Deflect? Not at all. I’ve created a space where one of your favorite topics can receive the attention it so richly deserves. Unfortunately, it does tend to, as you say, “deflect”, especially when introduced repeatedly into threads as a substitute for relevant commentary on the matter at hand. And I KNOW you don’t want that.

So…balance at Stageleft. A key issue of our time. Tell us what you think.

I’m sure it’s going to generate a LOT of interest.

Okay, so if I may synthesize your input so far to facilitate ongoing discussion, your key points appear to be:

- You don’t feel Stageleft is “balanced”.

Have I captured the essence of your analysis so far? Would you like to expand on that before we begin the discussion proper?

Tsk. Now, Vinny, don’t be that way. Here I am giving you a chance to explore one of your Very Favourite Topics - judging by the number of times you raise it in other threads - and you don’t even want to engage? It’s much too soon in the discussion to resort to the Exit Hystrionique.

Come on, now. It’ll be fun. I’ll help you get started.

Do you think that political bloggers should be “balanced”? Or are blogs the expression and exploration of an individual’s views, which of necessity implies a certain degree of imbalance?

No, it’s attempting to be three things simultaneously;

- a satirical and hopefully amusing rebuke to Vinny regarding his unfortunate, reflexive…well, you know, you read the threads;
- a pilot strategy for dealing with persistently off topic posters;
- a bona fide, if somewhat oblique, opportunity to discuss the interesting question of political balance on personal blogs.

Whooee! I figger if yer lookin’ fer balance, you gotta look somewheres other’n boogs. Boogs ain’t s’posed t’ be balanced. It’s called opinion writin’. It’s also called StageLEFT which might be a tiny clue that it ain’t meant t’ be balanced. Try over at http://www.StageMIDDLE.info if yer lookin’ fer boog stories from right, left an’ centre.

JB

I think Vinny is waiting for someone to say “Vinny, you and those like you ARE the balance at Stageleft”, aren’t you Vinny?

“I think Vinny is waiting for someone to say “Vinny, you and those like you ARE the balance at Stageleft”, aren’t you Vinny?”

No, Vinny has used a fairly transparent emergency exit because we were trying to manoeuver him into a substantive discussion. The “This Is All Too Childish For Me And I Will Refrain From Further Discourse” gambit is one I’ve used myself when I need to escape.

I expect commentators on the right (whatever that is) to expose the foibles and follies of the left (whatever that is). That’s their job. Our job here is to do the opposite.

Commentators, bloggers and journalists on the right who write and think with diligence, intelligence and honesty have sometimes changed the way I think. The ones who play rhetorical games just piss me off.

Blogs are not reportage. They are just the response of bloggers to events, addressing those events in light of the political, social and cultural views of the blogger in question.

I don’t expect Peter Rempel or Vinny to provide an even-handed analysis of the evolution of gay rights. I look to them for a deeply conservative analysis. Whether framed as serious commentary or simple mockery, that helps me understand the rational and visceral response to gay issues of a large chunk of the population.

I don’t expect Stageleft or Robert McLelland to provide an even-handed analysis of Stephen Harper. I look to them for a more critical perspective. That becomes an input…one of several…that helps me reshape my model of reality.

No problemo, Arwen. The list of “We Do Not Endorse….” gets longer, the font gets smaller, and karmic balance is preserved.

“Balanced: Ying and Yang…Two sides to a coin…It’s take two to tango…when discussing the Holocaust, make sure you feature the pro-Nazi side as well, etc. etc.” — Ti-Guy, you should visit Nizkor. That’s exactly what Ken McVay does. He shows both the arguments and ‘evidence’ of the holocaust deniers, and then he shows the proof that the holocaust did happen. He even links to the holocaust denial sites so that it can’t be alledged that he is just knocking down straw-men argument.

It’s a powerful tool for battling the propagation of hate-speech against Jewish people and those who want to invalidate the claims of the Holocaust.

Israel is “always” the good guy, the rest are demons.

Of course they are. They are for the most part, white, democratic and believe in God. Palestinians and Hezbollah are just blood thirsty savages, who hate Israel because they are anti-semitic. No legitimate grievances whatsoever.

Actually, I’m going to follow Vinny, for a second, and do a little analysis of why I’d be more likely to criticize Israel than Hezbollah.

My feeling, when writing about the Middle East, is that those who I criticize are those I identify with. To get all biblical like, it’s trying to wrest the beam out of mine own eye.

In fact, I’m more likely to criticize Harper and Bush than Israel, and more likely to criticize Israel than Iran - even though I think Iran is baaatshitt craaazy - and I’m more likely to criticize Iran as a whole than Hezbollah, and I’m more likely to criticize Hezbollah than Tim McVeigh. Why? Because I criticize that which I feel I, and those with me, are responsible for. I’m more likely to care politically and criticize publically the actions of governments than individuals because I may, actually, have some effect. I imagine my opinions matter less than a speck of dirt to radical Arabs. I imagine I’m a heathen.

On the other hand, I *sympathize* with Israelis and Lebanese alike. I can only imagine the individual horror of living in Israel and being afraid of terrorist attack: of feeling that in the whole long history of the world you’ve been attacked, tortured, scapegoated, and killed as a people, and here is supposed to be a safe place. I cannot begin to envision the horror of a country slowly rebuilding equalibrium after years of civil and external war, and having the nightmare start all over again.

The other thing that may be true about those of us who stand back in horror at Israel attacking Lebanon is that we’re not proposing our own non-military-offensive solutions.

Myself; I would encourage peace talks in good faith, with willness to negotiate, and extreme Israeli border control - defensiveness, sure - propped up by UN/American/foreign military as necessary. I would encourage that the Israeli people, as harsh as it is, NOT react to attacks that get through with military offensives, but instead draw the extremists into a diplomatic discussion. Instead of making demands followed by military action, make demands followed by sanctions, etc. It is a brutally long process to legitimize (and emasculate through politics); but you MUST knock out popular support for an insurgent terrorist network, and this means taking hits that you do not retaliate against with military action. You do, and must, retaliate - but in such a way that it knocks out the popular support. This strategy has worked with the IRA.

Subvert, advertise, propogandize. Become a “good neighbour” to the people that hide the terrorists, so that hiding the terrorists is no longer a win situation. The optimal solution may look like the standoff between Quebec and English Canada - but we’re not *killing* each other, even if some Quebecois refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of Canada, and even if that pisses the rest of Canada off.

As it is, there’s an increasing cycle: there is money in the Arab world and a bunch of countries interested in economically weakening the West that can provide arms - and that is happening. As it is, roaring like tigers, we’re being bled out of resources and troops at the *same time* as creating greater support for the terrorists. Frankly, *the terrorists are winning* - all they have to do is float their left hook in and slowly, slowly grind Western funds and willing troops down.

I’m not interested in having the everyday people in Israel coming under Arab rule. I don’t have any dreams that the Ayatollah or the Taliban would let Jewish settlers live in peace. But “the West” is losing a siege, by legitimizing the terrorist activities, and where it’s going, I’m not sure winning is possible.

The best propoganda against Israel is the bomb that takes out Qana. That’s a big, big win for Hezbollah.

———————–

BTW: I wrote this because I’m truly interested in what the regulars who are not-right-leaning think of this analysis. I don’t have all the info about the Mid East that I feel I need, so I’m welcome to criticism. From people more interested in the issue than what Fox News tells them to think.

“I don’t expect Peter Rempel or Vinny to provide an even-handed analysis of the evolution of gay rights.”

You’re making a terrible mistake. Rempelia Prime is clearly the fairest source of information available on those types of issues.

Balb, your being a naughty boy ;-)

Arwen, I agree with your take, and posted elsewhere about the need for people on both sides truly committed to a long term peace process to accept the occasional catastrophic, short term collapse without declaring the process dead and returning to full scale war, as Israel has just done. Apart from anything else, someone has to be strong enough to step outside the cycle of violence and retribution: not because it’s “right”, but because the alternative has not worked and will in all likelihood not work this time. It’s not idealism or ideology: it’s a practical assessment of the likely outcome of a course of action.

I understand and sympathize with the Israeli reaction to Hezbollah provocation. It’s just that invading Lebanon won’t achieve anything more than a very short term cordon sanitaire, while it appears to be successfully uniting the Arab world, attracting external insurgents to the new flashpoint, and destroying one of the only democracies in the region.

What I haven’t heard from anyone is a compelling defense of the current Israeli strategy that explains why temporarily dispersing an undercover army over a wider area of increasingly sympathetic Lebanese, while raising support for them by killing civilians, is supposed to work.