You may or may not be aware of the Idle No More movement that's been sweeping across Canada since early December, having round dances and drumming in malls, blocking railways and snarling traffic on highways. I fully support Chief Spence in her hunger strike, and applaud her bravery in doing so in order to bring to light the devastation that is current legislation enacted by my government. (I only use 'my' here because I'm Canadian. I certainly didnt' help vote the Conservatives in.)
Sun News, aka Fox News of the North, is currently (as of this writing Wednesday night) running a contest on their FB page using the picture below of Chief Spence, asking people to submit one word descriptions in order to win a prize.
Predictably, comments range from 'obese' to 'fugly' to 'hippo' to 'liar'. This woman is *literally dying a little each day* in order to send a strong message to the Prime Minister and all some of them can say is she's fat and ugly? That's the lowest of the low. She's a gorram hero in my opinion, and in the eyes of many many others across Canada.
Unpredictably, however, were how many posts I found defending chief Spence and trying to bring sense and facts to the 'discussion' around her. I felt dirty just visiting their Facebook page but my guess is that many who disagree with Sun News camp out there to see what they're up too, and correct misinformation as it appears. Good on them!
The bigotry and racism that appears on the corporate media sites regarding Chief Spence is disturbing.
Perhaps it's just Reform-Conservative partisan spamming, but it's still disgusting.
Reading the comments on any Idle No More coverage is infuriating and yes, disgusting, in a lot of cases because of the level of ignorance and racism that's being levelled against it. Nothing new though, really, it's been this way for a while on any news item concerning First Nations.
I read your article on the Sun Facebook contest, and it only affirmed my own belief that The Toronto Sun is a neo-conservative rag. They don't even belong to the Canadian Press Council anymore, because doing so would require them to behave with journalistic integrity. I tell friends at work about the Sun and encourage them not to read it. In fact, at every opportunity, I tell people about the far right agenda of the Sun papers.
Karen: I know, eh? It's such a fail that it was decided they wouldn't be included in regular broadcasting; people have to pay extra for it. The broadcasting council ruled against them because of their history of lies and misinformation.
If I could do the same thing and use just one word to describe Sun News, I would say this:
Scumbag.
Dying a little each day my ass.
Girl ain't dying, not even close, hell I work with dying people I should friggn know. She's a hypocrite and a prime example of why hereditary Chiefs are a tradition that should be as dead as the Dodo. Corrupt to the core that one.
Hi Jack, thanks for stopping by. The only point I'll agree with you on is that hereditary titles and positions of power should be a thing of the past. Hereditary titles and positions assume that one very small group of people can do something that noone else can do, simply by virtue of being born into the 'right' family. This is, of course, bull.