Thank you, Russell Wangersky, for your column today in which you write in part:
Shall we have a list of “acceptable columnists” and a provincial blacklist? Approved opinions and unapproved ones? Dictating who is allowed to speak isn’t reasonable discourse or an honest analysis of what’s being said — whether what’s being said is right or wrong.It's a relief to see that somebody else besides me recognizes the absurdity of some of our local rabid nationalists and government partisans giving CBC the gears for merely interviewing a national pundit with sensible opinions on how this province, and our premier, has been conducting itself.
It’s jingoism, it’s intellectually bankrupt and it’s dangerous.
It's bad enough when the everyday rabid partisan (of any stripe or variety) attacks the very idea of raising an alternate point of view. It's disconcerting and alarming when the highest elected official in the province repeatedly lambasts pundits, not for the points they raise, but for having the gall to raise a contrary point at all.
It sets a disturbing tone and a socially enforced "speaking with one voice" political single-minded monoculture that is stifling and counterproductive.35 years after the end of the Smallwood regime, you think we would have learned our lesson.
Apparently not.
No comments:
Post a Comment