March 24, 2003
Anti-war demonstrations were held in Toronto on March 15, as they were around the world. The Toronto peace rally was sponsored in part by the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, a city poverty group. The peace march ended at the Moss Park Armouries, which local poverty groups want to turn into housing for the homeless.
Although both war and the homeless situation can be viewed as being bad, and something that steps should be taken to end, there is no real link between someone in Toronto sleeping on the streets, and the decisions that George W. Bush and the coalition of the willing will make about Saddam Hussein. So why the connection?
It’s easy. Although the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee is capable of getting media coverage, they are assured of doing so if they associate themselves with the anti-war movement that, together with the war against Iraq, rates high media attention. Although the connection between war and homelessness seems tenuous at best, that didn’t stop the media from buying the assumption that the two issues are intertwined.
For example, Toronto’s Citytv, further to the left than the mainstream networks, asked participants what the connection was between homelessness and war. Toronto NDP councillor Olivia Chow stated that Canada budgets $1 billion for defense but a lot less for housing, and that housing is better than war. It seems Olivia is a lot more interested in Canada, and not just Toronto, since hubby Jack Layton became leader of the federal NDP. Chow’s statement was pure nonsensical rhetoric. Who doesn’t agree that building housing is better than war? Does that mean that no nation should spend any money on defense as long as there is some social problem that money could be spent on? It’s difficult to believe that even the NDP would think so. No one believes that war is good-- that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is never necessary. Chow was just trying to string the line that war was connected to homelessness.
Cathy Crowe made an even stranger statement when interviewed by City’s Anne-Marie Green. When asked what the two events had in common, Crowe said that they both involve murder. What a silly answer. Homeless people do die, just as some people die from overwork to be able to pay enough taxes to keep Olivia and her friends in the style to which they are accustomed. Murder? It’s an insult to compare innocent Iraqis who will lose their lives in the war to someone who lives on the streets of Toronto.
Of course, Citytv, let Chow’s and Crowe’s statements go unchallenged. It’s funny, but they never seem to let anything George W. Bush says go unchallenged.
Kudos for Citytv’s Mroczkowski
Following George W. Bush’s "48-hour" speech on March 17, Anne Mroczkowski chaired a discussion on the War with Iraq with conservative pundit Claire Hoy and a young anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-anything American kid, Rich something or other, whom Hoy kept calling "Butch". Rich gave the expected uniformed lefty line about it all being about oil, etc. Whenever he said anything, Hoy, who has considerably more knowledge of history than the kid does, would counter his arguments. A few times, Mroczkowski cut Rich off when he started to babble nonsense and irrelevancies.
There can be no doubt that Mroczkowski, along with her Citytv colleagues, is more sympathetic to the views of the anti-American, anti-war crowd than she is with beliefs of conservatives such as Claire Hoy. But what sets her apart from many other talking heads at City was her attempt to limit the discussion to facts and not babble. Unfortunately, many other of the network’s personalities turn into silent bubblehead dolls whenever someone like Rich appears and spouts nonsense.
Anne Mroczkowski did a good imitation of a journalist--hard to believe it was on Citytv.