DJ!'s Fix for the Broken News Biz

It may well be as we suggested earlier that the Corrupt Party government-paid army of hacks were too busy with other ongoing trainwrecks to try to spin Tom Flanagan back out of the hole he'd pitched himself into.

But his brethren and sistren in the media have rallied. I'm not going to link -- you can find them. They have twisted themselves into various unattractive pretzels to find grounds on which to defend or mitigate his faceplant.

One thing they have in common though was noticed by our pal trapdinawrpool.

It appears the gatekeepers are upset the we mere proles took down one of their set #Flanagan #cdnpoli

— trapdinawrpool (@trapdinawrpool) March 1, 2013

Things get almost weepy at Pandering and Pissing Contests.

Dammit! Don't we proles get it that it's the pundits' job to end people's careers?

Another thing that can drive manly journos (of all genders) to weepy despair is the financial state of their biz.

I have a modest proposal. Fire all the opinionators. Keep the good reporters who actually ferret out what our overlords don't want us to know.

And leave the punditting to thoughtful -- and free -- bloggers like kirbycairo.

Win-win! More funding for real reporters, less noxious bloviating in the media.

Besides, it's not like the opinionators couldn't find other work worthy of their talents and ethics.

CON omertà

kirbycairo's definitive post about the Flanagan plummet cuts through the superfluous noise about "moral panic".  

At the heart of Flanagan's discourse was the legal question of the efficacy, expedience, and import of prosecuting people who consume illegal material verses those who are actually involved in the production of illegality. It is not unlike the question of dealing with those who consume an illegal product like, say, heroin versus dealing with those who produce it and distribute it. Now, no matter how sensitive an issue is one might need to address this basic legal question, particularly in circumstances of limited legal resources. But it would be impossible for someone as glib and impertinent as Flanagan to actually discuss such an issue. Rather, Flanagan always has a knee-jerk, extremist reaction to any issue. Flanagan never actually wants to discuss an issue, rather he just wants to pontificate as loud as he can to anyone who will listen.

In other words Flanagan doesn't know when to properly tailor his discourse or just keep his mouth shut. And in the end this is why Flanagan split with Harper. If Harper learned anything during his time in public life it is to say as little as possible and even if one has controversial (some might say offensive) opinions, keep them on the DL. And this is why Harper has always jettisoned political allies who he can't control, and also why his government is a grand exercise in keeping everyone around him quiet. And even those close to Harper who are regularly in the media spotlight are continually coached and controlled concerning government message.

Flanagan fell from grace because he is a man full of deeply offensive opinions who is convinced he is a scholar and a genius. It was inevitable that he would shoot his mouth off in a way that would undermine any authority he may have had. Other Harper allies like Brazeau and Duffy are similarly obsessed with their own perceived wisdom and authority. Meanwhile, other allies are just headed to jail.

Dissecting what happened to a man that the CPC and its numerous wingnut-welfare-funded mouthpieces - the Manning Centre for example - once described as "a major intellectual figure in conservative circles", the blogpost zeroes in on the operating mode of Harper's party and his government.

We have written much here at DJ! about the MASSIVE publicly-funded millions Harper has invested in the daily production of Con spin and propaganda, to portray himself and his oligarchy in the most media-savvy frame of reference.  We've dubbed his PMO the Politburo.  Interestingly enough, many CPC websites have been scoured clean of texts and photos that involve Flanagan.

Our Twitter buddy Fuzzy Wuzzy responds to a videorecording of the basic neo-conservative approach to interacting with the media with a different version of its rightwing omerta.  Hilarious!

First, from Alheli Picazo - a literal observance of "no comment": 

Then:

Duckette later said that he had been instructed by the office of Alberta Premier Stelmach not to make any comments. 

So. It's not only scientists that are muzzled by Cons.

Karma Is a Bitch

I gotta say I'm enjoying the hell out of Tom Flanagan's implosion today.

It's so good to see real-time karma in operation. And in this case two ugly vultures have come home to roost.

First, it was First Nations youth, possibly/probably aligned with Idle No More, who instigated it. Arnell Tail Feathers (I've seen two spelling of that) recorded and uploaded it. Levi Little Moustache (again, two spellings) did the research and asked the question.

Little Mustache, a youth on the Blood Tribe reserve southwest of Lethbridge, said everyone was shocked when Flanagan repeated his view.

“The whole crowd just kind of gasped,” Little Mustache said. “Everyone was just taken aback by that. And then the moderator just kind of shook his head.”

He said four people in the audience walked out. His friend, Arnell Tailfeathers, recorded Flanagan’s remarks and posted the video on YouTube.

Flanagan's views on First Nations are simply loathsome. He's been used as a more than willing apologist for colonialism in court cases and the media. In his role as Asshole-in-Residence at CBC, he's been very vocal in dissing the Idle No More movement.

So that's kind of sweet.

Next, the issue: child pornography, which should rightly be called crime-scene evidence.

Flanagan was national campaign manager for the Corrupt Party in 2004, a campaign that will be remembered for its general narstiness and in particular for the attempted smear of Paul Martin for his 'support' of child pornography.

What goes round, comes round, eh, Tom?

So, hoist on his own petard by a couple of savvy yet somehow 'less advanced' young First Nations men.

Yes. A good day.

Update by deBeauxOs: CBC backgrounder on Canadian case law with regard to child p0rn0graphy.  Also, Flanagan's tactic to smear Paul Martin and Jack Layton in the 2004 federal election.

Pity poor Tom Flanagan.

Had his verbal faux-pas occurred at any other conjuncture of the Harper dictatorship, a hastily-assembled crew of communications serfs would have nimbly cleaned up his mess.

But the CPC propaganda machine has been woefully stressed to the cracking point recently, and so Flanagan was unceremoniously jettisoned.

The first sign that his party had dumped him was a tweet from the PMO's Andrew MacDougall.

It was eventually followed by another tweet, this one quite terse, from Stephen Taylor stating that Flanagan had been dropped from the Manning Networking Conference's line-up of speakers at the annual media-savvy shin-dig.

This is not the first time the man described, by the forementioned Manning Institute as "a major intellectual figure in conservative circles", has opined with regard to the depiction of "child p0rn".

From Michael Harris' excellent piece at iPolitics:

In a bizarre exchange with a student caught on video, Flanagan said that he didn’t think people should go to jail for possessing child pornography.[...]

“A lot of people on my side of the spectrum, the conservative side of the spectrum, are on a kind of jihad against child pornography. I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures.[...]

The student who confronted Flanagan also made reference to a quote attributed to Canada’s answer to Karl Rove when the Manitoba government was hurrying through tough new legislation on child pornography. At the time, Flanagan suggested the whole subject was debatable: “What’s wrong with pornography in the sense that it’s just pictures?”

As my co-blogger and virtual roomie fern hill pointed out, Flanagan's fall from the heights of Con cronyism happened as the result of sustained Idle No More vigilance, with respect to issues and concerns important to First Nations, Indigenous, Métis and Innu peoples.

The tweetstorm in response to Flanagan's insouciance has been informative. This article reinforces Harris' point about the criminality and the organized child exploitation required to produce this material.

Will the stench of the Flanagan scandal trail the MNC events next week?  For good measure, we should keep up the pressure and investigate what dodgy, hypocritical, fraudulent and possibly criminal elements the other Con speakers bring to the table.

Update: Apparently Flanagan has become a liability to the University of Calgary, too.

With so many scandals exposed, the CPC is vulnerable, and its propaganda machine's capacities stretched to the limit.  Otherwise, it would have found a way to sweep his comments under the carpet, likely by attacking the First Nations videographer who posted the damning YouTube interview, but instead they hung him out to dry.

Like vultures or hyenas, Harper's conservatives have turned on a pack member who exposed an individual weakness, for fear his action could make the whole group vulnerable to its *natural* enemies.

Sarah and Tim, er, Tom

In an interview with Democracy Now, Julian Assange's lawyer confirms that he's in the UK.

And. Also. Tim Tom Flanagan finds himself in exalted *cough* company. From the rush transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the growing number of threats against Julian Assange. The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said Assange should be, quote, "hunted down," and a former campaign aide of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper went a step further in a recent interview on the Canadian Broadcasting, CBC.

TIM FLANAGAN: Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. You know, there’s no good coming of this.

AMY GOODMAN: That was University of Calgary professor Tim Flanagan, who served as the Conservative Party’s campaign manager in Canada’s general election in 2004 and 2006. Jennifer Robinson, as Julian Assange’s attorney, your response?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: These calls for his assassination are absolutely outrageous and, indeed, illegal. I think that the prosecuting authorities ought to consider prosecuting these individuals for incitement to violence. Obviously assassination is illegal, and we take these concerns very seriously. Now, the press around the fact that my client is in hiding to evade arrest is absolutely incorrect. And one can imagine that when you have very public officials making these sorts of serious calls for assassination, that one would be concerned for their personal safety. I also think that it raises genuine concerns when you have Sarah Palin making such allegations for the prospect of my client receiving any sort of due process in the U.S.

Great publicity for the UofC, too, eh?