{"id":1933,"date":"2014-02-02T18:30:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T02:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/?p=1933"},"modified":"2015-04-02T11:17:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T18:17:04","slug":"the-phony-argument-of-equivalence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1933","title":{"rendered":"The False Argument of Equivalence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1933\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>Mike Smyth&#8217;s Sunday editorial [<em>Ed. The link is no longer available.<\/em>] is a classic example of BC&#8217;s mainstream corporate media once again spinning the narrative of equivalence with regard to BC&#8217;s\u00a0education system.\u00a0We&#8217;ve seen it for years from mainstream commentators like Keith Baldrey, Jon Ferry and Tom Fletcher. [Les Leyne of the Times-Colonist is a recent and significant exception.] The spin basically says that both sides &#8211; the government and the union &#8211; have been equally intransigent in our so-called &#8220;education wars&#8221;.* As a result, any government malfeasance is entirely excusable, and perhaps even banal. It&#8217;s the rhetorical equivalent of &#8220;move along here; there&#8217;s nothing to see&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Except Judge Griffin doesn&#8217;t see it that way. She lays blame on one side: the government. No matter how you slice it, what the BCTF has been saying for years is true. The government has had no interest in good-faith bargaining, and much interest in creating havoc with our kids to advance an ideological agenda. That&#8217;s not spin or interpretation; <em>it&#8217;s what the BC Supreme Court has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/sandy-garossino\/bc-teachers-court-ruling-highlights-bctf_b_4699343.html?utm_hp_ref=tw\" target=\"_blank\">ruled<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But let&#8217;s get back to Michael Smyth. His snideness is matched only by his laughable bias. In the editorial mentioned above, he argues that the NDP gave the BCTF a sweetheart deal in 1998. He conveniently forgets to mention that the deal (as well as previous provincial and local deals) came at a tremendous cost to teachers&#8217; salary and benefits. It was a negotiated deal that worked well for kids but not for the pocket books of teachers. And when the BC Liberals illegally broke that contract [according to Justice Griffin], teachers lost class size and composition language\u00a0<em>and<\/em> their foregone salary and benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Even worse, Smyth implies that a government negotiates with both the teachers and the school boards.\u00a0This allows him to argue that the Liberals were taking away one bad faith deal with another.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8230; What did the NDP government do with a tentative union contract opposed by the teachers\u2019 employers? They rammed it through the legislature and forced it into law over the objection of school districts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In other words, the Liberals have now been found guilty of bad-faith bargaining for \u00adremoving contract provisions that were arguably imposed through bad-faith bargaining by the NDP.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Equivalence, right? Nonsense. It simply doesn&#8217;t work that way. A government will consult with school boards, but it doesn&#8217;t &#8220;bargain&#8221; with them. The role of a school board, as lousy as it might seem, is to implement government policy, not negotiate with the government. So, nice try, Mike, but it&#8217;s another\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2013\/oct\/11\/false-equivalence-balance-media\" target=\"_blank\">false equivalence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Smyth&#8217;s rhetorical efforts help explain\u00a0how a right-wing, Senate track journalistic corp works to blunt and minimize the political effects of a stinging judicial rebuke against a cynical, union-busting Liberal government.<\/p>\n<p>________<\/p>\n<p>* We also see the deployment of the &#8220;equivalence&#8221; argument in <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1700\" target=\"_blank\">defense of corporate funding<\/a> of the BC Liberals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Smyth&#8217;s Sunday editorial [Ed. The link is no longer available.] is a classic example of BC&#8217;s mainstream corporate media once again spinning the narrative of equivalence with regard to BC&#8217;s\u00a0education system.\u00a0We&#8217;ve seen it for years from mainstream commentators like Keith Baldrey, Jon Ferry and Tom Fletcher. [Les Leyne of the Times-Colonist is a recent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,9,16],"tags":[161,162,22,52],"class_list":["post-1933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bc-politics","category-canadian-politics","category-education","category-media","tag-bctf","tag-bias","tag-education-2","tag-media-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1933"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions\/2142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}