Saturday, January 20, 2007

It can't happen here

Canada welcomes Communist Red China to its airwaves.
"What were you doing on the Friday before Christmas?"
"To the background strains of Silent Night and White Christmas, CRTC mandarins approved nine--count 'em--nine Chinese state-run television networks to broadcast their shows in Canada."
The International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders called the regime's news agency, Zinhua, "the world's biggest propaganda agency".
"With CCTV, Canadian television will never see exposes lamenting China's appalling record on human rights, programs that detail the harvesting of human organs for sale or get to watch Chinese citizens being led away in handcuffs for the crime of writing essays on the worldwide net."
Let's hear it for those beacons of diversity, freedom and human rights advocates, the Communist Chinese.

3 comments:

u∃∃l!∃ said...

Are you thinking that Canada should not allow this?
I don't think tax payers should fund this, but why not allow it?

Bobkatt said...

YES, I thought it was pretty clear in my choice of words. It's obvious you don't see the Chinese as our probable potential enemy if they are not right now. In every war we have fought in the last 50 years the Chinese have been on the opposite side providing money, equiptment and personnel. They continue to offer aid to countries we have a problem with such as Iran, Syria and North Korea. They are currently involved in the Nafta Superhighway which will severly damage our countries soveignty.
These on their own perhaps is not a good reason to object to them owning 9 channels in Canada. However, their Human Rights violations, their censorship, their forced abortion policy, their persecution of religous sects and the fact that they don't allow any freedom of outside information means they are simply a propaganda tool to downplay their abuses. Should we have allowed South Africa to broadcast how great the life was for Blacks under the loving thumb of white oppression during apartheid?
I'm a big proponent of freedom of speech but it has to go both ways.

u∃∃l!∃ said...

I am not certain what Canada should do.

Yes, I do see the Chinese as our probable enemy.
I personally try to boycott their products.
But I am not sure if regulating is the answer, as opposed to having people make the correct choices.
I think that a more widespread boycott of Chinese products would have a far greater effect on getting China to change than not letting them broadcast in Canada.

What about the proposed law in this country, requiring stations to present the "opposite" view?

At what point should government regulation protect people from misleading (even potentially dangerous) information; and where does it become the individual's responsibility?
Where do we draw the line?