Here is a good example of the outrageous, deeply ignorant, ad homonym, and for the most part completely wrong, criticism of the NDP coming out of Liberal blogs.
Now this stuff could just as easily have been written by a Conservative blogger and when it comes to this kind of ignorant and abusive behavior I really think it is below comment or contempt. (I won't even point out the glaring grammatical error but I will let you find it for yourself). I think the 'trapped in the 1960s' comment is quite amusing, particularly given the slow death that Capitalism is suffering as we speak.
But most significantly this little snippet reminds me of the similarity of many Liberals to the Conservatives not only in content but in style. And that, my friends, is the real rub. It reminds me of someone I know who hates her mother and has slowly become exactly like her. The Liberals are growing ever closer to the Conservative party and it almost seems as they strike out against the NDP as a kind of veiled self-loathing as a result of their own failures both in terms of their image and in terms of substantive political discourse. For years now the Liberals have been telling us that the Conservatives don't play well with others and yet this blog abuse of the NDP has become endemic. The Liberal Party was once an important and vital political institution in Canada but alas, no longer.
As I have said many times, I belong to no party, and will criticize any political policy, strategy, or style with which I disagree. But in the age in which people have been slowly blinded by a huge lie of (so-called) market ideology, there are many cases in which the NDP has been the only party that has stood up and talked about the various failures of this market. And many Liberals have shown incredible hypocrisy by defending universal healthcare in light of the debate in the US while at the same time excoriating the NDP which is the party of universality in this country. So it goes . . .
6 comments:
FWIW, at least you know what you're getting with the Conservatives. Liberals... who knows anymore. Apparently for everyone being a Liberal, even if they can't really think up a good reason for it.
C'mon Kirby, you're picking a statement from a single Liberal blogger and painting the rest of us with it.. just as you did a month ago with that blog statement claiming we were all for foreign aggression or whatever nonsense that was about.
You know darn well the Liberal Party runs from the left of centre to the right of centre, and you're going to get a wide variety of opinions. To paint one Liberal blogger as indicative of the whole of Liberal opinion is not realistic or fair.
Scott
I actually don't think this is unfair because it is very indicative of many Liberal bloggers that are out there. Of course there are some Liberals who don't engage in this kind of ranting and some Liberals who are left of centre. However, the trend seems clear to me and there is an increasing poison in the entire political discourse of the country. If you notice I also mention that the NDP has become too partisan, particularly under Layton. But I also think that the difficult trend of capitalism is something that few are facing up to and that the once great Liberal party which understood a great deal more about the nature of capitalist power is all but gone.
Dear Kirbycairo,
It is a shame that you didn't read past the 5th sentence of my blog. I have a couple of issues with your post:
- You claim to be non-partisan/non-party affiliated but I found your blog on an NDP website.
- I do not speak on behalf of the whole Liberal party.
- Saying I am ignorant is itself ignorant. Especially since the post that quote was in was one where I examined the NDP platform.
- This speech at the NDP convention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osk1ofyiPSM has many attacks against Michael Ignatieff that are ignorant and ill-informed but there was no call for civility from any in the NDP.
I read your blog semi-regularly and I respect/like you as a blogger but this post has a lot of holes and leaps in logic.
Unfortunately Joseph your abusive language which could in no way be considered meaningful political discourse largely negates most of what you say that could be meaningful. The language of this kind of bias makes your potential analysis problematic. I am sure I have also been similarly guilty of this in the past but I try whenever possible not to be. If I had specifically named your blog I would certainly commended you on trying to present some policy material. And perhaps I should have done this anyway. However, I think your language of attack at the beginning, which was so reminiscent of the Tory attacks on the Liberals, made insightful discourse difficult.
I never suggested that you speak for the entire party and that is why I specifically didn't name you in my post. Obviously you don't speak for the party, I was suggesting that there what you said is indicative of a trend of poisonous discourse.
I have never seen my blog on an NDP site in my life. If it is there it is not indicative of any relation between me and the NDP. I have never been a member of the party. I have obvious sympathies but I am not partisan because I have no specific allegiance and I have gone out of my way to criticize Layton's leadership. I realize that some of the blogs that appear on the Liblog site are not actually affiliated Liberals and perhaps I have been guilty of not pointing that out enough.
I agree that some attacks on Ignateiff have been unreasonable. Mostly because they have not concentrated on his most vulnerable area which is his stated support for US foreign policies and its unfortunate correlates in military foolishness and brutality. But I for one came numerous times to Iggy's defense and my Youtube parody of the Conservative adds got a few thousand hits.
I disagree profoundly with much of what Iggy stands for but I don't attack him in any unreasonable way, in large part because his discourse is always reasonable. My attacks on the Conservatives have been much stronger because I believe that they are a genuine threat to democracy, human rights, and the constitution of the country.
I appreciate the comments and continue to try to improve my own language to make the process more meaningful.
Kirby
Good response.
Frankly, I enjoy attacking the NDP and a hero of mine (Cicero) believed ad hominem was a great rhetorical tool. I'm not claiming to be Cicero though.
You are perfectly right to say that I shouldn't ad hominem rant at the NDP.
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