New shiny object: the word “barbaric”

Oh dear. Justin Trudeau seems to have made a boo-boo – er, gotten tangled up in the semantic weeds (Cue the Jesus Facepalm).

Watch as the Conservative Attack Parrots^TM crank up the squawking and the national conversation gets sidetracked into a giant foofaraw about honour killings.

How convenient. Another chance to spout off about cultural relativism, blow the dog whistles, and send coded messages to the knuckle-dragging base about dangerous brown people with funny names. Naturally, the corporate media will be happy to provide the megaphones and the echo chamber.

And while we’re all consumed with that, we don’t have to worry about The Harper Government’s^TM

• ethical lapses
• hypocrisy
• repulsive authoritarian character
• miserable failures on transparency and accountability
• assaults on the social fabric and democratic infrastructure
• contempt for civil society.

(I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. This couldn’t possibly be part of a calculated strategy.)

Update: maybe we could forget all about the term “honour killings,” given its obvious dog-whistle connotations, and just agree that misogynistic violence is brutal, stupid and cowardly, period? Or would that be too partisan?

(Cross-posted from over here.)