Protecting "media freedom" while burying Assange

I notice that CBC is reporting on the "Faux Free Press Conference" in London while dutifully avoiding any mention of Julian Assange. Paul Waldie managed the same disappearing trick while writing about the conference in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

Jeremy Hunt has made no secret of his contempt for Assange. The kind of "free press" being celebrated in London is the kind that sticks to authorized government-approved talking points. Rogue journalists who reveal government lying and criminality are not "real" journalists at all and must face the full force of the law.

It's interesting to see that the Russian news sites Sputnik and RT have  been banned from the conference for spreading disinformation about the Skripal affair. That's unintended confirmation that those outlets probably came a lot closer to the "truth" of that debacle than anything you might find in the Telegraph or the Guardian.

That ban is also sweet revenge of sorts for Chrystia Freeland, who was quick to blame "Russian disinformation" when the true story of her family's collaboration with the Nazis emerged (the actual real Nazis marauding all over Europe 75 years ago - not the wannabes supposedly lurking all over the internet today).

It's hard to fault RT for their response to the ban;

"It takes a particular brand of hypocrisy to advocate for freedom of press while banning inconvenient voices and slandering alternative media."

Proof that Syria's evil dictator will use CHEMICAL WEAPONS on his own people

Here it is, straight from the Telegraph. Syrian troops seen packing bombs with sarin gas. If it's in the Telegraph it must be true...

Oh, wait a minute... I see they got the story from NBC.

NBC never has true stories. Or hardly ever.

How does the Telegraph know this story is true?

They don't, and they admit they don't.

So in what way is this "news?"

It isn't.

But you have to admit it makes for a compelling headline.

Memo to only democracy in Middle East; you are no longer the only democracy in the Middle East

The Globe and Mail had an intriguing profile today about a Canadian professor working in China, who is arguing that democracy is not all it's cracked up to be.

Hello! That's been painfully obvious ever since Hitler was democratically elected in 1932.

But none of that has impinged on Israel's UK ambassador's eagerness to provide this op-ed to the Telegraph today.

Ambassador Taub trots out the usual shibboleths about terror here and terror there. Hamas is a terror group, don't you know. Not only that, but they've borrowed from the Hezbollah lexicon and, oh my God, even improved upon it!

As if such a thing is even thinkable...

The entire op-ed is designed to stoke fear in the diaspora Jewish community. It's a continuation of the age-old "we have no partner for peace" gambit.

People who are serious about peace make it a point to talk to their enemies. That guy who wants to wipe you from the map? That's the guy you need to talk to.

And the old "only democracy in the Middle East" tale is getting a bit stale too. Hamas, the people Taub can't talk to, because they don't like him, were democratically elected in 2006.

Whatever else they are, they are also the democratically elected government of what Charles Krauthammer has called a Palestinian state.

So Israel, once the only democracy in the Middle East, has lots of company now. Not only Hamas, but thanks to Arab Spring, their Muslim Brotherhood brothers on the other side of the Red Sea.

Labels like "terrorist" and "democracy" have by far outlived their shelf life.

Let's get serious about peace. Forget the name-calling and sit down face to face with both Hezbollah and Hamas.