Gary > You may be able to capture the world by force but not the minds.
While you were possibly sleeping and unaware of it, others were working diligently on just that --- capturing the minds of the people --- and in Canada. And this was in 1996.
Mr Conrad Black, part of the Conspiracy of Goodness (my phrase), has, like Mr Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, been busy weaving his little web of information (or is it disinformation?).
fair.org
>>>Black owns 650 dailies and weeklies around the world, including the Jerusalem Post, the London Daily Telegraph, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Chicago Sun Times.
Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, describes a typical takeover by Black's Hollinger this way (CounterSpin, 8/15/96): "They fire half the staff, they get rid of the environment reporters and the social affairs and the education and health reporters, and they replace them with businesspeople --or they don't replace them at all.... Anyone not singing that very right-wing Newt Gingrich type of...line is soon let go."
The quality of coverage at these newspapers predictably declined. The University of Regina journalism school found "a marked deterioration in the quality of news coverage" after the Regina Leader-Post was bought, according to associate professor Jim McKenzie (Globe & Mail, 7/28/96). "They're filling it up with wire copy and pictures of kids in swimming pools," McKenzie said.
A reporter still working at the Leader-Post spoke of sagging morale and self-censorship among co-workers, in which long-term reporting projects are abandoned and "everybody's looking over their shoulder." (Globe & Mail, 7/28/96)
This is understandable, considering Black's legendary attitude toward journalists. He has described journalists as "ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised hacks" (Chicago Tribune, 3/6/94), and has referred to investigative reporters as "swarming, grunting jackals." He suggested (Globe & Mail, 5/8/96) that those journalists who are critical of newspaper ownership in Canada should seek "whatever therapy is necessary to overcome the trauma of past abrasions and learn to distinguish the friends of the craft from its enemies." During a 36-hour strike of the editorial personnel of his London Daily Telegraph in 1989, Black's management put out two editions of the paper --debunking, Black wrote in his autobiography, "one of the greatest myths of the industry: that journalists are essential to producing a newspaper."
To the Council of Canadians' Robinson, this type of editorial control has led to a "narrowing of political debate" in Canada. "It's not even left versus right anymore. It's the right versus right; [this] becomes the spectrum of the political debate."
Said Laurier LaPierre, a former teacher of Black's at Upper Canada College (Canadian Forum, 7-8/96): "I don't think Conrad wants to be prime minister, but he really does want to be the power behind the throne and feels his money will buy him that." (Just like Murdoch's money behind Tony Blair).
.....Michael Sifton, chairperson of the Hollinger-owned Sterling newspaper chain, has become the chair of the CP Board (Financial Post, 8/22/96). How CP will remain editorially independent of Hollinger remains unclear, although Black assured Extra! that "we will not interfere with [CP's] contents."
The controversy raised public awareness of media concentration in Canada, a situation which the coalition, originally united to save CP, is taking full advantage of. It plans a legal challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, charging that by allowing concentration of media in so few hands, the government is abandoning the public's right to freedom of expression. <<<
The story does not end there. In fact, in every web there is a spider --- and who do you think is the spider in Conrad Black's web?
Indeed, none other than Richard Perle, the Prince of Darkness. In fact, it's really fascinating to see how all the pieces in the puzzle come together.
disinfopedia.org
>>>A veteran Washington insider, Perle has on occasion been accused of being an Israeli agent of influence. It has been reported that, while he was working for Jackson, an "FBI summary of a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle discussing classified information with someone in the Israeli embassy." In 1983, after stepping into a Pentagon job in the Reagan administration, Perle came under fire for accepting a $50,000 payment from an Israeli arms manufacturer.
Perle has close business ties with Conrad Black, chairman of Hollinger International Inc., which owns more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada, the United States, Britain, Israel and Australia. Hollinger papers include London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Jerusalem Post. Perle uses these papers and others to trumpet his anti-Saddam sentiments and to tangle with political figures, such as British Minister Clare Short, who opposes the Perle line on Iraq. Black, a Canadian, recently joined fellow media kingpin Rupert Murdoch in defending British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to stick with Bush's war aims, despite overwhelming domestic opposition.
Perle is a top executive of Hollinger Digital Inc., which is the media management and investment arm of Hollinger [2][3]. Perle is listed on various corporate boards through his association with Hollinger. Whether or not Perle speaks for Bush, the president's recent reasoning on Iraq follows a pattern found in Perle's writings, particularly in a lengthy piece for Israel Insider, which uses numerous non-sequiters in its emotionally-charged connection of Saddam to terrorist activity.<<<
So, dear Gary, don't be so sure that the minds of the Canadians, and whoever else, will remain "uncaptured" for all time. I remind you there was a time when the Americans possibly also believed their minds would remain "uncaptured" and we have seen what has happened to them. |
