Fake Liberals Running Canada

Image from Scroll.in: A century ago, the progressives were the ones shouting ‘fake news’


Fake Liberals Running Canada

They want to impose censorship to protect us (themselves?) from fake news.

When the Canadian Foreign Minister is viewed as a "shadowy neo-con" by outsiders, it's difficult to believe there are any real "progressives" in the Liberal government. Certainly, a true Lefty would not resort to censorship to win an election.

​Trump has lost the corner on the catch-phrase "fake news". Actually, he never really had it. The US is at war, both cold and hot; consequently he's as much a purveyor of fakery as anyone else being blamed for it.

Where there is war, there are lies and trumped up reasons (if you'll forgive the pun), and there always have been, because they are essentially about profits though they are always presented as "defence". Without the lies, and without appeals to prejudice and patriotism who would be willing to join the fight?

BoonHistory:

• Propaganda, deceit and spin have been around since man began communicating. So, while the term, ‘Fake News’ seems to have come out of nowhere in the last couple of years, it has, in fact been around in some iteration for a very long time.

An informative read would be: The First Casualty by Phillip Knightley. It's been updated from the "great wars" to include more recent atrocities and lies - the first casualty, of course, being Truth.

• The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq third edition
• Since Vietnam, Knightley reveals, governments have become much more adept at managing the media, as highlighted in chapters on the Falklands War, the Gulf War, and the conflict between NATO and Serbia over Kosovo. And in a new chapter on the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Knightley details even greater degrees of government manipulation and media complicity, as evidenced by the "embedding" of reporters in military units and the uncritical, openly patriotic coverage of these conflicts...

As the article linked to above under the header image makes clear, it used to be the progressives that shouted about fake news, but now it appears that the current Canadian government is run by fake progressives desperate to remain in office so they can - what? - play a more important role in American hegemony?

Bill C-51 isn't enough for these fake freedom lovers?  The Liberals may well have won the last election on the basis that they had promised to amend Bill C-51 to make it more palatable.  But here they are on the last leg of their current mandate only just now giving it token attention, except that a mere tweaking no longer seems enough to satisfy the miffed voters:

GlobalNews: Majority of Canadians want Bill C-51 repealed

But where are the Trudeau crowd focussing their attention? Well, they've just announced the unrolling of a strategy to "tackle" (read "manage") fake news interference in the upcoming election:

CTV: Feds unveil plan to tackle fake news, interference in 2019 election

• A senior official speaking with reporters on background prior to the ministers' announcement said the "sweeping series" of new measures are the result of "unprecedented" collaboration between Canada's national and cyber security bodies, intelligence agencies, and federal departments including Global Affairs Canada.
• These measures are in addition to ongoing efforts to secure Canada’s electoral system, such as: passing Bill C-76 prohibits foreign spending; working with Elections Canada to prevent voting infrastructure from being hacked; and, collaborating with social media companies on plans to combat fake news and disinformation from interfering with public opinion during the campaign.

Surely someone in the Trudeau cabinet has the noodles to know that trying to control the conversation cannot succeed (at least not without revealing a fascist bent), and even if it were possible, as Time Magazine has pointed out, "it seems unwise to put government in charge of scrubbing the Internet of misleading statements".

Why? Well, possibly because who among them will be able to sort out the government's own fabrications from the motley collection?  And the media who distort the news -- depending on which way their owners lean -- are covering their hineys by appearing to be helpfully instructive concerning "fake news".

It's kind of a joke that The Guardian led the educational pack as early as 2016:

Guardian: What is fake news? How to spot it and what you can do to stop it

• ‘Fake news’ has rapidly become a catch-all term to discredit all kinds of stories. We need to be smarter at recognising and combating outright fabrication.

"We need to be smarter" is quite an admission all things considered: 

Vanity Fair [2018]: The Guardian reports that [Paul] Manafort had a secret meeting with Julian Assange.

• WikiLeaks issued a hard denial from its Twitter account. “Remember this day when The Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet The Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”
• A denial from Manafort, meanwhile, landed in reporters’ inboxes a little before 3:30 P.M. “This story is totally false and deliberately libelous,” the statement reads. “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or WikiLeaks on any matter. We are considering all legal options against The Guardian who proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false.”

What are you gonna do, eh?  I suppose it's possible the Guardian told the truth, but it also needs to get noticed more because it's always begging for donations. Its political stance is also against Trump and the Russians, so it might be a bit too eager to publish some dirt on them.

Personally, I would simply recommend that people take personal responsibility, and don't allow themselves to get caught up in the zoo-like atmosphere of social media outlets -- or at least take with a hefty grain of salt whatever bizarre statements are found there.

The same applies to all information outlets. Don't read just one item, or watch one TV news program and then form a conclusion. If you're not willing to do some research, then just don't pass on half-baked pronouncements.

I think it's also worth emphatically noting that politicians tell lies and hide certain things about themselves. They will always say what they think you want to hear so that they can win or stay in office. "Optics", it's called. Optics are everything in a campaign for the minds of the voting public.

It's a sad, sad commentary that the only thing that apparently bothered Obama about the shocking devastation of Libya, and the vicious, depraved murder of its leader Gaddaffi, was "the Optics".

And you can be sure that the Liberals have accumulated some questionable "Optics". Mainly because of their 2015 determination to "restore Canada as a leader in the world". It seems more like "follow the leader" if the bellicose stance against Russia, China, NKorea are indications. 

For instance, take a look at Global Affairs' announcement of a news conference to discuss a health incident affecting Canadian diplomatic staff in Cuba.  Look especially at the following instruction they gave to the media:

Global Affairs:

• The information provided during the technical briefing may be attributed to a “senior Canadian government official.” No audio recording for broadcast purposes will be permitted during the technical briefing.

... and then tell me why no government official making official statements at this briefing should be named by the media.

Scroll back up to the CTV announcement of the government's plans to tackle fake news.  It begins with: "A senior official ..."

So who's not being upfront? The government, and therefore also the media. Not to mention that there are media outlets that present themselves as being on the Left and others that slant to the Right. So it stands to reason their "facts" will be coloured by the political entity they support.

It's crucially important to always consider the source, whether on social media, on TV, or anywhere that political statements are being made. Consider even your own upbringing, your own biases, your own experiences, because politicians will seek those out and offer remedies that you may jump at, but which may well lead society toward a system that isn't mentioned in the National Anthem.

Trump didn't invent the term "fake news". Fake news, as demonstrated above, has been around since the proverbial "time immemorial". We just have wider access to it now, and it's harder for governments to channel the flow in the directions they want it to go.

Call me a skeptic, but did the government just caution the public not to believe the stuff that's on social media? Not exactly. They will be planting a certain amount of hooey for your enlightenment, and they're willing to be a little bit fascist to make sure nothing gets in the way of that.