Note to @FOXSports announcers. Francisco Lindor was never a Cleveland Guardian. He was a Cleveland Indian until white liberals– not Indians– decided it was a racist name.

With Cleveland beating the Detroit Tigers on Saturday in Gm. 5 of the ALDS, Guardians jars throughout baseball will be overflowing. That’s because most baseball media and fans will reflexively call the team the Indians instead of the pre-fab name they adopted in 2021. Each time they have to throw a quarter in the jar.

Little wonder for the persistence, as the Indians nickname was around since 1911, allegedly honouring player Louis Soxalexis who was a big deal for a time in Cleveland baseball. Opinions vary, except that sometime after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 it became fashionable in liberal circles to take scalps deemed offensive. Did we say scalps? Oops. Put a quarter in the jar.

In Obama’s rush of enthusiasm for defining the entire culture as a racial struggle session pudding heads like Bob Costas decided that natives names on teams in every sport had to go. Those of a tendentious nature also insisted the use of Indian symbols on helmets or jerseys is a case of cultural appropriation. At the head of the shit list was Cleveland Indians.

Agitation begun in college culture-studies classes spread like wildfire (oops, another quarter) through the Woke media until the club relented in 2021, choosing the anodyne nickname Guardians having to do with a statue on a bridge and Bob Hope’s father. Don’t ask.

It was the same for the NFL Washington Redskins who were relentlessly shamed about their team’s nickname, even though the team’s sober indianhead logo was respectful of a native man, drawn by a native man , approved by natives councils and was a symbol of pride in much of the community. After years of resistance the team name was changed first to Washington Football Club and then to the (gack) Commanders.

There were dozens of other long-established team names that took an arrow (Oops, this is getting expensive). In Canada the apogee of political correctness was the campaign by Edmonton politicians to change the name of the CFL team away from Eskimos. Because blubber eaters, condescension etc. (Eskimos is the chosen name for American natives in Alaska.) In a move that offended everyone but city councillors the club is now called the Elks. EE, get it? In a stroke of kismet the team has been hot garbage on the field ever since.

As we wrote first in 2016: It would seem from reading media accounts that a vast movement of native Americans and Canadians is underway. Yet, what’s unique about this struggle is the almost total indifference for these virtuous pearl clutchers among the people most affected by the alleged abuse. Polling consistently demonstrates that, as tempests go, this one is predominantly hot air.

A 2004 poll showed that 90 percent of those native Americans polled did not object to the Redskins nickname. A 2016 Washington Post poll which duplicated the poll question asked in 2004, produced an identical result. In another WaPo survey of native Americans “pride” was the word most associated with the team’s allegedly hateful name.

The general public was not gripped by the Redskins debate either. As DC journalist George Will reports, “A 2013 AP-GfK poll showed that 79 percent of Americans of all ethnicities opposed changing it, and just 18 percent of ‘nonwhite football fans’ favored changing it.” National public opinion polls find that a majority of the general public support the team’s continued use of the name, ranging from 60 to 83 percent in recent years.

Those white liberal protesters who object to the nicknames are no doubt sincere about their feelings, but as crusades go this one is several demonstrators shy of the Selma march of 1964. (Which never stops progressives seeking to educate the “deplorables” in American culture.) Sure enough, Canadian native activist Douglas Cardinal thought it was time to get his name in the media again. But his belated complaint was briskly shut down by a judge.

To be sure, there is a range of native symbols caught up in this debate. The Indians name, allegedly to honor native player Louis Soxalexis who played for Cleveland in the first decade of the twentieth century, might be fairly benign. The Cleveland caricature logo, Chief Wahoo, is offensive on just about every level. 

The NHL Chicago Blackhawks name and logo, by comparison, seem to be respectful of the culture. The name was originally to honour not the native tribe itself but a branch of the U.S. military who used the nickname during WW I. In fact, natives often wear the Blackhawks logo themselves as cultural symbols. Ditto for the Braves’ name— although the fans’ war chant owes more to Hollywood than native culture. 

Because the Redskins play in the political fever swamp of Washington D.C. they have naturally received the most attention from activists and from media slavishly following the latest glittering progressive/ left object. Which allows people such as native activist Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo, to proclaim, without facts, that “the majority of Native American people who have spoken out on this” want the name Redskins banned. And not get laughed into the Potomac. (BTW: The high school football team at Miss Blackhorse’s reservation New Mexico? The Redskins.)

Other zealots prefer a more hands-on approach to convincing natives how badly they’re served by these nicknames.  Folks such as Bob Costas are free to use their platforms to make their feelings known. Which is their right. But it doesn’t mean that they’re aided by the facts. The media have leapt in feet-first to promote the right to First Amendment rights while ignoring data.

All of which begs the question: If so many of those affected by this supposed insult don’t see it as an insult… then who is the progressive culture industry doing it for?  I’ll take your answer off-air.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

News Item: A senior government official told CBC News the government is in the final stages of drafting “major legislative and regulatory changes” to better position CBC for the future as it grapples with seismic developments in the news and broadcasting space.

Having shovelled billions into the maw of CBC for almost a decade to keep its creaky mandate going amid “seismic developments” it seems an odd decision for the Liberals to now re-define that same mandate. With less than a year left till an election (it could be a lot less) in a bureaucracy where time is measured in decades (unless it’s climate) the idea of getting anything this profound done before Pierre Poilievre gets his hands on the Corp is risible.

Poilievre has made clear his intentions to stop the billion-dollar gravy train to CBC. Clearly the rethink is a political feint to assuage its aging progressive base that remembers the good old days of Peter Gzowski and Don Harron. Sure, the model is broken, but if we call Poilievre a mini-Trump and demagogue Elon Musk often enough (and have our paid scribblers repeat the charge) can we turn this scow around in time to save our hides? Desperate times call for disparate measures.

So what is going on here? Has Team Trudeau just realized that the gig is up for the CBC’s traditional media structure? Do the threats about jailing purveyors of alternate narratives indicate they’re doubling down for their pals in big Telcos? In dumping CEO Catherine Tait have they gotten the message that global communications giants don’t give a flip about the Liberals’ protectionist plans?

Example: Netflix is pulling its financial support of programs in the Canadian film and TV sector due to the new Online Streaming Act, Trudeau’s hapless attempt to make foreigners prop up Canada’s failing  print and TV production. Out of sight, out of mind. Spotify also announced it was increasing prices in Canada— because of you-know-what.

While French-language Radio Canada might still have a cultural argument in Quebec to make for its continued existence, no such imperative faces English CBC services anymore. The private production side and the digital world are perfectly capable of finding the next Schitt’s Creek or Pottery Challenge without air cover from the feds. So the Libs survival strategy now is attack, attack, attack.

Perhaps if enough captive media slappies demonize Poilievre (“The Conservative leader’s rhetoric seems tailored for a media climate that rewards maximum drama” whines CBC) protectionist intimidation could halt the growth of internet opposition.. Likely not. As blogger Mike Benz notes, “The best way to start the story of Internet censorship is with the story of Internet freedom.”

Will pumping CBC’s tires/ banning internet critics actually stem the tide? CBC’s national news division is compromised beyond recognition. In concert with the huge private telecommunications firms they’ve also hollowed out local/ regional economies, leaving skeleton operations beholden to head offices in Toronto and Ottawa. And now that independent podcasts and sites emerging since the 1991 privatization of the the internet are filling these gaps Trudeau thinks it’s time to re-think CBC so it can finish off his antagonizers?

While the precise strategy of Trudeau’s hubris remains opaque, in the United States the issue between old media and new media is now existential. With Elon Musk coming out in favour of Donald Trump and a new coalition with RFK Jr. Hillary Clinton has raised the banner of jailing those whom she believes purvey  “disinformation and misinformation” (translation: things she disagrees with) .

In the past the Grift Queen needed only to make some phone calls to insider media to get her agenda bannered across the major press. Her acolytes would go to the Sunday Morning TV panels to spin her take on affairs. The FBI would cower. Now she’s a remnant of a toppled order. She seems to be saying, why can’t they all be like Kamala Harris and follow my orders?

But new digital media defies her by aligning with Trump. One need only look at the polls indicating that the 18-35 year olds are moving toward Trump to see the demographic peril for the Clinton/ Obama insiders. No wonder the U.S. Defence department and Homeland Security are funnelling millions to prestigious American universities to “study” what can be done about “misinformation” from critics like Trump. Spolier alert: jail time.

Their old order is dying. Even reliable squishes like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg are having second thoughts about Harris. This past Saturday SNL savaged Harris, Biden and Tim Walz in a skit that was unthinkable even six weeks ago. And that pillar of Democratic orthodoxy 60 Minutes broadcast a damning clip with Harris in which host Bill Whittaker asked her tough questions— which she fumbled. (CBS quickly scrambled to bury the clips.)

You’d almost think the Media Party are looking to distance themselves from a Harris train wreck. So Clinton and her shell-shocked allies want arrests and pronto. Indeed Musk confessed this week that should Kamala Harris prevail next month he will probably be in jail in six months from the new administration taking office.

One of the favourite claims of the old media looking to rough up Trump/ Poilievre is the Hitler meme. We are told that they read his book, follow his agendas and want to eliminate their racial enemies. But the more apt comparison of eras is not Germany 1933-45 but revolutionary France in the late eighteenth century.

There, dissolute snobs with a hereditary claim to being obeyed suddenly found themselves outflanked by people they hardly deigned to acknowledge let alone understand. Expecting protection from the trappings of their power they never saw the Reign of Terror till it walked up the stairs of their palaces. The guillotine ended their pleas for privilege.

It may not be that bloody in modern terms. But the last gasp of a dying elite will look a lot like Marie Antoinette clutching her pearls on the way to meet Madame Lafarge.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.