{"id":12869,"date":"2010-06-22T11:08:18","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T15:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=12869"},"modified":"2010-06-22T11:08:18","modified_gmt":"2010-06-22T15:08:18","slug":"quote-of-the-day-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Quote of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1957\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Censorship is an expression of weakness.\u00a0 Or confession.”\u00a0 Frye in Notebook 50 (CW <\/em>5, 397).<\/p>\n

The censorship I have in mind is the censorship of the right, which manifests as under-reporting, misleading reporting, and non-reporting — not to mention completely made-up reporting, which these days\u00a0 seems to get an extraordinary amount of play during the shaping of public opinion phase of any debate.\u00a0 Outside of the closed partisan elite who either run or run with Fox News, I’d be surprised if many people who’d describe themselves as moderates or liberals would hesitate to say that this kind of right-wing censorship is now rampant in the U.S. and has significantly degraded both the quality of news reporting and the political debate that follows from it.<\/p>\n

The turning point was perhaps the 2000 presidential election when all the major networks initially called Florida for Al Gore, which would have won it for him.\u00a0 But the first network to reverse that call for Bush and cast the outcome into doubt (which the other networks quickly followed) was Fox News, and the Fox employee who made the call just happened to be a Bush cousin<\/a>.\u00a0 Meanwhile Florida itself was then governed by Bush’s older brother, Jeb, whose government agencies were packed with partisan appointments overseeing the conduct of the election in the state.\u00a0 We know what a mess that turned into.\u00a0 We remember the Brooks Brothers Riot<\/a> (all Republican operatives), which shut down the recount of ballots in Broward County.\u00a0 We also remember the Supreme Court, stacked with conservatives who were supposedly avowed states’ rightists,\u00a0 nevertheless intervened to stop the state-wide recount of ballots ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and who then deliberated while the clock ran out, and issued a decision giving the presidency to Bush so legally dubious that the court itself declared that this particular decision applied exclusively to Bush v Gore and was not to be considered precedent in future cases.\u00a0 That’s how Gore’s presidency was stolen.\u00a0 It’s how we got eight nightmare years of Bush — not to mention his nightmare legacy, including the Deepwater Horizon disaster which is the result of years of gutted regulations overseen by impotent or corrupt regulators who took their cues from the oil industry.<\/p>\n

But let’s turn to Canada.\u00a0 If Sun News does not get a license from the CRTC, does that constitute censorship?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Because free speech is not the freedom to repeat whatever noxious lies you want to suit your particular political agenda.\u00a0 Free speech ought always to be responsible speech in the public sphere relating to matters of public interest, and that is why we regulate it with broadcast standards.\u00a0 That regulation has served us well.\u00a0 We’ve been spared the insanity of the U.S. example, for starters.\u00a0 Canada’s use of regulation in fact seems enviably effective and efficient generally.\u00a0 We are, for example, the only major industrialized nation not to have experienced a single bank failure during the recent financial markets meltdown.<\/p>\n

The Sun News people, whose admiration for all things American is so complete that they openly say they want to establish a Canadian Fox News, may wish that we did things the American way.\u00a0 But, no, sorry, uh uh.\u00a0 It’s the laws and regulations of Canada that apply here.\u00a0 We can enumerate good reasons for this, not least being our possession of a public discourse that is not an open sewer and does not skew public opinion by way of lies and bullying and government-sanctioned misbehavior of oligarchical interests that regard the general public as little more than a source of cheap and expendable labor with minimal legal rights to defend itself.<\/p>\n

Folks, if you are middle class, your after-tax income has remained static for the last 30 years.\u00a0 All of the wealth generated by your productivity for a generation has gone to the top 5% of the population, and most especially the top 1%.\u00a0 This elite class accomplished that by hijacking government to make it serve corporate rather than public interests.\u00a0 Now they tell you that this new reality is the reality you have to live with, whatever the consequences.<\/p>\n

We don’t yet have a deeply entrenched American-style plutarchy in Canada.\u00a0 But it’s hard not to believe that if Harper gets a majority government and a Fox News North, both journalism and the political process will become much worse for it.\u00a0 Just look at the Americans.\u00a0 And then consider what we’ve achieved.\u00a0 We have health care that costs just half what the Americans need to deliver it inadequately, <\/em>not to mention a decent social safety net that does not allow people to be reduced overnight to helpless poverty. This is not anything to be compromised by a brutish and degraded public discourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Censorship is an expression of weakness.\u00a0 Or confession.”\u00a0 Frye in Notebook 50 (CW 5, 397). The censorship I have in mind is the censorship of the right, which manifests as under-reporting, misleading reporting, and non-reporting — not to mention completely made-up reporting, which these days\u00a0 seems to get an extraordinary amount of play during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-quote-of-the-day"],"yoast_head":"\nQuote of the Day - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quote of the Day - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“Censorship is an expression of weakness.\u00a0 Or confession.”\u00a0 Frye in Notebook 50 (CW 5, 397). The censorship I have in mind is the censorship of the right, which manifests as under-reporting, misleading reporting, and non-reporting — not to mention completely made-up reporting, which these days\u00a0 seems to get an extraordinary amount of play during the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"125\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"120\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Happy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Happy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michael Happy\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\"},\"headline\":\"Quote of the Day\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\"},\"wordCount\":798,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Current Events\",\"Quote of the Day\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\",\"name\":\"Quote of the Day - The Educated Imagination\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Quote of the Day\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\",\"name\":\"The Educated Imagination\",\"description\":\"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95\",\"name\":\"Michael Happy\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Michael Happy\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/michaelhappy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Quote of the Day - The Educated Imagination","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Quote of the Day - The Educated Imagination","og_description":"“Censorship is an expression of weakness.\u00a0 Or confession.”\u00a0 Frye in Notebook 50 (CW 5, 397). The censorship I have in mind is the censorship of the right, which manifests as under-reporting, misleading reporting, and non-reporting — not to mention completely made-up reporting, which these days\u00a0 seems to get an extraordinary amount of play during the […]","og_url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/","og_site_name":"The Educated Imagination","article_published_time":"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00","og_image":[{"width":125,"height":120,"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Michael Happy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael Happy","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/"},"author":{"name":"Michael Happy","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95"},"headline":"Quote of the Day","datePublished":"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/"},"wordCount":798,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg","articleSection":["Current Events","Quote of the Day"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/","name":"Quote of the Day - The Educated Imagination","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg","datePublished":"2010-06-22T15:08:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/06\/1957.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/06\/22\/quote-of-the-day-22\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Quote of the Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/","name":"The Educated Imagination","description":"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/666be62a4e8014df67296baeeaf4db95","name":"Michael Happy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe523aceeb39b65793575d0523e67cb779a13050efa89e2284a05c0d0a141aa9?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Michael Happy"},"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/michaelhappy\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}