Free Speech is Not the Issue
by Jonathan Hunter
 http://www.natall.ca

Winnipeg-based media empire CanWest Global Communications has been making headlines with increased frequency over the last number of months. Their top-down management structure continues to offend the sensibilities of both media content-providers and consumers alike in many quarters. However, it would be a national scandal surrounding the firing of an Ottawa Citizen publisher which would trigger reaction from rank and file journalists and social commentators. Since the firing, both broadcast and print editorials have shouted fighting words against the Asper family who rule CanWest and their supposed attack on free speech and journalistic integrity. This was the cue for the non-Asper media to shift gears away from the source of the stink toward the safer territory of collecting sound bytes of ambivalent outrage.

"Subscriptions to all Asper papers must be cancelled. All advertisers must be made to understand that if they continue to use CanWest, they too will be boycotted," said mainstream talk show host Rafe Mair. The alternative media has joined the bandwagon as well. Edmonton's weekly See Magazine has dictated marching orders to their readership: "Cancel your Edmonton Journal and National Post subscriptions, boycott Global and send Izzy your own editorial entitled 'My Canada includes freedom of the press.'"

A series of hot-headed articles by a few has-beens and unknowns doesn't constitute a general strike on the part of journalists, as it is customary to allow a little steam to leave the boiler occasionally. In the larger picture of the thought-grinding mill, it's important that journalists delude themselves once in a while into believing that they have a soul. To be fair to the Aspers, some of the public commentary is likely to have stemmed from bitterness at having been unable to secure employment with CanWest, rather than old fashioned newspaper ethics. At the end of the day, scattered and unsustained protests of this nature represent a mere blip on the CanWest radar screen.

Izzy in the House

Israel (Izzy) Asper's control over the domestic media is approaching a monopoly. The foundation for an international network is being laid as well. We are witnessing the tell-tale signs of how his tribe runs the show. The extent of media control by Israel is a source of legitimate concern. Although CanWest dumped a small parcel of secondary-market dailies in July 2002, its reach should never be underestimated.

The January 5, 2002 broadcast of American Dissident Voices reported that "CanWest now owns more than 60 per cent of Canada's newspapers and other media outlets. That's more than 60 per cent of all of Canada's mass media in the hands of one individual. Included are 14 metropolitan dailies and 128 local newspapers across the country, including the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province, the Calgary Herald, and the Montreal Gazette. CanWest also owns the National Post, which is distributed throughout Canada. In addition, Izzy owns media in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland."

Freedom of Speech Myth

Almost all Canadians falsely believe that there is such a thing as freedom of speech in this country. This state results from a steady diet of American television, utter ignorance and wishful thinking. Many would be shocked to learn that freedom of speech is not a constitutional guarantee in Canada. Trudeau's Constitution Act of 1982 and countless decisions by the Supreme Court and Human Rights Tribunals are remarkably consistent on this matter. The Human Rights Commission has gone so far as to conclude that Canada's non-freedom of speech even extends beyond our boarders into other countries.

Review of the legal proceedings of former Ontario commercial artist Ernst Zundel certainly puts to bed any sentimental delusion that free speech is alive in Canada. Mr. Zundel has heroically championed his right to publish accurate historical research in the face of opposition by malicious and violent special interest groups. There is no doubt that much political and material loss would occur for certain parasitic elements in Europe and North America were Mr. Zundel's documentation be allowed to sink or swim based solely on academic merit.

Freedom of speech as movement orientation

Free speech activists such as Paul Fromm and Doug Christie have done a stellar job of alerting the public to the abuse on perceived civil liberties by the enemies of our people. Despite well-intentioned activism, at the end of the day taking a pro-free speech stance produces unfavourable results on two levels. From the pragmatic perspective, it attracts individuals whose minds are often polluted with democratic rhetoric which equates radical-democratic reform with social progress. From the position of principle, it must be noted that democracy in any form, of which the concept of freedom of speech flows, is ultimately an alien ideology. In this regard our work is cut out for us in that Canadians of European ancestry tend to have limited or superficial commitment to such ideas.

The heroic resistance to the Palestinian Holocaust provides numerous clues as to how a persecuted people must relate to mainstream media. Do you expect to see Palestinians writing letters to the editor of the Jerusalem Post begging for freedom of the press? The various factions which represent the national interest of the Palestinian people have created their own media. Articles are written, documentaries are filmed, and bandwidth secured to get their message to their own people and to the rest of the world.

Toward a White National media

Control of media is an important plank upon which the White Nationalist movement in Canada is being built. The centralized and authoritarian structures implemented by CanWest are not bad things in themselves as they are in fact necessary for building an orderly organization. The problem with CanWest lies with who owns this corporation and in whose interests such ownership serves.

The direct link between Canadian media ownership and control of society is clearly illustrated by the late Dr. William Pierce: "What is of the utmost importance is who it is that manipulates them, because whoever that is will determine the course taken by the whole society, by the nation, by the race. In the past, when it was a king or a pope or a dictator who set the party line, many mistakes were made, sometimes due to selfishness or irresponsibility, sometimes due to ignorance or carelessness or stupidity or prejudice. But at least the people setting the party line for the masses were our people, members of our own race."

Free speech, journalistic integrity, or hierarchical corporate media are red herrings for the real issue. The name of the game is control. Newspapers, radio & television stations, Internet servers, film production, literary journals, and magazines must be owned and operated by racially-conscious White Canadians in general, and the revolutionary vanguard specifically.

We must begin the difficult task of constructing White media in both Quebec and English Canada. Only then will we have the ability to communicate effectively with our people the truth about the likes of Asper and his tribe.