Western Standard Cash Crunch? Simon Pole goes into the cash crunch facing Ezra's Western Standard(less) rag. Shouldn't his Calgary School buddies step up to help.
"... When we started the Western Standard nearly two years ago, I never imagined that we would have been at the center of a fight for our culture's basic freedoms -- or that the rest of Canada's media would be so silent, leaving us to fight this fight by ourselves..." - Ezra Levant in an appeal to mailing list for money
The WS is fighting for our basic freedoms? How incredible is that statement. Whose freedoms is he talking about? The right to take money out of public education? Maybe the right to ignore treaties with Aboriginals? Maybe we will see Ezra marching in a gay pride parade or declaring he has a good friend who is gay. Freedom of the press?
Now some readers of Politics in BC have taken to suggesting the Western Standard speaks for as many Canadians as does the Georgia Straight. The Straight of course can not be compared to the WS in any way other than perhaps they both are printed on paper of some kind.
A better comparison might be the now dead Alberta Report and its junior sibling, the BC Report magazine run by Evangelical conservative activists, Ted and Link Byfield. These too rags commonly took up the efforts of those who were anti-aboriginal, anti-choice, anti public education and pro-private health care and of course they screamed long and hard in an effort to prevent gay citizens like myself and my partner from having a right to be parents let alone the right to rent an apartment or keep a job free of discrimination.
The WS is two steps behind the Reform party, now defunct and trying to assert its voice in what is looking alot like Brian Mulroney's government. The populist voice that drew many to the Reform has left, in come the suits from Bay Street. Its kind of ironic actually, the people that helped toss the Progressive Conservatives out of government are now being run by many of those government pensioned PC political hacks. Michael Wilson is the new boy in Washington, thats gotta hurt Preston's feelings.
Is Ezra desperate to save his rag? Perhaps he can move to the mainstream Alberta style. Wait a minute, he is already moonlighting at the Calgary Sun. It just so happens Ted and Link are there too. Don't cry too much for Ezra, he has some buddies in town that will look after him when the WS does die. Heck if Jimmy Pattison won't distribute your magazine you have to know the gig is up.
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