Progressive Minds

In closing I would suggest that once the disappointment and bitterness subsides, that the bloggers continue to blog. It is good for ALL Bermudians. What I would suggest, however, is that they try to be a bit impartial and objective. You get a bit more respect and much more credibility if the readership sees that you are not ridiculously biased.

With that in mind are you suggesting/recommending this site will/should adopt a similar approach of objectiveness and impartiality?

When deserving will you agree to be critical of the PLP and/or supportive of the UBP, the Limey, Christian, et al?

Perhaps it's more reasonable to conclude that a blog is really nothing more than the sum of its owners/contributors opinions and does not necessarily need (or in fact is designed) to be anything more (or less) than that?

The following passage was taken from www.thedevilsisland.com

"The Limey in Bermuda, the guy who pretty much started all this for a lot of us, is throwing in the towel. I can’t say that I blame him, especially considering his incredibly well thought out and, as usual, well written post explaining his decision.
Lots of good points in there and I’ll be pondering them in the days to come.

It’s funny. I’ve received a few “I just can’t do this any more” messages from a number of people from both sides of the political divide.
Looks like someone’s wish to shut the blogs up (and, funnily enough, their vision of blogs being made up of only angry white guys) is coming true.

One reasoned, thoughtful and perfectly critical voice, silenced.
Others soon to follow.

The bastards have won again.

Good luck, amigo. Love to the family, especially young Michael. (Yeah, I don’t care what you named him. He knows what his real name is!)"

I wonder exactly who Uncle Elvis is referring to as 'the bastards'.

I see in your rules you do not allow personal attacks yet you actually question limey's competence of fatherhood in your post.

Limey was never welcomed in your debates in this blog. The evidence is on the left in the forums. You may have taken the racist term out but your welcome is all there.

Progressive like the PLP seem to only want yes men agreeing with the few members views, those of other views are personally attacked or left unposted.

Limey's point is that it is now apparent the UBP cannot be an effective opposition party.
As you started the PLP was an effective opposition because the UBP listened to them, the PLP will not listen to anything the UBP suggests nor any critics, just labeling it racist.
Thus if the UBP can not contain the PLP power, the inner PLP must keep tabs on themselves, especially with the lack of any modern anti corruption legislation, and an undermined AG, arrested for doing his job.

Frankly if the PLP have nothing to fear let them introduce new corruption legislation.

It's now been over 8 years since the UBP was in power, and the PLP are still blaming current problems on them, are we going to be in 2037 and the bad educational system is still the UBP's fault!

In closing as even the PLP admit they are not a perfect government, as they can't meet all their election promises, they must be able to accept constructive criticism.

Look, we get it. You run this site, regardless of your attempts above to say otherwise, and you post what you want to hear, and not what you don't want to hear. I've experienced this numerous times. Don't act unbiased, you're not. Your general disregard for ethics or morals in editing/moderating this and the other PLP site were a terrible sign of just how the PLP view such things. You are the last person that should be passing judgement on impartiality.

You say that founded criticism of the PLP is allowed. In my experience this is simply not the case. The Limey criticised, rightly, several aspects of PLP government, and for his troubles he was threatened to be deported by a soon to become PLP candidate. She threatened his family too. Nice. That's his point mate.

UE is simply saying that that particular candidates actions are working. The blogsphere is giving up, or at least, maybe the torch is being passed on to a new set of bloggers. Let us hope so. Healthy criticism is just that. Read Tom Vesey's piece in the Sun on who can criticise the government. Or is he biased too?

Finally, maybe you'll see Denis Pitcher criticise Mark Pettingill when he comes out and says voting for a party is akin to wanting slavery for yourself or your children. Until then, he has every right to criticise Ms. Foggo. You shoudl too, if you were as unbiasd as you claim to be.

In the above statement, Limey seems to think that just because the Bermudian electorate did not yield to his opinions, and did not do as he expected or as he desired, that there is no room for criticism and debate.

There weren't just my opinions. I shared them with many others.

Under the PLP government, criticism, both constructive and otherwise has been constant, and more than ever before.

And how has the PLP reacted to that criticism and scrutiny? Here are just three examples:

- In response to my opinion piece "Throwing The Election", the then-PLP spokesman Scott Simmons demanded I apologise and threatened to start monitoring the press.

- In response to "Terror Alert" PLP candidate Laverne Furbert wrote a letter to the Bemuda Sun in which she announced my wife's place of work and referred to my son.

- When I asked Ewart Brown about his stay at the Burj al-Arab (specifically, how many nights he was there, and what the total cost of his stay was), he called them "plantation questions" and refused to answer.

For him to retire his blog, looks more to me that he is sulking because he didn’t get his way.

Suppose you're trying to achieve X and decide to do Y to get there. If later you realise that by doing Y you are actually less likely to achieve your goal, what do you do? Keep doing Y in the hope that maybe it will start helping rather than hindering you? Or do you stop, and do something else?

As they say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over against and expecting different results.

Limey then states that criticism does not hurt the PLP. What proof does he have to measure this?

The PLP won the election with the same number of seats as last time, and increased their share of the vote.

...when you go so far as to based the majority of your campaign on fanning the flames of speculation and innuendo, and to keep dragging closed cases out into the public domain, then you don’t look so constructive, you look destructive.

Perhaps. But as I think Tom Vesey pointed out in an excellent column on the BHC saga (which unfortunately I can't find online), what made the PLP look bad was not the allegations per se, which may indeed have all been false. It was the way the PLP, and specifically, the Premier, responded to them. For example, had the Premier denied the allegations but pledged to carry out the reforms to Bermuda's corruption legislation that were promised by Alex Scott, it would have helped reassure some people (though admittedly not everyone) that he is serious about not tolerating corruption in his Government. But he remained silent, and did nothing.

Does Limey really believe that the UBP and its supporters should fall silent?

If you would care to read what I wrote in my last post, you will see I advocated the UBP disbanding to a group of independents. They would not cease their criticism of the PLP, but it would be coming from a group of individuals, not from a single entity. Initially those individuals would be painted as the neo-UBP, of course, but over time, as new individuals stepped forward, that would change.

I would suggest that... the bloggers continue to blog.

An odd comment given that in the previous paragraph you stated, "In my opinion, for the UBP to have any credibility and viability they need to disband like the bloggers.".

What I would suggest, however, is that they try to be a bit impartial and objective. You get a bit more respect and much more credibility if the readership sees that you are not ridiculously biased. It is assumed that all people have biases, but it is how we allow that bias, or disallow that bias from impacting our performance that is important. A Limey in Bermuda that criticizes Patricia Gordon Pamplin just as harshly as he criticizes Paula Cox will be much more highly regarded.

As I have stated many times before, I do not claim to be, nor do I believe that I have any obligation to be, neutral. You are confusing the obligations of news reporting with opinion writing. All opinions, whether expressed on a blog, in a letter to the editor, or in the opinion column of the newspaper are by definition partial. The only obligation of writers of opinion is to be fair - in other words, not to misrepresent the facts or the arguments of others. That is the only criteria which determines (or should determine) the credibility of a blogger.