Almost every day, Conservative MPs rise in the House of Commons calling for the de-funding of our national public broadcaster. Some are sponsoring petitions and trumped up “polls” on their websites to attack the CBC. Currently, Rob Anders, the Conservative MP for Calgary West, is circulating an online petition to the House of Commons calling on the Conservative government to "end public funding of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation".

And, the fundraising wing of the Conservative Party has also launched a loaded survey which asks financial supporters "In recent years, CBC funding has exceeded a billion dollars per year. Do you think taxpayers receive good value or bad value from the CBC?" The fundraising pitch goes on to say that "This survey is very, very important to our legislative planning".

Conservative MPs have not stopped there. With the head of SUN Media cheering from the sidelines, the Conservatives have also launched offensives against the CBC at two Parliamentary Committees.
- http://www.friends.ca/smackdown/more.php

Strombo is definitely one of the best interviewers on the planet right now. If you haven't seen it already, I would recommend you watch his interview with Bono. Bono ends up telling him, "George, I'm a fan."

I first heard him on The Lizard, a radio station in Kelowna, BC, but became a big fan once he moved to Much Music and he just keeps getting better.>> ^notarobot:

George Strombolopolous has done a lot of wonderful interviews. I still remember him on Much Music. 1sttube


>> ^Boise_Lib:

Where does this show air? I've never seen it before--I like it.
[Edit] I guess I should watch the whole thing before asking questions about it. So this is on CBC?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Michael Ironside, The Hour' to 'Michael Ironside, The Hour, CBC, George Strombolopolous, Strombo' - edited by notarobot

Where does this show air? I've never seen it before--I like it.

[Edit] I guess I should watch the whole thing before asking questions about it. So this is on CBC?

Thanks for trying to at least provide some references Ghark. I'm curious how credible you honestly believe them to be though. All but 2 of them are to the same blog, the one is a very short piece by Ynet with nothing more to say than that SANA declares itself the victim and the other is a different blog reporting proof that America supports activists in authoritarian countries.

That last bit seems to be the most veracious of all the claims, but I wouldn't call it 'news'. America(sadly, like virtually all governments) not only supports repressed activists but has also actively supported what can only be called terrorists and has on multiple occasions participated in the overthrow of foreign rulers through covert and even overt assassinations. Don't mistake my claims here as being based on the naive notion that America or the CIA would never do anything like this, as they have and without a doubt will again. My claim is much different, and so is Tarpley's.

The important nuance I think your missing in my disagreement with Tarpley here is that his claim is NOT CIA support for a Syrian uprising. His claim is that there is, in fact, no legitimate Syrian uprising and that it is all a facade orchestrated by the CIA, Mossad, or whomever else he thinks is the puppet master. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people are now living under their second generation of brutal dictatorship. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people have seen the difference between the free world and their own, and those people have taken to the streets. Importantly to our discussion here, one of the ways they have seen the difference between freedom and repression has been through social media, like facebook, twitter and to at least some extent our dear videosift here as well.

The sources you referenced supporting Tarpley's notions on Syria all point back to either SANA, the Syrian state media, Al-Alam, the Iranian state media or XinhuaNet, China's state media. For brevity I won't point out the massive number of articles from the NYtimes, the CBC and BBC all reporting on the Syrian protesters being brutally repressed and murdered by Syrian forces. If you wish, I can fill out a page with supporting links, but I hope you might be able to recognize that at the very minimum these sources balance out with equal support. I would go further and posit that state funded media like CBC and BBC are vastly more independent from the state message than SANA and Al-Alam, but it isn't necessary to my argument.

If you accept my generous notion that the above can be called a draw, and we throw them out as having a bias one way or the other, what are we left with?

We are left with Al Jazeera reporting an entirely different story than Tarpley's:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria

If you want more links from Al Jazeera they have a wealth of stories from all manner of separate and independent sources all backing their overall view that there is a legitimate internal Syrian uprising independently demanding the basic freedoms of a democracy, and the Syrian government met them with deadly repression, over and over and over again.

Is Al Jazeera a pro American tool of the CIA?

I'm going to cite what I consider to be very basic, fundamental facts but if you want references for them I can provide them if you don't trust a 5 second google verification of them.

The UN human rights committee voted 122 in favor of condemning Syria's crackdown, are they a pro American tool of the CIA?

The Arab League has threatened to revoke Syria's membership and asked that Syria allow their monitors into the country as a path to reconciliation, which Syria rejected.

Is the Arab League a pro America tool of the CIA?

Meltdown was produced in *Canada, airing Thursday, July 7, 2011 on CBC-TV. *1sttube. It looks like it was rebroadcasted on Al Jazeera.

More info and all four episodes at the show's site, including a version in french.

www.cbc.ca/doczone/meltdown

I heard this on CBC Radio. So my portion of tax dollars have gone back to me with this enchanting melody.

CBC = *Canada -ian Broadcasting Corporation

Fantastic report by Anna-Marie MacDonald. The whole episode of "Doc Zone" is us up at CBC.ca

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episode/the-trouble-with-experts.html

Right, cause that's worked sooo well here in the U.S.

Aboot time there were some Canadian ghettos/projects/hoods.

>> ^notarobot:

In Canada, The Harper Government has solved the problem of corporations and private interest being unable to profit from solving the problem of homelessness. Earlier this year they declared that they will devote billions into a new low-income housing project.

In Canada, The Harper Government has solved the problem of corporations and private interest being unable to profit from solving the problem of homelessness. Earlier this year they declared that they will devote billions into a new low-income housing project.

Because the international banking system is global, so too are the protests. The magnitude of the protests will have some relation to how screwed over the average citizen feels. For example there are lots of good reasons for people in the united states to be pissed off, but in the entire country of 300+Million, less than half the protesters were reported than the Spanish city of Madrid. Just one city in a country of only 46M.

Why? I don't know. Is it the poor media coverage? Do people not realize that they have a reason to be pissed off? Or that they really can change things if they get together? I will have to let our American friends offer better insight than I can.

The last time that the income gap was this extreme was immediately followed by the Great Depression, which was immediately followed by WWII. (Presently, I see a repeat of history from about 90 years ago in charts and other data.) The recent push to refresh in military technology, be it the F-35 White Elephant or the recent $35B Canadian navy contract, are not isolated only to NorthAm militaries. And I do believe that there is potential for some kind of blowback from NATO/US involvement in Libya/Iraq/Afghanistan etc. To what extent or force the blowback will or won't be remains to be seen. I hope the my spidey-senses and my surface reading of history are both very off on this point.

My prediction is that things will get worse before they get better. The recession in the U.S. is not a double dip, because it hasn't really gotten enough better to stop being a recession. Lots of soldiers are about to come home from Iraq, many will be discharged and not be able to find other non-military work. Greece will likely default or the process of preventing default will be so complicated that it will be seen as a lesser evil as opposed to a victory for the globalized financial casino markets, and some form of protest will continue or will be revived after a brief hiatus once a leak in the patchwork repair job springs true.

The real wildcard in Occupy Wall Street could be the reaction of those thousands of hard-working soldiers home from a long war to a country in protest. There are certainly a lot of factors to be considered. All I can say for certain is that something will come of Occupy.

People, by telling the CBC you are watching O'Leary, you are telling them he has an audience. I'm sure a large portion of Hannity and O'Reilly viewers watch to see them make asses of themselves too.

You want O'Leary off the air? Complain to the advertisers. Tell THEM that you are equating THEIR products with your dislike of O'Leary.

He will disappear.

I smell a facebook group coming on!
>> ^alcom:

That's a good idea! I'm Canadian too. Coming from a federally subsidized station, this video is just embarrassing.
>> ^PalmliX:
Haha nice one! I will do the same. Let's start the get Kevin O'Leary kicked off CBC news movement! He can stay on Dragons Den.
>> ^notarobot:
I actually wrote into the CBC about his disgraceful treatment of this guest to the CBC and requested that O'Leary offer a public apology and resign from any further on camera roles. I haven't recieved a response yet. >> ^PalmliX:
Couldn't agree more. I've always been proud of Canadian news for not lowering itself to the same type of inflammatory, fact-less rhetoric that American news networks seem to thrive on.
I'm very dissapointed with the CBC for letting this 'pompous overinflated arrogant dick' shoot his mouth off on the air, contributing nothing and lowering the standard (or attempting to in this case) of debate.
Sure, on Dragons Den he's entertaining, on the news, he's quite embarrassing.

>> ^harpom:
O'Leary is a pompous overinflated arrogant dick. As a Canadian I am disappointed with CBC. I thought they had a higher standard then this. Hedges said it himself. referring to Fox News. O'Leary is not worthy of being a Canadian broadcaster.