A quick salute to Arjun for his terrific photo album from the BC NDP rally a few days ago in Kamloops.
And just as big a salute to the folks at Flickr, who are quickly revolutionizing the way people share pictures and experiences.
Category: Politics
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I have met the heir to Robert W. Service…
…and his name is JimBobby. Better analysis of last night’s speeches you won’t find anywhere:
A bunch o’ polyticians was whoopin’ it up in the Ottywa Parliment;
The feller who sits in the speaker’s chair refereein’ the arguments;
Up on the TV, in solo spot, sat Pryminister Fartin’ Martin,
An’ watchin’m sqirm was the opposin’ worms, their rebuttals about t’ be startin’…Go. Read. Enjoy.
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When to swing at wild pitches
Previously on One Damn Thing:
An earlier post on how best to respond to the Right’s weirder rants has sparked two very thoughtful replies by, not coincidentally, two very thoughtful bloggers.
I’d asked:
One goal of partisan communications is to control the topic of the conversation. And right now, the conversation is entirely about Frum‚Äôs comments. What‚Äôs more, it pushes progressives into the uncomfortable and ill-fitting role of defenders of the status quo‚Ķ which we actually feel needs some serious changes. […] Just how do you deal with the Ann Coulters and David Frums of the world, without handing over the keys to the debate?
Declan at Crawl Across the Ocean writes:
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Darren Barefoot hates us, and maybe with good reason
As part of our ongoing series on reflection and sweet reason, and why so many bloggers hear those words and flee in the opposite direction, here’s a pointer to Darren Barefoot’s I Hate 99% of All Political Blogs:
The disease Polariza Americanus grew out of the American Mid-West in 2004. It’s now become a pandemic, infecting every corner of the globe.It affects normally rational people, turning them into radicals who believe anyone who thinks differently is a gibbering idiot.
The main symptom of this ailment is red-hot hate. On both sides of the political spectrum, it kills any reasonable debate, ensures that bloggers only speak to the choir and renders the writer as the Glowing Light of Truth. You can often identify these blogs by the ridiculous array of badges, buttons and banners espousing their viewpoints.
He has a good point. But I’m not sure U.S. blogging culture is completely to blame. (I’d also be less than honest if I said I thought that progressive bloggers were just as guilty as the more reactionary folks — some are, but many people come philosophically to the left because of an openness to other points of view and a tendency to place issues into broader contexts. But that’s a post for another time.)
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Giving David Frum hell without giving him the agenda
David Frum’s recent bizarre anti-Canada screed in the New York Times sparked an understandably vituperative reaction from many of the bloggers I read. Gazeteer takes a few well-aimed whacks; Koby is a little more temperate if no less passionate.
The most scorching comment comes from timmy the G at Voice in the Wilderness.
You can be a conservative and honestly feel this country is on the wrong track. Fair enough. Pursue that political agenda through the available avenues and you have my respect, if not my agreement.
But Frum and others of his ilk seek to vilify Canada simply because we choose to do things differently than the Untied States. Never mind that the way we do things has allowed a small population in a vast frozen land to build a quality of life that is the envy of much of the world. This good life does not conform to right wing ideology and therefore must be torn down, even if they have to construct ridiculous and patently false arguments to do it.
Very nicely said.
And yet.
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Blogs of Steele!
Graham Steele, the New Democrat MLA for Halifax Fairview, is one of the few Canadian politicians to have their own blog. (Staff-written embarassments like Paul Martin’s late — in every sense of the word — unlamented entry into the field need not apply.)
It’s early going, but already he seems to have found a distinctive writing voice. And as a bit of a procedure geek manqu?©, I’m always happy to see this sort of stuff:
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Atoms vs. molecules, nodes vs. networks: where is progressive activism going?
Here’s an account of a conference of American left-wing activists. There are many telling passages, but this one hit home the hardest:
There were leaders, all of them older, of extremely prominent liberal interest groups. We’re talking labor, environmental, economic justice, things like that. And some of them were genuinely awesome.
But there was a large contingent of them that were obsessed with one thing — their pet issue. It was about them, them, them. Why wasn’t their issue being addressed? Did they have to stay in some meeting if their issue wasn’t being discussed? Etc.
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Dog whistle politics
Here’s a great little term I’d never heard before, courtesy of the Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary:
dog whistle politics n. a concealed, coded, or unstated idea, usually divisive or politically dangerous, nevertheless understood by the intended voters. Also dog whistle issue.
In a particular piece of serendipity, I came across it at roughly the same time as I found this post by Koby mentioning a few of the more charming things some Canadian politicians on the right have had to say about immigration over the years.
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Panderhandling
Just read Ian King’s Ballotbox Bulldog column this week in Terminal City, where he modest-proposals Lorne Mayencourt’s Safe Streets Act:
A new breed of panhandler has cropped up, and they have no respect for the law, especially the Safe Streets Act. These panners stroll the streets in two-and three-piece suits and business attire, soliciting passers-by as if it were their right to do so.
Sometimes it’s a well-meaning “Buddy, can you spare a vote?” Other times, these new-school panners insist on giving us their whole life story explaining why they’re out begging.
(Been there, done that. Carleton-Gloucester, 1988. The carnage was terrible. The wounds still ache when the weather changes.)
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How not to handle a news conference
Pop quiz: you have to do a news conference where you have damn-all in the way of actual news to announce. The media’s already prickly, and liable to turn on you.
Do you:
a) repeat your message over and over, making it the only clip reporters are likely to get from you, and hope that clip combined with the pictures will carry the day;
b) tell your aides that you won’t do the event without something newsworthy to say; or
c) lash out in a condescending display of ill-temper and, dare I say it, desperation?
If you chose option c), you may have a very brief future as a Liberal MLA. Via Rick Barnes, this story (From the Heartlands: Kelowna MLA’s tried to hoodwink the media) should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone facing a less-than-hospitable scrum.
Rick links to some astonishing video footage (Windows Media format) of the news conference. It’s astonishing… especially given the time and (your) money the Liberals have spent on stage-managing these events.
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Tools (and I mean that in the nicest possible way)
Want to get a refreshing perspective on
GomermaniaAdScamGate-o-Ramathe recent unpleasantness?One of the few American left-o’-Ghengis bloggers to take notice of the whole thing is Rivka at Respectful of Otters.
She demolishes much of the right-wing blogosphere’s smug triumphalism on freedom of speech, and then makes one very interesting suggestion:
Honestly, although the right-wing blogosphere seems to see this story as one more example of mighty blogs triumphing over corrupt mainstream institutions, from my cynical viewpoint it looks a lot more like U.S. conservative bloggers were used, via Captain Ed’s “Deep Throat,” to further the political agenda of the Canadian Conservative Party. What made a bunch of American conservatives – including Michelle Malkin , for Lord’s sake – sudden experts on Canadian politics? I suspect that they didn’t just get fed Brault’s testimony – they got fed background and interpretation as well. In many cases, their ignorance of Canadian politics (for example, on the exact nature of the publication ban) served Conservative interests much better than the facts would have. All I’m saying is: both the ban and its violation by Americans have worked out very conveniently indeed for the Conservative Party.
Maybe. But right-wing bloggers in the U.S. rarely let the facts stand in the way of a good mugging at the best of times. Since the Liberal Party is associated in their minds with keeping Canada out of the Iraq War, same-sex marriage, one Bush-doll-stomping MP and liberalized pot laws — not to mention that terrifying party name “Liberal” — conservative bloggers were already predisposed to happily whacking Martin’s government around.
Still, it’s a juicy possibility…
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Metaphor flood overwhelms Ottawa
It’s been a good week for the kind of sound bite that makes you spray your orange juice all over your Weetabix during the morning news.
You’ll remember this gem from Paul Martin spokesperson Scott Reid:
“Paul Martin is the wire brush that will scrub clean this stain on Canadian politics.”
Now it’s David Kilgour’s turn:
He said voters now see the Liberal Party as “looking on the public trust as a vulture looks on a dying calf”
Hey – maybe we can fend off the vultures by waving our wire brush at them.