About a year ago one of those stupid Facebook threads that you comment on and then given a topic to share forward was going around. So against my better judgement I commented on it (normally I stay far away from those silly mindless things) and was given the letter P. So I posted it and a longtime friend replied with "Political" and then followed up saying I have become much more political since moving out East.
At first I was defensive because Rick and I had always spoken about politics over daily routine coffee sessions when I lived in Edmonton. Issues ranging from teachers unions to Provincial budget, to heritage Trust fund, to really anything in news that day. Really the only difference being now was that we had access to much much much more information happening around the world thanks to the internet. Back then, while we both were very active in computers in our own right, the internet still wasn't the sounding board it would turn into. So most of our information still came from The Edmonton Sun newspaper and what we heard on radio and word of mouth.
So with limited information coming in, the discussions were less focused and less defined on our part as we simply did not have the mounds of information available to us today.
So in that sense I still maintain I have not become more political then I was back then. I just have more issues regarding politics to speak about now. More access to greater amount of content always means greater time spent on content.
That was my initial response to the claim.
But its stuck in my head, back of my mind, nagging at me since then.
Had I become more political as I grow older and why?
And in truth I very well may have.
See in Alberta in the 60s, 70s, 80s, even 90s you lived in a bubble. You knew your opinions (speaking mass population generality here) were different then those of rest of Canada. What you did not know or perhaps did not understand is how much different they were. And THAT part might have been the big eye opener for me when I moved out East and very well might drive my recently fueled interest in politics.
I always tell this story to people out here when they ask me how different was Alberta compared to Toronto...
"My very first time ever in Toronto I was entering the now gone Worlds Biggest Book Store with my mother. I grabbed door and held open as my mother went through and right behind us were a elderly couple, so as I was raised to do in Alberta, I held the door open for them as well.
Well they stopped and stared and even glared at me, not moving through the door, I held for couple more seconds and since they made no attempt or movement towards the door I shrugged and went through myself. Later I asked my mother "what the hell was that all about" and she just shrugged it off and casually said "Probably thought you were going to mug them, people don't hold doors open for others out here"
Yes Toto, we are not in Kansas any more.
To me that one encounter was (until very recently) the best way to describe the difference between East and West,
Now you take that mindset and apply it to politics and suddenly you are dealing with a MUCH MUCH MUCH different beast. One I honestly had never seen before until I moved out East.
Take the most recent Alberta Election for example. Couple great examples come from that.
1) The NDP win in Alberta is misleading when you look at it from a east / west viewpoint. Truth is Notley wouldn't even be able to run that platform in the East as a NDP. Its far far far to moderate for Ontario or Federal NDP objectives and agendas. While they share a few common ground issues, Notley would have probably had to cross floor to Liberals (normally) to run on that platform. But with current state of Ontario and Federal liberal party she would have found much more in common with the Ontario PC party and Harpers conservatives.
Now I'm sure any NDP voter in Alberta is up in arms and calling me every word in book over that last statement. But its the truth. The Alberta NDP present themselves as more moderate in their nature on most topics (climate change and unions being the only 2 real sticking points where they continue to go hard leftist policy wise) then their federal and Ontario counter parts. And thus would find themselves siding currently with federal or Ontario conservatives because they are the only party even remotely close to the center right now politically. Now of course that's all a smoke screen to get elected out west. Truth is Notley and her followers are every bit as left wing as the rest of the party. They just couldn't say that until after the election.
Alberta residences (not those that moved there to get employment because the Liberal and NDP governments of their old provinces killed all the jobs and employment...which always makes me shake my head that they now AGAIN voting Liberal and NDP after moving their families across the country for employment because of the NDP and Liberals) do not understand this massive difference between west and east politics. What is left in Alberta very well might be viewed as a red conservative in Ontario or even a blue liberal.
2) Alberta had the backbone and dignity to do the right thing this past election. Lets forget the whole Left vrs Right, socialist vrs conservative stuff and focus in on the message sent by Alberta in this past election.
Redford had been caught red handed misusing public money. The amounts are actually very minor in the grand scope, it was the deceitful and corrupt manner in which it was done. And then when she was finally drove out for her actions, Prentice came in as an arrogant, obnoxious, no regret follow up.
Alberta said "NO WAY NO HOW" and rightfully tossed the Alberta PCs from power.
Well done, that's the way it should be done.
That's the West way.
Now lets look at Ontario provincial election.
Prior to Wynne we had Dalton McGuinty. The man broke his first political promise on day 2 of his first term raising taxes after campaigning on no tax increases for months. Under McGuinty there was endless broken promises, endless tax and cost increases, and the scandals were endless as well amounting to over 2 billion dollars (some eventually being criminally investigated).
FINALLY like Redford he resigns in shame and Wynne takes over
Exactly like Prentice Wynne is arrogant, obnoxious, no regrets (she goes so far as leading a Dalton Dalton, Dalton chant on multiple occasions) . The scandals dollar figures (and she has been tied to the 2 billion with McGuinty) rise to well over 3 BILLION dollars in corruption.
And Toronto (note, not Ontario, just Toronto) gives her a majority government anyways.
EXACTLY the opposite message that Alberta sent to their provincial political figures.
So one can only take away from that that in the west, accountability and integrity matter far more in politics then in the East (can say East because Wynne not the only eastern political figure under criminal investigations out here. Liberals wracking up quite the dirt sheet municipally and provincially out east, last number of years).
So that was the change in culture for me.
Out here politics is not so much about the message and what good you can do
Politics is about spinning the message and getting the media to lobby for you (which the Liberals out here are masterful at). What you actually do after being elected seems to matter little out here in Ontario. Its all about public image and the photo ops and NOT about who has the best ideas and is proven most trustworthy.
So for me, growing up as I did, this all flies in my face as unthinkable.
So when something is unthinkable, you speak out against it.
And as I explained at the start, now I just have so much more content to speak out against.
Take the media for example.
I could literally supply 10000s of links to showcase how the news out here is not reported. Its manufactured, designed, targeted.
The media in the east (though it does seem to have seeped into western media as well now as a few Alberta stations are very suspect in how they ignore one story but push another, rather then reporting both equally) is not interested in journalism, reporting, fact gathering.
those are things of the past which restricted them, in putting forth the articles they really wanted to write.
Out here now, the media no longer interested in people making up their own minds, they much more interested in making up the minds for the people.
Case in point: other day was a news story of a mother suing a airline because it landed the plane to have her and her 15 year old autistic daughter removed for being unruly.
It was the news story of the day and I had read it on multiple different sources.
So imagine my surprise (not really) when I clicked on radio to hear "Toronto Talk show host" of certain radio station in Toronto trying to riled all his listeners up over this.
Only problem was he was intentionally leaving out half the FACTS to the story to make people side with mother and daughter.
He constantly stated the mother just wanted a hot meal for her daughter when in the radio show just before him (ON THE SAME STATION no less, and in clear print in any article you read) they told everyone that the airline did in fact get the girl a hot meal from the first class area (they were not in first class) in an attempt to calm her down.
He must have stated the hot meal thing 10 times despite it being in direct conflict with what the radio talk show host before him stated.
Where they reading different press clippings?
Doubtful
Or was this once again a case of Toronto media trying to control the message and direct public opinion in a certain direction?
Far more likely
He went on and on about how the staff was not trained for this and mishandled the incident. When in fact the staff did have minor training (not specific to autism which imo is completely out of whack to think they would get) in these types of situations and from most passenger reports afterwards the staff handled the situation beyond professionally and properly. There was a few who disagreed but mostly its reported the airline staff were very professional and tried their absolute best).
For almost a hour he continued to hammer away leaving out facts and reports so he could paint the picture the way he wanted to paint it.
And that's exactly how Toronto media handles politics, but they get even more bias and even more partisan.
Did you all hear about Trudeau in House of Commons stating "Helping everyone is NOT FAIR" the other day?
I'm betting unless you follow The Rebel on Facebook you never saw the quote even once. I know, despite following 10 different media outlets, The rebel was the ONLY ONE to report on this rather important statement by the would be country leader on that day. I saw couple more the next day but mainstream mostly ignored it.
How many of you saw the Australian Town Hall 4 years ago destroy Gore/Suzuki Climate Change theories with the same scientists that Gore and Suzuki point to, to this very day still, as evidence supporting THEIR THEORY of climate change.
None of the Canadian press carried it except Sun Media. And this wasn't some partisan group of conservatives attacking Suzuki and his "science", it was the very same political figures the endorsed his theories 8 years earlier but had come to see the folly of their ways.
Hey did you hear Obama, after rejecting Keystone Pipeline because of environmental concerns is expected to approve new drilling in the arctic which is projected to have massive negative environmental results that dwarf the projected "possible" environmental concerns over Keystone Pipeline?
Amazing how one can flip flop so massively on environmental concerns but ONLY part of the story hits the Eastern press rounds (I actually found out this one from a left wing American news station. Ontario press that ran almost daily anti keystone articles didn't even make a peep about this.....and still have not) .
But any way, those just a few of the reasons for my higher interest in politics.
I watch friends and acquaintances and strangers all jump through hoops to support the latest fad, the latest party, the latest personality in politics. "lets just give them a chance" they say .....because the media has neglected to report and inform them that these same ideals and policies have been tried numerous times before to disastrous results.
But for me its about the truth. I really don't care what party it is about, I want the truth. I want the story and the facts that the media will no longer inform us about.
I learned pretty quickly that I do not have much patience for political spin. Unfortunately in Canada the mainstream media is only going to give you spin, if they judge a story news worthy at all. So for myself, I read numerous different media outlets (though I must admit the Toronto Star and CBC are just way to pro left wing bias to read, just simply have no credibility in my eyes now. They might get a story here and there correct but that doesn't excuse the 100 other stories that are incomplete or out right lies) so you are forced to look at a number of different sources and try to piece together the full story. Some times its easy as they all basically agree. Other times its not so easy as many of them choose not to report that news story. But most of the time you read 10 articles and each article gives a tidbit of fact and its up to you to play scrabble with the facts until you have a full story.
And when you are bombarded daily with bias and incomplete media coverage. Well you either tune them out completely, or you get active to find the truth yourself.
Was a time, really not that long ago, when you turned on the news or picked up a newspaper and they presented the story, the whole story, they presented the facts and let the reader/viewer decide for themselves based off the facts.
Now a days a story from the mainstream media is more likely to have more facts omitted then it will have in the story. Or at worse the entire news story was pre-written by some union official or political party spin doctor.
And lets not even start on Anonymous sources. Woodward and Bernstein did it right with the Watergate Investigations. The got information from their source and then went out and proved that information independently before putting it in print. Now, you're more likely to see the anonymous source just be quoted as fact, with zero investigation into claims credibility, then you are to see a reporter actually do some homework and investigation.
Here is a case in point for people to see censorship, spin, lies at its very most obvious.
There is a Senate investigation going on. Numerous Senators have been questioned and charged. The most common one being Conservative Senator Mike Duffy. He misused $90,000 of taxpayer money in fraudulent expense claims. He deserves to be in jail.
BUT
A Liberal Senator Marc Harb is being charged for fraudulent expense claims of over $230,000 dating back years and years and years, long before Duffy even entered the Senate.
Yet if you were to look at the press coverage of these two figures there is easily over 100 articles on Duffy for every 1 article on Harb.
Personally I think both should be in prison but that still doesn't begin to explain the massively unbalanced coverage by the media.
In fact you will find Mike Duffy in print MORE OFTEN (again by easily 100-1 ratio) then you will read about Ontario Kathleen Wynne and her apparent ties to over 3 BILLION (thats 3,000,000,000.00) in politically motivated and wrongful spending.
But here is the really obvious one.
The biggest critic of both the Conservative and Liberal senator expense scandals is Thomas Mulcaire, Leader of the opposition NDP. He simply will not shut up about Duffy. Even to this day, while Duffy is in court on criminal charges, Mulcaire tries to make political hay outta this $90,000.00 fraud.
But until yesterday I never actually heard about a story where the NDP owe tax payers $4,000,000.00 for their own election fraud spending. With Mulcaire himself owing over $400,000.00 of that figure. Imagine the gall and arrogance to complain about a figure in a criminal trial happening at the same time while you use every dirty move and political side step to try and avoid paying back over $400,000.00 of fraudulent election expenses.
All those media outlets and not a peep from any of the mainstream media on this 4 million owed.
Thank god one outlet did run a story on it http://www.therebel.media/ndp_keep_spotlight_on_duffy_but_they_owe_taxpayers_nearly_4m
and apparently people saw it as the next day CTV ran a story on it (claiming they broke the story but no word why that break didnt seem to get much coverage by them or any of the other main stream media outlets) http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=622620&playlistId=1.2393920&binId=1.810401&playlistPageNum=1&binPageNum=1
If you watch those two clips, I don't care what party you naturally support.
The NDP come off looking guilty, desperate, and really immature and arrogant
Why am I more political?
Because honestly I find the lack of ethics and morality displayed by the mainstream media and most of the political personalities in Canada to be beyond revolting.
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