I generally like Rabble -- they publish interesting, progressive, Canadian content, and link to interesting international stuff.
But what in the world are they doing promoting this and this, both pieces of soft-nationalist tripe that Canadian liberals and progressives do not need to be submerging themselves in. We do not need our alt/indy media to be reinforcing Canadian liberal "we are not American" smugness, or gloating about how many comedians who are successful in the U.S. came from Canada, or how exquisitely balanced our budget is. We need to be brutally honest about the absolute complicity of the Canadian state and broader political economy in oppressions both at home and abroad.
Here are a couple of older posts (1, 2) that try and puncture specific aspects of the politically dangerous smugness that tends to come with liberal and left nationalism in the Canadian context.
Argh.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
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2 comments:
I share your argh, but I think it's realistic to say that "The Left" in Canada is largely left-liberal and center/right soc-dem. And Rabble, though it has its radicals in Babble, tends strongly to cater to that POV.
Todd
True enough...perhaps I am being unfair to what Rabble is and what it is designed to do. And they do give space, from time to time, to material that challenges these flavours of nationalism in one way or another. But it is still disheartening to see indications that the editors are not more aware of the political importance of engaging folks with that POV while still challenging it, rather than blatantly encouraging it.
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