A growing number of Cubans are beginning to see through their government's lies. Why don't Canadians?
Canadians have travelled to Cuba as a vacation spot for decades. I doubt most of them ever considered that these excursions have aided its communist government in political and economic terms. CBC News senior reporter Evan Dyer recently pointed out this disturbing fact. “Cuban-Canadian activists say many Canadians are not aware of the extent to…
Stalin never lost his penchant for executing his officers. In the catastrophic early days of the German invasion, he shot eight generals
Adolf Hitler launched the German invasion of the Soviet Union – Operation Barbarossa – in the early hours of June 22, 1941. Initially, it looked like a triumph. The Soviets were caught flatfooted and German troops advanced 480 km into Soviet territory within the first week. It looked like an eastern version of the blitzkrieg…
He bitterly resented his exile to St. Helena, blaming it all on Wellington
A childhood history book included a reproduction of Jacques-Louis David’s famous portrait of Napoleon crossing the Alps. It’s an idealized representation, not a realistic one. Mounted on a rearing Marengo – his grey Arabian stallion – the man who became emperor of the French and conqueror of Europe gives off an invincible vibe. Two recent…
We’ve been taught in the West that democracy is the ideal form of government. But is it?
Looking at the world through the lens of the media, it’s difficult to gain a clear perspective on what type of government works and what doesn’t, who’s a good leader and who’s bad, and where people are happy and where they’re not. We’ve been taught in the West that democracy is the ideal form of…
Our 21st-century reliance on tech giants to supply us with information has resulted in fake news, clickbait and polarized societies
It’s not news to say that our consumption of media has changed dramatically in the 21st century. Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and look objectively at the impact of these changes and begin thinking about how our media can be improved. For most of the 20th century, the media was controlled by…
International power politics employed by the likes of Russia have resulted in many countries looking for new energy sources
By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre Russia cut off the natural gas supply to Ukraine in mid-winter 2009, ostensibly over a pricing dispute. It was a reminder that energy can be used as an economic and political weapon by autocratic regimes – in this instance, Vladimir Putin’s Russia. We have more recent…
In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council (essentially the cabinet of Hong Kong’s government), defended the Chinese Communist Party’s attack on freedom in Hong Kong. In an apparent attempt to bolster her argument, she noted Hong Kong’s top rating in the Economic Freedom of the…
When a leader suggests he will subvert the democratic process, voters have recourse. We’ve seen it in the Philippines and elsewhere
An apocryphal story circulated in the Philippines in the early 1980s of a dinner party conversation between President Ferdinand Marcos and Catholic Bishop Jaime Sin. Marcos reportedly said, “I really admire those Americans. They know the results of their presidential elections the day of the election.” In response, Sin reportedly said, “Well how about us…
What message do we send dictators and the people who live under their tyranny if we don’t have the courage to live up to our own ideals?
It’s very rare to hear Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson and scholar Noam Chomsky agree on anything but a largely underreported topic brings both ends of the political spectrum together: the Julian Assange affair. In a recent interview, Carlson’s guest Glenn Greenwald pointed out that efforts to silence Assange go back to the administration of…
The Communists have issued arrest warrants for six pro-democracy advocates living outside Hong Kong
In a little noted move, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) flexed its imperial muscle – criminalizing criticism of it anywhere on the planet – by issuing an arrest warrant for U.S. citizen Samuel Chu, a pro-democracy advocate for Hong Kong. In fact, by publishing this op-ed, this media outlet and I are breaking CCP laws…