February 8, 2013

Fire Kevin O'Leary campaign hits TV


By J. Boyden 

Rebel Youth magazine's campaign called Fire Kevin O'Leary got a boost today from an surprising source. As the campaign approached 800 signatures on Friday night, the right-wing TV channel Sun News picked up the story as segment on its programme Byline. You can watch the show in the You Tube above.

With the major snowstorm hitting Toronto, I wound-up being the spokesperson for the campaign. Still, facing blizzard conditions a half-hour bus ride to Sun TV Montreal took closer to an hour. Things weren't made easier by the fact that, as far as I could tell, Sun News Montreal studio doesn't really exist -- apart from a TV camera and a fancy backdrop in an unmarked and tiny closet-sized like studio, all on the tenth floor of a major private broadcaster's building, TVA.

The trip to the media outlet may have been full of delays, but the interview went by fast.

Byline is a show that, in traditional Sun TV style, mixes far-right commentary with a few distorted facts that could be called stories -- or so its online detractors basically say. My conclusions and judgement were just based on what came first on the show.

I saw an 'exposure' of the Ontario SPCA for being 'infiltrated' by groups like PETA and not respecting animal-owners rights to privacy. I hear an amazing discussion about the CETA or the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (called by some 'NAFTA on crack') and why it doesn't go far enough (Canada should just 'unilaterally' move to Free Trade, regardless of cultural content or jobs).

And then there was a discussion of the New York Times (NYT) vs. the New York Post where the host and guest talked about 'Media snobs', how the NYT 'hates Jewish people', the NYT is pretentious because it prints on large paper, women like the NYT -- and then the interview lifted-off with a sexist and homophobic rant that ended with a defense of the Sun Newspapers 'Page Three Girls' (now no longer on page three).

Here is a quote from the guest:

"I read the times because my wife is a women and they love that newspaper... They [presumably NYT readers, Media snobs in general or perhaps all women] live in a hoity-toity, elbow-patch, blazer-wearing world where women are not attractive. Why not have a man there? I don't know, have you ever seen males nude? Their not attractive, okay? Women are called the fairest sex for a reason, but they live in denial of that. They are just so determined to go against 40 thousand years of evolution that they make fools of themselves and all they care about is diversity mongering, and multiculturalism involving people they don't know, they don't live with, and they don't send their kids to school with!"

We will post that clip another time with some commentary -- your thoughts are welcome.

Seriously, however, if O'Leary's friends continue in charge of the CBC maybe this is what the public broadcaster will become?

Of course, the interview segment rushed by and it is too bad I wasn't able to hammer more of the basic points of the campaign -- especially better development on why "fighting unions with evil" is a type of hate-speak and provocation, inciting violence against working people for just organizing and demanding their rights.

Is "evil" a good way to describe the Postal workers being legislated back-to-work, the Caterpillar lock-out where the boss demanded a 55% wage cut, or Ontario's Bill 115 against teachers and students?

And consider the fact that, in Columbia for example, about 200 trade unionists are killed every single year. The exact time O'Leary was making his "unions are pure evil and must be fought with evil remarks," Canada was signing a free trade agreement with Columbia.

The full video is above, courtesy of YCLtube, or link directly to full screen here. As the campaign grows we will keep posting updates! To everyone who has signed, thank you for your support and excellent comments!
- Comments

8 comments:

  1. This is a beautiful personal commentary well adapted to social media. There should be a by-line however. Makes it more real, if that's an allowed expression!

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  2. I'm wondering how aware you are of the concepts of dialectic evolution... if you have never heard this term allow me to explain: Dialectic Evolution means that new evolved ideas, cannot exist unless old ideas come into direct opposition with conflicting ideas. Censoring this man (whom I dissagree with almost all the time) is a huge step in the wrong direction. The most important step in logic and thought is challenging everything you hold to be true, constantly. If the CBC removed o'leary they would become a biased media with an agenda, which is bad even if it is OUR agenda.

    We can't be afraid of offending people with ideas, even if Kevin O'leary only serves to reinforce our ideas he serves a critical role in dialectics.

    Your approach of sensoring goes against everything we've established in philosophy, throws thousands of years of ideas out the window. Where would plato be without dialectics, what would Hegel think?

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  3. WWHT - What Would Hegel Think -- That's a new one! Thanks for your comments and we will address the question of 'censorship' soon on RY.

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  4. I just noticed my spelling errors, I typed that comment quickly and my fingers betrayed me :(

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  5. The irony is that communist regimes have always outlawed independent trade unions. I know: "they were not really communist". Sophistry.

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  6. No, the communists in Canada and around the world have been always at the core of labour unions and *socialist* countries like Cuba have a very strong labour movement. In the capitalist countries labour has to fight for its basic existence, Derek. Thanks for joining the debate.

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  7. I respectfully disagree with you. The only reason unions have to fight for their existance is because the majority of workers do not want to be a part of a union and feel they can have a better career path without the union policies holding them back, for example scrict seniority rules rather than a skills based promotion. Also, public sector unions have distorted the true value of jobs and has created great hardship on private sector workers due to high taxation to pay for a bloated and unproductive public workforce. Individually I know many fantastic public sector workers, but the "system" prevents them from doing their best.

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  8. I just watched the John Bayden interview on Sun TV, concerning the CBC and the "Fire Kevin O'Leary campaign." It struck me Bayden is envious and jealous of Kevin o'Leary financial success. Something he will never achieve through this crappy little Rebel Youth Magazine. Grow up Bayden, get a real job in the real world and not with the CBC, or government at any level.

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