For a network no one watches...
The Twitter account is only followed by a few dozen people, but routinely takes aim at Sun News Network hosts and their parent company, Quebecor, while defending the CBC.
"We have to start taking advantage of this kind of support," writes CBC VP Kirstine Stewart, in an email obtained through access to information, making reference to one tweet by Scum_TV.
Levant and Stewart have a history of fencing with each other.
Let the hate grow. Now why would the Mother Corp, whose august presence has dominated the Canadian media landscape for almost four generations, want the support of a Twitter user going by the inelegant name of "Scum TV." As the moniker might suggest, the Twit in question had post titles such as "Ezra Levant is a Douchebag." Is this the kind of support Kirstine Stewart wants? Desperation, thy name is CBC.
The grumpiness continues. Warren Kinsella, ex-Ass Kicker and current House Liberal for the Sun chain, has unearth a study that proves conservatives are "whinny and insecure." Did we mention that the researchers were from Berkeley?
The whiny, paranoid little kids grew up to become conservatives! They were rigid, thin-skinned, didn’t like ambiguity, and devotedly stuck to traditional gender roles. They looked to authority and tradition a lot more, and were highly uncomfortable when it was absent. The more-confident kids, meanwhile, mainly grew up to be liberals. They were non-conformists with diverse interests, and more self-reliant and energetic, too.
Sounds just like "Scum TV." Heck, no one can accuse Warren of not being self-confident. Some would use other language to describe the former Chretien flack. This being a family blog we will, however, refrain from using such colourful expressions of opprobrium. Despite my intense hatred of ambiguity, and obsession with traditional gender roles, I'm willing to admit that Warren has an amazingly non-conformist take on his political adversaries. Like when he mocked Stockwell Day's obscure religious beliefs by using a stuffed toy. Original and biting satire. Very tolerant too.
There seems to be just a bit, a very small bit, of tongue in cheek in Kinsella's article. The Berkeley study, however, is how liberals like to see themselves, "Scum TV" is how many liberals actually are in the flesh. Having lived three decades here in the Imperial Capital, where conservatives and libertarians are as scarce as hen's teeth, the snarling variety liberal proliferates.
But don't trust me, take a quick trip to the comments section of a political news story at the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. The bile directed at conservatives in general, and the current Harper government in particular, is as impressive as it is unoriginal. How many times can you spell it "CONservative" before the joke wears off? Apparently several hundred times.
While there are certainly tradition minded conservatives, typically called paleocons, they represent only a small segment of the overall movement. The overarching theme of conservatism on both sides of the border is not "authority" but smaller government, i.e. less coercive authority. A dislike of ambiguity might be better understood as a suspicion of elitist sophistry. Being vague does not get you far in professions that conservatives often gravitate toward, like engineering and business.
To the liberal mind the world is like that small town in Footloose. They're Kevin Bacon and the conservatives are all reincarnations of John Lithgow. The film presented a world view so stale that it had to be set in an obscure town in the midwest to be plausible. America during the Reagan era wasn't a religiously oppressed society, it hasn't become so in the quarter century since then. Liberalism as perpetual rebellions has one fatal flaw: How do you keep rebelling after you've become the Establishment?
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