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Jack your body politic
By Mark A. McCutcheon April 30, 2011 - 10:06am Comments (2)
So let me get this straight: on the weekend before election day, the far-right-wing tabloid -- whose TV station Harper pushed to launch and to fund with tax dollars -- prints an "exclusive" (but old and second-hand) story that connects Harper's main competitor to racialized sex work (or at least to a small-business sector routinely stigmatized as such).
Could this be a more obvious, more cynical, or more desperate smear campaign? I fully expect it will make more people vote for Layton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPGwNMRB_M
Cross-blogged from Academicalism
Mark A. McCutcheon
Professor of Literary Studies & Chair of Centre for Humanities, Athabasca U
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Comments
Best part of that story: "He came on a bicycle." Jack Layton supports migrant work, women's work, and the environment. (And kudos to Chow for defending her sweetheart's honour by explaining that hotties like him just need an occasional rubdown. A fantastic practice of sex positive politics. :D )
In other news, from a paper whose headlines don't all stack up to "OMG," the Toronto Star has endorsed the NDP, offering a well-reasoned explanation of the party's advantages over the Cons and Liberals, and a very sensible caution against vote-splitting, too.
(BTW, the conservatives tried a similar campaign, 4 days before the 2004 election: "Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography" and a followup press release indicating that the NDP, too, supports child pornography. It takes a special sense of humour to laugh along, but commentary on the choice between pedophile and anti-pedophile parties seems to do justice to this kind of outlandish manipulation: "Canadian Pedophiles Breathe a Sigh of Relief.")
David Akin commented on twitter yesterday that the story was shopped to him two years ago - by a Liberal fixer.