Right Wing Form Of Commerce – For Shame!

Surely having a press is a need that the citizenry requires in order to have knowledge of current events? Is this something we want to risk having disappear?

As we move deeper into the Internet age, and more and more of the rich are obtaining their news electronically, we’re risking the slow demise of printed news on paper. The Star should stop this trend, by declaring itself a public entity, free to everyone! You know, it’s downright despicable that only the richer among us can afford a subscription to the Toronto Star, while others of us have to scrounge for a few coins every morning, if we’re lucky, to get our revered daily issue of news.

My goodness! That’s just not fair! Is it?

It will save jobs as well.

We should even be applying a new and modern meaning to the term “Free Press.” Why, that’s what modern, civilized, and forward thinking societies do. New meanings are very important. So, really what a ‘free press’ means is that it should be free! It shouldn’t cost us a cent to buy our newspaper every morning.

In fact, our newspaper delivery people should be considered public servants. Only then will we ensure delivery of the newspaper regularly each and every day, and efficiently of course. The present Toronto Star method of distribution is just downright too capitalist, with contractors who aren’t even employees doing the dirty work of The Star.

And those poor delivery folks – being forced to wake up every morning at 3AM to complete the job of their masters – imagine all the time they are giving up with their families! The quality of their lives, being required to wake up at this crazy hour of the day. Ah, if they were public servants, they could do this same job so much better.

And the delivery method they use – having drivers in cars drive around our neighbourhoods, spewing out exhaust every morning, just before we wake up, into our air that we’ll be breathing! Surely a public service could find more efficient and environment friendly means of delivery to us?

With their editorial board writing constantly about how our ‘institutions’ in this country need protection, and more socialism, imagine how happy Toronto Star employees would suddenly become as public servants!

And there are so many other benefits for the common good, as well. We wouldn’t need other newspapers anymore – we’ll have a guaranteed source of it now – imagine all the paper that will be conserved in this new enlightened age. I mean, having two different versions of the same news is just downright ridiculous! For the common good, it would be better to save the paper.

We wouldn’t have to waste time with advertising either. Imagine that! More good paper saved. There would be no need for The Star to rub shoulders with those nasty capitalists and business people any longer. All the column inches every day would certainly add up to a lot of good trees being saved. And that ink – what an environmental mess that stuff makes. But we wouldn’t have to be so concerned any longer.

We also wouldn’t have the blight of newspaper boxes on our streets in the future. Those ugly blue things with screaming headlines that beckon us to use up our last quarters and dimes – money we could be spending towards that litre of milk for our children. Tempting, screaming headlines could be a thing of the past! We’ll no longer need to make choices about which paper we should buy, while looking at the newspaper stands. So much better off for that, we’ll be!

And besides, those big blue boxes on the street are such a nuisance in other ways. They are such tempting targets to our youth, who are unable to become enlightened with The Star’s words of wisdom each day because they can’t afford it, and therefore are angry, and push those boxes onto their sides, causing hazards for pedestrians on sidewalks.

I mean, it’s just plain wrong that the Star is a business, and one that is traded on a stock market to boot! That evil and backwards place where only the greedy and rich get to take part. How in the world can we be guaranteed that the news is independent when it’s controlled by business (oh, what a bad word) types! The news is just too important for that, in this day and age.

If you own stock in Torstar, I say, “Burn your shares! Do the RIGHT thing!” Shame on you for participating in this right wing form of commerce. Getting rich off of those people that have to scrounge in the morning for money to plop into a box on the street because they can’t afford a subscription. How degrading is that? While all those other rich people can watch and see that we can’t afford subscriptions – gosh, they’ll know we’re poor! What a stigma that is!

Don’t you have a heart? Can you not see how this method of business (the word is so repugnant I can hardly type it) is selfish and greedy? We need change, for the common good!

Here’s to the new and better tradition of a Free Press! What an enlightened age we’ll be living in.