6:22 PM A: you know these cbc budget cuts?

I don't care.

B: no?
A: no...

and it's not difficult to explain

6:23 PM I'm really sorry that a lot of people are out going to be out of work, particularly in jurisdictions like the maritimes that have small newsrooms as it is

but when I looked at the cuts

they're still keeping stuff like "wild roses" and "the border"

and

6:24 PM basically

B: yeah,

the cbc is going commercial

of course

that's what i hate

A: maintaining the directive of competing with private networks

B: but i just don't want them to cut

A: which is not the cbc

B: radio 3

and shit like that

which is being considered

A: I bet it is

because the cbc is not what it was

it's not cbc anymore

6:25 PM B: well,

on the radio it is...

largely

it's the radio side of things

that i'm more concerned about

A: I really think people who say it's the jewel of canada are just being nostalgic

well, I don't know if you remember

but back in september

they took radio two

6:26 PM from an exclusively classical and jazz station

to something to compete with private networks

and when they do so

they're no providing the content we believe, out of habit, that they providing

ie

B: yeah

well

nothing is the same

A: unique, intelligent, and nationally-reflective

B: as it used to be

canada is not

nothing is

6:27 PM but i will

involve myself in the occasional

symbolic gesture

which allows my voice to be heard in some small way

to symbolize

my discontent

A: such as?

B: such as complaining about cbc budget cuts

6:28 PM i know very well that the cbc is not what it used to be

they have fucking wheel of fortune

on tv now

but my bottom line is that

A: (like, clearly, the cuts are happening in the wrong places. but they're being used to supplement the same shit. the cbc has to change. it has nothing to do with the current government; this has been unfolding for years)

yeah, exactly

6:29 PM B: what is that?

(_______ ) ?

A: hmm? like a turn down commericial road?

B: no, i meant

6:30 PM why did you write that in brackets?

A: because it felt like an afterthought

B: but man, it DOES have something to do with the current governement

just as it did the liberals

and mulroney before

it has to do with certain fundamental

or what once were

canadian values

6:31 PM which cannot be sustained under economically neo-conservative governments

decades of cuts in every sector

lead to depletion in cultural

arenas

in canada

and man....

cbc radio three has been

6:32 PM AN AMAZING

way for independent canadian artists to be exposed

anyways...

i'm not gonna scream about it

i know that the cbc is fucked

but it is still upsetting to me

6:33 PM A: yeah, well it is upsetting

I would listen to radio two day-in

and now I turn it off every day at 3pm

before buck 65 pollutes my living space

6:34 PM but I'm not sure I'm with you on the connection between eroding values and conversative trends

6:35 PM the cbc has a tendency to hire outside leadership

they want to make a profit

6:36 PM I don't think you could say that new the bbc has thrived when they're governments have necessary taken write turns in the past decade (think "new labour")

they survive because of different funding

and a commitment to original content

6:37 PM the cbc seems to want to take ANYTHING and put a made in canada stamp on it

6:38 PM the fact is, the incursion of US network programming shouldn't affect the orgnaization, because poeple should be able to take refuge there

instead they've tried to compete

and they lost.

and maybe, at rock bottom, they'll sort this out

6:39 PM B: yeah well, this is exactly what i wish wasn't happening

A: the fucking heritage minister said as much

B: obviously

you are suggesting

A: well, not that, but that a better system could be implemented on another model

B: no shit

6:40 PM anyways, i think that there are things worth salvaging even in the recent years of the cbc

which haven't been

like the show 'play'

like the different documentary programs on newsworld

6:41 PM most of which just show commercial garbage now

i mean,

obviously i know that the network is going to go in the direction its going to go in, anyways

because the execs

don't care

about preserving those things

have been unique about the cbc

but the reason, one might say,

6:42 PM that the cuts could be protested

has to do with the fact that the harper gov't

is bailing out canwest

etc

and the fact that we have a government which is willing to do that and not help the cbc

6:43 PM suggests the reality of a political environment which supports networks which draw their audience

from the mainstream and commercial

6:44 PM a political environment in which it makes sense for the cbc to become more commercial and lame and stupid because that seems to be the direction in which the mainstream audience wishes to go

and which therefore the body politic

will defend

in the name of being populistic

A: that's interesting

6:45 PM I would have said that it follows

B: populism kills democracy

period

A: that in the desire t promote competition

B: tyranny of the majority

A: they woudl do so

would do so

you know

6:46 PM I sometimes think that "canadian values" are defined by intellegentsia

and sometimes that they belong only to independent communities

6:47 PM B: yes, well,

A: and it leads me to think that

in some cases

B: i honestly think that this is a just reality...

for canadian values to stem from an elite class...

because this class of 'elites'

A: the people who incubate these values with their lives are not considered canadians in their values and consumption habits

B: provide the only opportunity for the defending of

minority opinion

6:48 PM which is the most interesting and vibrant source of cultural strength

in this country at least

almost every truly democratic political act, in my opinion, involved forsightedness...

in the sense that, for example,

6:49 PM years ago the majority of canadians would not have been in favour of a woman's right to choose

it was an ELITE opinion

held by those who had it

A: right

B: but in order to protect the rights of a minority

and to allow canada to maintain its reality

6:50 PM as a (at least in terms of legalities and human rights)

progressive nation

there needs to be an elite class

of individuals

who are able to fight for the rights of marginalized canadians

6:51 PM and take political action that is not in the least populistic

avoiding a tyranny of the majority

and, for example,

the idea that senators should be elected is trite...

6:52 PM senators should be there to represent the rights of canadians whos rights may otherwise fall to the wayside in light of the strength of the majority

and if canadians elected senators

they would be representing the majority of canadians

6:53 PM and therefore not fulfilling their obligation to defend the charter and use it to help disadvantaged canadians

so, for example,

6:54 PM pierre trudeau was certainly an intellectual elitist.... he was not an average canadian. he came from a position of privilege and used that position to open the country to a kind of (potential, not actualized) diversity....

and...

point being....

YES, canadian culture at its best

comes from an elite group of people

6:55 PM and this is how an independence in canadian thought can be preserved

and also how the rights of less privileged canadians can be defended

and the vital existence of our cultural institutions

A: it at least is constituted by an elite

6:56 PM B: of which the cbc has traditionally been one of those institutions..

i mean, really..

A: or, in some instances, a creative class

B: there most certainly is a connection between

A: this is nuance

B: the harper gov't

and the state of the cbc

A: and cultural erosion, yes

B: the cbc does not function in a vacume

A: but I think the cbc's problems are insidious

6:57 PM you can't liken it to

as I heard today

the closure of the museum of contemporary photography in ottawa

or even the fabled national portrait gallery which harper wanted to build in calgary or, apparently, not build at all

6:58 PM B: obviously the cbc are doing most of this to themselves,

yes,

but what i mean is

6:59 PM that if the elite class of culture-bearing canadians had not been forced to the sidelines by decades of cultural erosion... the cbc would not be justified in ruining what it used to be, in defaming its own spirit

7:00 PM and no, i don't think that it's the beacon of canadian culture or anything

or that it ever has been

but i mean

look at cbc archives

on the website

and the extent to which there used to be such a vastly more discernable canadian culture

7:01 PM which the cbc was on the pulse of

i lament the cuts not because i think that the cbc is doing a good job and shouldn't have to do this

i lament the cuts because the are indicative of an outward reality

7:02 PM A: indeed

above all

B: yes

A: the cbc

was

7:03 PM that unifying culture element

that maintain an edge of intelligence

you could argue

that because canadian culture is necessarily a feeble idea

7:04 PM a weakened cbc is a weakened canada

7:05 PM B: yes, we have lost our sense of order....

7:06 PM the sense that we were a more civilized and intellectual and ordered society than those worshipers of 'freedom,' the americans

our conservatism

and our socialism,

in days of old

gave canada its unifying strength, i do think

7:07 PM but now conservatism is modern and american

and a social democrat in canada

is the equilvalent of a liberal democrat

from the states

man, i'm such a weiner