New Media

You’ve got to be kidding. First, just about every hard-boiled secular (or at least non-Christian) political opponent of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already implied he’s some kind of nefarious theocrat with a hidden evangelical agenda that’s sort of modeled on Iran’s Islamic Republic.

But what’s the latest criticism of Steve-O? The PM is ignoring the will of God by making the census voluntary.

Our government is wrong-headed in its policy direction because it refuses to be influenced by cherry-picked verses from the Old Testament? What?

You can’t make this stuff up. Thanks, Globe and Mail.

Perhaps the Canadian opposition parties ought to be thanking PM Stephen Harper for putting a temporary kibosh on any Afghan detainee investigation, which was most likely going to reveal… nothing at all.

Canadian reporter Matthew Fisher on the detainees (as transcribed at Terry Glavin’s blog):

“It is preposterous… People trying to compare this to Somalia . . . the cavalier use of the term war crimes. . . we are not even within a million miles of reaching any of these points. It is a tremendous slur to ever invoke words like these. These are words that were used, and with reason, for the holocaust, for the genocide in Cambodia, for the horrible things that happened with tens of thousands of people being slaughtered in Rwanda. . .

“I’ve spoken at great length to the Red Cross – I believe I’m the only Canadian journalist who has – in Kabul, with someone who has had a lot to do with this file. He said the Red Cross has no issues with Canada, or any other country for that matter, at this time.

“This person was also highly critical of the whistleblower Richard Colvin, who has been lionized in Canada, because he violated every rule that every government has with the Red Cross, which is to allow it to do its work freely, and to protect prisoners. It never discusses its affairs publicly, period, and they are extremely distressed, and they believe that Colvin harmed the prisoners and put them at risk by going public with these things.”

Further Reading
Afstan: The odd view of our media about their sources
The Media Story On Afghanistan And The Real World

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is accused of acting like a dictator. The real issue is why an experienced editorialist can’t act like a professional.

It is a well-understood principle in most editorial and blogging circles that when you compare your opponent to Hitler, you’ve automatically lost the argument. Reductio ad Hitlerum arguments say far more about the one making the accusation than the target of the attack.

This rule also applies to an only slightly lesser extent when one compares their opponent to a dictator, particularly in a country like Canada. Let’s face it, when you use the word “dictator”, the face that most often comes to mind is Austria’s most notorious firebrand. Unless you’re talking about Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, labeling someone a dictator, or more cautiously using the phrase “acting like a dictator”, is not just wrong — it’s stupid.

So it’s disappointing when I see this sort of accusation leveled against our Prime Minister in a publication like the Toronto Star. Haroon Siddiqui’s clownish piece, Harper acting like an elected dictator, is a perfect example of the genre.

Not to delve too deeply into this muck, but one would at least expect such an outlandish assertion to be backed up by some sort of, well, evidence. An excerpt of Siddiqui’s piece:

Stephen Harper is centralizing power in the PMO on an unprecedented scale; defying Parliament (by refusing to comply with a Commons vote demanding the files on Afghan prisoner abuse); derailing public inquiries (by a parliamentary committee and the Military Police Complaints Commission); muzzling/firing civil servants; demonizing critics; and dragging the military into the line of partisan political fire.

Let’s see. Harper has “centralized” power within the PMO. So what? The PMO doesn’t make laws. The House of Commons does. The Conservatives are still hamstrung by their minority status. It makes little difference whether Harper keeps a firm leash on his closest cronies, so long as their leader and party must answer to the people in parliament.

Harper has not defied parliament on the Afghan file. He has defied a select number of MPs who are doing all they can to sap the morale of our citizenry and military for short-term partisan gain. There’s no question which political parties have actually tried to bring our soldiers into disrepute; apparently for the high crime of turning over our captured common enemy combatants to our Afghan allies to deal with before they’ve reached a civilized enough state where terrorists’ rights take precedence over those of their victims.

As for muzzling civil servants, Harper has done no such thing. Bureaucrats have always been subject to privacy rules and confidentiality considerations determined by their elected masters. This is hardly something unique to the Conservatives. And civil servants certainly don’t have any right to lifetime job security.

Extreme language and partisan rhetoric have ruined public discourse. I expect more from an editorialist in one of our nation’s most well-read newspapers.

Is this really how Canadian PM Stephen Harper starts his day?

Longtime readers will notice a not-so subtle re-branding of this blog. The generic “Currents” is finished. New Media is where it’s at.

I’ve been a part of the “new media” scene since it became relatively easy for terminal late adopters like myself to start publishing and promoting stuff online. We’re all still trying to figure out precisely what new media means and how “old media” is going to survive in the Information Age. And I’ve written before that I really do think both new and old media are actually just flip sides of the same coin.

In future, knowledge transfer will take place in a symbiotic relationship between syndication on Web 2.0 platforms and essential raw investigative data from the traditional media sources. So, new media isn’t precisely new. It is something different than what we’ve had, but mostly it just builds on what we’ve already had. A vintage Model-T Ford and a brand new Ferrari may look different, but they’re both basically cars, if you get my meaning.

I’ve operated in both traditional media and communications and this new media world for a while and this is where I want to continue to be be. This site will continue to be mainly a central platform for collecting my own essays and opinions. It’s still a personal site and as such, I will be keeping my name-based URL. However, I will also be linking and highlighting more the voices of those with whom I’ve built relationships in this new media scene.

So stay a while. Leave a comment. Feel free to get in touch with me on my other social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Looking forward to re-connecting.

New Media Douchebags Explained

Reporters Without Borders reports that Canada’s freedom of speech has measurably suffered, apparently due in part to the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s censorious activities (Details at Ezra Levant’s blog). Chris Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University, criticizes the institution in the CP thusly:

Waddell says the second thing that comes to mind is the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which has come under fire recently over a couple of high-profile cases.

One of those cases involved a Mark Steyn book excerpt on the Maclean’s magazine web site. The excerpt was accused of promoting hatred and contempt of Muslims.

That case was tossed out, but led some to demand that the commission be disbanded.

Mind you, we’re still ahead of the Yanks. Apparently, the Danes are today’s beacon of freedom in the world.

Getting back to the point, though, isn’t it long past time to disband the CHRC?

Rex Murphy’s Take on the CHRC