Raise the Hammer

and what happens when it's anonymously reposted by a commentor?

>This after calling me yesterday and taking up half-hour of my time under the pretext of asking me questions about myself, my background, work in the city and my campaign - when you already had a very good idea of who I was three years ago after having talked to me for over an hour about what I had been doing in this community over years.

>I had a feeling you would pull this, Andrew! The more things change the more things remain the same at the Spec indeed. Your [potentially defamatory statement removed by administrator] shines right through here my friend. You are definitely no Robert Fisk. For sure you are no Joe Kline or even a Doug Saunders.

>I don't know who your heroes in journalism are - or whether you have any - but I sure as hell hope it is not some high school buddies from the Small School of Thought you appear to have attended in your youth.

>It's sad that this is the form of debased journalism you have embraced at a time in your career and this city's life, when prudent change from a self-centered past is what is most needed to rebuild this city from the ashes of your generations self-indulgence.

>But you and your publication have always fancied yourselves to be King Makers, rushing from one novelty to another even if it is repackaged for quick consumption, in order to bring to the masses your intelligent discoveries at the cost of journalist integrity.

>So look around you: have your actions over the last decades given birth to anything of substance in this city which can make your children honestly proud?

>A fractured and polarized community; mismanagement of public affairs; budget deficits; spiraling infrastructure deficits; wayward spending; high taxes; poverty and unemployment at its highest levels; public mistrust of politicians; nepotism, racism and divisiveness; a dying media business; and unaccountability and lack of transparency in municipal affairs are the only true legacy projects built under your watch.

>Your old ways are dead. Look around your news room, the only sound you might possibly hear is that of the wire service and a few gophers running around scurrying partisan favors.

>Your hatred of new forms of communication, new ideas, new immigrants who bring capital and energy and jobs compete with your devious use of a medium that could have been put to use to re-build lives and communities in Hamilton. Is it any wonder that you are left with the dying newspaper industry in the dusk of your career?

>Politics and realpolitik in this city has changed since the last time you looked over your shoulder. As a journalist or a king maker, if you are not aware of that it is time to hang up your typewriter and go fishing.

>Retiring to hand over the reins of public life to those brighter than you, especially when you have nothing of substance to contribute to the next generation, is the ultimate act of of grace and maturity - something many bearing your constitution in Hamilton know so little about.

>The days of manipulating public media to foster divisive politics is something that you at the Spec practically gave birth to in Hamilton, to ensure yourselves a paycheck month after month for decades. They are over.

>Sad as your attempts are to cast me in a mould of your preconceptions and prejudices to marginalize me in the eyes of your readers has only validated my read of the parochialism in Hamilton once again.

>You have only reaffirmed to the people of Hamilton how redundant you and the Spec have become to future of Hamilton - with your purposefully crafted poor words, which you had pre-chosen even before you called me yesterday supposedly to get to know me.

>It is already established beyond doubt that "inquiry" is not something that drove you to wake up every morning through your career as a journalist - so what indeed was your call to me yesterday about?

>This is a rhetorical question for you to take home and discuss with your family, for it may have a bearing on your future endeavors, be they in my insignificant blogger's world, or in the world of novella writer expounding on the "what if's" of your career.

>All the best in your choices what ever they may be. I can only suggest that you look up Time's Swampland blog on politics to get to know how self-respecting real world journalists who truly care for their community continue to put bread on their family table in more honorable ways than what you may be familiar with to date.

>In closing, I would like you and your friends at your paper to realize that I have zero tolerance for the kind of indiscretions that you have displayed here. Times have changed and you have simply failed to keep up with it.

>You may even delude yourself to be some sort of a maverick journalist with a fawning fan club to boot, but I am not impressed with what you and your paper does on most days for the well being of this community.

>From here on, if you or any other journalist at the Spec chooses once again to repeat this kind of indiscretion with me, any other new contenders, or any immigrant, coloured or disadvantaged human being in this city who is tirelessly helping to rebuild from the ground up with little or no help from your types - you will, I assure you be paying an exacting price in the public domain of not just this country but internationally. Make no mistake about that.

>If you do want to make amends under the new direction of Paul Berton, the new editor-in-chief, and you are serious about improving the lives of the people of Hamilton and the new immigrants who have been held hostage to the myopic ways of the old guard (who were given a fair chance to kick the can but ended up messing up for decades), I suggest that you smarten up and start a debate in your newspaper by first respectfully recognizing the new contenders in this election and making earnest attempts to get to know them, their lives and their views.

>I am also quite sure that all the new contenders will be willing to boycott your favorite location for live debates - your sacred self-referential auditorium - in favor of a truly democratic institution which is more representative of the future of Hamilton.

>I want you to know that I am still not writing you off by saying what I have said above. If anything, I am offering you a new chance to reinvent your trite career so that you are around long enough to partake in celebrating the successes of Hamilton - built by the compassion, humanity, intelligence, foresight, determination and resourcefulness of the new blood that you have made a career of second guessing.

>I hope that you use this for some serious introspection and personal change and not a rebuttal, and trust that you will pass on a copy of this to your new boss.

Comment edited by administrator Ryan on 2010-06-06 22:25:36