Rex Murphy Again: Running With Wolves

The “hook” (as we say in journalism) for Foster’s piece is the new film on early Che Guevera called “The Motorcycle Chronicles”. In order to discredit Guevera, columnist Foster (like Rex Murphy) uses illogical, irrational, coercively emotional tricks and Toxic Right smarm uncontaminated by meaningful fact. Foster’s depiction of Che Guevera’s purpose and the movement of his life is a simple insult. In Cuba, says Foster, the image of Che is used to convey a totalitarian message:”Dead brother is watching you”. The people attending the Toronto film festival showing were “lining up like Cubans yesterday”; and “perhaps [we should have had] a few shots-from-the-future indicating Che’s role in having hundreds of prisoner’s executed, and ruining the Cuban economy”. No one need read on in the Foster fulmination. Readers need only notice the sub-basement level of journalism featured by the National Post. That column is similar to the one I have already referred to (in the Globe and Mail) in which Rex Murphy goes on all-out attack against MP Carolyn Parrish who spoke clearly against Canada’s participation in the U.S. “Missile Shield”. Murphy’s attack, too, is illogical, irrational, sleazy, smarmy, and emotionally coercive. (Globe Aug 28 04 A15) The two columns present shrill, strident, nauseating examples of the decay of journalism in Canada. Both are examples of Toxic Right media owners unleashing their ravening wolves on anything that suggests Canadians may wish to read independent, vital, critically searching material on contemporary events and movements. In a slightly less obvious way, Murphy continues his role as corporate patsy in his column on Conrad Black. Let us compare. Carolyn Parrish, a serious, dedicated Canadian, elected by her constituency to Canada’s Parliament, is treated as a brainless nitwit by Rex Murphy – because she does not support his reactionary position. Murphy also, apparently, disapproves of the behaviour of Conrad Black who is faced with most serious court action alleging abuse of responsibility and fraudulent commercial practice. Murphy, however, examines Black in relation to immortal poetry of playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare (Globe Mon Sept 4 04 A15). Black is also announced as a familiar of Murphy’s who calls him “Conrad”. A buddy gone wrong, sort of… perhaps. That is an astonishing turn-around. From harassing and insulting a decent and (nearly) defenseless woman, Murphy turns to flattering the disgraced powerful. Might we say that is what we expect in contemporary Canadian journalism? Murphy’s bloated language and quotations of truly great poetry portray a false view of humankind in our era. They are used to disguise the difference between Shakespearian tragic heroes and modern corporate pirates. Murphy would have done well to quote from Canadian poets (being modern people themselves) who have seen the Conrad Black type far more clearly than anything Murphy can dredge up from Shakespearian times. In his poem “To a Millionaire” Archibald Lampman considers the posturing and the ambition of people very much like Conrad Black. Of their effect, Lampman writes: “But I/ Think only of the unnumbered broken hearts,/ The hunger and the mortal strife for bread,/ Old age and youth alike mistaught, misfed,/ By want and rags and homelessness made vile,/ The griefs and hates, and all the meaner parts/ That balance thy one grim misbegotten pile.” The great Newfoundland poet E.J. Pratt wrote in “From Stone to Steel” that: “Between the temple and the cave/ The boundary is tissue thin.” Pratt perhaps sees the Conrad Black type as closer to Cave Man than to Tragic Hero. If we shift the perspective in which Conrad Black is considered away from the colourful corporate propaganda used by Rex Murphy, the sham of his column becomes clear and the real Black comes into perspective. Conrad Black has never been a nice man. He has never been comparable to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus or Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Black was – says Murphy – a man of “intelligence and energy”, … “intellectually agile, curious, literate, schooled in history, and not timid in debate”. Let me use an extreme in comparison (since Rex Murphy lives in extremes). Adolf Hitler was all those things and, as well, a gifted painter, a magnetic personality, and a man who could quote huge passages of the philosopher Schopenhauer in ordinary conversation. Conrad Black used all his “gifts” from very early in his life for personal gain, to demonstrate power, to gloat over the stupidity (as he sees it) of general human kind. When he was an M.A. student at Carleton University (decades ago), for instance, he advertised an admission price noon-hour entertainment in one of the large theatres, guaranteeing “nudity”. To the great discredit of students and staff at Carleton, they filled the theatre. When they were all seated (and Conrad Black richer), the houselights dimmed, the curtain parted, a young male streaked naked across the stage, the curtain closed, the houselights brightened. The show was over. Some will say, “What a wonderful joke”. Others will wonder what pleasure can be gained from practicing upon the gullibility, the curiosity, and the foolishness of human kind. The world has always had “con men”. They have always been considered the low-life of society (however rich they become) – for doing the easy thing – for exploiting human gullibility for profit. (Neither Dr. Faustus nor Macbeth is a con-man, whatever else he is.) Some years after that event a woman friend told me she was at a reception attended by Black. At one point there was a plate with a single large strawberry on it set on the groaning refreshment table. The strawberry caught my friend’s eye and she moved towards the table to get it. Seeing her purpose, Black darted ahead of her, scooped up the strawberry, put it in his mouth, and looked at her with a glance of gloating contempt (for no reason). How admirable of him! How smart! What “intelligence and energy”! There is almost no evidence in Conrad Black’s life that he ever wished anyone well, that he admired virtue or that he sought the good, the true, and the beautiful in life. The evidence, alas, is the very opposite, and that may be why Rex Murphy admires “Conrad” so much. What Rex Murphy doesn’t tell his readers is that Conrad Black is one of the forces which has worked to debase Canadian press, media, and journalistic standards. He designed the National Post to be a Toxic Right weapon to fight for greed, the corporations, a wealthy elite, and U.S. standards of media indoctrination. Black savaged the newsroom staff and editorial writers of papers he owned in Canada. He put profit and propaganda near the top of his list of priorities as a newspaper baron. He set up the print and media world in Canada for Leonard Asper and the Canwest Corporation – that they might debase the press and media still further. That makes a person think. Maybe if Canadian press and media had kept to the standards they possessed before the arrival of Black and the Aspers – just maybe Rex Murphy would not be considered qualified to fill all the journalistic roles he fills. In a Canadian world possessing standards of writing requiring tact, taste, principle, and responsibility, maybe Rex Murphy would be considered unqualified. If that’s the case, he owes much to Conrad Black, and he might be drawn to seeing “Conrad” (Lord Black of Doublecross Harbour) as heroic, tragic, and someone in the line of the great tragic heroes of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. For if the Conrad Black world of press and media thinks Rex Murphy is great, then – surely – the Conrad Black world of press and media must be very great indeed – as great as a Shakespeare play in which Conrad Black is as great as a Shakespearian tragic hero.