If Only He Had A Chance

While Kim Swan's statements regarding the PLP leadership campaign will have no real impact on the race they do provide two positives in my opinion.

Firstly they help in some small way to fight the idea that some in the PLP seem to have that this campaign should be fought completely internally without the sunlight of wider public scrutiny. It promotes discussion on the points made both within the PLP (even if it is simply to slam down the points made and insult the point maker) and within the community as a whole. Since eventually the winner is going to be the premier of the entire country it can't hurt to discuss the candidates even if we have no actual voice in the selection process.

Secondly they give us an opportunity to gauge the way the candidates would interact with political opponents as Premier. We all know how Dr. Brown dealt with criticism from the opposition in the past and I think most people agree that the kind of petty fighting that it encouraged were bad for Bermuda as a whole. While we have yet to see Lister or Cox make any break from that style I found it very interesting that Butler responded to today's reported statement in this way: "As an astute Bermudian, we will take your wide ranging views into consideration as we reflect on action that is needed after all is said and done". That's something more than the usual Shut Up response that we have gotten used to and I can't help but respect Butler more for it.

With the incredibly divisive political landscape in Bermuda perhaps a Premier that can bring people closer together and promote cooperation is exactly what we need and Butler seems to be that kind of person. Unfortunately it seems Butler is a distant third with no chance which is a shame. Perhaps he could do some good as Deputy Premier?

The Summer Comes To An End

Summer is now unfortunately drawing to a close and so are all the distractions that have drawn me away from the often frustrating world of Bermudian news and politics. As Dr. Brown's departure from the Premiership draws ever nearer I feel things will get more and more interesting. Perhaps a new page will be turned and Bermuda will take a turn for the better (or possibly even the worse).

Only time will tell and I look forward to spouting more opinions as the events unfold.

How Pathetic

Part of Dr. Brown's statement in the house yesterday:

"However, we must be cautious with our Parliamentary privilege — we must speak the truth, and we must be careful not to stereotype what people can or cannot do based on their ethnicity or size."

Pot, Kettle, Black.

Woops, there I go playing the race card again.

PLP Attack Dog

Seems the PLP has released Burch upon the world for another edition of "Lunatic Rants From the Hilll", this time to slam perfectly legitimate criticisms of a rather poorly thought out law as driven by greed.

It really makes me wonder why we bother playing Parliament at all on this little island when clearly our supposedly Democratic Government takes criticism more like Kim Jong-il than Barack Obama. Which leads me on to another unrelated point that falls well under this title.

It seems they've unleashed their Blog to link the UBP and BDA with the American Republican party who opposed the stimulus because they criticized the government's repeated fiscal failure, completely missing the fact that much of the waste that contributes to our deficit has absolutely no benefits as far as our economy is concerned. A good portion of it heads off to foreign consultants and minister's hotel rooms. How they can argue that is helping Bermudians is beyond me.

This country needs a change and only the electorate can give it that. The only question is what state Bermuda will be in by the time the next election is called.

Something Different

As this is a blog about Bermuda I try to avoid things that aren't really relevant to Bermuda. I'll leave it to you to decide if I've broken that rule with this post.

I first heard of this story a week ago and have been following it since (in attempt to make myself feel better about the direction Bermuda is headed):

Texas schools to get controversial syllabus

Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching... Critics say the changes are ideological and distort history. However, proponents argue they are redressing a liberal bias in education... But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade"... Opponents of the changes worry that textbooks sold in other states will be written to comply with the new Texas standards, meaning that the alterations could have an impact on curriculums nationwide.

The full list of originally proposed changes were as follows:

• Referring to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".
• Diminishing the role Thomas Jefferson and the idea of the Separation of State and Church
  
• Casting the United Nations in a critical light as a threat to sovereignty
  
• Promoting American ideals as beneficial for the world
  
• Emphasizing the role of religion in America's founding
• Promoting the superiority of the capitalist system
• Toning down criticism of McCarthyism

Now can anyone think of something more ironic than the nation that is supposed to be the shining light of democracy so obviously going down the road of the conservative indoctrination of children? I can't. Sure history is up to interpretation but... there's only so far you can take it and still preserve at least a semblance of objectivity.

The rest of the world is laughing at how absolutely ridiculous this is and the hypocrisy is incredible. In any other country it would have been laughed off as a complete joke, no one would have expected it to be serious and yet... America is another world too.

I wonder who else may want to rewrite history? Surely no one in Bermuda... that would be silly.

It Hits The Fan

It seems that it's really hit the fan over this Media Council Bill (Dubbed the Media Suppression Bill by Vexed), its gotten to the point where I'm losing track of the number of international organizations that have released damning condemnations of the bill. Those of us in the online community seem united in opposition as well.

To restate the reasons for the strong opposition to this bill is by now redundant and a waste of time and I hadn't intended to post again on the subject but, when unnamed government spokesmen clutter our newspapers with the absolute drivel that they've seen fit to grace us with this time it's hard not to address their attempt at a counter-argument.

First of all I must point out (as many others have) the irony of the use of unnamed spokesmen to defend a bill that seems set to be debated on the same day as the PATI legislation. Go figure. Then of course there's the question as to why the government use an unnamed spokesman in the first place. For a government that claims to have no intention but to protect the public interest and promote a free and fair media one would think they'd take reasonable steps to avoid creating the suspicion that the choice of spokesperson create but then again... It is Dr. Brown.

Unfortunately things only get more ridiculous from that point. Step one of the Government counterattack seems to be to discredit the international organizations that have expressed their concern (Hmm.. Where have I heard of governments doing that before?). What's most interesting is their strategy. They dismiss all but one of the organizations of having an inherent American slant which makes their concerns invalid because we're not America. The one they don't paint with that brush, The International Press Institute, which isn't based in America is dismissed with a suggestion that their spokesperson may be American. Yeah that's right. He may be American. Now if you live in the same Bermuda I live in then you will remember the various battles the Government has had with the Governor and the way Dr. Brown repeatedly takes shots at our "Colonial Masters" you wouldn't have dreamed that suddenly the Government would take a U-turn and begin extolling the correctness of the Governor's views (he believes that the Council would, in fact, be independent in its current form). Such is the political times we live in though. As soon as it becomes convenient the Government drops the attempts to portray us as closer to America with the UK and their representatives as our evil masters and turns around to dismiss experienced international press freedom organizations for being too American and begins using the UK appointed Governor's statements as proof of their point. Apparently it is completely acceptable for the Government to ignore not only the skills and reputations of some of the organizations but, to mislead the public as well because two of the organizations in question are actually related to the UK and have little/no ties to America (those two being the Commonwealth Press Union and the Press Complaints Commission which is the corresponding council in the UK). Lets have a look at some of the big names:

• The IPI

60 years of defending press freedom:
The International Press Institute is a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists. We are dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press freedom, the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, the promotion of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the practices of journalism.

• Commonwealth Press Union

The CPU Media Trust has been established to defend the interests of the Commonwealth media.

The Trust is committed to a professional, ethical and effective media across the Commonwealth. Its primary concerns are supporting media freedom and media rights, the training of journalists in the skills necessary for them to enable their work and a thorough understanding of media law and the establishment and support of self-regulatory bodies throughout the Commonwealth.

Groups with a purely American slant that don't understand the way things work in Bermuda? Or dedicated press freedom organizations expressing concern at the direction a reasonably developed democracy is going? You decide.

Next we have this issue of whether or not it is right to have Government appointees sitting on the council. The spokesman attempts to justify it by pointing to the presence of "lay members" on councils in England and Ireland. Lets be clear on that point right off the bat. Government appointees are in no way lay members of the council, they are Government representatives with the forseable power to vote to suppress embarrassing stories. Were it to be 5 representatives of the Media, a Governor appointed chairman and 6 independent members of the public agreed upon by the Media and Governor then it would be a different story but, these 6 members are appointed on the advice of the Premier who shall have consulted the Opposition Leader as it currently stands and that is a risk no one should be willing to take. I previously stated that I understand the arguments for including government representatives on the council but, would rather see 6 Media reps and 5 Government reps rather than the current opposite situation because then the Government would require the support of the Governor's rep which creates a presumption to err on the side of the media as it would require the Governor's rep to actively vote against the media. That being said however, I would prefer to see no government involvement at all much like the UK council which proves that self-regulation not only works, but works well.

In defense of the independence of the Governor's appointees the spokesman points to the Public Service Commission and the Ombudsman and this is a good point but, unfortunately it's not good enough for me. In any political system there are two parties in almost constant conflict, the People and the Government. In a Democracy the weapons of choice are (theoretically) facts and the arms dealer (to both sides) is the Media. Such a basic pillar of our system cannot be put anywhere near the danger of control by the Government. As well intentioned and incorruptible as any current or future leader may be it would only take one with ambition to abuse the system and that is a risk we cannot afford to take. For the PSC and the Ombudsman we have no choice but, to deal with the imperfect system but, the same risk should not be taken with the Media. If the Government was really committed to ensuring a fair and open Media they would adopt the successful policy adopted by the UK government and let the local Media attempt to create their own self regulating council before rushing in with the big guns and taking what could be a dangerous step in the wrong direction.

Then there are the power to effectively gag the press that the council would have under the legislation., keep in mind that the UK commission acts without any statutory powers at all and yet functions perfectly well. This has created one of the biggest bones of contention regarding this act. The defense from the spokesman?...

They can only gag it for a limited time.

Clearly they missed the point. It should have no power to gag at all!

We can only hope that this will not go through on the nod under the PLP whip. It would be a travesty for local democracy. The UBP opposes it, the Alliance is almost certain to express similar views, now its time for the PLP backbenches to take action in the interests of the Bermudian people rather than following the agenda of a clearly confused cabinet which seems unable even to figure out the name of the spokesman in charge of dealing with this bill.

Wishful Thinking

More On The Media Council

Vexed has posted a copy of the proposed Media Council bill on his website here and looking through it there are a number of interesting things that caught my eye.

Section 2 lays out the purpose of the act and subsection (a) specifies that it should be an "independent" entity and yet the government will effectively appoint half of the members. That gives a party with a vested interest in keeping the media subdued (what government wouldn't want the media not to report embarrassing things?) a lot of power to control it. Granted it seems that it's not as unbalanced as I previously indicated it may have been since Chairman appointed by the Governor exercises both a normal vote and an extra casting vote in the case of a tie. This balances it up although I must still question why the choice was made to give the council a bias towards the government when international practice often allows the media to police themselves with much success. There must always be a certain level of inherent distrust of the government in a democracy, with the media supposed to be the counterbalancing force. While the council has great potential to do good I'd rather have 6 elected by the media and 5 appointed by the government and since the balance would remain the same (the governor's appointee still with the casting vote) I would hope that the government would be receptive to the worries of cynics such as myself and make this slight change so that if Dr. Brown truly does wish to do good with this council it is not hidden behind the suspicion and distrust that his actions so often evoke from many within the community (and rightly so).

The act also seems to give a lot of power to the Minister to decide who the Council has jurisdiction over and who it doesn't. I'd rather see specific definitions that all media outlets could be tested against than this power be given to a politician who could potentially have vested interests in deciding one way or the other.

Finally it is interesting that the Media Council is to be funded purely by the media. It just seems a bit wrong to me, I doubt the profit margins are high (especially considering that a newspaper was forced to close due to costs recently) and if the Government wishes to regulate the media it is only fair that the Government pays for it. If however the council is adapted to consist purely of members of the media then the case could certainly be made for them paying for it but, in its current form it is wrong.