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4.11.2012

Many of my Friends are gone

I have been on vacation while the issue of women's health has been a key discussion among Progressive bloggers. I have found several bloggers on this site to be among the proponents of Catholic like approach to human rights. At times I have taken issue with them. Now it appears to be time to say good bye.

Fern Hill hit the nail on the head. Human rights are not to be taken away. You don't let someone take them away. You don't sit back while so called progressive bloggers are giving credence or outright support for taking away someone's rights, or in this case half of the populations rights.

The last straw for me was Warren Kinsella attack on Fern Hill. I'm not sure if he was supporting decisions made by PB mods or acting on his own.  It doesn't matter now. He galvanized the real progressives. He has lead election efforts that turn a blind eye to people he is helping to elect. People opposed to women's rights to choose, people opposed to same sex marriage, opposed to everyday people bargaining for rights in the work place.

What is clear here is that he is not alone at PB. He is simply the loudest. It was becoming clear to me several years ago when PB folks I met were supportive of the BC Liberal government in BC under Gordon Campbell and now by Christy Clark. This government tore up contracts with workers and many saw their wages and benefits cut in half over night. Eventually the Supreme Court found they did it illegally. They gave BC Rail away for pennies. They promised not to sell it and then they sold it.

Two PB folks while championing the idea that we needed to work together to defeat the Harper Govt last May actually went to BC and Saskatchewan and worked for Liberal campaigns that had no chance, but did allow the Conservative candidate a narrow victory. I don't begrudge their choice, just their rhetoric that said we needed to work together, their actions were not the same as their words.

So Fern Hill has made my decision easy. Warren Kinsella has made my decision to leave PB a must. I can come back, let me know when things have shaped up.

I will miss some of the gatherings arranged by PB. I will miss some of the bloggers there. See you online from the outside.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry to see you go , Rick.. but what's even more unprogressive is calling on us to censor views that don't align with your own. You might be surprised how many people who are pro-choice might still support some limitations on abortion. Debate of that and whether it's good or not is expected and welcome.. Calling on us to censor that is not.

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    1. Patagonia12:56 pm

      Pro-choice and still support "some limitations" on abortion? I think not. Don't play with words. It's not pro-choice to say you're simply going to debate what those choices should be. You're either pro-choice or you're not. The fact of the matter is that the late-term abortions that you so wish to draw the line on are less than one-percent of the abortions performed. In all those cases, something is terribly wrong and the decision, the choice, is the most heart-wrenching choice no man will ever have to make. And no government has the right to over-ride the woman's right to make it. Full stop.

      Here's the bottom line. At the present time, there are no limitations on the choice. Supporting "some limitations" as you put it is not progressive. In fact, there's a word for it: regressive. Can it be debated? As an intellectual exercise, sure. So can whether we ought to bring back slavery. On a "Progressive" blog site? With both sides calling themselves "progressive"? A farce.

      The progressives aren't leaving this site. This site has left the progressives.

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  2. Hi, Rick. Good to see how many good people there are onside with this. Thanks for your support.

    It is not about censorship or ProgBlogs. This is about what I'm calling Woodworth's Wank. Here's a link to a petition opposing M312.

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  3. good grief scott, could you be a more vacuous simpleton? when you purport to run a forum for progressive political thought, you kinda have to follow through on, you know, the progressive part. it is in your site's name after all. i look forward to your simpering stand against censorship when the next goober on your board supports segregated schooling because maybe race mixing doesn't fall under the progressive banner. if you can't wrap your dough filled noggin around the idea that the right to choose is a fundamental human right and a foundational plank of progressive political thought then fuck you and your worthless aggregator. we do not debate human rights. period. you can crawl back into kinsella's lap and weep in the fire light of ignorance or you can give your head a shake but nobody is going to wait around for you to have an epiphany.

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  4. Pro-choice and still support "some limitations" on abortion? I think not. Don't play with words. It's not pro-choice to say you're simply going to debate what those choices should be. You're either pro-choice or you're not

    Thanks Patagonia. Someone who gets it. Supporting "limitations" on choice is like saying one is "sorta pregnant". See how silly that sounds?

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