The President is held captive by a hostile Congress. Congress, held for ransom by the right-wing Tea Party people, is held captive by the possibility of a Presidential veto. The entire country is holding its breath while government tries to maneuver its way through the complexities of power.
America laboured hard over its Constitution and the accompanying Bill of Rights. The former seems graven in stone. The latter is always moving forward and exploring new ground. The system, under its current dilemma is paralyzed. And that’s the way the founding fathers wanted it. There were to be a series of “checks and balances” to contain the power of any one branch of government. The absurdity of some of it is that the hard Right in America uses their view of the Constitution as a cudgel to beat the daylights out of anyone who dares to think progressively. And as if that weren't enough, the hard Right accuses the Supreme Court of violating the Constitution by making legal judgments that can set aside legislation. (I lost all faith in the “fairness” of that body when they awarded the presidency to George Bush when Al Gore won the election.)
If you believe that you live in “the greatest democracy on earth” then you don’t question the system. Well, I happen to live in an almost perfect country where even a right-wing government must adjust to our sense of social justice in order to win an election.
Great Britain is in crisis right now. The Commons has the power to force Prime Minister Cameron to step down. There is a growing feeling that it will have to happen for the Conservative government to survive. They are in power only with the consent of the Liberal Democrats. Should they decide to vote “no confidence” in the current government, it could fall. Together the Liberal Democrats and Labour hold more seats than the Conservatives. This is all politics One-A for most people. I am returning to basics only to describe the difference between political gridlock in the U.S. and the ability to overturn a government in our Parliamentary system. Of course, if, as in Canada, one party has an overall majority. The Opposition can complain all it wants without making the government fall. The only effect of Opposition is to pry votes away from the governing party in the next election.
In America, the “next election” seems to be the focus of most of the lawmakers. They take the pulse of the voters all the time. If certain political moves are not favourable, they will lose in 2012.
Just imagine what would happen if America has a government like we have where the legislative body is supreme. (Excepting the ability of the Supreme Court to rule on constitutionality and violation under the Charter of Rights.) The President would stand before the assembly of Congress and be confronted with his alleged failures. There would be real debate. The misbegotten notion of bi-partisanship would simply fail under the weight of competition for votes. It is true that the same circumstance occurs in our system if there is a minority government. Harper stayed in power by being clever about working with the opposition. That was enforced bipartisanship.
The only degree of protection Americans have is the right to “recall.” An elected representative can be recalled if enough of the public petition that he or she has erred. It happens. It happened in California and led to the administration of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As America hurtles toward financial chaos, the debate roars on. Now they say that they may use “executive power” to raise the debt ceiling. They can. But will they?
This diatribe has exhausted me!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
ONE LAST (I HOPE) KICK AT THE CAN
I watched with disgust, Rupert Murdoch being “humble” in front of the Parliamentary inquisition. He and his son must have agreed, during a session of media training and coaching on how to look your best, to appear humble. Even more, to appear to be forthcoming, willing to share their angst and publicly parade their “shame.”
A good show. Unless you simply don’t believe Murdoch. I don’t.
I am currently engrossed in reading “The First Tycoon” a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
During the late stages of his life he became a railroad baron, selling off his steamship lines to concentrate on a new source of wealth. According to the biographer, Vanderbilt was a man of honour, honour that is, in the context of the times. The times were the “robber baron” years, the railroad magnates like Gould and Harriman and the beginning of the great America wealth and economic dominance.
A New York State Assemblyman asked Vanderbilt how involved he was in day-to-day management of his railroad empire. The Vanderbilt response: “I don’t manage anything. We have our superintendents etc. who attend to those matters,”
The author goes on with: “What Vanderbilt did was set general policies, as well as the overall tone of management. ANY CORPORATION HAS AN INTERNAL CULTURE SHAPED BY THE DEMANDS, DIRECTIVES, AND EXPECTATIONS THAT RAIN DOWN FROM ABOVE!!
I am hoping that I won’t pursue this subject further. Murdoch is being, at very least, disingenuous, and worst, a cockeyed liar! He knows everything that goes on in his empire. Its part of the man he is. He can’t separate himself from the criminal sleaziness. He is a micro-manager. Even his son dances to daddy’s tune.
Heaven help us if the British Parliament joins in the Murdoch two-step.
A good show. Unless you simply don’t believe Murdoch. I don’t.
I am currently engrossed in reading “The First Tycoon” a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
During the late stages of his life he became a railroad baron, selling off his steamship lines to concentrate on a new source of wealth. According to the biographer, Vanderbilt was a man of honour, honour that is, in the context of the times. The times were the “robber baron” years, the railroad magnates like Gould and Harriman and the beginning of the great America wealth and economic dominance.
A New York State Assemblyman asked Vanderbilt how involved he was in day-to-day management of his railroad empire. The Vanderbilt response: “I don’t manage anything. We have our superintendents etc. who attend to those matters,”
The author goes on with: “What Vanderbilt did was set general policies, as well as the overall tone of management. ANY CORPORATION HAS AN INTERNAL CULTURE SHAPED BY THE DEMANDS, DIRECTIVES, AND EXPECTATIONS THAT RAIN DOWN FROM ABOVE!!
I am hoping that I won’t pursue this subject further. Murdoch is being, at very least, disingenuous, and worst, a cockeyed liar! He knows everything that goes on in his empire. Its part of the man he is. He can’t separate himself from the criminal sleaziness. He is a micro-manager. Even his son dances to daddy’s tune.
Heaven help us if the British Parliament joins in the Murdoch two-step.
SWAN SONGS. THEY DON'T PAY
You may already have read the long, sad story of the 60+ year old TV news writer who was sacked because he made a mistake. If you have read it, along with the avalanche of sympathetic comments, you will know what he did, why he did it, and how he was “fired.”
“Swan songs” are seldom rewarded. More often than not they are seen to be people “passing the hat” for themselves after something went wrong. Like perhaps Rupert Murdoch, who will not sing a swan song, but insists on distancing himself from the obvious: his historical complicity in creating a new level of gutter journalism.
I have received oceans of sympathy on a couple of occasions, In both cases the “sympathy’ did nothing to reverse the outcome. The first was my “epic” talk radio series on sexual dysfunction that led me to part company with the broadcaster I have been part of for about 14 years. The day the president of the company went on the air and officially announced that I would not be returning, the phones rang literally “off the hook.” The response was so overwhelming that one entire phone exchange was compromised for several hours. But the result was that nothing changed. I was still on the outside looking in. I wrote a book about it. One critic writing about “The Day I Invented Sex” said: “Solway has lost his job and he is passing the hat for himself.” So much for sympathy.
The next time I did a total no-no. You don’t go public when you think your employer has done you wrong. I did. I like to say I didn’t plan it that way, but the end result was the same. I was “duck-walked” to the exit at CFRB. My sin? I had been there for two years, filling in for others and even having my own Talk Radio time. I had expected to move from “replacement” to permanent fixture. That day I checked the memo board and management announced that they had hired someone else (who it was doesn’t matter.) I went on the air that night and said something like: “If you were expecting to be able to listen to me on a regular basis, it is not going to happen.” Of course the phones went crazy with people offering sympathy for me and anger at management.
I should have directed my producer to stop these calls. I knew what the outcome would be. I was right. The “swan song” sank me like stone.
But in fact, my time had come and I knew it. The station was in what I thought was a vain pursuit of a younger demographic. But the fact was that I had been around far too long. anyway, at least to the position of permanent substitute.
This is a rather long introduction to the woeful story of the CBC news writer who was shown the door. I could put the link here and let you see for yourself. Instead I will add the entire text for your perusal of the ultimate “swan song.”
"This is a story about a dog who died and then came back to life and ended my career in local television news. When I put it that way, it’s funny. People can’t help giggling when they hear it. And I often end up laughing too, that edgy scratchy laughter that comes at one’s own expense and leaves little welts on the soul.
But the larger context of the story is sad. Sad because it relates to issues at the heart of journalism, especially the local TV kind. But I’ll get to that later. First, some background, and then I’ll share the funny part.
For the last eight months or so, I’ve been working as a casual writer at the local CBC supper hour television news. Casual means they call me in when a regular writer is sick, or on holiday or otherwise unavailable. Which means I go in for an eight-hour shift about eight or 10 times a month.
It’s called a writing job, but in fact it’s both much more (and much less) than that. We write the introductions (intros) to reporter’s stories that are read from the teleprompter by our two anchors. We write voice-overs: the 15-second scripts of local, national and international stories that the anchors also read. We edit the video images of those stories. We spend a lot of time writing “supers” (the names of the people in the reporter’s stories that flash up on the screen), and location tabs (the cities, or street addresses, where the particular stories take place) and other things. When you see the flashing tabs on the screen that say “Live” or “Breaking News” or “File Pictures,” or the reporter’s name, that’s the writer’s job. When you see images of rioting in Bahrain , or a pub fire in Victoria , it’s the writers who edit those pictures together online, and who write the words spoken over them, and who make sure those words and images are “pushed” into the computerized system that drives the newscast. We are required to be adept at highly sophisticated software programs with names like iNews and Instinct.
To do this work, in short, you need to be a lot more than a writer. You need to be an editor, a technician, a keyboardist extraordinaire, an expert in the style and spelling of place names and titles. And you have to work fast. Sometimes very fast. So fast that, often, you force yourself to forget about good writing; just throw down the words, make sure the facts are approximately correct, and “get it out.” (You’ll notice that among the many economies in TV news copy is the elimination of verbs: “A raging fire in Surrey . Three firefighters with smoke inhalation. A devastated neighbourhood. The full story at 6!”)
There are two regular writers on every shift, along with a show producer and a lineup editor. One or two anchors, a sports guy, a meteorologist with a sense of humor. And maybe six or seven reporters. Every weekday, they produce a 90-minute news show. It’s an impossible task, but it’s one of those impossible things that happens every day, without fail.
I just said “without fail.” But of course, that’s a lie. In real terms, the failure of local TV news is structural, spiritual and immense. But that’s the serious part of this story, and I need to tell you the funny part first.
Last Thursday, I get a phone call at home just before 10am. Can I come in right away? A regular writer has called in sick.
I say yes and shower and my wife drives me to the Skytrain and I’m in the newsroom at 11:30am—75 minutes after the start of the normal shift. It will be a short compressed day. I sit in my cubicle and log in. On my computer screen appears the projected lineup for that day’s show. Oh-oh. This will be a tough one.
Here’s what my day looks like:
1. A 30-second “sting” about the running of the bulls in Pamplona .
2. A 30-second voice-over on the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie in London .
3. A 40-second voice-over about the rescue of a lost hiker in Lions Bay .
4. A voicer on a seniors home in Abbotsford targeted by a robber.
5. A voicer on a plane crash in Harrison Bay , with two dead.
6. A voicer about the coroner’s report on a UBC student who died of a cocaine overdose.
That’s the easy part, I tell myself. I can handle these half dozen stories. But it will mean passing up lunch. Because I’ll have to find all the videotape for these stories, assemble the tape, edit it and then write the six scripts to fit the time allotted to them. And make sure everything is properly ingested by the voracious computer monster that delivers the show to our handful of viewers.
But there is more. I was also the writer assigned to three reporters’ “packs.” These are the full stories, prepared by individual reporters, that would appear on the night’s newscast. The three stories have names assigned to them. One is “War Over”—a 2-minute story on an Abbotsford couple who lost two sons in Afghanistan, reflecting on the fact that today is the last day of the Canadian combat mission in that country. The second is “Stranger Tattoo”—an offbeat feature about a foreign student in Vancouver who approaches strangers on the street, and asks them to tell the stories of their tattoos for a blog and a book she’s writing. (Hey, it’s local news.)
Both of these stories (I’ll tell you about the third one in due course) will require me to huddle with the individual reporters, approve their scripts, make changes if necessary, make sure I have all the names and titles of the people they interview, write a snappy anchor’s intro, and input everything into the computer. These stories will appear on the 6 o’clock segment of the show. But that’s only part of it. I also have to prepare 30-second voice-overs for both these stories, for the 5 o’clock segment of the show.
I swallow hard, glance at the clock (it’s already 2:30pm—two and a half hours to airtime.) I’m hungry, and my bladder is sending out worrying signals. But I’ll eat and piss later. There’s work to do.
I take a quick look at the last item on my agenda ( the third story.) No big deal. It’s a story that will be fed in from CHEK-TV in Victoria by 5:15pm for a quick turnaround into our 5:30 show. It’s labeled “Hot Dog”, about a police dog left in an SUV for three hours. One of the “shocking treatment of animals” stories. It sounds straightforward. I have a 17-minute window to make sure the story is in our computer, and to write the intro for it, and to insert the proper "super" information. No problem. (I can hear you laughing. Haha. Maybe you know what’s coming.)
The next two hours are a blur. I work my way furiously through seven voice-overs while the other writers, editors, producers and reporters enjoy lunch and toilet breaks. By 5 o’clock, I stretch, take a much-needed visit to the urinal and congratulate myself. I tell myself I’ve done pretty well for the new kid on the block. Just need to wrap up one more voice-over, then tackle the “Hot Dog” story, and my workday will be done. Another $230 in the bank, and I’d proven something to myself.
The lineup editor drops the Hot Dog script on my desk. I look at the clock. Holy Jesus, what happened to the time? It’s 5:15, and this story is slated for 5:36 in the lineup. This will be tight. I start to write the intro. There’s no time to scan the reporter’s script. Poor dog. Who would leave a mutt in an SUV, in sweltering heat, to die a cruel death? Given the short time frame, I write what I think is quite an evocative intro, a eulogy to 10-month-old German Shepherd who would not live to do the heroic police work he’d been trained for.
I type the 100 words into the computer, include the “super” information, and am delighted to see that there’s a minute to spare before anchor Tony Parsons has to introduce the Hot Dog story. Another deadline achieved. Then, he reads my words exactly as I have written them, throws to the reporter’s story . . . and my world freezes.
“The dog didn’t die,” somebody shouts over my shoulder.
“Yeah, he survived,” somebody else says.
“Who wrote he died?” It’s a Greek chorus of recrimination.
There’s a funny hollow sensation in my ear.
“I wrote that, it’s mine,” I say, raising my hand like a schoolboy caught passing notes.
“Somebody write a correction for Tony. NOW!!” I recognize the voice. It’s Wayne, the executive producer. He’s hovering just a few feet away. I look at him but he studiously avoids eye contact.
A minute later, Parsons, a consummate pro, veteran of a million newscasts, with a voice that can make even a mistake sound like music, intones on the air: “We apologize. The dog, of course, didn’t die.”
Then, (I think) the entire newsroom goes silent. For minutes I hear and feel nothing except a faint pressure in my ears. It’s the kind of dead silence I remember in Bosnia during the war years, just after a bomb exploded. Sucks the air and all noise out of the environment. Then the silence breaks when somebody shouts “Dog-killer” across the room. There is laughter. I laugh back. I recall the famous National Lampoon cover photo with the headline: “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine We’ll Kill This Dog.”
Half an hour later, leaving the newsroom, I wonder why we would carry a story on a newscast about a dog who DIDN’T die; who, in fact, was in pretty good shape when they opened the SUV door. I hate the damn dog for surviving. He will grow up and never know how he’s contributed to my humiliation.
The next morning, I’m fired. “You’ve broken a trust,” the executive producer (that’s Wayne ) tells me after calling me into his office. He doesn’t even bother to shut the door. “How can the anchors ever trust anything you write after this?”
I blink. “It’s a damn dog, Wayne , for heaven’s sake. A mistake made in the heat of the moment, at the end of a crazy shift. I was called in late to fill in for somebody, thrown into a very hectic show . . . ”
“In any case,” he interrupts me, “we feel you’re not suited for this job. You’re too slow. There’s nothing wrong with your writing, but we need somebody who is fast and who can handle the technology. I’m sorry. In fact, we’d like you to leave right away. Invoice us for the day’s work.”
I have the feeling there’s some deep subtext here. I’m a 62-year-old hack with white hair, working among a bunch of kids. In fact, three of the people in the newsroom were my students when I taught broadcast at UBC. I’m doing this job because I need the money, and because it’s a connection to the profession I love. Nobody has the temerity to ask me what the hell I’m doing here. I’m the ancient mariner, taking up an entry-level space.
Hell, years ago I invited Wayne , the exec who’s just fired me, to talk to my class about local news. I was a visiting professor. He ran a local newscast that hardly anybody watched. Now, here I am, an anachronism near the end of his string, trying to defend a wretched piece of copy about a puppy.
We have a few more words, back and forth. He mostly keeps his head down; he clearly doesn’t like saying these things. I clearly don’t like hearing them. (Note: This is the first, only and last time anybody in this shop has criticized my work.) I’m particularly stung by the comment about breaching trust with the anchors. I’d rather hear it from them. Breathes there an anchor with a soul so dead who wouldn’t laugh off a silly mistake about a dog? But it’s not to be. My time here is up.
On the way out, I shake hands with Drew, the lineup editor, and say good-bye. “I hate to sound selfish,” he says, “but are they bringing somebody in to replace you today?” (Somewhere, in some parallel universe, I’m lying in a fetid trench, my legs blown off, shrapnel in my gut, and the platoon sergeant looks at me and barks: “Where the hell are the reserves?” In the distance, a German Shepherd is barking.)
So this is how it ends. But I’m told that everything in life, the comedy and tragedy alike, carries a lesson. In the wreckage of this fiasco, there must be something useful to extract.
I started this essay with the idea of writing a critique on the nonsense that passes for local TV news. But I can’t get away from that poor overheated dog. He overwhelms me. I don’t deny my culpability, but how did a highly-trained journalist with 42 years of experience both overseas and in Canada find himself in a newsroom, sweating bricks, writing about a dog that was left in a SUV for 3 hours? (There’s a lead for a producer who wants to pursue a good human-interest story about the job market in Canadian journalism.)
What management wizard put me in that chair, and assigned me that work, in a pressure-cooker deadline situation?
Would I have made my fatal mistake if, a) I hadn’t been called in on a short shift, b) I had taken an earlier toilet break, or c) I had had the time for lunch?
How is it that a news anchor, who’s job it is to read words from a teleprompter, and who is paid an enormous salary to do that and only that, was not given the time or the opportunity to read his copy before he went on air? One glance would have spotted the error. (I would understand reading raw unedited copy if we were talking about an earthquake, a hockey riot, or a serial killing, but a fluff piece about an undead dog! )
Animal stories are, along with murder, fires, sex, celebrities and weather, the staples of television “action news” fare, if you believe the style-over-substance gurus at Frank N. Magid Associates who have advised the CBC and other networks for decades. If the stories aren’t powerfully visual (i.e. the bulls at Pamplona, Anthony Weiner’s crotch, Lady Gaga’s meat dress, police car lights flashing over a corpse on a darkened street, etc.), they probably won’t make the local news. It’s got to sizzle to get into the 6 o’clock lineup. Media scholars call it the victory of "information mechanics" over journalism, entertainment trumping news.
That’s why, for example, during the Stanley Cup playoff series in Vancouver , a hugely-important story about the record-breaking debt load of Canadian families was pushed aside for drivel about how much people were paying for Roberto Luongo jerseys, and the adventures of the Green Men. The daily battle for ratings requires an embrace of the flashily trivial. These stories are known in the trade as “talkers”—the things people are discussing around the water cooler. Once, long long ago, it was TV news that set the agenda of public discourse; today local news is an income generator that sniffs the wind and follows the public appetite. It's called pandering. That’s why you see so many “news” stories about new iPhone apps, and the new KFC bunless chicken sandwich. (Yes, I wrote that voice-over too.) News directors get instant updates on how many people are watching; the Suits will tell you those rating numbers don’t dictate content. Trust me. They do.
And that creates a working culture that disrespects the talents and the professionalism of the many fine reporters, producers and writers who work in the newsroom that I was asked to leave. (To be honest, they rarely make bone-head mistakes like the one I made.)
Hunter S. Thompson said it better than I can: "The TV business is uglier than most things . . . a cruel and shallow money trench . . . where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.”
That’s how the dog story came to land on my desk at 5:15 p.m. on that fateful day. Only one of us would survive the encounter. It wasn’t me.
“Swan songs” are seldom rewarded. More often than not they are seen to be people “passing the hat” for themselves after something went wrong. Like perhaps Rupert Murdoch, who will not sing a swan song, but insists on distancing himself from the obvious: his historical complicity in creating a new level of gutter journalism.
I have received oceans of sympathy on a couple of occasions, In both cases the “sympathy’ did nothing to reverse the outcome. The first was my “epic” talk radio series on sexual dysfunction that led me to part company with the broadcaster I have been part of for about 14 years. The day the president of the company went on the air and officially announced that I would not be returning, the phones rang literally “off the hook.” The response was so overwhelming that one entire phone exchange was compromised for several hours. But the result was that nothing changed. I was still on the outside looking in. I wrote a book about it. One critic writing about “The Day I Invented Sex” said: “Solway has lost his job and he is passing the hat for himself.” So much for sympathy.
The next time I did a total no-no. You don’t go public when you think your employer has done you wrong. I did. I like to say I didn’t plan it that way, but the end result was the same. I was “duck-walked” to the exit at CFRB. My sin? I had been there for two years, filling in for others and even having my own Talk Radio time. I had expected to move from “replacement” to permanent fixture. That day I checked the memo board and management announced that they had hired someone else (who it was doesn’t matter.) I went on the air that night and said something like: “If you were expecting to be able to listen to me on a regular basis, it is not going to happen.” Of course the phones went crazy with people offering sympathy for me and anger at management.
I should have directed my producer to stop these calls. I knew what the outcome would be. I was right. The “swan song” sank me like stone.
But in fact, my time had come and I knew it. The station was in what I thought was a vain pursuit of a younger demographic. But the fact was that I had been around far too long. anyway, at least to the position of permanent substitute.
This is a rather long introduction to the woeful story of the CBC news writer who was shown the door. I could put the link here and let you see for yourself. Instead I will add the entire text for your perusal of the ultimate “swan song.”
"This is a story about a dog who died and then came back to life and ended my career in local television news. When I put it that way, it’s funny. People can’t help giggling when they hear it. And I often end up laughing too, that edgy scratchy laughter that comes at one’s own expense and leaves little welts on the soul.
But the larger context of the story is sad. Sad because it relates to issues at the heart of journalism, especially the local TV kind. But I’ll get to that later. First, some background, and then I’ll share the funny part.
For the last eight months or so, I’ve been working as a casual writer at the local CBC supper hour television news. Casual means they call me in when a regular writer is sick, or on holiday or otherwise unavailable. Which means I go in for an eight-hour shift about eight or 10 times a month.
It’s called a writing job, but in fact it’s both much more (and much less) than that. We write the introductions (intros) to reporter’s stories that are read from the teleprompter by our two anchors. We write voice-overs: the 15-second scripts of local, national and international stories that the anchors also read. We edit the video images of those stories. We spend a lot of time writing “supers” (the names of the people in the reporter’s stories that flash up on the screen), and location tabs (the cities, or street addresses, where the particular stories take place) and other things. When you see the flashing tabs on the screen that say “Live” or “Breaking News” or “File Pictures,” or the reporter’s name, that’s the writer’s job. When you see images of rioting in Bahrain , or a pub fire in Victoria , it’s the writers who edit those pictures together online, and who write the words spoken over them, and who make sure those words and images are “pushed” into the computerized system that drives the newscast. We are required to be adept at highly sophisticated software programs with names like iNews and Instinct.
To do this work, in short, you need to be a lot more than a writer. You need to be an editor, a technician, a keyboardist extraordinaire, an expert in the style and spelling of place names and titles. And you have to work fast. Sometimes very fast. So fast that, often, you force yourself to forget about good writing; just throw down the words, make sure the facts are approximately correct, and “get it out.” (You’ll notice that among the many economies in TV news copy is the elimination of verbs: “A raging fire in Surrey . Three firefighters with smoke inhalation. A devastated neighbourhood. The full story at 6!”)
There are two regular writers on every shift, along with a show producer and a lineup editor. One or two anchors, a sports guy, a meteorologist with a sense of humor. And maybe six or seven reporters. Every weekday, they produce a 90-minute news show. It’s an impossible task, but it’s one of those impossible things that happens every day, without fail.
I just said “without fail.” But of course, that’s a lie. In real terms, the failure of local TV news is structural, spiritual and immense. But that’s the serious part of this story, and I need to tell you the funny part first.
Last Thursday, I get a phone call at home just before 10am. Can I come in right away? A regular writer has called in sick.
I say yes and shower and my wife drives me to the Skytrain and I’m in the newsroom at 11:30am—75 minutes after the start of the normal shift. It will be a short compressed day. I sit in my cubicle and log in. On my computer screen appears the projected lineup for that day’s show. Oh-oh. This will be a tough one.
Here’s what my day looks like:
1. A 30-second “sting” about the running of the bulls in Pamplona .
2. A 30-second voice-over on the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie in London .
3. A 40-second voice-over about the rescue of a lost hiker in Lions Bay .
4. A voicer on a seniors home in Abbotsford targeted by a robber.
5. A voicer on a plane crash in Harrison Bay , with two dead.
6. A voicer about the coroner’s report on a UBC student who died of a cocaine overdose.
That’s the easy part, I tell myself. I can handle these half dozen stories. But it will mean passing up lunch. Because I’ll have to find all the videotape for these stories, assemble the tape, edit it and then write the six scripts to fit the time allotted to them. And make sure everything is properly ingested by the voracious computer monster that delivers the show to our handful of viewers.
But there is more. I was also the writer assigned to three reporters’ “packs.” These are the full stories, prepared by individual reporters, that would appear on the night’s newscast. The three stories have names assigned to them. One is “War Over”—a 2-minute story on an Abbotsford couple who lost two sons in Afghanistan, reflecting on the fact that today is the last day of the Canadian combat mission in that country. The second is “Stranger Tattoo”—an offbeat feature about a foreign student in Vancouver who approaches strangers on the street, and asks them to tell the stories of their tattoos for a blog and a book she’s writing. (Hey, it’s local news.)
Both of these stories (I’ll tell you about the third one in due course) will require me to huddle with the individual reporters, approve their scripts, make changes if necessary, make sure I have all the names and titles of the people they interview, write a snappy anchor’s intro, and input everything into the computer. These stories will appear on the 6 o’clock segment of the show. But that’s only part of it. I also have to prepare 30-second voice-overs for both these stories, for the 5 o’clock segment of the show.
I swallow hard, glance at the clock (it’s already 2:30pm—two and a half hours to airtime.) I’m hungry, and my bladder is sending out worrying signals. But I’ll eat and piss later. There’s work to do.
I take a quick look at the last item on my agenda ( the third story.) No big deal. It’s a story that will be fed in from CHEK-TV in Victoria by 5:15pm for a quick turnaround into our 5:30 show. It’s labeled “Hot Dog”, about a police dog left in an SUV for three hours. One of the “shocking treatment of animals” stories. It sounds straightforward. I have a 17-minute window to make sure the story is in our computer, and to write the intro for it, and to insert the proper "super" information. No problem. (I can hear you laughing. Haha. Maybe you know what’s coming.)
The next two hours are a blur. I work my way furiously through seven voice-overs while the other writers, editors, producers and reporters enjoy lunch and toilet breaks. By 5 o’clock, I stretch, take a much-needed visit to the urinal and congratulate myself. I tell myself I’ve done pretty well for the new kid on the block. Just need to wrap up one more voice-over, then tackle the “Hot Dog” story, and my workday will be done. Another $230 in the bank, and I’d proven something to myself.
The lineup editor drops the Hot Dog script on my desk. I look at the clock. Holy Jesus, what happened to the time? It’s 5:15, and this story is slated for 5:36 in the lineup. This will be tight. I start to write the intro. There’s no time to scan the reporter’s script. Poor dog. Who would leave a mutt in an SUV, in sweltering heat, to die a cruel death? Given the short time frame, I write what I think is quite an evocative intro, a eulogy to 10-month-old German Shepherd who would not live to do the heroic police work he’d been trained for.
I type the 100 words into the computer, include the “super” information, and am delighted to see that there’s a minute to spare before anchor Tony Parsons has to introduce the Hot Dog story. Another deadline achieved. Then, he reads my words exactly as I have written them, throws to the reporter’s story . . . and my world freezes.
“The dog didn’t die,” somebody shouts over my shoulder.
“Yeah, he survived,” somebody else says.
“Who wrote he died?” It’s a Greek chorus of recrimination.
There’s a funny hollow sensation in my ear.
“I wrote that, it’s mine,” I say, raising my hand like a schoolboy caught passing notes.
“Somebody write a correction for Tony. NOW!!” I recognize the voice. It’s Wayne, the executive producer. He’s hovering just a few feet away. I look at him but he studiously avoids eye contact.
A minute later, Parsons, a consummate pro, veteran of a million newscasts, with a voice that can make even a mistake sound like music, intones on the air: “We apologize. The dog, of course, didn’t die.”
Then, (I think) the entire newsroom goes silent. For minutes I hear and feel nothing except a faint pressure in my ears. It’s the kind of dead silence I remember in Bosnia during the war years, just after a bomb exploded. Sucks the air and all noise out of the environment. Then the silence breaks when somebody shouts “Dog-killer” across the room. There is laughter. I laugh back. I recall the famous National Lampoon cover photo with the headline: “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine We’ll Kill This Dog.”
Half an hour later, leaving the newsroom, I wonder why we would carry a story on a newscast about a dog who DIDN’T die; who, in fact, was in pretty good shape when they opened the SUV door. I hate the damn dog for surviving. He will grow up and never know how he’s contributed to my humiliation.
The next morning, I’m fired. “You’ve broken a trust,” the executive producer (that’s Wayne ) tells me after calling me into his office. He doesn’t even bother to shut the door. “How can the anchors ever trust anything you write after this?”
I blink. “It’s a damn dog, Wayne , for heaven’s sake. A mistake made in the heat of the moment, at the end of a crazy shift. I was called in late to fill in for somebody, thrown into a very hectic show . . . ”
“In any case,” he interrupts me, “we feel you’re not suited for this job. You’re too slow. There’s nothing wrong with your writing, but we need somebody who is fast and who can handle the technology. I’m sorry. In fact, we’d like you to leave right away. Invoice us for the day’s work.”
I have the feeling there’s some deep subtext here. I’m a 62-year-old hack with white hair, working among a bunch of kids. In fact, three of the people in the newsroom were my students when I taught broadcast at UBC. I’m doing this job because I need the money, and because it’s a connection to the profession I love. Nobody has the temerity to ask me what the hell I’m doing here. I’m the ancient mariner, taking up an entry-level space.
Hell, years ago I invited Wayne , the exec who’s just fired me, to talk to my class about local news. I was a visiting professor. He ran a local newscast that hardly anybody watched. Now, here I am, an anachronism near the end of his string, trying to defend a wretched piece of copy about a puppy.
We have a few more words, back and forth. He mostly keeps his head down; he clearly doesn’t like saying these things. I clearly don’t like hearing them. (Note: This is the first, only and last time anybody in this shop has criticized my work.) I’m particularly stung by the comment about breaching trust with the anchors. I’d rather hear it from them. Breathes there an anchor with a soul so dead who wouldn’t laugh off a silly mistake about a dog? But it’s not to be. My time here is up.
On the way out, I shake hands with Drew, the lineup editor, and say good-bye. “I hate to sound selfish,” he says, “but are they bringing somebody in to replace you today?” (Somewhere, in some parallel universe, I’m lying in a fetid trench, my legs blown off, shrapnel in my gut, and the platoon sergeant looks at me and barks: “Where the hell are the reserves?” In the distance, a German Shepherd is barking.)
So this is how it ends. But I’m told that everything in life, the comedy and tragedy alike, carries a lesson. In the wreckage of this fiasco, there must be something useful to extract.
I started this essay with the idea of writing a critique on the nonsense that passes for local TV news. But I can’t get away from that poor overheated dog. He overwhelms me. I don’t deny my culpability, but how did a highly-trained journalist with 42 years of experience both overseas and in Canada find himself in a newsroom, sweating bricks, writing about a dog that was left in a SUV for 3 hours? (There’s a lead for a producer who wants to pursue a good human-interest story about the job market in Canadian journalism.)
What management wizard put me in that chair, and assigned me that work, in a pressure-cooker deadline situation?
Would I have made my fatal mistake if, a) I hadn’t been called in on a short shift, b) I had taken an earlier toilet break, or c) I had had the time for lunch?
How is it that a news anchor, who’s job it is to read words from a teleprompter, and who is paid an enormous salary to do that and only that, was not given the time or the opportunity to read his copy before he went on air? One glance would have spotted the error. (I would understand reading raw unedited copy if we were talking about an earthquake, a hockey riot, or a serial killing, but a fluff piece about an undead dog! )
Animal stories are, along with murder, fires, sex, celebrities and weather, the staples of television “action news” fare, if you believe the style-over-substance gurus at Frank N. Magid Associates who have advised the CBC and other networks for decades. If the stories aren’t powerfully visual (i.e. the bulls at Pamplona, Anthony Weiner’s crotch, Lady Gaga’s meat dress, police car lights flashing over a corpse on a darkened street, etc.), they probably won’t make the local news. It’s got to sizzle to get into the 6 o’clock lineup. Media scholars call it the victory of "information mechanics" over journalism, entertainment trumping news.
That’s why, for example, during the Stanley Cup playoff series in Vancouver , a hugely-important story about the record-breaking debt load of Canadian families was pushed aside for drivel about how much people were paying for Roberto Luongo jerseys, and the adventures of the Green Men. The daily battle for ratings requires an embrace of the flashily trivial. These stories are known in the trade as “talkers”—the things people are discussing around the water cooler. Once, long long ago, it was TV news that set the agenda of public discourse; today local news is an income generator that sniffs the wind and follows the public appetite. It's called pandering. That’s why you see so many “news” stories about new iPhone apps, and the new KFC bunless chicken sandwich. (Yes, I wrote that voice-over too.) News directors get instant updates on how many people are watching; the Suits will tell you those rating numbers don’t dictate content. Trust me. They do.
And that creates a working culture that disrespects the talents and the professionalism of the many fine reporters, producers and writers who work in the newsroom that I was asked to leave. (To be honest, they rarely make bone-head mistakes like the one I made.)
Hunter S. Thompson said it better than I can: "The TV business is uglier than most things . . . a cruel and shallow money trench . . . where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.”
That’s how the dog story came to land on my desk at 5:15 p.m. on that fateful day. Only one of us would survive the encounter. It wasn’t me.
Monday, July 18, 2011
ECONOMIC RECOVERY - A "MEXICAN STAND-OFF"
At the heart of the expression is the question: “Who will blink first?” That pretty well encapsulates the dilemma of high unemployment and a sluggish, if not comatose, recovery, in the United States. (Their recovery is pivotal to our future economic health.)
The New York Times Sunday edition ran a story that should be obvious to everyone. It is a wonder to me that vote-hungry politicians are still fighting about it. The story maintains that at the heart of the stumbling “recovery” is the American consumer, traditionally the big spender who keeps (or kept) the economy rolling. The consumer has virtually disappeared. No one wants to spend, certainly not while times are still perilous. The story says that car sales in America will drop by more than 25%! That will be trouble for the already troubled auto industry, one of the last bulwarks of American capitalism.
The “standoff” obviously is that corporations are waiting for people to start buying. Buyers are waiting for corporations to start hiring,. The slogan should be: “You start hiring - we start buying.”
I have said many time in my blogs, that it should not be up to American business to fund the American economic recovery. In practical terms, they are businesses, not charities. But wait.
If the old principal of paying a decent wage, pioneered by the otherwise intractable labour-hater Henry Ford, still has legitimacy, then corporations perhaps do have a role to fill in the economic recovery. It is not altruism. It is good business sense.
The consumer is either unemployed and without spending power, or employed but worried about the permanence of the next pay cheque. (Add to that the mindless, uninformed, politically-maneuvered deficit “crisis.”)
The standoff continues, and the only ones who can end it are the corporations. In America they simply will not accept that government could do it. Interesting is the fact that America does not need more houses, or more cars – both of which are the biggest generators of jobs. We sometimes forget that construction is the major job provider in both our countries and the bursting of their real estate bubble precipitated the great recession in 2008. Both of those industries generate prosperity and profits. The only other enterprise that does not generate immediate profit – aside from war that is – is the creation of a modern infrastructure with the building of projects that do not bring immediate profits, the way making a product and selling it for profit does. They don’t develop a technology and market it for profit. They do modernize and improve society as a whole. Most of all, they hire people.
Forget it. It is not going to happen.
The alternative is to have corporations hire people, expand payrolls and benefits, and generate the capital required to turn Americans back into consumers and buyers of the very products and services these rejuvenated hirers will create.
I am not a conspiracy theorist so I would not dare suggest that private industry, by withholding job creation, can magnify the unemployment crisis that grips the Obama administration. What I do see is that major corporations are fattening their treasuries; that the stocks of these companies are thriving on the stock market, that profits are better than ever, that maintaining staff reductions and continuing the spiral of cost-cutting makes them healthier than they have ever been.
But unless they start to hire, the structure will weaken and collapse. Some suggest that government should create such enormous tax advantages that business could not resist hiring, But the critics of that will wail that Big Government is taking over.
The stand-off continues. Will it be “adios” or “hola?.”
The New York Times Sunday edition ran a story that should be obvious to everyone. It is a wonder to me that vote-hungry politicians are still fighting about it. The story maintains that at the heart of the stumbling “recovery” is the American consumer, traditionally the big spender who keeps (or kept) the economy rolling. The consumer has virtually disappeared. No one wants to spend, certainly not while times are still perilous. The story says that car sales in America will drop by more than 25%! That will be trouble for the already troubled auto industry, one of the last bulwarks of American capitalism.
The “standoff” obviously is that corporations are waiting for people to start buying. Buyers are waiting for corporations to start hiring,. The slogan should be: “You start hiring - we start buying.”
I have said many time in my blogs, that it should not be up to American business to fund the American economic recovery. In practical terms, they are businesses, not charities. But wait.
If the old principal of paying a decent wage, pioneered by the otherwise intractable labour-hater Henry Ford, still has legitimacy, then corporations perhaps do have a role to fill in the economic recovery. It is not altruism. It is good business sense.
The consumer is either unemployed and without spending power, or employed but worried about the permanence of the next pay cheque. (Add to that the mindless, uninformed, politically-maneuvered deficit “crisis.”)
The standoff continues, and the only ones who can end it are the corporations. In America they simply will not accept that government could do it. Interesting is the fact that America does not need more houses, or more cars – both of which are the biggest generators of jobs. We sometimes forget that construction is the major job provider in both our countries and the bursting of their real estate bubble precipitated the great recession in 2008. Both of those industries generate prosperity and profits. The only other enterprise that does not generate immediate profit – aside from war that is – is the creation of a modern infrastructure with the building of projects that do not bring immediate profits, the way making a product and selling it for profit does. They don’t develop a technology and market it for profit. They do modernize and improve society as a whole. Most of all, they hire people.
Forget it. It is not going to happen.
The alternative is to have corporations hire people, expand payrolls and benefits, and generate the capital required to turn Americans back into consumers and buyers of the very products and services these rejuvenated hirers will create.
I am not a conspiracy theorist so I would not dare suggest that private industry, by withholding job creation, can magnify the unemployment crisis that grips the Obama administration. What I do see is that major corporations are fattening their treasuries; that the stocks of these companies are thriving on the stock market, that profits are better than ever, that maintaining staff reductions and continuing the spiral of cost-cutting makes them healthier than they have ever been.
But unless they start to hire, the structure will weaken and collapse. Some suggest that government should create such enormous tax advantages that business could not resist hiring, But the critics of that will wail that Big Government is taking over.
The stand-off continues. Will it be “adios” or “hola?.”
Saturday, July 16, 2011
PREYING ON DISCONTENT
As I watched a replay of Dennis Potter’s last interview, I heard this brilliant journalist and writer speak out about Rupert Murdoch and what he has done do honesty and decency. Potter died of cancer fifteen years ago. In the interview he said he had a name for the cancer that was killing him: Rupert Murdoch.
I am not having a “eureka” moment, when suddenly all becomes clear and I can finally divine what has made Murdoch a media billionaire. It’s not that momentous. Murdoch could not succeed unless the readers and viewers of what he shows on TV and in print had an appetite for it. It is like porn: it survives and thrives because there is a profound public need for it.
It is more than voyeurism. It is more than ignorance or indifference – it is a galvanizing force for discontent. Every politician knows that if you can tap into the discontent of a voter, you will win. In the simplest terms it is called “pressing all the right hot-buttons.”
Enshrined in our psyche is the misbegotten notion that everyone is entitled to an opinion. It may be so, but that does not make the opinion true, or valid, or worthy. Just because you believe devoutly that the Earth is flat does not make it so, nor are you “entitled” to voice that opinion. You can “believe” that crime is rising even though every statistic says it is not – because a political hopeful knows you believe it – even though it is not so!
It would seem finally, that no one, rich or poor, failing or successful, mentally stable or completely wacko, is immune from the appeal of the “hot button.” It is, for example, easier to believe that all politicians are crafty, venal, and duplicitous than to examine them in the bright light of understanding. Knowledge and information are required. You need go no farther than the situation here in Toronto where enough people saw themselves as beleaguered taxpayers whose money was being leaked into a massive “gravy train” that they voted for the man who told them he was “on their side.”
There are enough words in our language to explain the corruption of public morality and civil society. The winning word is still “demagogue.” The political snake-oil salesman who finds that vulnerable spot and presses the winning button. Choice becomes emotional. If not emotional, then somehow pleasing to the senses and the bruised ego. Is computer porn popular because people are deviates? In some cases – yes – but in most cases it is the essence of the cheap thrill and the naughtiness of it all.
What made News of The World the most popular newspaper for about 150 years? It had lots of pictures so you weren’t forced to read. When you did read is was scurrilous, close to libelous, and “naughty.” Peeking in the keyholes of the rich and famous and powerful has always appealed. I have, and so have you, sat with friends in conversation and found yourselves lapping up all the latest gossip.
So is Rupert Murdoch another Idi Amin who came in at the point of a gun? No one forced people to listen to Glen Beck or Anne Porter. No one coerced people into joining the Tea Party movement. No one demanded that you set reason and information aside and swallow huge gulps of lying demagoguery.
Who made Murdoch? Who empowered him? We did.
“The fault Dear Brutus….”
I am not having a “eureka” moment, when suddenly all becomes clear and I can finally divine what has made Murdoch a media billionaire. It’s not that momentous. Murdoch could not succeed unless the readers and viewers of what he shows on TV and in print had an appetite for it. It is like porn: it survives and thrives because there is a profound public need for it.
It is more than voyeurism. It is more than ignorance or indifference – it is a galvanizing force for discontent. Every politician knows that if you can tap into the discontent of a voter, you will win. In the simplest terms it is called “pressing all the right hot-buttons.”
Enshrined in our psyche is the misbegotten notion that everyone is entitled to an opinion. It may be so, but that does not make the opinion true, or valid, or worthy. Just because you believe devoutly that the Earth is flat does not make it so, nor are you “entitled” to voice that opinion. You can “believe” that crime is rising even though every statistic says it is not – because a political hopeful knows you believe it – even though it is not so!
It would seem finally, that no one, rich or poor, failing or successful, mentally stable or completely wacko, is immune from the appeal of the “hot button.” It is, for example, easier to believe that all politicians are crafty, venal, and duplicitous than to examine them in the bright light of understanding. Knowledge and information are required. You need go no farther than the situation here in Toronto where enough people saw themselves as beleaguered taxpayers whose money was being leaked into a massive “gravy train” that they voted for the man who told them he was “on their side.”
There are enough words in our language to explain the corruption of public morality and civil society. The winning word is still “demagogue.” The political snake-oil salesman who finds that vulnerable spot and presses the winning button. Choice becomes emotional. If not emotional, then somehow pleasing to the senses and the bruised ego. Is computer porn popular because people are deviates? In some cases – yes – but in most cases it is the essence of the cheap thrill and the naughtiness of it all.
What made News of The World the most popular newspaper for about 150 years? It had lots of pictures so you weren’t forced to read. When you did read is was scurrilous, close to libelous, and “naughty.” Peeking in the keyholes of the rich and famous and powerful has always appealed. I have, and so have you, sat with friends in conversation and found yourselves lapping up all the latest gossip.
So is Rupert Murdoch another Idi Amin who came in at the point of a gun? No one forced people to listen to Glen Beck or Anne Porter. No one coerced people into joining the Tea Party movement. No one demanded that you set reason and information aside and swallow huge gulps of lying demagoguery.
Who made Murdoch? Who empowered him? We did.
“The fault Dear Brutus….”
Monday, July 11, 2011
VINDICATION DONESN'T MAKE ME FEEL GOOD
I’ve been saying it for months: the turnaround in U.S, employment isn’t going to happen because private business is simply not ready to hire. And why should they? I have said it over and over again: business looks out for itself, that’s what the marketplace is all about.
In Saturday’s Globe, front page of Report on Business: “Caution keeps cash-rich U.S, employers from hiring!” Corporations have been cost-cutting and piling up profits. Hedge Funds and other “investors” are enriching themselves speculating with money borrowed at almost zero rates of interest, far less than the profits from their trading. The stock market has boomed, with the exception of a blip every time the government announces a less-than-expected job increase. The fact is that corporations are now endowed with a responsibility to make the government look good. On the contrary, they maybe instrumental in helping to savage the Obama administration's employment failure.
Interesting that the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, decry the idea of “tax increases” (actually return to pre-Bush tax rates) and declare: tax cuts are “job killers.” How preposterous and contradictory that statement is. And how blind to the reality the American public seems to be. If the accumulation of more money will result in more jobs, why isn’t it happening? How have they managed to hoodwink millions of Americans into believing that the deficit is the biggest problem? How indeed, when every survey indicates that given a choice between cuts to Social Security and Medicare and big tax breaks – they simply won’t tolerate cuts to essential services. They make it sound less than essential by calling them “entitlements.” Some Republican congressmen can be heard warning that America will become another Greece if it doesn't turn back the deficit. And they’re buying it!
Business says they won’t hire until “the economy starts to look O.K” But of course the irony is that the economy won’t look O.K. until hiring begins. However, I insist that it is neither the obligation nor the prerogative of private business to step up and give it up for the country. An interesting sidelight: some businesses are hiring but at much lower wages. They are using the recession to continue to do cost-cutting at the expense of working folks.
Black to my old saw: this is where only the government can make it happen. But every time there is even a hint that government will start spending to create jobs the howls of “socialism and chaos and bankruptcy” rise up. I’m really starting to feel sorry for Obama. He did squander his goodwill in the first year with a hopeless stab at bipartisanship and by the time he came to his sense the Republicans had taken over The House. Now of course, everyone – one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives is looking at next November. Everything they do is dedicated to re-election, even if it means continuing to support fatally flawed financial policies.
China does it differently. The “government” acts independently of public opinion. They decide, even with many Chinese still in poverty, to spend billions to build a high speed rail line connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Our press asked the question: “How would you like to travel from Toronto to Moncton in just six hours?” What they do is ultimately good for the country. Massive rail-building is labor-intensive. By the way, much more labour intensive than building highways. But in the U.S. so much of that government largesse was spent to widen highways to be driveN on by people who can’t afford the gas for their cars.
More than enough irony to go around.
In Saturday’s Globe, front page of Report on Business: “Caution keeps cash-rich U.S, employers from hiring!” Corporations have been cost-cutting and piling up profits. Hedge Funds and other “investors” are enriching themselves speculating with money borrowed at almost zero rates of interest, far less than the profits from their trading. The stock market has boomed, with the exception of a blip every time the government announces a less-than-expected job increase. The fact is that corporations are now endowed with a responsibility to make the government look good. On the contrary, they maybe instrumental in helping to savage the Obama administration's employment failure.
Interesting that the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, decry the idea of “tax increases” (actually return to pre-Bush tax rates) and declare: tax cuts are “job killers.” How preposterous and contradictory that statement is. And how blind to the reality the American public seems to be. If the accumulation of more money will result in more jobs, why isn’t it happening? How have they managed to hoodwink millions of Americans into believing that the deficit is the biggest problem? How indeed, when every survey indicates that given a choice between cuts to Social Security and Medicare and big tax breaks – they simply won’t tolerate cuts to essential services. They make it sound less than essential by calling them “entitlements.” Some Republican congressmen can be heard warning that America will become another Greece if it doesn't turn back the deficit. And they’re buying it!
Business says they won’t hire until “the economy starts to look O.K” But of course the irony is that the economy won’t look O.K. until hiring begins. However, I insist that it is neither the obligation nor the prerogative of private business to step up and give it up for the country. An interesting sidelight: some businesses are hiring but at much lower wages. They are using the recession to continue to do cost-cutting at the expense of working folks.
Black to my old saw: this is where only the government can make it happen. But every time there is even a hint that government will start spending to create jobs the howls of “socialism and chaos and bankruptcy” rise up. I’m really starting to feel sorry for Obama. He did squander his goodwill in the first year with a hopeless stab at bipartisanship and by the time he came to his sense the Republicans had taken over The House. Now of course, everyone – one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives is looking at next November. Everything they do is dedicated to re-election, even if it means continuing to support fatally flawed financial policies.
China does it differently. The “government” acts independently of public opinion. They decide, even with many Chinese still in poverty, to spend billions to build a high speed rail line connecting Shanghai and Beijing. Our press asked the question: “How would you like to travel from Toronto to Moncton in just six hours?” What they do is ultimately good for the country. Massive rail-building is labor-intensive. By the way, much more labour intensive than building highways. But in the U.S. so much of that government largesse was spent to widen highways to be driveN on by people who can’t afford the gas for their cars.
More than enough irony to go around.
Friday, July 8, 2011
RUPERT MURDOCH IS NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE
more than a century ago we had another Rupert Murdoch. William Randolph Hearst was the principal, but not the only – there were also other “Yellow Journalists.” (See Patterson and McCormick.)
In an age when print journalism dominated the social and political scene, Hearst was tops. (If you saw “Citizen Kane” or read Lunberg’s “Imperial Hearst – you were not surprised.) Even the august New York Times was not immune from the attraction of personal vendetta. Witness the Times continuous badgering of Cornelius Vanderbilt. But that is another story.
The story here is that reality should have finally caught up with this gossip-mongering slimebag. He doesn’t seem to think so. His son was seen widely on TV in the last few days extolling the virtues of the Murdoch Press and apologizing for whoever (it certainly wasn’t his beloved Daddy!) caused News of The World to collapse in into a pit of shame and criminal accusations. In fact, do not be surprised to see the Sun (in London that is) when it starts publishing on Sunday, to be a clone of the now disgraced NOTW.
Just as Hearst managed to influence history, Murdoch has his dirty hands all over police and politicians. Hearst virtually caused America to go to war with Spain over the explosion that destroyed the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour. Colonel McCormack and Cissie Patterson in later years, led the Isolationist (sometimes almost pro-Nazi) attitude toward involvement in “foreign wars.”
The tragedy is not that under the rubric of “free press” Murdoch has corrupted the truth and has shamelessly endorsed the Far Right, aided and abetted by half-truths and downright lies about the current administration. Every so often conscience, or a kind of cowardly backtracking, led Murdoch to act against the most flagrant violators. He recently told Glen Beck he was not wanted. Beck was the godfather of the Tea Party movement, and a completely bonkers conspiracy theorist. Last year his book reached number one on the best-seller lists. And that is why I continue to wonder if these revelations will have any effect on the loonies of the Far Right in America – the ones who continue to insist Obama is a Muslim and that he was not born in the U.S. They are the ones who believe that the State of Hawaii is in on the conspiracy.
All that is food and drink to Rupert Murdoch. What his imperative is, we can only guess. Does he want some kind of oracle-like power? Does he really believe the rubbish his media outlets produce? Can anyone be that stupid?
A few years ago Al Franken, former Saturday Night live performer and now United States Senator from Minnesota wrote “Lies and The Liars That Tell Them.” It was Franken’s denunciation of the right-wing press with special emphasis on the concoctions that came out of the Murdoch media. People who read the book enjoyed it only if it supported their beliefs that Murdoch was a scoundrel. The religious Right and the Tea Party folks were not enamoured of the Franken screed.
America seems not to want to violate what it perceives as its dedication to the Constitution and the amendment that guarantees free speech and a free press. The British are not so squeamish about legalistic bombast. They have chosen to recognize Murdoch’s duplicity. But they still have to be able to prove criminality i.e. the “hacking” of the email and voice mail messages of prominent and not so prominent. Anything for a good scandal. Anything to give them leg up on the competition. And Fleet Street abounds with sensationalism. The press in America (although Murdoch is trying) has never reached the heights of gossip mongering that Fleet Street has. Just a shocking is that the venerable Times of London, even though it has always had a politically conservative bent, is owned by the rapacious Murdoch.
Finally, I do wonder why the world seems so surprised. I do wonder if the scandal will tarnish Murdoch. I haven’t bothering to check for myself, but I wonder what Fox News (or as David Olive of the Toronto Tar calls “faux news) is saying about their boss.
Most of all will a public that includes people, millions of them. who only want their own prejudices given legitimacy, stand behind the New York Post and Fox News?
Makes you wonder.
In an age when print journalism dominated the social and political scene, Hearst was tops. (If you saw “Citizen Kane” or read Lunberg’s “Imperial Hearst – you were not surprised.) Even the august New York Times was not immune from the attraction of personal vendetta. Witness the Times continuous badgering of Cornelius Vanderbilt. But that is another story.
The story here is that reality should have finally caught up with this gossip-mongering slimebag. He doesn’t seem to think so. His son was seen widely on TV in the last few days extolling the virtues of the Murdoch Press and apologizing for whoever (it certainly wasn’t his beloved Daddy!) caused News of The World to collapse in into a pit of shame and criminal accusations. In fact, do not be surprised to see the Sun (in London that is) when it starts publishing on Sunday, to be a clone of the now disgraced NOTW.
Just as Hearst managed to influence history, Murdoch has his dirty hands all over police and politicians. Hearst virtually caused America to go to war with Spain over the explosion that destroyed the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour. Colonel McCormack and Cissie Patterson in later years, led the Isolationist (sometimes almost pro-Nazi) attitude toward involvement in “foreign wars.”
The tragedy is not that under the rubric of “free press” Murdoch has corrupted the truth and has shamelessly endorsed the Far Right, aided and abetted by half-truths and downright lies about the current administration. Every so often conscience, or a kind of cowardly backtracking, led Murdoch to act against the most flagrant violators. He recently told Glen Beck he was not wanted. Beck was the godfather of the Tea Party movement, and a completely bonkers conspiracy theorist. Last year his book reached number one on the best-seller lists. And that is why I continue to wonder if these revelations will have any effect on the loonies of the Far Right in America – the ones who continue to insist Obama is a Muslim and that he was not born in the U.S. They are the ones who believe that the State of Hawaii is in on the conspiracy.
All that is food and drink to Rupert Murdoch. What his imperative is, we can only guess. Does he want some kind of oracle-like power? Does he really believe the rubbish his media outlets produce? Can anyone be that stupid?
A few years ago Al Franken, former Saturday Night live performer and now United States Senator from Minnesota wrote “Lies and The Liars That Tell Them.” It was Franken’s denunciation of the right-wing press with special emphasis on the concoctions that came out of the Murdoch media. People who read the book enjoyed it only if it supported their beliefs that Murdoch was a scoundrel. The religious Right and the Tea Party folks were not enamoured of the Franken screed.
America seems not to want to violate what it perceives as its dedication to the Constitution and the amendment that guarantees free speech and a free press. The British are not so squeamish about legalistic bombast. They have chosen to recognize Murdoch’s duplicity. But they still have to be able to prove criminality i.e. the “hacking” of the email and voice mail messages of prominent and not so prominent. Anything for a good scandal. Anything to give them leg up on the competition. And Fleet Street abounds with sensationalism. The press in America (although Murdoch is trying) has never reached the heights of gossip mongering that Fleet Street has. Just a shocking is that the venerable Times of London, even though it has always had a politically conservative bent, is owned by the rapacious Murdoch.
Finally, I do wonder why the world seems so surprised. I do wonder if the scandal will tarnish Murdoch. I haven’t bothering to check for myself, but I wonder what Fox News (or as David Olive of the Toronto Tar calls “faux news) is saying about their boss.
Most of all will a public that includes people, millions of them. who only want their own prejudices given legitimacy, stand behind the New York Post and Fox News?
Makes you wonder.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
THE PROTESTS - ARE THEY FOR REAL?
Whenever there is a protest of any kind, it attracts every malcontent from the anarchists and Trotskyites to the opponents of genetically modified food, and the fur seal hunt. All they have in common is that they are angry at the establishment. They can be a rabble and they often behave like one. The WTO protesters never miss a chance to demonstrate against free trade, world trade, and favours for multinational corporations. I sound like one of them already.
With the current malaise in the European community where the have-nots – Greece Portugal, Spain and Ireland, arrayed against the mighty, principally Germany and to a great extent Francem, maybe it's time for a reality check. At issue is the future of the European Community and the survival of the Euro. Suddenly I am not so sure that free trade and the establishment of multi-national trading communities is such a great idea.
I am not going to join the WTO protesters. I’m afraid they can’t, for all their hysterics, put the toothpaste back into the tube.
But my attitude toward multi-national amalgamation and the dissolution of sovereign state boundaries is undergoing a change. And it’s not just about Greece.
Many years ago I did a story about the Canadian cheese industry, especially our own Cheddar cheese which was loved by the British to the tune of millions of pounds a year. Suddenly it was gone when the ECU set up its own trading community. A cheesemaker in Trenton told me that the town of Cheddar, where the cheese originally came from, has been displaced by a European Market-based cheese factory just outside Munich.
In fact, the European Community has “rationalized” industry and agriculture to reduce costs and make the marketing of goods go beyond national boundaries. Sounds like a good idea. An example is that in the EU there was always a lot of duplication. There was no point in everyone making – for example – butter. Let’s let the Italians or the Dutch or the Danes have the butter monopoly. It will be good for everyone. Maybe it will only be good for business.
Recently I visited Portugal and had a conversation with a Portuguese teacher/artist who lamented what the Common Market had done to the Portuguese fishing industry. As part of the bargain that let Portugal into the European Community, they were obliged to relinquish much of their hold on fishing. It was good for the Spaniards. And if you look at it in cold economic terms, it made sense.
This is where we come apart. “Cold economic terms” is not what makes real people happy. To displace industries and products from a country for the sake of economies of scale, does not deal with the enormous labour dislocation.
I’m saying all this because of the decision by the British government, Building a new cross-country high speed line, to give the business to Siemens. It makes good “Euro-sense.” The British government has said it is better for the taxpayers. In fact, it is better for multinational companies. The thousands of people who work in Derby, the location of Europe’s oldest train factory, are also taxpayers. They will be out of a job because Bombardier will have to close the plant because of lack of orders.
Britain was a great industrial power. It’s Clydeside and Belfast shipbuilders were among the best in the world. No more. Glasgow is no longer the ship building capital. In fact, my wife and I will be traveling on the Cunard Line’s flagship, Queen Mary Two. It was built in France! Not that the shipbuilders of St. Nazaire aren’t entitled to make a living, but whither British shipbuilding?
I found it especially painful, when, in the interests of globalization, Air Canada chose, a few years ago, to expand its fleet with the acquisition of new planes from Embraer because they put in a better offer than Bombardier. I know, I know – Bombardier is also a multinational company, but I asked myself at the time, how many Brazilians traveled on Air Canada.
I am not a protectionist by nature. But I am also not a “destructionist.” I still lament the departure of the textile industry from the area around Boston when they migrated to the cheap labour markets of the Old South. When that was not cheap enough the manufacturers moved to El Salvador and from there they found it even cheaper to be in Honduras.
Some time ago I wrote a piece about the descent into oblivion of the American fashion industry. At one time more than 50% of the clothes Americans wore came from American factories. Today it is less than 2 percent!
Somewhere we have lost our way. Somewhere, by rationalizing trade we have managed to uproot millions of people.
And I’m not even mentioning when the Free Trade mania does to underdeveloped countries where they have neither the capacity nor the capital to compete. They are reduced to being customers, while their labour forces molder away.
Does this mean I’ll be present when the protesters hit the next WTO meeting? You can never tell.
With the current malaise in the European community where the have-nots – Greece Portugal, Spain and Ireland, arrayed against the mighty, principally Germany and to a great extent Francem, maybe it's time for a reality check. At issue is the future of the European Community and the survival of the Euro. Suddenly I am not so sure that free trade and the establishment of multi-national trading communities is such a great idea.
I am not going to join the WTO protesters. I’m afraid they can’t, for all their hysterics, put the toothpaste back into the tube.
But my attitude toward multi-national amalgamation and the dissolution of sovereign state boundaries is undergoing a change. And it’s not just about Greece.
Many years ago I did a story about the Canadian cheese industry, especially our own Cheddar cheese which was loved by the British to the tune of millions of pounds a year. Suddenly it was gone when the ECU set up its own trading community. A cheesemaker in Trenton told me that the town of Cheddar, where the cheese originally came from, has been displaced by a European Market-based cheese factory just outside Munich.
In fact, the European Community has “rationalized” industry and agriculture to reduce costs and make the marketing of goods go beyond national boundaries. Sounds like a good idea. An example is that in the EU there was always a lot of duplication. There was no point in everyone making – for example – butter. Let’s let the Italians or the Dutch or the Danes have the butter monopoly. It will be good for everyone. Maybe it will only be good for business.
Recently I visited Portugal and had a conversation with a Portuguese teacher/artist who lamented what the Common Market had done to the Portuguese fishing industry. As part of the bargain that let Portugal into the European Community, they were obliged to relinquish much of their hold on fishing. It was good for the Spaniards. And if you look at it in cold economic terms, it made sense.
This is where we come apart. “Cold economic terms” is not what makes real people happy. To displace industries and products from a country for the sake of economies of scale, does not deal with the enormous labour dislocation.
I’m saying all this because of the decision by the British government, Building a new cross-country high speed line, to give the business to Siemens. It makes good “Euro-sense.” The British government has said it is better for the taxpayers. In fact, it is better for multinational companies. The thousands of people who work in Derby, the location of Europe’s oldest train factory, are also taxpayers. They will be out of a job because Bombardier will have to close the plant because of lack of orders.
Britain was a great industrial power. It’s Clydeside and Belfast shipbuilders were among the best in the world. No more. Glasgow is no longer the ship building capital. In fact, my wife and I will be traveling on the Cunard Line’s flagship, Queen Mary Two. It was built in France! Not that the shipbuilders of St. Nazaire aren’t entitled to make a living, but whither British shipbuilding?
I found it especially painful, when, in the interests of globalization, Air Canada chose, a few years ago, to expand its fleet with the acquisition of new planes from Embraer because they put in a better offer than Bombardier. I know, I know – Bombardier is also a multinational company, but I asked myself at the time, how many Brazilians traveled on Air Canada.
I am not a protectionist by nature. But I am also not a “destructionist.” I still lament the departure of the textile industry from the area around Boston when they migrated to the cheap labour markets of the Old South. When that was not cheap enough the manufacturers moved to El Salvador and from there they found it even cheaper to be in Honduras.
Some time ago I wrote a piece about the descent into oblivion of the American fashion industry. At one time more than 50% of the clothes Americans wore came from American factories. Today it is less than 2 percent!
Somewhere we have lost our way. Somewhere, by rationalizing trade we have managed to uproot millions of people.
And I’m not even mentioning when the Free Trade mania does to underdeveloped countries where they have neither the capacity nor the capital to compete. They are reduced to being customers, while their labour forces molder away.
Does this mean I’ll be present when the protesters hit the next WTO meeting? You can never tell.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
JUST FRACKING AROUND
Or how about: “F…. you buddy. I got what everyone wants.” Fracturing shale or “fracking” has revealed a new and potentially harmful (for the environment) source of oil and natural gas. Everyone is fracking. The latest entry into the field is Argentina, which sorely needs a new capital base. But so does China, where their total dependency on imported petroleum may disappear. North Africa and the Middle East have millions of potential barrels of shale oil. The world is turning upside down. Ukraine and Russia are also thought to have sizable shale fields of oil and gas, as do many North African and Middle Eastern countries. I even hear that Israel may also have frackable shale oil reserves. Brazil has found huge deposits offshore. They don’t have to “frack” it. Just drill baby drill and out comes the black gold. Everyone is in on the game. It’ll be every frackin’ guy for himself!”
On the serious side, we can no longer speak of ”energy geopolitics” in the same way. If America got into a fight with Iraq it was not to overthrow the guy who was once their friend – Saddam Hussein – it was to guarantee access to Middle East treasure. Not since Bismarck coined “Realpolitik” has there been the possibility of a seismic shift in international maneuvering. Energy geopolitics suggests the end of future price rises.
What should really worry everyone is not just the potential ecological damage done by fracturing shale. But the fact that new oil supplies will bring the price down reducing the need to work at renewable energy.
Therein lies the fatal flaw. The marketplace decides. When oil hit $150 a barrel, the electric car, in spite of its high cost, was going to be the alternative. Wind power seemed to have a big future, so much so that L. Boone Pickens, the consummate oil man, was promoting massive wind facilities. He backed off when the price of oil went down. Everyone with a short memory, and that’s almost all of us, suddenly went for the “bargain” oil and gasoline. Why spend a fortune on a car that uses to gas when the price of gas has come down? That is reality.
What can break the stranglehold of the “realities” of the marketplace? Certainly not public demand for product. There must be public demand to make the planet independent of oil. No company with a keen eye on the bottom line will make the necessary move. Why should they?
Only government and its will to make the Earth a better place can make it happen. All those libertarian critics of “big” government are writhing at the thought. Even they will have to come to understand that only government, acting not for profit, but for the public good, can make the moves. It does happen. In B.C. they have a successful carbon tax. In the U.K. they have done it too. Germany is bound to follow, perhaps to lead, as governments insist that long-term we have to stop using fossil fuels. And, as I wrote a few weeks ago, New York’s mayor Bloomberg is going to convene a conference with the world’s 40 largest cities to change people’s minds. He believes people can be persuaded that the long term gain is worth the cost.
Meanwhile, the bonanza is here. It will be hard to stop. There will be cries of: “Business does well when the government lets it do what it knows how to do.” The advocates for a free and open marketplace will have their way.
Unless….
On the serious side, we can no longer speak of ”energy geopolitics” in the same way. If America got into a fight with Iraq it was not to overthrow the guy who was once their friend – Saddam Hussein – it was to guarantee access to Middle East treasure. Not since Bismarck coined “Realpolitik” has there been the possibility of a seismic shift in international maneuvering. Energy geopolitics suggests the end of future price rises.
What should really worry everyone is not just the potential ecological damage done by fracturing shale. But the fact that new oil supplies will bring the price down reducing the need to work at renewable energy.
Therein lies the fatal flaw. The marketplace decides. When oil hit $150 a barrel, the electric car, in spite of its high cost, was going to be the alternative. Wind power seemed to have a big future, so much so that L. Boone Pickens, the consummate oil man, was promoting massive wind facilities. He backed off when the price of oil went down. Everyone with a short memory, and that’s almost all of us, suddenly went for the “bargain” oil and gasoline. Why spend a fortune on a car that uses to gas when the price of gas has come down? That is reality.
What can break the stranglehold of the “realities” of the marketplace? Certainly not public demand for product. There must be public demand to make the planet independent of oil. No company with a keen eye on the bottom line will make the necessary move. Why should they?
Only government and its will to make the Earth a better place can make it happen. All those libertarian critics of “big” government are writhing at the thought. Even they will have to come to understand that only government, acting not for profit, but for the public good, can make the moves. It does happen. In B.C. they have a successful carbon tax. In the U.K. they have done it too. Germany is bound to follow, perhaps to lead, as governments insist that long-term we have to stop using fossil fuels. And, as I wrote a few weeks ago, New York’s mayor Bloomberg is going to convene a conference with the world’s 40 largest cities to change people’s minds. He believes people can be persuaded that the long term gain is worth the cost.
Meanwhile, the bonanza is here. It will be hard to stop. There will be cries of: “Business does well when the government lets it do what it knows how to do.” The advocates for a free and open marketplace will have their way.
Unless….
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
MINDS DOIN'T CHANGE. TIMES DO CHANGE.
Nothing irritates Canadians more than to be ignored, unrecognized, or simply brushed aside as an irritating neighbour to the United States. How furious was I when I read a supposed-to-be tongue in cheek column in the New York Sunday Times by their London correspondent Sarah Lyall writes that “After they leave the cozy somewhat small-potatoes confines of Canada, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will travel to Los Angeles?” I know, she’s comparing the lotus land of celebrity to Canada but still she doesn't understand. Not only are we not “small potatoes” but we are a shining example of how a country creates a true liberal democracy without a revolution or a civil war. We have had a few bumps in the road like the Métis rebellion and the shameful execution of leader Louis Riel. Do you think that any American, except for some of my good friends who read this blog, will suddenly apologize for continuing to be indifferent and uninformed about their neighbour. My memory gnaws at me when I recall President Nixon referring to Japan as America’s biggest trading partner. When the president gets it wrong, how can I complain about a small minded Times columnist? Not only, my American friends, are we your biggest trading partner (although China is closing in) but we, not the Middle East, are your biggest source of oil and gas.
America should try to understand that in spite of the mindless anti-monarchy protesters in Quebec, the country seems to be enjoying the visit of the royal couple. They are amiable and approachable. They are social and interested. They represent the monarchy of tomorrow. But for some, that is not enough. The anti-monarchists simply do not understand the heritage of constitutional monarchy.
I happened to listen to Cross-Canada check up on CBC and it was all about the visit of William and Kate. One caller, an anti-monarchist from Vancouver went on and on about how “removed” this couple is from the hard realities of life: getting a job, having enough money to get by etc etc. This opaque point of view represents not only republican opinion, but misses the point entirely. The royals occupy a ceremonial and historical part of our lives. But the fact that they are immune from the everyday trials and hardships of "getting by" makes no sense. The sons and daughters of the wealthy also do not have to endure the trauma of making a way for themselves in a competitive society. Should we do away with them too?
Many of the calls rambled on more emotionally that realistically. There are millions of us who grew up singing God Save the Queen in school. But we also grew up saying the Lord’s Prayer. Neither of those reflects today’s reality. The difference is that in the continuum of history, the royals do matter. I don’t subscribe to the notion that from Magna Carta on we were a constitutional monarchy. We weren’t. We still had scoundrels like the Stuart Charles I and II. We had George III who is his madness let the thirteen colonies slip away. Britain, remember, also tried a more-or-less republican style with the great Protector who succeeded Charles I and imposed a Puritan iron hand on the country, and worse, a massacre of the hateful Irish.
Some of the freest and most progressive countries are constitutional monarchies: Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
What is the famous quote about “Those who forget history…?
America should try to understand that in spite of the mindless anti-monarchy protesters in Quebec, the country seems to be enjoying the visit of the royal couple. They are amiable and approachable. They are social and interested. They represent the monarchy of tomorrow. But for some, that is not enough. The anti-monarchists simply do not understand the heritage of constitutional monarchy.
I happened to listen to Cross-Canada check up on CBC and it was all about the visit of William and Kate. One caller, an anti-monarchist from Vancouver went on and on about how “removed” this couple is from the hard realities of life: getting a job, having enough money to get by etc etc. This opaque point of view represents not only republican opinion, but misses the point entirely. The royals occupy a ceremonial and historical part of our lives. But the fact that they are immune from the everyday trials and hardships of "getting by" makes no sense. The sons and daughters of the wealthy also do not have to endure the trauma of making a way for themselves in a competitive society. Should we do away with them too?
Many of the calls rambled on more emotionally that realistically. There are millions of us who grew up singing God Save the Queen in school. But we also grew up saying the Lord’s Prayer. Neither of those reflects today’s reality. The difference is that in the continuum of history, the royals do matter. I don’t subscribe to the notion that from Magna Carta on we were a constitutional monarchy. We weren’t. We still had scoundrels like the Stuart Charles I and II. We had George III who is his madness let the thirteen colonies slip away. Britain, remember, also tried a more-or-less republican style with the great Protector who succeeded Charles I and imposed a Puritan iron hand on the country, and worse, a massacre of the hateful Irish.
Some of the freest and most progressive countries are constitutional monarchies: Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
What is the famous quote about “Those who forget history…?
Friday, July 1, 2011
GONE, GONE, GONE.
Ben died last week. He was interred in a Jewish cemetery without any religious observations, only the profoundly heartfelt memories expressed by his old friends.
I met Ben at Vaughan Road Collegiate. His name was “Ben” for “son” and his middle name was “Zion.” So – Son of Zion. His parents were labour activists from Poland who had emigrated briefly to British mandated Palestine but returned to Poland and emigrated again – this time in 1934 – to Canada. They were part of the revolutionary movement that was fiercely Communist. They belonged to organizations like the United Jewish People’s Order and sent their son to Camp Neivelt, a Communist summer camp where the “Internationale” was sung in Yiddish. (Interesting sidelight: the uncle of a friend of mine, who belonged to the United Jewish People’s Order, not for its politics, but for social reasons, was barred from entry into the United States, for belong to a subversive organization. He was flying back from Mexico and the plane made an unexpected stop in the U.S. He was hustled off the plane and sent to Ellis Island where his anxious relatives had to bail him out. He was facing possible deportation to his European country of origin! That’s how bad things were for America’s political enemies.)
In the 30’s and 40’s, in spite of government moves to virtually outlaw the Party, it thrived. Toronto had Communist aldermen, there were two Communists in the Ontario Legislature, Joe Salzberg and Alex MacLeod. Because the Party was officially banned, they called themselves the LPP – Labour Progressive Party.
Those were glory days for the Left, as yet untarnished by revelations of the excesses of Stalin (although everyone knew of the 1936 purges and of the assassination of Leon Trotsky.) Incidentally, it was after the savage repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 that many of our home-grown Communists deserted the cause. I studied drama at the Theatre of Action, a very left-leaning school forum for social theatre. Members of my own family were Communists. Unions like the Canadian Seaman’s Union and the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union, and the United Electrical Workers – all Communist run. They fell before the onslaught of the anti-communist forces of the Social Democrats, who were not above malicious union busting.
I am telling you all this because those memories will continue to fade and die as its advocates, like Ben, are gone.
People everywhere, in our fast-becoming conservative society, are impatient and even hostile, to any mention of these bygone days of idealism and fight for the working man.
Perhaps the best eulogy came from Stephen Endicott, son of the famous James Endicott, a Canadian missionary born in China who was a supporter of Mao and of Chinese Communism. Endicott was reviled by the establishment in this country. It is an indication of how profound the suspicions were that Ben was dismissed from his post as a high school teacher for his political views. He later went of to a much larger career as a professor at the University of Toronto.
Steve brought me back to a forgotten reality: the cause of the working man. I do not support the hard-left doctrines but I do support what Steve said about how Ben would have responded to the crushing of the Greek working people in the name of economic recovery. The class warfare of olden days is alive and well. He said that once again the spending cuts fell on the back of the ones least able to survive, and the benefits continued to accrue to the affluent. He didn’t have to mention that the Greek firestorm is a reflection of so much wrong in the world today. Greece is full of income tax evading scofflaws, millionaires who simply don’t pay their share. So when the government announces new “austerity” measures, the austerity falls on the helpless while the wealthy breeze through, virtually unscathed. That it had to come from an unregenerate Communist is sad.
We don’t need to use Greece as an example. In America, they are having a political debate over the question of raising the debt ceiling. At the heart of the problem is that the super-rich individuals and corporations are not appropriately taxed, according to their means that is, while the politicians bicker over the deficit and economic survival. Americans know damn well, just as the do the Greeks, that the fault lies not in unregulated social generosity but in unenforced laws to make the wealthy pay their share.
Ben would have been happy to hear Steve remind us of the gap.
I met Ben at Vaughan Road Collegiate. His name was “Ben” for “son” and his middle name was “Zion.” So – Son of Zion. His parents were labour activists from Poland who had emigrated briefly to British mandated Palestine but returned to Poland and emigrated again – this time in 1934 – to Canada. They were part of the revolutionary movement that was fiercely Communist. They belonged to organizations like the United Jewish People’s Order and sent their son to Camp Neivelt, a Communist summer camp where the “Internationale” was sung in Yiddish. (Interesting sidelight: the uncle of a friend of mine, who belonged to the United Jewish People’s Order, not for its politics, but for social reasons, was barred from entry into the United States, for belong to a subversive organization. He was flying back from Mexico and the plane made an unexpected stop in the U.S. He was hustled off the plane and sent to Ellis Island where his anxious relatives had to bail him out. He was facing possible deportation to his European country of origin! That’s how bad things were for America’s political enemies.)
In the 30’s and 40’s, in spite of government moves to virtually outlaw the Party, it thrived. Toronto had Communist aldermen, there were two Communists in the Ontario Legislature, Joe Salzberg and Alex MacLeod. Because the Party was officially banned, they called themselves the LPP – Labour Progressive Party.
Those were glory days for the Left, as yet untarnished by revelations of the excesses of Stalin (although everyone knew of the 1936 purges and of the assassination of Leon Trotsky.) Incidentally, it was after the savage repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 that many of our home-grown Communists deserted the cause. I studied drama at the Theatre of Action, a very left-leaning school forum for social theatre. Members of my own family were Communists. Unions like the Canadian Seaman’s Union and the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union, and the United Electrical Workers – all Communist run. They fell before the onslaught of the anti-communist forces of the Social Democrats, who were not above malicious union busting.
I am telling you all this because those memories will continue to fade and die as its advocates, like Ben, are gone.
People everywhere, in our fast-becoming conservative society, are impatient and even hostile, to any mention of these bygone days of idealism and fight for the working man.
Perhaps the best eulogy came from Stephen Endicott, son of the famous James Endicott, a Canadian missionary born in China who was a supporter of Mao and of Chinese Communism. Endicott was reviled by the establishment in this country. It is an indication of how profound the suspicions were that Ben was dismissed from his post as a high school teacher for his political views. He later went of to a much larger career as a professor at the University of Toronto.
Steve brought me back to a forgotten reality: the cause of the working man. I do not support the hard-left doctrines but I do support what Steve said about how Ben would have responded to the crushing of the Greek working people in the name of economic recovery. The class warfare of olden days is alive and well. He said that once again the spending cuts fell on the back of the ones least able to survive, and the benefits continued to accrue to the affluent. He didn’t have to mention that the Greek firestorm is a reflection of so much wrong in the world today. Greece is full of income tax evading scofflaws, millionaires who simply don’t pay their share. So when the government announces new “austerity” measures, the austerity falls on the helpless while the wealthy breeze through, virtually unscathed. That it had to come from an unregenerate Communist is sad.
We don’t need to use Greece as an example. In America, they are having a political debate over the question of raising the debt ceiling. At the heart of the problem is that the super-rich individuals and corporations are not appropriately taxed, according to their means that is, while the politicians bicker over the deficit and economic survival. Americans know damn well, just as the do the Greeks, that the fault lies not in unregulated social generosity but in unenforced laws to make the wealthy pay their share.
Ben would have been happy to hear Steve remind us of the gap.
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