The Power of Spite

The New York Times Moscow correspondent, Walter Duranty, admitted to being “pleased as punch” when Stalin announced his Five-Year Plan in the fall of 1928. Stalin, as Duranty observed in his well-titled book, I Write as I Please, was the world’s “greatest living statesman.” A pioneer in the art of fake news, Duranty saw signs of greatness in Stalin’s plan “to socialize, virtually overnight, a hundred million of the stubbornest and most ignorant peasants in the world.”

Most of these “ignorant peasants” were small Ukrainian farmers or “kulaks” as they soon came to be known. Duranty was impressed that Stalin could turn these independent souls into cogs in a vast collective despite a creaky transportation system, a dwindling food supply, and a psychotic drive to maintain existing production levels. “When all these factors are considered,” wrote Duranty, “it is a little short of a miracle that the plan was carried through.”

With the opening of the Soviet archives, scholars now know how Stalin did carry his plan through, During the years of the plan, 1928-1933, as many as five million Ukrainians and three million others died to show just how well communism worked. The story that Duranty missed -- or, more accurately, concealed -- is no longer a matter of speculation. It is a matter of fact. And the fact is that no single western journalist has so profoundly misreported a story as Walter Duranty of the New York Times, no mean feat given the Times Russia coverage of the last five years.

 

Now, to outdo Walter Duranty: 

The CBC has publicly retracted a news story about the trucker Freedom Convoy that erroneously claimed that support for the protests had largely come from foreigners. 

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the claim was made by the CBC radio program The World This Hour.

“On February 10 in a report about the protest convoy CBC Radio’s The World This Hour incorrectly said GoFundMe ended a fundraiser for the protesters over questionable donations to the group,” a statement by the public broadcaster wrote. 

No further explanation was provided by the CBC on why the statement was incorrect. 

CBC has parrotted the idea that extremists and foreign sources were behind the trucker protests despite evidence showing otherwise. 

Reporters at the outlet based their claims on a so-called “exclusive analysis” of donations.

A Feb. 10 article titled “Convoy Protest Received Hundreds Of Donations That Appeared To Be From Abroad” claimed that “donations identified by CBC News are likely only a fraction of all the donations made by people outside of Canada.” 

“In recent days questions have emerged about how the protesters raised so much money so quickly and where it came from. Before GoFundMe shut down the protest convoy’s crowdfunding page and announced donors would be refunded it had attracted more than 120,000 donations amounting to more than $10 million.”

Another story by CBC claimed that “at least one third” of the donations were by anonymous donors. 

However, according to GoFundMe executives who testified before a March 3 Commons public safety committee, foreigners made up a very small portion of the donors. 

“Our records show 88% of donated funds originated in Canada and 86% of donors were from Canada,” said GoFundMe president Juan Benitez.

** 

Federal consultants compiled a list of 25 reliable journalists to be instructed on correct ways to cover general elections, according to Access To Information records. The consultants led by a former Toronto Star executive would not comment: “One way or another it falls to government to ensure the new media ecosystem does not operate in ways contrary to the Canadian principles of peace, order and good government.”

 

 

Long after everyone has forgotten it (or else), right?:

A rare joint committee of Parliament yesterday opened an unprecedented inquiry into cabinet’s actions against the Freedom Convoy. The 11-member panel has one year to determine why cabinet invoked extraordinary police powers against truckers: “Responsibilities of this committee are very, very serious.”

The reason for this is because the Gestapo police have already completed their objective - the popular and politically embarrassing movement was violently removed from Parliament Hill and the financial sanctioning of the average citizen who aided it ended up backfiring somewhat:

The identity and legal fate of nearly all of the arrested Freedom Convoy protesters remain shrouded in secrecy.

Police laid 393 charges against 122 people, charges that include assault, assaulting a police officer, possession of a weapon and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, according to a police update on Feb. 21.

Yet, the people who received those charges by and large remain anonymous. This week, Postmedia sought lists of names and charges from the Ottawa Police Service and Ontario’s justice ministry — neither provided the information.

The police force has refused repeated requests to release a list of names; to release a list of charges, or how many of each of the charges was laid over the course of the protest.

Catherine McKenney, an Ottawa city councillor, said, “I certainly don’t like the secrecy.”

However, despite the lack of transparency on the people and charges from police, politicians and those connected to the Liberal government continue to paint the protesters as dangerous radicals.

 

Now, let us all pretend that this never happened.

 

Also -  what height requirement is needed to trample someone or shoot them with tear gas canisters?:

Recruitment of new Mounties continues to be a fraction of needs, an RCMP union has told the Commons public safety committee. The National Police Federation counted only 380 graduates from the RCMP police academy in Regina last year, about a third of requirements: “The backlog it has created will be felt for years.”

 

 

But the precedent would never be used against more ideologically-similar parties, so ... :

Cabinet use of the Emergencies Act against truckers sets a bad precedent “far and wide,” the Assembly of First Nations yesterday told the Commons finance committee. National Chief RoseAnne Archibald said she was given advance warning cabinet would designate the Freedom Convoy an illegal assembly: “I was concerned about the long term implications of this.”