When Jason Cherniak posted the letter from NDP President Anne McGrath that announced that the NDP intended to start their own official party blogroll, I thought for a bit about whether or not I would join it. In the end I decided that if such a blogroll came to fruition, I would wish them well, but stay where I am. My NDP credentials are impeccable, but I still see a distinction between blogging partisans and partisan blogs, and I have no desire to turn Idealistic Pragmatist into the latter. I feel strongly about reserving the right to criticize the NDP if they do something I disagree with, or praise another party if they do something I think is positive. If I were part of an official party blogroll, the NDP would be more or less forced to police my blog to make sure I stayed on message, and I'd rather spare them the trouble.
Apparently, though, the Cherniak-owned Liblogs doesn't even have to be officially affiliated with the party in order to be subject to that sort of policing. Cherniak has expelled a blogger from Liblogs because a co-blogger posted the NDP's new ads. It makes a girl wonder how far he'd go if the blogroll actually were under the party's thumb: official reprimands for using a shade of red that was a bit too orange?
There's some amusement value in the whole thing, though: over at Accidental Deliberations, the Jurist points out that by his very own standards, Cherniak is being "Stalinistic." Now, that's performance art if I ever saw it!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Caught in the web of Cherniak logic
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12 comments:
Ahhh... but I am of the belief that young Jason has aspirations which reach beyond just running a liberal blog aggregator.
Jason views his involvement as a route to power, either in the Liberal back rooms or in a green chair.
I agree with you, which is why we keep The Galloping Beaver out of political party sponsored operations.
when / if jason gets to the back room, he will be swallowed up.
i'm not hurt by being thrown off liblogs, i'm disappointed that there is that much tunnel vision.
Don't kid yourself: whenever a party starts its own blogroll, membership is by invitation only. You cannot simply go and join their blogroll, oh no.
Take the Green Party blogs, for example (now featured on their newly designed website): those are not existing blogs, but party insiders that were told to start a blog on the GP website.
The NDP blogroll will operate along the same lines - e.g., riding association presidents, etc. ("apparatchiks") with too much time on their hands.
As for all that banning that's been going on recently, all I can say is that it's better to be independent and not to be affiliated with a partisan blogroll, because your readers will take you more seriously.
I was disappointed with the NDP decision. I think you've made the right choice.
As I wrote to audacious at their place, I can hardly believe I'm reading this story. Just when you think you've seen everything, Jason one-ups himself on the absurd-o-metre. Jason scores another own-goal. What will he do next?
Jason's just following in the footsteps of his idols in the Liberal party. He fits the mold well.
I don't agree with Jason's decision, but it seems to me that he may be being unfairly picked on. Wouldn't the Blogging Tories boot someone for not being a partisan Conservative? Wasn't McLelleand talking about booting a bunch of blogs for not being partican enough?
rob, I can't speak about the BT's I don't know enough of them to decide if there is an example of "not partisan enough". (Maybe Olaf?)
Regarding BD's, McLelleand was talking about blogs that are members of multiple political blog rolls, not partisanship.
Cheers,
lance
Hey, Craig Smith (ferrethouse): your shrink has given you permission to blog in public again?
And I was right: the guy actually left the CPC within a few weeks after that and became quite the left-winger before he stopped blogging altogether.
Olaf's not a BT.
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