Much of our US hedge fund-owned right-wing news media enthusiastically bash Palestinian sympathizers, and such publications now vastly out-number our few remaining liberal media outlets, which are constantly harassed by groups like HonestReporting Canada, a billionaire-funded organization founded in 2003 to “control the narrative” on Israel. Izzy Asper would be proud.
A covert level of influence peddling lurks just beneath the surface of public discourse in academia, which is subject to what have been called “greenmail” endowments designed to legitimize one side of a debate or the other. It has badly infected my field of study and my role in exposing it may help to explain why my teaching career has been spent mostly outside Canada.