Parties and the People

In a quite frankly bizarre turn of events the blogger "Buckdog" has been threatened with legal action by the Green Party because he posted the clip of Elizabeth May possibly calling Canadians "stupid". I really don't need to point out the sheer hypocrisy of attempting such a course of action the day after you have portrayed yourselves as victoriously fighting for free speech but this only emphasises the relevance of my previous post. People should think and think again before they send off e-mails that are ultimately detrimental to their party.

This action also highlights an increasing trend within politics. I'm tempted to call it the "Palinization" of the parties. They no longer view the media (and I include bloggers in that) as having the right to challenge and criticise. They view the media as being a conduit between them and the voters. They produce a political ad and expect the TV stations to run it. They hold a rally and expect it to be on the nightly news. The disturbingly sad truth of course is that they have been right in their expectations. Politicians are more and more allowed to call the shots about when and how they are quizzed. The debates fiasco is a prime example of a situation where a principled media would have said "these are the rules and it's your choice if you wish to appear" but instead we get the leaders of the parties hammering out backroom deals.

The Green party tried to portray themselves as being apart from this kind of shabbiness yet clearly they are not.If they wanted to take take issue with the clip that Buckdog posted then they should explain why, and not resort to the bully-boy tactics of the multi-national corporations that they seemingly abhor.