THE CBC HAS GONE OVER TO THE DARK SIDE: SO IT'S TIME REACH INTO OUR WALLETS AND MAKE CONTRIBUTIONS TO RABBLE.CA AND STRAIGHTGOODS.CA

Sometime over the past decade or two the CBC lost its standing as the people's network, the place where Canadians could turn on television or radio for an interpretation of their country and the world through a Canadian lens that was often a progressive lens. The CBC now feels the way a public sector corporation does as it is being prepared by its management for privatization, which for CBC television at least, will be its fate if the Harper government wins a majority in the next election.

Managers of publicly owed corporations have always made a killing in the transition to private ownership. Those who do a good job shedding labour, thereby appearing to raise productivity usually at the cost of lower quality, can expect to be hired on with a much fatter pay packet as the first managers of the new private company. Whether it's a railway, an airline, a water utility, a telephone company, or a petroleum company, in Canada and in Britain, the experience has been that the new shareholders do brilliantly, while the old owners, also known as the citizenry, get hosed. The same will be true if CBC Television goes on the block.

Since the programming results are much the same, it's hard to know whether the executive producers of news and public affairs shows such as the National or Politics, are trying to inoculate the CBC against privatization or to prepare for it,. The other night I sat through another double-double of the much touted At Issue Panel followed by the wit and wisdom of Rex Murphy.

The regulars on the At Issue Panel range ideologically from the near to the hard right, from Harper apologists to right-wing ideologues, from Chantal Hebert, through Allan Gregg to Andrew Coyne. From time to time, when the need is felt for even more right-wing muscle, Don Martin, from the Asper Empire papers, or David Bercuson, a historian at the University of Calgary, who never encountered a war he didn't want to fight, are welcomed to the set. (Of course, if I want programming with greater balance, I can always tune in Wolf Blitzer at CNN's Situation Room.)

Perhaps the producers at the National would make the case in their defence that we live in a post-ideological age in which differences between right and left are out of date. Therefore, who needs anything as old-fashioned as balance? This right-wing clunker of an argument, of course, is nothing more than the insistence that we now live in a world in which all the basic socio-economic questions have been settled leaving only personalities, scandal and political tactics to be gossiped about. Might I suggest they rename this item, the Post Issue Panel.

Then comes the chaser---Rex Murphy, whose verbal acrobatics apparently make him the appropriate and sole mortal privileged to present his personal and dependably right-wing viewpoint night after night. Back in the days when Earl Cameron hosted the National----you have to be of a certain age to remember him---viewpoints were presented by many individuals, with diverse outlooks. Admittedly some of them didn't know how to look into a camera with Rex Murphy's angry stare, presumably an argument for dispensing with other voices.

But all is not lost. Every afternoon, those who desire a dish of politics can tune into Don Newman's show. The warhorses---here partisan balance is observed---are lined up to explain the daily tactics of their parties in Question Period, Parliamentary Committees and on Votes of Confidence. Whenever a guest inadvertently says something that resembles an idea, Newman gavels the offender back to the trivia of back room game playing. The guests who are not party hacks opine in conventional ways about the economy or the state of the world.

All that is genuinely political, having to do with alternative visions of the state and society, is expunged from the broadcast, whose motto should be: Where The Spin Never Stops.

In its day, the CBC was a stunning Canadian creation. It opened a Canadian dialog that made it possible for the people of a vast country, living in the shadow of American media, to learn about each other, to critically examine ideas on a vast range of subjects, and to see the wider world through eyes that were non-American.

The CBC helped offset the predominantly right-wing bias of Canadian newspapers. The extreme concentration of newspaper ownership in this country and the ever greater domination of the printed page by the political right---I love the right-wing line about the liberal bias of the media---poses a direct and serious threat to Canadian democracy.

We need to face reality. Serious political discussion is almost never encountered on the CBC today. While the CBC may return one day from the dark side, we urgently need to contribute to the creation of progressive media. Two of the best voices, in my view, are rabble.ca and straightgoods.ca. Let me urge you, right now, to log onto one or both of these sites to take out memberships or make donations.