“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”,
according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in
Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their
citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even
sovereignty.
No this wasn’t something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is
what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won’t
seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the
globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.
“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel joked, attempting to lighten
the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon
launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think
Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to
sign the controversial UN migration pact:
“There were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these
agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The
People”.
“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are
not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.
Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe
and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic, saying “That is not
patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German
interests and accept win-win situations”.
Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President
Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism
is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”
The French president’s words were deeply unpopular with the French
population and his approval rating nosedived even further after the
comments.
Macron, whose lack of leadership is proving unable to deal with growing
protests in France, told the Bundestag that France and Germany should be
at the center of the emerging New World Order.
“The Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace”.
“Europe must be stronger… and win more sovereignty,” he went on to
demand, just like Merkel, that EU member states surrender national
sovereignty to Brussels over “foreign affairs, migration, and
development” as well as giving “an increasing part of our budgets and
even fiscal resources”.
Editor’s note: The subject of this story is being identified because he’s pushed radical rhetoric and has advocated for politically-motivated violence from behind a mask. The Daily Caller News Foundation does not and will not publish truly private information such as home addresses.
The Daily Caller News Foundation has determined that an influential Antifa leader uses aliases to spread radical and often violent rhetoric while concealing his actual identity.
Joseph “Jose” Alcoff works with congressional Democrats as part of his day job as a manager with a DC-based advocacy group. But he spreads socialist and communist propaganda when going by the name “Jose Martin.”
Identifying as “Chepe,” Alcoff advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich. He has relished the mainstreaming of Antifa’s militant tactics in the Trump era.
A 2017 book identified Chepe as an organizer behind Smash Racism DC, the Antifa group that mobbed Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s home in November and ran Ted Cruz out of a restaurant in September.
Smash Racism DC organizer Jose Martin, also known as “Chepe,” is a radical communist and Antifa leader operating in the U.S. He advocates for the violent overthrow of the government and for the murder of the rich and claims to have international involvement in left-wing movements.
Smash Racism DC is the Antifa group that protested in front of Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s house and berated Sen. Ted Cruz at a restaurant until he and his wife were forced to leave. It’s only one of the Antifa leader’s radical left-wing projects.
But the agitator has made great efforts to separate his fanatical personas from a third identity, his legal name: Joseph “Jose” Alcoff. Under that identity, the 36-year-old has worked as a payday campaign manager for Americans for Financial Reform since 2016, where he advocates for reforms of predatory loans before members of Congress.
Alcoff left nearly no connections between his real identity and Jose Martin and Chepe, but a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation of public records, social media posts, media reports, books, protest videos and podcasts dating back to 2004 found that all three identities are actually one person, posting online from the Twitter handle @Sabokitty.
He has used his Jose Martin identity to make public appearances to promote socialism, once calling for a society without police. But his communist Chepe alias makes his Jose Martin identity seem moderate, using it to advocate for violence to achieve his goal of eliminating capitalism and the U.S. government.
Alcoff did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His Twitter account was made private shortly after TheDCNF reached out for comment Tuesday evening, as was the account of his brother, Sam Alcoff, a producer for Democracy Now. Alcoff’s mother, Linda Alcoff, also made her Facebook page private Tuesday evening after TheDCNF contacted Alcoff.
Alcoff, who’s been involved in radical movements for decades, seeks to create “a world that is without capitalism, without private property … that is socialist and communist,” he’s said as Chepe.
He’s been an organizer for left-wing movements such as Occupy Wall Street; has close ties to left-wing legal groups such as the National Lawyers Guild; has conducted legal trainings for protesters as a member of Cop Watch; and has frequently appeared on mainstream and far-left media to discuss his radical vision for society.
The Department of Homeland Security has classified Antifa groups’ tactics as “domestic terrorist violence.”
Meanwhile, in his professional capacity as Alcoff, he’s been quoted in press releases from Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and appeared at an event with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in March and has been pictured alongside Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters.
In the 2017 book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” by Dartmouth College professor Mark Bray, Chepe was listed as a Smash Racism DC organizer. As Chepe, Alcoff described the organization as a “loose affinity group” working to “make DC and the surrounding area too unsafe for outright neo-Nazi groups and fascists.”
TheDCNF was unable to identify any other Antifa members going by “Chepe.”
Alcoff rose to prominence in Antifa circles as Chepe during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, where his leadership earned him the title “King Communist,” a co-host of the progressive podcast Radio Dispatch joked in 2012.
Smash Racism DC is the Antifa group that posted Carlson’s address online and sent a mob to his house in November. “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!” the protesters chanted. (RELATED: A Mob Showed Up Outside Tucker Carlson’s House And Ordered Him To ‘Leave Town’)
Carlson is a co-founder of The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The DC police are treating the incident as a “suspected hate crime,” according to a police report. The mob spray painted an anarchy symbol on Carlson’s highway and left signs on his property that made reference to his political affiliation. The investigation is ongoing.
The Antifa group was also responsible for chasing Cruz, a Texas Republican, out of a D.C. restaurant in September and sent the senator the message: “You are not safe. We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others.”
Alcoff claimed on Twitter he had no involvement with the mob at Carlson’s house, though he frequently interacts on Twitter with Smash Racism DC co-founder Mike Isaacson, who said on his blog that he had advanced knowledge of the mob action at Carlson’s house.
The mob tactic also appears to align with statements Alcoff has made in the past. (RELATED: Mob Outside Tucker’s Home Has A History Of Harassment And Violence)
“We have got to dispense with nonviolence,” he said as Chepe on Radio Dispatch in December 2016 during a discussion on how to approach those he perceives as fascists.
“You have to expose them and you have to expose where they live, their names, what they do for a living,” he added. “Never let them be anonymous, and never just push their rhetoric without directly countering it.”
Alcoff has been arrested at least twice in connection with his radical brand of activism. He was arrested in New York City in 2004 during demonstrations outside the Republican National Convention. He was let off with a pledge to behave and one day of community service, according to USA Today.
Then, as a member of Anti-Racist Action, Alcoff was arrested and charged with rioting in New Jersey after a clash in the streets with a neo-Nazi group in 2011.
Alcoff typically uses his Jose Martin persona for appearances in mainstream media. Under this alias, he’s been cited as a Chicago Copwatch organizer and as an Occupy Wall Street organizer, as well as an unofficial organizer for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.
Jose Martin is often introduced to audiences as an “organizer,” “activist” or “militant researcher,” and has published articles with Rolling Stone and The Indypendent, and regularly appears on BBC radio programs. He discussed his vision of a police-free society on MSNBC in 2015.
Alcoff calls for the rich to ‘die in a fire’
The significant efforts Alcoff takes to separate his true identity from his radical personas appear to be intentional, and his comments become more extreme when he has more anonymity. Through his Twitter account, which he’s managed to keep anonymous, Alcoff has said that Antifa organizations need to operate “both an above board group and a below one.”
Operating groups within the bounds of the law is necessary to “get press” and “to have a base of support,” while underground groups are necessary so activists can’t be “linked by prosecutors or press,” he wrote. Alcoff said to avoid too much overlap between lawful and unlawful groups “to keep the press from blowing the open secret.”
Alcoff appears to operate similarly.
For example, Alcoff spoke on the Joint Economic Committee Democrats’ “Opportunity Agenda” podcast in August, where he stressed the importance of a stable and depoliticized regulatory environment so that “companies and industry figures out how to profit from more responsible lending.”
But in his social media postings, Alcoff often calls for the murder of the rich and the dismantlement of capitalism.
In July 2017, he urged his nonviolent followers on Twitter to “stop limiting yourself,” adding that “the left wins nothing w/ nonviolence.”
In October, Alcoff advised his law-abiding Twitter followers that they’re “doing it wrong” and later offered advice on how to execute “a good neck punch.”
Alcoff holds an especially militant view towards law enforcement, an institution he believes should be dismantled completely.
“Police lives don’t matter. They can all burn in Hell,” he tweeted in September, for example.
His tweets also glorify the killing of his political opponents. For example, in July 2015 he tweeted that Donald Trump would make for “such a spectacular public guillotining” shortly after the mogul declared his candidacy for president.
“I truly hope he has a very public death at the hands of the pitchfork wielding exploited, a public execution that befits Trump’s stature,” he wrote.
Alcoff, through Twitter, frequently calls for the complete dismantlement of America’s system of government. In a 2013 tweet, Alcoff said he wanted to join “a conspiracy to destroy the United States from within” — a position that doesn’t seem to have changed.
Alcoff, whose job puts him alongside lawmakers, tweeted in September that most members of Congress are “imbeciles,” and later said that “it wouldn’t be hard” to “push an antiimperialist, antimilitarist line” on incoming left and center-left members.
He also boasted in October that his job duties involved actively working to block Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
One tweet suggested that Alcoff’s D.C. colleagues aren’t aware of his radicalism.
Meanwhile, Alcoff is much more moderate by comparison when speaking to the media as Jose Martin.
For example, Alcoff said as Jose Martin on “BBC Business Matters” in October 2017 that “we need to go in a socialistic direction.”
“This is about changing how we produce value and how we produce wealth, not just how we consume it,” Alcoff said. “And I think that then becomes the first part of how we democratize it so that people then make decisions that have a better impact on the whole.”
But speaking as Chepe in August 2015 on Radio Dispatch, Alcoff said:
“I am on the radical left, the far left, that believes in rupture and social revolution.” He added that he “doesn’t really think that you can engage in change in a gradual way. Social transformation of society can’t be a gradual thing.”
He’s even more abrasive on the streets.
“I’m a communist, motherfucker,” Alcoff said before spitting at a cameraman at a March 2005 protest in Chicago. He recorded himself again yelling the phrase at a Ron Paul supporter at a six-month anniversary event of Occupy Wall Street in March 2012.
Alcoff also said he isn’t concerned about those put off by his calls for violence. His message, he tweeted in 2015, is intended to “radicalize those who aren’t” repelled by his extreme views.
Alcoff views his radicalism as an embodiment of what the left should aspire to be. He scorns reporters who criticize Antifa for “turning people off the left” and calls the “bourgeois media” the “enemy of the people.”
And Antifa has seen a resurgence since the 2016 presidential election against what radicals perceive as “fascist” policies from the Trump administration. But as an influential figure within the movement, Alcoff says he doesn’t care whether or not the president is actually a fascist.
Rather, the longtime Antifa operative views Trump as a tool to be exploited as radicals seek to move society closer to social revolution.
“If we’re wrong, if [Trump] is just George W. Bush somehow … then at minimum, what we’re doing is building the infrastructure that builds space for other forms of resistance — for resistance against everyday white nationalist and white supremacist policies,” Alcoff said as Chepe on Radio Dispatch in December 2016.
“And we don’t stand to lose if we’re building that infrastructure,” he continued. “That’s what we should have already been doing, even if [Hillary] Clinton had won and even if Trump is not a fascist.”
In 2013, Alcoff, speaking as Chepe, said his ultimate goal is to tear down all existing societal structures to make way for a new post-state world “without capitalism, without private property, without patriarchy, without white supremacy and without imperialism.”
He also said that radical social revolution can only come about on the heels of smaller, more mainstream progressive victories, such as minimum wage increases.
“Capitalism, especially North American capitalism, is so based on this individualistic and neo-liberal perspective that we all exist as automatons — as individuals,” Alcoff said in 2014 as “Chepe” on Radio Dispatch. “So if we’re going to engage, we have to remind people that collective struggle wins us victories. What we have to do before the big final collective victory — social revolution — is we have to win a lot of small ones.”
He also claims to be involved in campaigns worldwide. Speaking as Jose Martin on “BBC Business Matters” in 2014, Alcoff said he has injected himself into movements as a “militant researcher” in Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras, Spain, Portugal and France.
“Basically, if I’m traveling I’m going to be engaging in some level of militant research,” he said.
In practice, Alcoff has acted as a thought leader and legal coordinator within radical movements.
“I began as one of the arrogant veteran leftists who came in and said, ‘This is wrong, that is wrong, that is wrong,'” Alcoff said of his entrance into the Occupy Wall Street movement on Radio Dispatch in 2012. “I was humbled by it and tried to position myself a little bit as a theorist and also have participated in … the Mutant Legal Collective.”
The now-defunct Mutant Legal Collective was a coalition of legal activists in New York City that worked closely with the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive bar organization that Alcoff also coordinated with during Occupy Wall Street.
Alcoff is also close with the former president of the New York City chapter of the guild, Gideon Orion Oliver. The two appeared to have developed their relationship during Occupy Wall Street, having delivered a “know your rights” training together on the street for protesters.
Alcoff and Oliver have praised each other on Twitter. Oliver also tweeted a picture of his newborn son, noting that he was supposed to meet “Uncle Chepe” in June.
The National Lawyers Guild provides legal support for Smash Racism DC.
Here’s How TheDCNF linked Jose Alcoff to “Chepe,” “Jose Martin”
Alcoff attended a panel discussion at Left Forum 2015 as Jose Martin, where the event’s moderator noted that he co-wrote an article on autonomism — anti-authoritarian and localized form of Marxism — in the April 2015 issue of the Marxist journal Science & Society. Alcoff later acknowledged during the discussion he wrote an article in the issue titled “Marxist Encounters with Anarchism.”
But the journal shows that the article’s authors were Jose Alcoff and his mother, Linda Alcoff, a professor of philosophy at Hunter College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Ten months before he attended the panel, Alcoff said on Twitter he was working on an article on autonomism for a scholarly journal.
Alcoff seeks to radicalize others, build infrastructure of resistance
As mainstream news outlets have faced criticism during the Trump era for excusing or ignoring violence carried out by Antifa groups, Alcoff said it “feels good” to see “militant tactics” “mainstreamed.” (RELATED: Five Times The Establishment Media Excused Antifa Violence)
“Hey Chepe,” an audience member said during the panel’s question-and-answer session. The greeting provoked what appears to be an affirmative response from Alcoff. “Chepe and I are friends. I’m an anarchist and he’s a communist and we talk about this stuff a lot. We actually don’t find much in opposition to each other.”
Beside Alcoff was Bray, the professor that would later write the 2017 book identifying Chepe as a Smash Racism DC organizer.
Photos of Alcoff in his professional capacity are almost non-existent. His picture was featured in the accompanying PowerPoint presentation for a webinar he attended in August, and Americans for Financial Reform posted a photo of Alcoff at an event with Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in April 2016 on its Flickr account. Earlier that year, in March, the organization tweeted a photo of Alcoff standing to the left of Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California.
He was also featured at a press conference with Rep. Beyer in March while dressed as a shark.
Alcoff frequently promotes his Jose Martin and Chepe media appearances through his Twitter account, @sabokitty.
He tweeted a link to his 2015 MSNBC appearance and sent multiple tweets about his BBC appearances as Jose Martin between 2015 and 2017. Alcoff also has similarly promoted his numerous appearances as Chepe on Radio Dispatch.
And while Alcoff has never posted a picture of himself on Twitter, others have. TheDCNF located 12 pictures of Alcoff posted by various Twitter users between 2012 and 2016 with @sabokitty tagged.
Alcoff also made references to his mother on his Twitter account, providing a connection from his online persona to his true identity.
In late October, Alcoff tweeted that his mother was in Brazil when Jair Bolsonaro won the nation’s presidential election.
That same night, Alcoff’s mother issued several tweets detailing her experience on the ground in Brazil, four of which were liked by Alcoff through his Twitter account.
His mother, Linda Alcoff, also posted over a dozen photos of Alcoff to her Facebook account. In many, she identifies him as her son, “Chepe.”
“I was raised in a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist family that understands intersectionality,” he said at Left Forum 2015. “On the other hand, much of my adult life has been in anti-authoritarian movements ranging from counter-globalization to some of the anti-militarist wings of the anti-war movement to Occupy Wall Street to Cop Watch.”
Alcoff’s mother reminisced in a December 2016 Facebook post that when Alcoff and his brother, Sam Alcoff, were teenagers, they “began to ask for presents of cans of spray paint” and “duct tape, bulk cutters [sic], gas masks.”
“But I was a good Mom,” she wrote. “One Christmas I wrapped up a bull horn and put it under the tree. Those days may be returning. Happy holidays guys.”
Click here to view more tweets from Alcoff and his associates archived by TheDCNF.
Almost from the very beginning of Islam, there were wars upon wars between Christians and Muslims. We remember the Crusade wars, seven major and several minor, which lasted for centuries. This is the story of the Battle of Lepanto, which marked the end of the Crusades and was a turning point in the history of Christianity.
Charles Martel's victory at Poitiers definitely stopped the Moslem invasion of western Europe. In the east Christians held firm against attacks of the Muslims until 1453. In that year, Mohammed II threw huge assaults against Constantinople and by the evening of May 29 the Byzantine capital fell. By 1571 the Muslims were firmly installed in Europe. Their ships ruled the Mediterranean Sea from the Strait of Bosporus to the Strait of Gibraltar and constantly preyed on Christian vessels unless they flew the French flag.
Pope Pius V, in the last year of his papacy in 1571, tried to rally the nations of Europe to join in a Holy League to stop and roll back the Moslem enemy which threatened the entire continent. Spain, whose King Philip II was also King of Austria, responded favorably. The Muslims were then engaged in the conquest of Cyprus, an island belonging to the Republic of Venice.
Leading Venetian officials would have preferred to have worked out some peaceful-coexistence agreement with the Sultan, but under the crusading influence of Saint Pius V, they decided to join the Holy League along with the republics of Genoa and Lucca and the dukes of Savory, Parma, Ferrara and Urbino.
The Papal fleet was of course part of the Holy Alliance. Pius V asked Philip to appoint Don John of Austria, the 25-year old son of Emperor Charles V, as commander-in-chief of a planned expedition against the Muslims. After receiving the banner of the Holy League from the Pope, through Cardinal Granvalla, Don John's fleet set sail from Genoa for Naples on June 26, 1571.
Few historians mention that just before the departure, Philip II presented Don John with a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe which she had caused to be miraculously imprinted on the cloak of the Indian peasant Juan Diego in Mexico 40 years before. Don John placed the picture in the chapel of the admiral-vessel, the Genoese John Andrew Doria, asking for Mary's protection of his expedition.
On September 16, the Christian fleet put to sea. Don John anchored off of Corfu where he learned that the Muslims had leveled entire towns and villages and then retreated to the coast of Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth.
At dawn on October 7, at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras, the Christian and Moslem fleets finally came face to face for the battle of Lepanto.
The wind and all military factors favored the Muslims, but Don John was confident. He boarded a fast ship for a final review of his fleet. He shouted encouraging words to the men and they shouted back. After Don John returned to his own position, the wind mysteriously changed to the advantage of the Christian fleet. First-hand witnesses wrote about this moment as a most dramatic turn-of-events resulting from an "unknown factor".
At that very moment, at dawn on October 7, 1571-- as Vatican Archives later revealed--Pope Pius V, accompanied by many faithful, was praying the Rosary in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. From dawn to dusk the prayers continued in Rome as the Christians and the Muslims battled at Lepanto. When it was all over the Muslims had been defeated. Of some 270 Moslem ships, at least 200 were destroyed. The Turks also lost 30,000 men while Christian casualties numbered between 4,000 and 5,000.
The Rosary had won a great military victory. Like all truly great military leaders who hate war and love peace, Don John retired after his victory at Lepanto. He died a few years later at the age of 31. Another who took part in the great battle of Lepanto, Miguel de Cervantes, lived longer to write his famous tribute to Christian chivalry, Don Quixote.
Following the great Christian victory at Lepanto, Pope St. Pius V declared that henceforth a commemoration of the Rosary would be a part of the Vatican's Mass on every October 7. His successor, Pope Gregory XIII, went further. In 1573 he established the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary--to be celebrated at all Churches which had specific altars dedicated to the Rosary.
In 1671 Pope Clement X extended observance of the feast to all of Spain.
Only 12 years later in 1683 the Muslims again swept into Europe. With 200,000 men, they laid siege to Vienna. After months of valiant resistance by a small garrison, the city was relieved by an army under John Sobieski, King of Poland. The Rosary, to which the King was dedicated, was again instrumental in a military victory. Pope Innocent XI consecrated September 12 of that year to the Holy Name of Mary. The Moslem hordes were hurled back yet again at Peterwardein in Hungary by Prince Eugene on the Feast of Out Lady of the Snows, August 5, 1716. As a result of this victory, Pope Clement XI extended the Feast of the Rosary to the Universal Church.
Danish authorities have concluded that the situation in some parts of Somalia is safe, and that Somalis no longer have valid grounds for asylum.
Following a review of the situation in Somalia, which began in 2017,
residence permits will therefore be withdrawn for no less than 1,000
Somalis. “It is time for them to go home now,” Denmark states.
“If you no longer need our protection and your life and your health
are no longer at risk in your homeland, you must of course return home
and build up your country of origin”, says Minister for Migration Inger
Støjberg, according to DR.
The minister also points out that each case has been carefully examined and that they always base decisions on facts.
Withdrawing or not renewing a residence permit has become possible
since Denmark 2015 changed its immigration law. The legislative
amendment was actually aimed at Syrians in connection with the asylum
wave of the same year, but was also applied to migrants from Somalia.
Denmark has an agreement with Somalia that the home country should
take back repatriated Somali citizens in exchange for help in building a
police force. However, the agreement only applies to 12 persons per
year.
Somalis are also offered generous sums, €14,000 per adult and €4,200
per child, to return but in 2017 only 42 jumped at the chance, and in
2018 the corresponding figure is 32.
Europeans concerned about borders, language and culture may soon find
themselves in the hot seat after Dutch politician and European
Parliament member Marcel de Graaff issued a dire warning over the
"definition of hate speech" which will criminalize speech opposing mass
migration, as first reported by Joe Schaeffer of LibertyNation.
In a press conference, de Graaff raised the alarm over an international
conference in Marrakech, Morocco on Dec. 11 and 12 where the U.N. Global
Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be signed. Though
the pact is said to be non-binding, it is meant to establish the
groundwork for an Orwellian campaign to cement mass migration as a human
right legally above any and all criticism.
“One basic element of this new agreement is the extension of the
definition of hate speech,” de Graaff says. “The agreement wants to
criminalize migration speech. Criticism of migration will become a
criminal offense. Media outlets that give room to criticism of migration
can be shut down.” -LibertyNation
The federal government’s proposed measures to assist Canada’s largely beleaguered media industry have attracted a good deal of criticism. A promise in the run-up to a general election next year of $595 million over five years to the media was bound to incite considerable suspicion about the disposition of the government to dispense such money to such needful, financially vulnerable, and politically influential people on an impartial basis. The terms of the program, as outlined, are quite defensible and whether it is a good thing or not will, like most assistance programs, depend on its administration and the integrity and intelligence of the people who dispense the funds.
There has always been a natural problem in Canada with the competitive quality of the English-Canadian media because of the contiguity of an English-speaking society in the United States that is entirely accessible to Canada and which has practically unlimited reserves of talent and money. Carving a niche for Canada in that environment has always been a challenge, and when artificially assisted, has often led to the subsidization of gratuitously anti-American media and entertainment, or more often, simply mediocre content that could not survive independently.
Many sectors of the Canadian media have been afflicted by deficiency of talent, aggravated, as in other spheres, by migration of talent to the United States, but Canada has steadily advanced in its capabilities and even in its cultural self-confidence. When television first became a general medium in most homes, Canadian programming consisted largely of hockey and football games and reruns of American sitcoms and other programs. When the country became the most wire-cabled in the world because of the addiction of Canadians to American entertainment, simulcasting was resorted to, in which American programming was cable-cast but in what amounted to outright piracy, the commercial gaps and even the visible advertising on the programs, such as those on the boards of National Hockey League arenas in the United States, had Canadian advertising sold and inserted over them. The late Ted Rogers, cable pioneer and a great citizen (and dear personal friend), po-facedly professed that this was “cultural sovereignty.” There were other possible descriptions for it.
In these circumstances, I think an investment by the public sector in Canadian media can be beneficial, if it is politically even-handed and underwrites quality and originality and not just cronyism and the second-rate. Nor should it prop up corporate ineptitude. I have written here and said elsewhere that the secret of the survival of daily newspapers is to exploit low compensation levels in their distressed sector and hire to increase quality while also increasing cover prices. Everyone who buys a newspaper in Canada is a relatively high-income and high-education person and is not cover price-sensitive, as long as they are getting value for money. Too many Canadian publishers have just circled the drain by shrinking and scrimping and cutting costs indiscriminately, leaving readers dissatisfied with a deteriorating product. The quality of the product could be increased 200 per cent with a circulation revenue increase of 100 per cent, and the advertising would chase the high-income eyeballs. That is what I would do if I were still in that business.
Of course, the newspaper has to make the jump to the internet, but it should do it altogether and not just by offering a tease to buy the printed product. Internet subscribers could specify what they want featured and could be given designer newspapers according to their particular interests and they could be updated throughout the day and printed at home, preferably on printers with a little more variety of end-product size than most home printers have now.
The French media do not have the problem of the “overwhelming contiguity” (W.L. Mackenzie King’s phrase in conversation with General Charles de Gaulle in 1944) of a media in the same language and an accessible adjoining culture, and do not need relief as much as their English-speaking confrères, but they should receive it proportionately, as long as they meet genuine standards of quality.
Finally, the CBC-Radio Canada: in the context of North America, Canada must have a public broadcaster. The United States is such an immense and energetic country in all respects that it does not need a public broadcaster, though it has one anyway and it performs quite well, especially in airing excellent foreign programming. Canada does need a public broadcaster-telecaster, and it should be much better funded. Some people have been more vociferous in their criticism of the CBC than I have, although few have been more consistent, but I have never wavered in my view that a public broadcaster was necessary to an independent and self-aware Canada. Successive governments of both traditional parties have been so irritated by the CBC-Radio Canada’s criticism that they have steadily sliced the corporation’s budget, and the politicians in the corporation have ensured that almost all the cuts reduced the ranks and quality of on-air personnel and not the antediluvian infestation of imbeciles who have generally “managed” the CBC.
The result has been the worst of all possible worlds: the steadily less competent management of an ever-shrinking essential service to a country steadily more deserving and able to have a first-class public broadcaster. It should be at least as good as the BBC, to the extent necessary by buying the BBC’s best programming, and a much more reliable news service than the BBC, which is obtusely anti-Israel, pathologically anti-American (and I’m not decking the halls with the Stars and Stripes), and is a stentorian advocate of total immersion Euro-globalism.
We can do better, but this is a side issue to the media assistance proposals of the Trudeau government. The government’s program could be a valuable patch-through to strained print media outlets, and an entirely defensible investment if more of these entities showed a greater proclivity than they have up to now to devise and execute strategies of survival and renascent prosperity.
