Thursday, December 07, 2006

Spirited Energy

In todays Winnipeg free press, which I only read out of desperation for something to pass the time, there was an article about Spirited Energy, Manitoba's crappy new slogan and waste of money.

Someone in the NDP, cabinet minister Eric Robinson, is, as per the article, "fed up with racist photos of aboriginals being forwarded by e-mail in Winnipeg and is asking Manitobans to put a stop to them."

"It saddens me,"
Robinson says. "It shows to me racism is alive and thriving in this province." Robinson believes if the community is aware the photos exist, Manitobans will be offended and will not pass them on if they receive them.

Racism eh. Let's look into this more closely.

Eric Robinson is the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Tourism. He is behind the spending of 4 million dollars (reportedly) on this blatant NDP advertising campaign. Of course, it seems to have gone horribly wrong, the only businesses who put any money into it are crown corporations who of course, have their profits taken by the NDP anyways so its a fair trade. An American company was of course, paid for the slogan itself.

Now, the picture in question (which I present to you here) shows 3 people, seemingly native, passed out at a bus stop.


Of course, I fail to see how it is racist. Because they are native? No, that makes it all the more IRONIC, someone is showing how hypocritical the NDP government is to spend 4 million on an innefective branding scheme when the reality of the situation in this city is we have people with far bigger problems than getting re-elected. It's ironic because every time I go downtown I see this sad state of affairs in this city. No, racist is trying to sweep such things under the rug by using labels and issuing false fatwas against people for calling you out, minister of culture, heritage, and tourism, Mr Eric Robinson. Want to talk about culture? How about that recent Pow Wow at the MTS centre. I saw people leaving the event accosted by street people, who after refusing to give them spare change were accused of being white. The ultimate insult, I'm sure. However, a daily inconvenience to Winnipegers and visitors to this city. Bravo on your waste of time, Mr Robinson. Good luck finding the real killers for OJ Simpson while you're at it. So is the spirited energy mock ad racist? I don't think so. Tactless? Maybe. Mean spirited? Sure. But hardly racist when it shows the reality of the situation certain people want to cover up.

The other picture, I hadn't heard of, So I went on a google search to find out. I could not find it. And I'm usually pretty good at finding things. Ah well. I would have posted the image simply to piss Eric Robinson off, if I had found it.

All That said, since when is being racist a crime? I doubt either photo was advocating hatred, so what is Eric Robinson supposed to be threatening in that article?

More from the article:

He has also asked his fellow cabinet ministers to ask staff members in their departments to report to their superiors if they are sent copies of these or any racist photos or e-mails.

He said maybe if that happens "we can track the offenders."

He has also engaged provincial technology support workers for help.
"I passed these on to the proper people here to see what they can do about tracing them," he said.

What is this, communist russia? I'm sure Comrade Eric Robinson wishes it were, but I fail to see what if anything he can do about such things. Although he'd be better off cancelling the whole spirited energy thing, making the drivers licenses actually pretty to look at instead of crappier looking than before, going back to the old buffalo logo that didn't look demonic, and maybe actually promoting culture and heritage in this province instead of trying to shut down peoples right to free speech.

2 comments:

Jamie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

You are 100% right! Eric Robinson has wasted millions of our tax dollars! Fix our roads, improve health care and forget about totally ridiculous slogans, "Friendly Manitoba" was FINE and did not need to be fixed by the comrades. By the way, when I first heard of the "Spirited Energy" slogan, my first thoughts were akin to what was in that picture! Sad, but reality in Winnipeg. This city is getting pretty bad, I am certainly not proud to be part of it, but one just can't pick up and move where ever they want that easily.