Having announced earlier cuts to teaching jobs and course options, last week -- two weeks before the start of school -- Doug Ford announced that those cuts would not take place this year. His back tracking leaves school boards in chaos. This week, having repealed Kathleen Wynne's revised sex education program, he introduced his "new" sex ed curriculum -- which looks remarkably like the curriculum he trashed. Martin Regg Cohn writes:
Politics, like sex, is about positioning. After whipping up people’s passions, Ford is now repositioning himself as the soul of sweet reason.
Despite the high hopes of socially conservative parents that Ford would ride to their rescue, he was always going to take them — and us — for a ride. The only question was how far Ford would bend himself out of shape to score political points along the way.
Who knew Ford would summon his inner Buddha, charting the virtuous middle path to avoid intemperate extremes. But unlike the Buddha who never forgets his scriptures, Ford has forsaken his old political lines:
“We`re going to repeal the sex-ed curriculum,” he huffed during the 2018 election. “The days of Liberal ideology indoctrinating our kids, they're done.”
He did indeed repeal, only to repent. Never mind all that ideology and idolatry, on the question of human sexuality Ford is suddenly mindful of the second coming.
When he inserted himself into the PC leadership campaign, after the sudden withdrawal of Patrick Brown from provincial politics, Ford made common cause with anti-sex-ed zealots. He embraced rival leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen — who couldn’t stop talking about anal sex during the debates — until he won the race and cancelled her candidacy over her homophobic online rants.
The truth is painfully clear. Ford has no core beliefs. All the rhetoric is empty hot air.
Image: The Toronto Star
12 comments:
You are awfully polite Owen in your description of Slug Ford and the spin that he puts on everything. This waffling of his is almost systematic with all levels of our leadership and makes one wonder just where we are headed. I welcome your sage advice but I tend to lean more to this fellow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGIY5Vyj4YM
Thanks..
The standard CRAP Party rationalization for these constantly repeating demonstrations of hypocrisy is that the party's position on the issue has "evolved". Ford has taken it to a new level. He's spinning in circles. You can see it on his face.
The film Network was pretty prescient, zoombats. The world is now awash in Howard Beales.
It's politics at its most cynical, John. It's not about policy. It's about power.
The right-wing, and their champions, just keep getting more and more ridiculous. Except it isn't funny anymore and hasn't been for a long, long time.
There is no one of any stature on the left who exhibits such brazen hypocrisy, cluelessness, corruption and utter stupidity who can compare to the likes of the Fords, Trump, dubya, or any of the rest of those jokers.
.. keep in mind what a sloppy mind inhabits Doug Ford.. I've seen barn rats that impressed me more
https://ipolitics.ca/2018/12/04/fords-closeness-with-controversial-evangelical-pastor-is-problematic/
Not much outrages me more than seeing a thug like Doug or an outrage like Jason Kenney embark on a self styled 'crusade' where they will inflict their personal dogma, pump a few shots of sellout to Big Business, especially Big Energy and let it all get mixed up in their bowel movement quality education fallacies. Add in their personal gurus or 'whisperers' like Charles McVety or Tom Flanagans or Ken Boessenkools & its a disaster for education from Kindergarden right up into higher learning.
How about that brown bags of cash guy, Brian Mulroney and his Institute of Government at St Francis Xavior - funded by billionaires linked to bribery and illegal tax schemes. What could go wrong? Well how about that Chesapeake Energy Aubrey McClendon fracking guy who pumped money in Penn State to get 'science' departments that would produce favorable 'studies'. How about Alberta letting Big Oil provide textbooks and workbooks for primary school students.. indoctrinating kids on how wonderful the tar sands were and how the buffalo would roam.. and tinkerbell would look after remediation with pixie dust.. tra la la.
Who in their right mind could want such thugs anywhere near their children.. much less near school curriculm. I myself can't talk.. seeing as most of my early schooling was bathed, no immersed in the Virgin Mary's Imacculate Conception, and the people dunking me were nuns and priests of the Holy Trinity Conspiracy plus I was an altar boy (where the real moves were made) .. Its probably good that I was assaulted by them physically or saw attempted grooming for fondlings etc & developed an intense suspicion all was not well with their uh.. intentions or holiness. Some parents extracted their kids from certain schools just to spare them the intense religious stuff, but that was then.. and I escaped to a rural school for Grade 8 & all was well. But my sister was immersed till high school graduation.. but she was so level headed & bright she sailed through it (haha, sweet revenge.. she turned the tables and became 'the educator' - eventually teaching the Principal Course at OISIE & becoming an educational consultant evolving & designing curriculum with her fellow educators.. she would eat Doug Ford and Charles McVety + Jason Kenney alive.. as would so many, no most educators)
It's clear where the so called Progressive Conservatives have put down their roots, sal. And it's also clear what kind of harvest they have reaped.
We're running out of so many things these days, Owen, including time. Yet somehow there's never a shortage of moronic-grade politicos. Remember when we thought George W. was the absolute nadir, as 'low as you can go'? Remember the days before Rob Ford and Doug Ford, Scott Moe and Jason Kenney when we thought that Harper was as bad as they could possibly come? These clowns have shattered those illusions. Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, like some global 'creeping damp' they're oozing out from the floorboards. And you know there's not enough bleach to win, not this time.
I read somewhere recently, Mound, that -- on the whole -- IQ scores are declining. Perhaps our politicians are on the leading edge of that trend.
I agree, thwap. And what's truly disturbing is that we keep giving them the keys to the car.
I think Harper's bogus intellectualism made him a more serious threat than any of the current offerings. It's our attention span that's degenerated.
I think you may be on to something, John. Campaigns are not longer about making developed arguments. They're about messages that are short enough to be put on bumper stickers.
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