Since his name seems to be popping up in relation to recent political events, may I just offer this gentle reminder?
David Orchard is to Conservative politics what Weird Al Yankovic is to diesel engine rebuilding.
Now, please, people – start treating him with the relevancy he deserves.
Update – Orchard letter to editor, Toronto Star.
You nailed it Kate! Repeatedly bringing up the name of that socialist/Dipper is nothing but a red herring from the Liebrano spin machine.
Same with stink stevens…..no relevancy to the current group.
And any thought that David Asper would have ANYTHING to do with either of these guys is laughable.
Someone just sent me a letter from Orchard, printed in the Toronto Star today. Apparently, Orchard agrees with me.
“Bob Hepburn writes that there’s a growing “dump (Stephen) Harper movement” in the Conservative party. David Orchard, he says, is “a key player.”
A “dump anybody” movement is one of insiders and, in the case of Harper, Conservative party members. I am neither, and was even
denied the opportunity to attend the party’s first convention as an observer. A movement to “dump Harper” may well exist in the
Conservative party. I know nothing of it. Neither am I part of any other group trying to unseat Harper.
Hepburn writes that this group is “working the phones.” That, too, is news to me. The phone calls I am making have to do with
prices of wheat, oats and fuel, arrangements for leaf-cutter bees to pollinate alfalfa crops and getting the seed into the ground
on my farms.
One would hope the Toronto Star would subscribe to higher standards of journalistic accuracy.”
What astounds me is the quote:
As one observer said, such tough words “makes one wonder what media support Harper has left � beyond the Ottawa press gallery.”
Yah, Harper really has a lot of support there!!!
MSM in Canada doesn’t like Harper – like we didn’t already know that. Someone please tell me why Sinclair Stevens should ever be taken seriously – if anything he is reminder of past conservative exesses. Someone please tell the man go back into the corrupt little hole he crawled out of. I am still astounded as to why the MSM cannot actually look at what’s going on around them and realize anything/anyone would be better.
Lemme see now…the Star ( Kanada’s pravda) has Orchard as a player in the Conservative camp and has maufactred and planted an anti Harper coup story with Bolshie Dave at the center. ROTFLMAO!
Want to know why the people in the Star circulation ridings function on a sub human intelligence level where national politics are concerned?
Does anybody buy the Globe or the Star? Any time I’m in TO these publications are free depending what hotel you’re staying in. Imagine paying for that…… brrrrr….. gaacccckkkkkk. Still it’s nice to know what those people are thinking…. naaaaaah
David who?
For an alternative view, there’s the latest eruption from Mt. Simpson. Seems there’s this rogue opposition MP running around trapping innocent chiefs of staff into exquisitely prudent abstractions. For four hours. Or,
equally plausible to an outsider, that he was indeed sniffing around, visiting cabinet ministers, opening up lines of communication for a switch, hoping to secure something then or later for himself and/or his wife.
http://www.andrewcoyne.com
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His latest column is up; link provided; an excellent political essay. Compare it to Mr. Simpson (G&M spavined-hackneyed nag; his best cliche is “thin gruel”. He has not written an original thought since his last thank-you card to Santy Claus 68 years ago).
Support Andre Coyne vs. the Liberals who want us to forget the tapes of four hours long.
Bloggers, please keep it up top.
AC Coyne is a worthy. Bravo.
“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
— Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects
Have a look at Bob Burton’s other columns, particularly the one detailing the PM’s visit after his “speach to the nation”. The column couldn’t be more fawning. The various blogs in the last US election were a force to be reckoned with to by-pass the media’s leftist agenda. What happens in the US election’s if often repeated up here ie push polls, third party advertising, negative TV ads, demon dialers, ect….look for blogs to have a huge effect on the next election. Meida like Bob Burton and his ilk will become less relevant. There are sites that monitor the growth of visits to sites and it is telling over the past months that conservative blogs have exploded in visits. Bodes well for the next election that the media bias towards the Liberals will be countered for the first time in a national election.
Circe,
Well, the circulation of both the Star and the Globe far surpasses anything else in the city – in fact i think the Star has the largest circulation in Canada – as a local paper even. The Sun and National Post have both seen better days.
Alberta has Liberal media bias too –
Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald.
I could gag when I see how the skew stories and headlines.
Who owns these papers?
OT: Tax Misery Index:
http://www.forbes.com/home/global/2005/0523/024chart.html
Canada is lower than I thought it would be, about the mid-point (111.2 – US is 97.3). And forget the reform number for the US, I doubt a flat tax will happen any time soon.
Allison I dont know if you are being facetious or not but I will answer the question. The Herald and Journal are owned by David Asper, same guy that owns the National Post.
Averageconservative,
The Conservative Blogs, like SDA, here, are exploding because they are saving our sanity. The average Conservative is experiencing OUTRAGE and there has been no outrage by the MSM, esp. the CBC the outfit we pay to exist. We find that all media, in Canada with the exception of The Western Standard and the Internet are in the pockets of the ND/Lib rulers. We are forced to watch treason, backstabbing, theft, graft, corruption and the media that we pay and the government that we pay just let it go…The idiot box (T.V.) will not even interview people who do not back up the Liberals, they cut off anyone who speaks to them on the Conservative side and they ‘spin’ everything to please their Masters in the left wing (Elitest Socialists).
We try to get on with our lives and go to work but we KNOW that our tax money- half our paychecks – is supporting left wing Billionares and their fawners and friends. A rational taxpayer is filled with grief (for the country that ‘could have been’), with anger at others for allowing the corrupt, lying, thieving Lib/ND seedy,pompous, self styled elites to continue to use and abuse their betters (the honest people of Canada). The cowardly, cringing inaction of the taxpayers and the media in Canada is revolting. Kate and her fellow website hosts provide a place to go to feel that you are not all alone with your outrage.
Re: Journal/Herald – no, duh – I was not being facetious- I just plumb fergot!
Do you think David Asper is going to eventually come on the side of truth and fairness in his father’s honour.
Is he not building a museum in Izzy’s name to commemorate Human Rights? That is basically what we are asking for in Canada.
One would think his father got into the media business to assure the people were never again manipulated into mass compliance by unscrupulous dictators.
A museum is to assure that we never repeat the atrocoties of the past-lest we forget.
MONTREAL (CP) – An aide in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s office told the sponsorship inquiry Wednesday he was paid $28,000 under the table to work for the Liberals in the late 1990s.
Gaetano Manganiello, who is on a paid leave of absence from his job as a media officer in the PMO, said he worked off the books as a party logistics specialist in 1998 and 1999. He said the then-boss of the party’s Quebec wing, Benoit Corbeil, approached him at the Montreal headquarters and said the party was in dire financial straights.
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Has this man been arrested? Was he allowed to walk out freely from the Gomery Inquiry?
Who is his superior? None other than Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada.
Lawlessness prevails; greed is rampant; a kleptocracy/thugocracy rules Canada.
What is to be done?
From personal experience NP edits the snot out of their message boards. It’s scary how selective and efficient the Canadian internet media police are. I’d be willing to bet they pay more for their internet editors than they pay their “investigative” reporters. Some public watchdog. This is real trouble for Canada unless you find a fast and effective remedy.
maz2 and jema54:
You two said it all. Exactly how I’m feeling right now.
Thank God, as Maz2 said, I know there are others that share these feelings of outrage and frustration.
I know what you mean,Tom.
Try to get even one letter in your local paper or community paper. Unless you’re spouting the party line and agreeing with their Liberal-spin doctor editorials your letter won’t see the light of day.
Clear;
Pehaps we could convince some Conservatives to get a fund together and buy 100,000,000’s of Western Standard magazines and send them free to random residences and business establishments in this country. It might wake some people up and it would be good for the WS, the only Conservative source of news (REAL news) in this God forsaken land. Older people who do not use the internet have nothing but MSM for news; the older people of this country are educated and they vote. I am willing to put my 50 dollars in – another idea is to print some articles from the blogs and staple them together and leave the files in Drs offices, old age homes etc. Like Mazz2 says -something must be done! We will all be raving lunatics if we are forced to sit on our hands for much longer. I found the CTV and NP and GLob and Mob and of course, CBC won’t print anything I write. Censorship, what a dirty, filthy word!
Allison, Izzy Asper was no hero. He was a failed Liberal Party Candidate and was head of the Liberal Party in Manitoba. Hardly an impartial type. The only thing he and the Libs disagreed on was Israel, and maybe the level of $$ going to Quebec operatives.
Ralph
What’s your point? Do the circulation numbers take the freebies into account.
With articles like that, one wonders what is the point of having press”>http://www.ontpress.com/”>press councils? I did a little digging on Asper and his contributions to the Liberal Party here”>http://randomnotes.blog.ca/main/index.php/randomnotes/2005/05/24/p29313″>here.
The sad thing is now that corporate political donations are severely restricted, the media seem to be resorting more and more to biased reporting and presentation of the news to protect their interests, in place of large contributions to the governing Liberal Party.
The Aspers own a media monopoly that they would not be allowed in the US due to the anti-monopoly laws in place there…however, this is Kanada and socialists love monopolies if they own them… old, Iz was a well connected Liberal and bagman from the old north “peg” where the Bronfmans and Moe Strong came from. The CRTC approved his media monopoly under the stewardship of his pal ‘tit Gar.
Asper is a liberal and further he is a typical Liberal who has no moral compunctions about using his news empire to plug his favorite hobby horse. Thus we were treated to the dictate of all Asper papers having to run his editorials. No free nation has a media ownership concentration like Canada.
Canada’s independent news sources amount to the I-net, Western Standard and some small local rural papers….no TV is out of the control of partisans and free radio/internet and indi media is under threat of partisan tyranny exercised through the CRTC or the heritage ministry …heritage ministry ,there’s an oximoron for you….as if we inherited soviet style media and information control.
I wonder how many modern Canadians realize that Canada would not have responsible representitive democracy were it not for the total freedom the press operated under in the past.
Shackle and co-opt the media and a political cartel can control the population. The family compact was fond of destroying papers that exposed their treachery….the modern Liberal cartel do so with bureaucratic tyranny…no one gets a licence to broadcast or print unles it meets some nebulous “Canadian content” criteria…which can’t explain the CNN/Fox news inequity on Canadian cable.
WLM Redux, re: your comment “total freedom the press operated under in the past.” Well, that’s a matter of interpretation. In the past, almost all major newspapers in Canada were considered “party organs”, meaning the moutpiece for a particular party. For example, the Globe was owned by George Brown, a Liberal, while the Mail was owned by a Conservative, the Toronto Star “a left wing rag” (I heard this at a seminar at a journalism school), the Winnipeg Free Press was Liberal, the Regina Leader Post was Liberal, the Calgary Herald was Conservative, and so on. But then, some time in the 60s to the present we developed this idea that the press should be “neutral,” and the political biases were somewhat submerged though they did not go away. The public was led to believe that the media was neutral, even though the biases were not as strong as in the post, and people forgot what the old allegiances were. Thus, Canada never really had a “free press”, though there was perhaps more diversity in the past and people knew which paper stood for what.
Modern History Sourcebook:
Vladimir Illyich Lenin:
What is to be Done, 1902
In this text, Lenin makes his argument for a coherent, strictly controlled party of dedicated revolutionaries as a basic necessity for a revolution. Some have seen an anlogy with the Jesuit Order in his proposals for an elite corps to lead the masses. One may see in Lenin’s proposals a deep insight into to necessary requisites for a revolution, or a deep contempt for the working classes.
The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e, it may itself realise the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social Democracy [Note: By “social democracy” Lenin means revolutionary political Marxism, not the later concept of “moderate” socialism] arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. At the time of which we are speaking, i.e., the middle of the nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won the adherence of the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia
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Lenin knew what had to be done.
His vanguard was the intellectuals.
See: Raymond Aron: “The Opium of The Intellectuals” (Why was this title chosen?)
Who will be the vanguard for conservatives?
Bloggers and their blogs/commenters.
Look for the handle “ET” on this site and Western Standard; a powerful, calm, voice; with a reasoned, factual voice; a voice for conservatives to hear and support; a conservative message.
Let’s blog.
Circe and Ralph:
I cancelled my Globe subscription many weeks ago (the Post is fine by me). Recently the Globe began showing up in my mail box for free (at least they haven’t tried to charge me yet). Such are the nespaper wars in Toronto. The Star also tries the freebie trick on occaision – as if I would buy that paper.
This talk of �Dump Harper� comes, as no surprise to some of us who reside in south central Canada, it seems like no one wants to say it so I will. I�ll give credit to Mr. Harper because he�s that much smarter than Mr. Stockwell, however he�s not capable of leading the Conservatives to form the next Government of Canada; the Stronach saga was not a good thing, I need not say more. There are a lot of good CPC candidates in south central Canada that voters will cross the line to support, believe it or not Canadians of south central Canada are not very impress with the current elected government of Canada.
That said, if the Federal Conservative Party of Canada has to present itself as a strong alternative they need someone with a little more charisma than Mr. Harper. The general belief is should Mr. Mackay rise to the occasion voters in south central Canada will line up to support Conservative Party of Canada.
Canadians who make choices on the basis of “charisma” place themselves at the mercy of the media. The media are the ones who choose the images and clips you are presented. They will, and do, select those on the basis of their own underlying bias. Not all the time, of course, but over the passage of weeks, patterns will emerge that are undeniable – to the point where leading media outlets have been known to crop photographs or insert fictions in such a way as to misprepresent the truth.
On the topic of �charisma�
I agree with your view of the media, hence the reason I visit SDA. �On the other hand� its not just �charisma� that makes this individual a good candidate, we have to remember he was instrumental in bringing the two parties together to form the CPC. It takes vision and determination to take an ideal, which was dying from being split down the middle for the better part 10 years and create a strong official opposition hereby giving Canadians a choice. Mr. Harper had his chance; Conservative minded Canadians would like to see what the other side to the coin has to offer and now is a good a time as any for that change.
‘What Weird Al Yankovich is to Diesel engine rebuilding’ Priceless! Love it. Consider it stolen. That’s why there are over 32 posts here. TonyGuitar
Jama54, So Average Conservative has us both with ‘Look for blogs to have a huge effect on next election’ A germ of an idea. You mention stapling some pertinent blog pages together and leaving them in Doctor/Dentist offices. Right out of my own thinking. Shower the country with Western Standard. The real tool for effectiveness is FOCUS. Even the MSM with all it’s power fails to capitalize on the power of focus.
These musings are the germ of an excellent approach and with focus, could be truely effective. First choose a priority. One that would help everyone and be easy to agree to. Say Whistle-Blower Law with neutrality and great penalty. The thrust is to FOCUS on enacting law to get one thing done. Bloggers united could swing that. Priority two; [Paul White Idea] Individual Ministry Account & Audit. This was actually promised by Paul Martin himself, during the CBCTV Grovel speech. However, as you know it takes a blizzard of postmail and email pointedly (focused), demanding the same thing for the government to enact that thing.
If the MSM were to provide little contact info bars at the end of articles. People would likely write demands of government in the heat of the moment. A dormant power.
More papers in the states re doing just that now.
So what do you think? Champion a cause that saves us our National Wealth. PDFs from Johnwilliams.ca/wastereport.htm and provide the suggested cure. ‘The Demand’ with the correct house of commons addresses to hit.
If numbers are large and the demand focused
then votes, being larger than money, will lead to enactment of legislation. We talk about everything. Let’s do something about something. TonyGuitar