podcast friday
Mar. 8th, 2024 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby Welcome to Podcast Friday. Unusually for me, awash in excellent content, I come today not to praise but to condemn. Not the podcast itself, but the ways in which alternative and independent media occasionally has the same blind spots as mainstream media when it comes to critical analysis.
Yeah yeah I know Canadaland has sucked lately and this is not actually about Jesse's stance on Israel and Palestine (or lack thereof). Though hoo-boy maybe we can talk about yesterday's bizarro episode as well. No, the one I want to highlight is "The Conservative Decade Ahead."
Like every mainstream media source including the, presumably, soon-to-be-defunded-and-turned-into-single-family-housing CBC, this episode assumes that Pierre Poilievre will be Canada's next Prime Minister. Literally everyone I know thinks this as well. I don't know why we bother having elections in this country—everyone seems to be sick of them anyway—we might as well go with the guy appointed by a handful of radicals and endorsed by the kind of people who answer the phone for a call from an unknown number. Definitely the kind of people we want deciding the fate of this country. It goes a step farther, though, and assumes that not only will Poilievre have the top job, but like his ideological predecessor Stephen Harper, he will be in a majority government for a decade.
Now, I don't think that this is a particularly far-fetched assumption. We have been told for years that we're all sick of Trudeau (personally I was sick of him before he got elected the first time) and that it's time for a change, and this is certainly A Change. Canadians are, as a people, deeply stupid. The Conservatives are a big tent party consisting of everyone from first-generation bourgeois immigrants who don't want their taxes raised to neo-Nazis who want the former group deported at best, put into a concentration camp at worst. Among the leadership, though, they're very united by how they work—defund all public institutions until they break, then transfer that money into the pockets of their bestest friends. Every Conservative government in living memory has the same strategy, which is to steal and defraud the public, enshittifying and making you pay more for things you should get for free, and then handing you like $200, patting you on the shoulder, and telling you that they're the friend of the working class, the little guy, just like you. Because we are a nation of placid, stupid little toddlers, we fall for it every time.
So okay why does this annoy me so much? For a number of reasons—first, it is maybe the job of journalists who are not far-right (whatever else you can say about Jesse Brown, he's not an extremist) to suggest pathways through which we might avoid the worst possible outcome. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Or at least to expose the truth of these fuckers, which doesn't really happen here either. Definitely it's not to suggest that eh, we'll probably still be okay and things will be pretty much the same. Maybe it might be nice to revisit what happened under Stephen Harper's regime, how the bloody scientists had to get out and protest with placards and everything to be allowed to present a modicum of truthful information to the public.
Certainly it is not responsible journalism to gloss over the people who will be most screwed. Refugees, including the ones we are directly responsible for creating, such as the many people forced into desperate flight by our policies throughout the Global South. Homeless people. Jesse and his guests correctly identify the fact that Poilievre's housing strategy will definitely not work, and that he will be forced to do what every other politician does—bulldoze the unsightly tent cities that exist everywhere now in the name of law and order, and eliminate the safe injection sites that are the only thing slightly blunting the edge of the opioid epidemic. What happens next though? These people have to go somewhere, and obviously a lot of them will die, but at least a few minutes of air time ought to be devoted to whether we think they'll go to already overcrowded prisons or forced into camps or what? The environment: Canadaland has always been a bit weak on that beat, but the consequences for the entire planet if Canada continues its dependance on oil and gas are obviously dire. Disabled people, whose numbers are already on the rise due to covid let 'er rip policies, and we can expect that no support or research or financial aid will be available to the millions of people who will be thrown out of work and public life by long covid.
And of course, queer folks. There's a lot of time devoted to this idea that everyone is sick of "woke" policies, which is baffling to me as hardly anyone is actually materially affected by "woke" policies, if there even is such a thing. Trudeau has been shamefully weak as three provincial governments have now undermined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to murder more trans kids. Poilievre has declared that he will be even more extreme to ensure that no trans kids make it to adulthood. So...can we talk about the consequences of that? Because I don't think "woke" is the problem here. I actually don't think that most people here care about "woke." I think people hate Trudeau because he, like every other politician, is corrupt as hell, and because people imagine some kind of fantasy world where no one made them wear masks or stay home and it was somehow better than what we ended up with. And of course inflation, but a cursory look around at the rest of the world suggest that this is a problem everywhere.
One thing that's not mentioned much, given that Poilievre campaigns on housing and affordability, is the fact that his whole plan was bitcoin and this guy should in no way be trusted with the national economy. I feel like that's an important thing to point out, that had he been elected last tie, he'd have gambled on fake money and we'd be even more screwed.
There's a chilling bit near the end where they play a bit of a Poilievre speech. I usually read what politicians say rather than listen to them, because I'm more interested in policy than verbal flourishes. So this is the first time I've had to listen to the guy in awhile, and it's terrifying. Obviously the guy is a straight-up fascist, in the RETVRN TO TRADITION sense of the word, but...it's compelling, this lullaby that your life could be better with magical access to home ownership and small businesses on Main St. and clean, safe streets. It's not really my thing but it sounds nice, even to me, and I don't think the fact that he's a far-right demagogue ought to go uncommented on. It's a very soothing vision: Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to be concerned about climate catastrophe and plague and economic policy and all these new changes around you and your mom never told you when to go to bed and you just got to live in a Norman Rockwell* painting all the time?
Media, including Canadaland, consistently predicted Conservative victories (or at least stronger showings) under O'Toole and Scheer, and were wrong. It's not impossible that they're wrong this time, given the polling problems I mentioned earlier. It's also probable that they're right (given that Boomers who pick up the phone are also more likely to vote) but. Look. I'm not a liberal. I don't actually believe that representative electoral democracy is all that good. But maybe we should think a little harder about replacing it with fascism before we just throw our hands up and say welp and let this absolute maniac take over.
* Never mind that Rockwell was cool, actually, and would have hated these guys.
Yeah yeah I know Canadaland has sucked lately and this is not actually about Jesse's stance on Israel and Palestine (or lack thereof). Though hoo-boy maybe we can talk about yesterday's bizarro episode as well. No, the one I want to highlight is "The Conservative Decade Ahead."
Like every mainstream media source including the, presumably, soon-to-be-defunded-and-turned-into-single-family-housing CBC, this episode assumes that Pierre Poilievre will be Canada's next Prime Minister. Literally everyone I know thinks this as well. I don't know why we bother having elections in this country—everyone seems to be sick of them anyway—we might as well go with the guy appointed by a handful of radicals and endorsed by the kind of people who answer the phone for a call from an unknown number. Definitely the kind of people we want deciding the fate of this country. It goes a step farther, though, and assumes that not only will Poilievre have the top job, but like his ideological predecessor Stephen Harper, he will be in a majority government for a decade.
Now, I don't think that this is a particularly far-fetched assumption. We have been told for years that we're all sick of Trudeau (personally I was sick of him before he got elected the first time) and that it's time for a change, and this is certainly A Change. Canadians are, as a people, deeply stupid. The Conservatives are a big tent party consisting of everyone from first-generation bourgeois immigrants who don't want their taxes raised to neo-Nazis who want the former group deported at best, put into a concentration camp at worst. Among the leadership, though, they're very united by how they work—defund all public institutions until they break, then transfer that money into the pockets of their bestest friends. Every Conservative government in living memory has the same strategy, which is to steal and defraud the public, enshittifying and making you pay more for things you should get for free, and then handing you like $200, patting you on the shoulder, and telling you that they're the friend of the working class, the little guy, just like you. Because we are a nation of placid, stupid little toddlers, we fall for it every time.
So okay why does this annoy me so much? For a number of reasons—first, it is maybe the job of journalists who are not far-right (whatever else you can say about Jesse Brown, he's not an extremist) to suggest pathways through which we might avoid the worst possible outcome. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Or at least to expose the truth of these fuckers, which doesn't really happen here either. Definitely it's not to suggest that eh, we'll probably still be okay and things will be pretty much the same. Maybe it might be nice to revisit what happened under Stephen Harper's regime, how the bloody scientists had to get out and protest with placards and everything to be allowed to present a modicum of truthful information to the public.
Certainly it is not responsible journalism to gloss over the people who will be most screwed. Refugees, including the ones we are directly responsible for creating, such as the many people forced into desperate flight by our policies throughout the Global South. Homeless people. Jesse and his guests correctly identify the fact that Poilievre's housing strategy will definitely not work, and that he will be forced to do what every other politician does—bulldoze the unsightly tent cities that exist everywhere now in the name of law and order, and eliminate the safe injection sites that are the only thing slightly blunting the edge of the opioid epidemic. What happens next though? These people have to go somewhere, and obviously a lot of them will die, but at least a few minutes of air time ought to be devoted to whether we think they'll go to already overcrowded prisons or forced into camps or what? The environment: Canadaland has always been a bit weak on that beat, but the consequences for the entire planet if Canada continues its dependance on oil and gas are obviously dire. Disabled people, whose numbers are already on the rise due to covid let 'er rip policies, and we can expect that no support or research or financial aid will be available to the millions of people who will be thrown out of work and public life by long covid.
And of course, queer folks. There's a lot of time devoted to this idea that everyone is sick of "woke" policies, which is baffling to me as hardly anyone is actually materially affected by "woke" policies, if there even is such a thing. Trudeau has been shamefully weak as three provincial governments have now undermined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to murder more trans kids. Poilievre has declared that he will be even more extreme to ensure that no trans kids make it to adulthood. So...can we talk about the consequences of that? Because I don't think "woke" is the problem here. I actually don't think that most people here care about "woke." I think people hate Trudeau because he, like every other politician, is corrupt as hell, and because people imagine some kind of fantasy world where no one made them wear masks or stay home and it was somehow better than what we ended up with. And of course inflation, but a cursory look around at the rest of the world suggest that this is a problem everywhere.
One thing that's not mentioned much, given that Poilievre campaigns on housing and affordability, is the fact that his whole plan was bitcoin and this guy should in no way be trusted with the national economy. I feel like that's an important thing to point out, that had he been elected last tie, he'd have gambled on fake money and we'd be even more screwed.
There's a chilling bit near the end where they play a bit of a Poilievre speech. I usually read what politicians say rather than listen to them, because I'm more interested in policy than verbal flourishes. So this is the first time I've had to listen to the guy in awhile, and it's terrifying. Obviously the guy is a straight-up fascist, in the RETVRN TO TRADITION sense of the word, but...it's compelling, this lullaby that your life could be better with magical access to home ownership and small businesses on Main St. and clean, safe streets. It's not really my thing but it sounds nice, even to me, and I don't think the fact that he's a far-right demagogue ought to go uncommented on. It's a very soothing vision: Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to be concerned about climate catastrophe and plague and economic policy and all these new changes around you and your mom never told you when to go to bed and you just got to live in a Norman Rockwell* painting all the time?
Media, including Canadaland, consistently predicted Conservative victories (or at least stronger showings) under O'Toole and Scheer, and were wrong. It's not impossible that they're wrong this time, given the polling problems I mentioned earlier. It's also probable that they're right (given that Boomers who pick up the phone are also more likely to vote) but. Look. I'm not a liberal. I don't actually believe that representative electoral democracy is all that good. But maybe we should think a little harder about replacing it with fascism before we just throw our hands up and say welp and let this absolute maniac take over.
* Never mind that Rockwell was cool, actually, and would have hated these guys.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-09 02:15 pm (UTC)People who idealize Rockwell now absolutely would have considered him a screaming socialist by today's standards. Anyway here's an article about him and politics.