It's happening here too. The Canadian corporate media have introduced the meme that waterboarding and torture are OK! They used a Canadian pundit that has been on FOX, and was on CNN as recently as last week. This is a great example of how close The Republican franchises are. (h/t to Mattbastard)
The Man With No Point, (who always has an excellent point) posted a journal today and a diary here at Dkos about an editorial that appeared in today'sToronto Sun.
A Ms Marsden posts that she thinks torture is just A-OK.
Many of us know who she is, and know about her rather....ahem. Jaded (that's putting it mildly?) past. (Thanks to FF for linky's)
She accused her swimming coach from Simon Fraser University of sexual harassment and date rape. Now, I'm a feminist and I believe all complaints have to be thoroughly investigated and taken seriously.
So it mightily pisses me off when someone uses charges as a revenge tactic, and causes other REAL cases to be blown off and swept away. But in this case the Coach was given his job back, plus legal expenses. And then it went from there. Ms Marsden it appears, is a serial stalker. The Tyee laid it all out rather nicely in April 2007. Here's a few snippets.
Simon Fraser's harassment policy coordinator Patricia O'Hagan, with whom Marsden became close during the university's investigation into her claims, also left her job in the wake of the scandal. O'Hagan later alleged that Marsden had harassed her, claiming to reporters that the student had called her more than 400 times, tracked her down after she'd changed her number, and signed letters,"love from your daughter who loves you a lot."
snip-
Neil Boyd, an SFU criminology professor who claimed that Marsden harassed him too.
snip-
Marsden was next charged with criminally harassing former Vancouver radio host Michael Morgan in 2002.
snip-
In May 2004, Marsden pleaded guilty to the criminal harassment charges. Judge J.W. Kitchen of the criminal division of the Provincial Court of British Columbia sentenced Marsden to conditional discharge and one year of probation.
Having completed the year of probation, Marsden is now considered not to have a criminal record. Marsden reportedly told the judge, "I promise that I'll never be back before this court for the rest of my life -- you have my word on that."
Then there are the Resume issues? Liar, liar.
The press, which had been feasting on Marsden for seven years, also tore her apart for fudging her online résumé, on which she claimed to have assisted Connie Chung at ABC (ABC denied at the time that anyone by her name had ever been employed at the network) and that her writing had appeared in the National Post and Maclean's magazine (at the time, she had only had letters to the editor printed in either publication).
Why would anyone give this woman a platform to spew her venom? I mean, even FOX news fired her. I guess its that old acronym, IOKIYAR. We can now change that to IOKIYAHC. (Its ok of you are a Harper Conservative) Lies? Cruelty? Its all fair game.
Update: May 31, 2007 -- SECURITY officers hastily escorted "Red Eye" contributor Rachel Marsden out of Fox News Channel's Midtown headquarters yesterday for bizarre and erratic behavior. "She's out of her [bleeping] mind. She was doing crazy stuff," a spy told us. The brown-haired hottie is notorious in Canada, where authorities say she falsely accused a university swim coach of sexual harassment and harassed a Vancouver radio personality. A Fox News rep had no comment.
Thanksbink, in the comments. :)
The Toronto Sun thinks she is a fine addition to it's bird cage liner. So we know where the TS is in the great media food chain. Bottom feeding with the National Enquirer.
What did she write in this editorial that has anyone who has Canadian values so fired up?
That torture is ok.
She even has the stupidity to use her "swimming experience" to justify waterboarding.
I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called "hypoxic training" -- swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn't call it torture, just an exercise in "mental toughness." So think of it this way -- terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.
If she was stupid enough to actually do that, (Im thinking thats what happened to her brain cells. Lack of oxygen.) then that's entirely up to her. Some assholes are dumb enough to hang themselves and whack off while doing it too.
But to suggest that torture is a learning experience? Wow that takes truly a lack of empathy and humanity. (Another Harper Conservative Family value)
She dismisses the Geneva conventions, and all Western Ideals and law. Innocent until proven guilty? Nah.
Torture doesn't do anything but fulfill some sick need for people like Donald Rumsfeld, it garners false confessions. If you were being "waterboarded" or any of the other things that the Bush admin is actually doing, you would confess to hiding the body of Hoffa if it was suggested to you.
It invites violence against Canadian military personnel, and Canadians travelling abroad.
And finally, it kills our soul. It kills a vision of a Just Society. Something we haven't managed yet, but something we should always aspire to.
The Harper Conservatives and the Bush Republicans mouth the words that "they" hate us for our freedoms. But in reality it's the biggest fucking case of self loathing if there was one. They hate US, or they wouldn't be fighting so hard to change us into monsters.
Do the proponents of the War on Terror realize that they are its biggest fans? They eat this shit up.
But we don't have to sit and take it. Speak up! All Canadian Kossacks can write a letter. If any American Kossacks want to vent, hey, please! Make the Toronto Sun aware of how abhorrent and completely UNCANADIAN they are for publishing such tripe. If they don't want to live in a country with morals and humanitarian ethics? They know where the door is. I suspect that the rest of Canada won't lose any sleep in their absence.
torsun.editor@sunmedia.ca
The editorial page editor is here:
rob.granatstein@sunmedia.ca
And if you feel like it, maybe drop a letter to CNN, just to make sure they know what a whackadoo they are putting on the air. Do they EVER get embarrassed?
UPDATE: Frank Frinkhas posted a list of advertisers in the comments. If you see this please tip him well. I think he had to keep refreshing the page many times to get em all.
Crossposted at A Creative Revolution
