the Globe & Mail ... pandering to illiberal elements in Canadian society, yet again
E LaMont Gregory MSc Oxon
... blatant sophistry
The author, Ian Brown, the title: 'They came. They idled. They left. What have convoy protesters been doing since they went home?' The news outlet, the Globe and Mail. The date, 4 June 2022.
In response to the overarching question as to why the Globe and Mail would seek to add to the current climate of extreme political division and political violence, the straightforward answer to that question is that that is who and what, in fact, the Globe and Mail is.
As the Canadian, now US media newsreader, Ali Velshi of MSNBC, puts it, 'if you ain't white, and if you ain't Christian ... '
Well, the Globe and Mail is speaking to, and for ostensibly, those who see themselves, like the Globe & Mail itself, as white and Christian, especially of the Protestant ilk, whose sacrosanct culture, and all the Old World evils entailed therein, is being progressively eroded, diminished, and in fact, wiped clean from the face of the earth.
And to drive the sense of urgency and panic, we have soaring gas prices and the threat of cruel inflation, which the likes of the Globe and Mail and their right-wing Conservative cohorts, blame on the policies of a Liberal Canadian government, and a Democrat government in the United States, ad hominem Trudeau and Biden. Simplistic answers to not so simplistic real world events.
When in factual reality, the rise in gas prices is based on the speculation within the stock and commodities markets that there may be oil shortages in the future, while at this moment in time, there are no shortages of oil, whatsoever. The increase in prices, generally, can largely be explain by old fashioned greed.
It must be considered that the stock and commodities markets began in the rumor-filled pubs of London, and the fruit has not fallen far from the tree, the rootless tree that is the very foundation of the stock and the commodity markets.
This Globe and Mail story ostensibly is about the experiences of three convoy participants, since their return home from the month long disturbances that descended upon the city Ottawa, and yet, Ian Brown the author describes them as '... the three returning warriors.'
Since the invasion of the Ukraine, one would equate the term warriors with the valiant effort by the Ukrainian people to preserve their right to life, liberty and security against a giant threatening neighbor, and not to the constables who stood by and watched nor the rioters who smash windows, harassed medical workers (our heroes), and hurled all manner of obscenities at members of the racialized communities in Ottawa.
The Ian Brown and Globe and Mail story is blatant sophistry, riddled with false equivalences.
By definition, blatant sophistry, is the use of outwardly sound reasoning in defense of conclusions that are inherently false.
And, in practice suggests that persons, places, events or things are equivalent or similar, when in fact, they differ in ways that are important fundamentally, and is also known as the fallacy of inconsistency.
For example, Ian Brown writes that for the three subjects of his article, '... the convoy is one of the highlights of their lives: their Selma, their Woodstock, their Women's March, their Jan 6.'
Drawing an equivalence between Selma, Woodstock, and the Women's March, and the white-nationalist and supremacists mob that descended on Ottawa is unethical, immoral and false. And because it is unethical, immoral and false, it is a perfectly fitting intellectually dishonest sewer in which the Globe and Mail can ply its trade.
The convoy was from start to finish a display of white-nationalist Conservative politics, including their favorite hate symbols i.e., Confederate flags, fascist Swastikas and Trump banners, on full display.
As shown in the photographs below, those responsible for the disturbances in Ottawa, fully intended to breach the Parliament Building, and enter the seat of Canadian government, with their hate symbols, and parade their Confederate flags, Swastikas and Trump signs inside the chamber.
Drawing an equivalence between Selma, Woodstock, the Women's March, and the white-supremacists mob that descended on Ottawa, as the Globe and Mail does, is unethical, immoral and false, but is characteristic of the sewer in which the Globe & Mail plies its trade.