The Globe and Mail and Neo-Liberal condescension

The Globe is about the only thing on the news stands I can read at all now without retching (I live in Calgary remember? My local choices stretch across the wide ideological divide from neo-conservative to paleo-conservative.) and even the Globe is getting my hackles up with it's crass manipulation lately.

Columnist John Ibbotson's favorite rhetorical trick is the false alternative - the only alternative to state of affairs A is straw man alternative B with questionable predicted results C presented as certainties. Gazeteer has more.

Jeffrey Simpson's favorite trick is the unexamined postulate presented as blandly pompous certainty: 'Of course as any sensible person knows, we can't possibly even try to achieve Kyoto without disastrous consequences...' and so on and so forth without ever examining the underlying 'of course'. This despite the oil company CEOs - who can see the writing on the wall, and have to reassure investors - saying that yes, they actually could meet Kyoto targets with minimal adjustment.

Liberal, conservative, it's irrelevant really. Generally speaking the Globe orbits around the center, ranging inconsistently center left on social issues - but on the fiscal front rigidly adhering to neo-liberal certainties and outmoded corporatist modeling already beginning to wither in the harsh light of the 21st century.

It isn't just in the US that the public are out in front and significantly to the left of the elites in government and media.