Friday, January 15, 2010

Canadian Newsmedia Rediscovers Haiti

I gotta say that it puts a bad taste in my mouth to see all these fucking newspaper headlines about the earthquake in Haiti and how "Canada is doing this" and "Canadians are doing that" for Haiti.

I've mentioned several times on this blog how curious it is that Canadian news media say Jack Shit about Haiti even though it is Canada's second-biggest foreign policy investment and our largest effort in the Western Hemisphere by far. (It isn't curious actually, we're just being a bunch of assholes and the place is a disaster.)

But here they all come with the self-congratulatory articles and editorials about Canada's generosity in responding to the earthquake. Bizarrely, my hometown newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, printed an editorial from the London Independent detailing (accurately enough) how the already-terrible conditions in Haiti, and the government's gross incapabilities are the result of US-American meddling and support for corrupt puppet governments. What was the thinking behind publishing that viewpoint without mentioning our own country's involvement in one of those coups?

Fuck it. I'm so sick of the bullshit.

6 comments:

LK said...

I'm sick of it too. They're tools who've sold their souls. Fight 'em 'til the bitter end...what have we got to lose? LK Taylor (no relation)

thwap said...

No relation to who? But yeah, something is going on when it's so obvious. They can't claim ignorance i don't think.

LK said...

Taylor? Stephen Taylor. The Con's...oh they get it. They just don't care. By "fight them", I mean educating the people, keeping the issues front and centre, and standing TOGETHER against what they stand for. LK

Alison said...

Max Blumenthal calls it "disaster porn".

We look down our noses at 'average' Americans for their refusal to realize their country's leading role in the world's woes - we are just following the US lead here in refusing to realize it too.

LK said...

Alison, the link shows (what some know) that there is a pattern to what the US has done and continues to do world-wide. And, we do follow their lead when it comes to most things. Denial. Consumerism. Gluttony. The quest for 'individuality'. It protects our way of life. I fight against it every day. Maybe I only affect a small circle of people--family and friends, but every little bit helps. LK

thwap said...

There's a reasonable chance that ordinary Canadians aren't in denial, because they simply don't get the info, as the media's abysmal performance on the subject of Haiti shows.