Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Day After









I took some time today to reflect on the rallies held across the country yesterday.

Though there was some media coverage today, overall it was light. Fair enough. It is Sunday and news is generally sparse on a Sunday. What coverage was out there, was mostly favourable and in some cases amusing. Some media basically telling we, who cared, passed the imaginary test they had set for us. Yes, you read that correctly. They alone decided what would validate the Facebook reaction and then deigned to proclaim on that fictitious high water mark.
Yeah, I laughed out loud too reading the proclamation.

The reports that claimed there were only 3,000 at the Toronto rally were also laughable. Anyone who was there knows the truth. My guess is 10,000, but there are estimates everywhere. What we know for sure is that the square can hold 7,000 and it was overflowing. Go from there.

The energy was disconcerting at times, you really can feel that many people, but it was overwhelmingly positive.

So, the day after, it seems as though the 'news cycle' has moved on...but I think not.

Tomorrow all the regular talking heads come back to work. Also, accentuating what the rallies were all about, (Harper shutting out scrutiny) the Liberals and now the NDP, will be in Ottawa. I'm not certain what the NDP agenda is, but I do know the Liberals have planned to meet on a issues that, were parliament in session, would have been addressed.

That in itself should keep the prorogation issue on the front burner. If it doesn't, then I think we can ask some serious questions as to the news we are getting.

I don't think this issue is going away any time soon. Too many people care and have made it a point to pay attention and understand. That's powerful stuff in this country.

Which begs the question, why has Harper been allowed to get away with so much for so long? Why weren't Canadians more involved before now?

I think a few things were at play. In spite of himself, (Harper), and his disdain for Canadian institutions including the media, few have taken it upon themselves to call him out. Some in fear of losing their jobs and others, somehow believing that if they keep playing nice he'll come around.

I'll let the playing nice people to answer for themselves, but the others, groups like Kairos, professors, climate spokespeople, Rights advocates and more, have all spoken out recently. In my opinion, all of those voices started to raise the consciousness of the masses. It felt slow to me, but if that is the time it takes...here we are.

Harper is in a bad place now. We know that he will pull out all the stops. I read tonight that the government has bought a new set of expensive ads. Yea, that's our government hard at work trying to save you money, by spending your money.

Historic turning points are few and far between in this country. I think we hit one yesterday, but now it must be built upon. This is no time to rest on yesterday's news.

Keep creating tomorrow's news. That, thankfully, is now the direction in which I think we are headed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is Ignatieff going to particiapte in providing input to the budget as Harper has asked for?
Or, as Ignatieff says, it is not HIS problem?

Mark Richard Francis said...

I look forward to the parliamentary committee working on the budget consultations... Oh, sorry. Harper canceled it by proroguing Parliament.

Karen said...

Anon..good gawd, you think all of this is about the budget?

I think I understand more clearly the inanity that votes for Harper.

Woman at Mile 0 said...

well Anon...I am pretty sure Ignatieff and the Liberals made themselves pretty clear that they pretty much don't buy or believe the Cons on the budget, the progress reports on the stimulus, inflated cost reports of potential EI changes etc. If they did have confidence in the Cons economic plans, budgeting skills they would not have said they couldn't support them last fall. Regardless of the Liberals serious misgivings of Con directions, Canadians were pretty clear they don't want another election...yet. So I guess were just gonna stew all together for a bit now....
Oh I forgot... the Cons won't be stewing they are on extended vacation with much more fun fish to fry!

Steve V said...

I feel for anon and his ilk, still suffering from "where did our majority go" withdrawal. Great move Harper, pure strategic genius.

thescottross.blogspot.com said...

"Keep creating tomorrow's news." A nice simple phrase.

RuralSandi said...

Geez Anon - it's not Ignatieff's or any other opposition party's responsibility to create a budget. It's Harper's, who in turn should be giving it to the opposition parties to study and THEN they makes suggestions.

Gosh, Harper has to do some work. But no - he won't give the opposition parties time. What a team player.

penlan said...

The coverage on Sat. from CBC was excellent. On the 6 p.m. local TO news on Global it was the leader & they stayed with it for a goodly amount of time. Since then I've seen nothing more about it on T.V. but have in online & print media. This is not the end. People are angry & I think it will be easier for people to unite as they hear more & more on a lot more coming, & past, Harper issues that affect us all.

mezba said...

I wonder what John Moore of the CFRB 1010 has to say now. He was vocally a critic of the facebook group.

marie said...

Anon, The house is closed until March 3 and NO, I don't believe the opposition parties will be consulted in any way. Harpercon is a one man show and he doesn't know the meaning of the word consultant nor has he ever listened to any professional economist ever since he's been the PM.

Have a great week all. Lets hope that the protesters continue especially today with the meeting .I agree with KNB, we must continue the protests until Harper does start listening to all Canadians so I guess the protests will be an outgoing thing.

Tomm said...

KNB,

The media will report on whatever is in front of it.

If there are public rallies every day like the Tamil protests, than the media will keep covering it. If the opposition does media friendly stunts, than they will report that too.

It isn't too hard for people to get the liberal friendly media to give a positive report.

A better question is... do the political parties that claim to be outraged about the prorogation have the stomach to really do something about it. If they don't, I hope the public sees through the faux outrage and sees the whole thing for what it is, just some cowardly politician's playing games with people's emotions.

The throne speech is on its way so
I guess we will see soon enough. In the meantime, think of good ways to get the media attention, and enjoy the Olympics.

Fred from BC said...

Steve V said...

I feel for anon and his ilk, still suffering from "where did our majority go" withdrawal. Great move Harper, pure strategic genius.


What are you talking about?

None of you noticed that your 'protests' were a dismal failure? Most of the people who bothered to attend were unionists, members of political parties and the usual bunch protesting for\against the seal hunt, the environment, gay rights, Israel, proportional representation, abortion, 911 'truthers', animal rights, etc, etc...

I especially loved it when the camera at the Parliament Hill gathering pulled back, showing just how few people were really there. Why is it that every single time the left decides to hold mass protests they always have to wildly exaggerate the numbers? Do you honestly think anyone is fooled? The police estimates are the only ones that matter, sorry.

If I really wanted to rub your noses in it, I would collect some numbers from past protests going back three or four years (or even Gay Pride parades) for comparison. But right now, that would just be cruel...;)

Don't worry, the Conservatives are quite undamaged by all this. You'll have confirmation of this fact soon enough.