely and they spread the misinformation. How many reporters have their biases checked? Sure it is impossible to be totally unbiased but every piece should be as true as humanly possible and media outlets do well to have editors who have the gumption to question the woke narratives of the left and the entrenched bias of the right.
Agreed, but with COVID, for example, the facts changed on a daily/ weekly basis as knowledge was gained.
Sure but report the facts as known and tell what has changed and why. The opinion columnists can then opine on whether the changing science is showing the system works or why people should have doubts.
They did report the facts as known...and then when new information came out, people complained that the media had lied to them.
Opinions are just that. They have more value when backed by facts, and in reality, a lot of the direction on COVID was just that; expert opinion from people with deep knowledge of the science...but not the specific virus.
But when you look at the commentary on social media, people expected perfect information that would never change.....and from there is devolved to Soros and Bill Gates. The expectations were absurd and unrealistic.
For sure some people became unhinged. And I'm sure nefarious groups strove to seed disinformation but to say they reported the facts as known has proven to be untrue. Lies were manufactured about whether the cause was natural or otherwise and Fauci admitted to tell lies to "calm the public", and we know they lied about masks to preserve PPE for healthcare workers. Trudeau lied about our relationship with CanSino. The media became the PR arm of the government and did not challenge the government position enough. In fact, you were painted as a kook or conspiracy theorist if you thought that a virus that started within blocks of the Chinese Laboratory that was testing gain of function on the coronavirus was not a natural phenomenon. So yes, they reported the pablum that was dished to them as facts but in my opinion, they were not journalists.
Yes, they lied to preserve PPE for healthcare workers. Was that the wrong decision considering what happened with toilet paper?
Let's suppose the virus was made in a Chinese lab, and someone made an error and let it out. (I will not believe they did it on purpose without concrete proof). What would have changed? What would we have done differently?
Once the virus was out, we had to deal with it. At that point, getting through it became a team game. Donald Trump and his propaganda machine made that very difficult in North America. Social media, and people making money off it made it worse. The media did their best to keep up IMHO, but things changed pretty rapidly in the beginning. After all, when have we ever had to deal with a disease where you're contagious before you have symptoms? The first year was all about learning and trying to cope. You can only report what you know; we didn't know anything. So they did the best with what they had...while a lot of significant voices told the opposite story, making a bad situation far worse than it had to be.
I totally agree with this.
Part of the problem is the absolute hatred of Justin which appears to be driving much of the drivel that passes for facts amongst those not of his persuasion. I cannot stand him either and he should not be PM. But he is PM and is also kept in power by others such as the NDP. Using “alternative facts” to bring him down or blame him for things that are none of his doing eventually backfires. The narrative has to be much more intelligent which means conservative leaders must call out non-factual criticisms of the Govt (any Govt) when they see it — instead of jumping on the bandwagon and then finding that vehicle really has no wheels. But finding out too late in the game, this embarrassing themselves and others following them.
That’s a great line: “jumping on the bandwagon and then finding that vehicle really has no wheels”. Love that!
Nicely put
One of the best things about my The Line subscription is that I get to discover a few Canadian conservatives who are not idiots.
There has always been propaganda. There always will be. Our job is to ignore it and expose it.
And, if we are really being on our best behaviour, not create our own.
It was disheartening to read comments from several subscribers who seem to be content to refute what she wrote by repeating exactly the same lies that the author described in this article (the claims about alleged mainstream news media lies regarding Covid-19 pandemic suppression measures, including vaccines, or refutations of news reporting about the brutal nature of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or claims that it was undertaken "in self-defence").
We were even retreated to "whataboutism" ("what about the Liberals and all the things they do"). I would note that Kremlin and pro-Xi Jinping trolls are infamous for resorting to such tactics... whatever they think works, I guess.
In every case, these perspectives seem to be based on a credulous acceptance of misinformation and driven, it would seem, by rage because of changes in society and government that such subscribers do not wish to see.
As sad as it makes me to say this, if self-described Conservatives do not push out such people, the party will be hard-pressed to win enough seats to secure control of the House of Commons during the next federal election.
And one of the major spreaders of misleading information is the leading candidate to be the next leader of the Conservative party.
What was it he said that was false information? You can't just say things with out providing evidence.
He regularly misrepresents economic statistics. Just read any of Dale Smith's Question Period reports and you will find plenty of examples. But to take just one he blamed the rise in lumber prices on deficit spending by the liberals when any economist (and Poilievre is a good economist) knows that it is a demand problem as more people are renovating.
Its supply and demand, Tariffs, the shuttering of several mills in BC due to the policies of the NDP Government, the mass inflation caused by the over printing of money. Inflation has been caused by the Pandemic policies we were forced to endure and the Liberal Government of Canada's massive printing of money due to the lock downs that were implemented. So in a round about way it is due to the Liberals (inflation) but I get there are many factors involved due to other bad policy making and job losses.
That's enough of that.
Ouchie. Slapped by Matt himself. I thought my reply was perspicacious. Deleting it now, yer honour.
"Justin Trudeau says — a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views” — and intentionally exploit that for political gain. Should he say those things? No. Are we helping the situation? Also no." So what are you really recommending? Trudeau should behave better and if he doesn't that's ok? We should just trust the government? We don't need to know why Chinese scientists were kicked out of the country? We should trust the press? They have no agenda?
We all know that there is a lack of trust. Trust is something that is earned over time by being as truthful and possible and honestly acknowledging mistakes. Something that is lacking in our institutions. Your article is dreadfully short on action items to fix the situation. But thanks for telling us stuff we already know -- after all, that's why most of us are reading this on substack.
Fair enough! The truth is, I think the first action needs to be talking about it. Talking about the broken trust and the misinformation that keeps piling on. How do we fix the trust now that it’s broken? You are absolutely right that it has to be earned. But how do our institutions - government and media - do that? Where do they start?
When you said conservatives have to be part of the solution I thought I was going to read about the solution that you want conservatives to be part of. Alas, you just reiterated the problem. I guess they earn it by being honest. Reporters reporting facts and leaving opinions to the opinion writers. Politicians representing their constituents and not slavish loyalty to the party. Having free votes on matters of conscience such as implementing the Emergency Act. Eliminating lobbyists and disallowing political donations from organizations and businesses. Limiting corporate monopolies and prosecuting the list of people that have escaped taxation using illegal offshore resources. Applying the rule of law equally. Make government transparent and ministers responsible. That would be a good start.
I think you've got a lot of ideas here worthy of further discussion, for sure! Some of them, like the corporate donations, are already banned federally and in Ontario - but I'm not sure about other provinces. The lobbying rules are pretty tight in Canada, it's nothing like the U.S. - but of course there are always examples of a disproportionate level of influence. I'm with you on off-shore tax havens and limiting corporate monopolies. Even rule of law. Transparency, etc. But some of these are such big themes, they become vague without tangible small actions that make a real impact. Anyway - this is just the starting point of what could and should be a wide ranging policy discussion on how to restore trust!
Lobbying rules may be tight but is compliance and enforcement? We had a peek behind the curtain with WE and SNC. As to corporate donations -- what do you call all the "cash for access" dinners? African vacations? Payments to family members? Then of course there is the money funneled into "advocacy" groups. As to tangible actions -- put someone in jail for the 14 years of bread price fixing, for bribing foreign officials, for tax evasion. Show us the names from the Banks that sent the name from Switzerland and Panama. Transparency shouldn't be hard. Start with telling us why 2 Chinese scientists were booted out of the country. Stop proroguing parliament to quash investigative committees.
Terry I was quoting the article. Having said that, disagreeing with another persons' view doesn't make their views "unacceptable". The truck convoy had the support of many thousands of Canadians who wanted some of the restrictions lifted. Every Canadian belongs to one minority or another and would not consider themselves as fringe and certainly the Prime Minister of all Canadians should work on inclusion rather than division. How hard would it have been for him to say "I disagree with you on the imposition of vaccine mandates, but I will hold a free vote in the house on the matter."? Instead, he painted himself into a corner because he couldn't possibly negotiate with fringe minorities with unacceptable views. As a result we got the ridiculous overreaction of the Emergencies Act.
What does it matter? If it was freedom from vaccine mandates, if it was removing restrictions, if it was to be allowed to work, if it was just because their kids were home driving then nuts -- who cares. They felt the government was going too far in infringing their rights and decided to protest. Do you ask what part of the Liberal platform -- or other party platform -- one votes for when you vote for a candidate. You either vote for her or you vote for someone else. When one of the planks is not really representative of your POV does that mean she supports fringe and unacceptable views? Bear in mind that less than 6 million Canadians voted for the current government. So I guess the majority of Canadians think the Liberals are a fringe minority with unacceptable views.
Firstly, I'm triple vax'd and would recommend everyone do the same. Secondly, I consider myself a liberal though it is true I do not support the current government ( but I don't support any of the opposition parties either). I did not support the blockades nor the occupation of Ottawa. I do support the peoples right to protest and for people to donate to whatever cause they want.
Now as to "What rights were trampled?" Well the right to refuse forced inoculations, the forced closing of businesses, the forced limiting of businesses. Allowing people to buy shoes at Walmart or Costco but not at you local shoe store. Jeez all kind of rights were infringed. We couldn't travel even within Canada to visit family at times.
Sure the majority of Canadians were fine with it and got vaccinated and we even stayed home and closed our businesses. But after two years it did become a little much. And I expect the majority of Canadians were fine with locking up the Japanese during WWII and charging head taxes on Chinese and turning back boatloads of Jews and marriage being only between a man and a woman ... but none of these were right and all were infringing on human rights. The whole point of a bill of rights is to protect the rights of the minority.
Btw as an interesting tidbit, more people didn't vote as voted for any particular party.
A badly-needed article, and they have to come from the conservative side; it's not like somebody who can admit to having voted Liberal/NDP/Green (60% of us) can tell them anything, without it being discarded. As coming from the desk of George Soros, in some cases.
The author is paying attention to surveys, not to behaviour. The surveys measure people's suspicion of those working for institutions; but their behaviour indicates their ongoing trust in the actual institutions themselves.
Example: many may express distrust in the police, concern over their many scandals, and go to a BLM march, show support. But we didn't even really discuss "defund the police".
Example: on the day that the anti-vaxxer protesters hit Ottawa, their numbers were at their highest, "8000 to 10,000". Call it 10,000. ELEVEN thousand Canadians took their first vaccination that day. 29,000 stepped up to another day of discomfort to reach full vaccination. And 50,000 sucked up those aches and fevers a third time to get boosted.
Vastly more Canadians have trust in our medical system than do not.
Which is why we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and one of the lowest death-rates in the pandemic - more trust and rules-acceptance than Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel.
There is a lot out there to work with, at healing those who've been infected. A lot of them have concerned family and friends.
I'm impressed with the intelligence, depth of knowledge and communication skills of most people commenting on and those posting commentaries on The Line. I agree with others that Melanie's article missed the mark in providing a high level of analysis. I barely follow legacy media now, as I find far better informed, more detail and superior context from people (professors, journalists, scientists, historians, philosophers, etc. ) posting on YouTube. I look forward to the day Justin Trudeau is no longer our PM, but I don't have any faith our other political leaders will do a better job.
This article is vauge to the point that I'm not sure I understand what is being argued against and what is being proposed.
I see the point that state-sponsored disinformation is bad and that social media serves to amplify this, but I see no tangible ideas on what can be done or what I could expect others to do. I also don’t have much faith that calls for better conduct to those creating disinformation, social media companies or politicians will have any effect.
There is a fundamental difference between a classic confidence scam like the Nigerian Prince or Tinder Swindler and the “scams of disinformation.” A classic confidence scam takes money from its victims, and we can almost all see that and recognize it as bad. A scam of disinformation takes (or introduces) something intangible, and that thing is much more difficult of for us to identify or to understand its impacts.
"This article is vauge to the point that I'm not sure I understand what is being argued against and what is being proposed." Really? It says: Conservative leadership needs to stop spreading garbage information for political points (and so does everybody else). Not that complicated, and not vague.
I mean that's a nice sentiment... But the article fails to call out any instances itself and the entire definition of "garbage information" isn't clear. Also, I imagine politicians tend to respond more to voters than to articles on a site like this, so calling out a class of people without naming any examples isn't going to put pressure on anyone to change.
Eventually the disinformation providers also ask for donations. Steve "flood the zone with s***" Bannon was arrested for profiting from "build the wall" donations, only saved by a last-day Trump pardon. Trump's own donations go into privately-controlled accounts.
Nobody seems to have asked the question what "would have" been done with the $10M in our convoy donations that were stopped - since the whole protest went on fine, for weeks, having a massive media and economic impact, without the donations.
Were the 'tyrannical' police simply saving the donors from a white-collar crime?
Wow - this comment thread speaks to the need for your article. Well done - great piece.