Thursday, January 02, 2020

What's Old Is New


Andrew Nikiforuk writes that Jason Kenney has established his own Ministry of Truth. Kenney calls it the Canadian Energy Centre. Its job is to go after journalists who attack Alberta's oil economy. It began its mission by targeting the Medicine Hat News:

That newspaper’s crime was to publish an opinion piece by Jeremy Appel that lambasted the agency’s motives: “Its entire premise is based on the notion that anyone who opposes oilsands expansion is a liar with ulterior motives.”
Appel called the war room “an expensive joke” and “a grave threat to our right to dissent.”
And so, the CEC immediately swung into action. Grady Semmens, a CEC agent and former Trans Canada PR guy, sent the paper a note saying it wanted to respond to the “comments and inaccuracies” in Appel’s column. (For the record, Semmens describes himself as “a purpose-driven public affairs professional.”)
The subsequent “guest column” makes no mention of any “inaccuracies” but swears the propaganda outfit will be “informative, positive and educational.”

Actually, "the outfit" -- and Kenney -- are following in the footsteps of Bible Bill Aberhart:

Kenney’s government really appears to be drawing its inspiration from the Social Credit party, which ruled Alberta from 1935 to 1971. (Albertans prefer one-party states, just like the Russians and the Chinese.)
In 1935, Bible Bill Aberhart won a landslide election by promoting bizarre economic ideas in an Alberta badly unsettled by the Great Depression. Aberhart, who had his own evangelical radio station, won 56 of the 63 seats in the Alberta legislature by mostly blaming the depression on eastern bankers.
The Bible thumper also accused eastern bankers of conspiring to limit credit for Albertans, the same way Kenney, more than 60 years later, accused environmentalists of conspiring to keep the province’s oil resources in the ground. (Kenney won 63 out of 87 seats in 2019 election on the basis of that claim.)
Just like Kenney, Aberhart didn’t like a critical press because it questioned his lies and challenged his wonky conspiracy theories.
The democratic workings of the press so depressed Aberhart that he declared on his weekly Christian radio show that he was “glad there will be no newspapers in heaven.”

What's old is new again.

Image WND.com

8 comments:

Trailblazer said...

Take your choice!

https://www.google.com/search?q=ministry+of+truth+george+orwell&oq=ministry+of+thrth+georg&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.17008j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8


TB

Anonymous said...

All good due to quoting Nikiforuk, but this topic has been covered in real time and in far better detail and context by Dave Climenhaga's Alberta Politics, available right here on Progressive Bloggers, as well as the Tyee.

Why not read and quote him instead of a guy a week or more behind the eight-ball and with not particularly pithy observations? I guess I don't get it.

BM

John B. said...

A self-described “purpose-driven public affairs professional”, eh? All by yourself? Only an absolute lack of sales resistance in the customers he targets can give a guy an ego like that. He should have just printed "I'm an asshole." on his sandwich sign. Let's take the texts from the business school books and sales and marketing seminars, reverse engineer them and turn them inside out. Put the lessons that dad fed us into the elementary schools. Maybe a future generation will learn to spot these sales reps before their shoddy goods are halfway out of the carpetbag. The likes of them won't go away until we do.

Like his Harper before him, Jason knows that you can get the foolishly faithful to believe almost anything. I'll bet that many of his former supporters who rejected Mr. Here-for-Canada in 2015 have no idea why they did. If they had, would they have picked the guy who succeeded him?

the salamander said...

.. Greetings in this new year of 2020 Owen.. Nikiforuk is a brilliant daily source re Alberta of course.. certainly one of my 'must reads' ! link his posts here n there to ensure the ones I find most advantageous are seen by family, friends, concerned Canadians etc. Babel On The Bay does so regarding Ontsrio, Mound of course a much broader scope nationality and internationally,. and environmentally, Lorne over at Politics & Discontents hits variable & diverse current topics, as do you. I do have some eastern maritime resources.. but its hard to catch the wind all across the big land ! News of Jason Kenney though is never in short supply.. Monsignor Kenney sees to that himself !

I now (in 2020) must see him no longer as just a toxic blowhard political animal.. he has transformed into a quasi religious televangelist mutation. That's right.. its an apotheosis.. an ascension or reverse mormon backflip into televangelism ! Of course he maintains the trappings of his exalted posistion as the titular leader of his church.. and HIS congregation. He dispenses the blessed holy Bitumen sacrament now, it is he up in his Alberta pulpit as the collection baskets are passed by his acolytes.. Stephen Harper & Ray Novak there in the front pew. PostMedia's Paul Godfrey an elder of the church of course. The Reform Choir hits all the right notes.. visiting Monsignors such as Christy Clark, Joe Oliver, Doug Ford often visit, though the late saint Jim Flaherty has already been enshrined.

What was once conducted from the bed of a leased blue pickup truck is now conducted from Edmonton. There is a secret basement doorway behind the altar, leading down to The Whore Room.. where Father Jason's new scripts & scriptures are blurted to believers by ink stained monks & wretches from old whirled Harper Ottawa. It seems while wandering in the desert or while exiled in his mommy's basement, Jason studied medicine, economics, education, resource extraction, fund raising, import/export logarithms, and hoarded his taxpayer donations.

The outcasts, the lepers, the downtrodden politicos of Alberta have been brought together for a greater purpose Owen.. Its a great and holy crusade.. and lo, Jason of Arc.. in a business suit and blue tie shalt conquer.. onward christian soldiers.. !! Gawd and Bitumen are on your side.. the Grail is there in a great shiny pipeline ! To tidewater they must go !!

.. to be continued.. fade to black - Please donate generously !! Friend.. .. cue the tabernacle choir

Owen Gray said...

We used to treat Orwell's work as fiction, TB. These days, it's fact.

Owen Gray said...

Cleminhaga is a good source, TB. But give Nikiforuk his due. He's an Albertan who's been on this file for some time now.

Owen Gray said...

Good question, John. One thing is certain: Kenney is a political opportunist who never lets an opportunity go to waste.

Owen Gray said...

Jason of Arc, sal? One wonders when he'll get burned.