re: Dominion Election Campaign and Issues
Does ANYONE remember this Man ?
Does anyone recall what he created?
Does anyone recall what his principles stood for?
Does anyone care?
Has anyone under 40 even been taught any Canadian History?
Or are they all too busy reading People Magazine or the (US) National Review?
"A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die. With my utmost effort, with my latest breath, will I oppose the 'veiled treason' which attempts by sordid means and mercenary proffers to lure our people from their allegiance." Sir John A. Macdonald, 1891.
posted by Aeneas the Younger @ 5:01 am
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Well, ok, John A was probably the best we have had in the vision department, scores high in practical politics too, and cannot be beaten at pure sleaze.
That is the trouble with heroes, the ones that were not total idiots turn out to be less than noble in one way or another.
With John A you have to say he envisioned a really big crowd of taxpayers to support REALLY big railroad bonds , and so if he could just find some railroad men who would actually build a road if you gave them a pot of money (and not run off to Buffalo), then you could build west and outflank the Yanks.
And he had to do it while surviving a truly ridiculous crowd of stuffed shirt popinjays (his colleagues), the aggressive Yanks who threatened continental mayhem towards the end of their Civil War, and his own ferocious weeks long binges. He could make the most offensively craven speeches to mollify the Americans, while totally ignoring what he promised them, often misleading his own troops with shocking mamipulation. The double shuffle that sent George Brown away mumbling in confusion may be the most spectacular and cynical misuse of the Parliamentary system ever devised (and it worked).
So I dont think you should dump on the leading politicos of the present day just because they may seem a little short on good sense or any sign of ethics whatever. These are required traits of the job descriiption. But we do need somebody who has taken the measure of the USA and understands that handled correctly it is a paper tiger. Needed: a man with truly deep contempt for the Bush gang and its llk.
Not Harper, l am afraid. Not in a country mile.
He really wants to snuggle up to the looney tunes of the Bush era, not just to deceive them.
garhane:
I can't dispute much of what you have written. Mid to late-Victorian politics was not for the faint-of-heart. Not in Canada - or in England. At least SJAM, had some concept of Loyalty and Love for his Country, however rough the politics of the day were; and he HAD a Vision - a northern parliamentary democracy, united in loyalty to the Crown - hungering for a Canadian East-West identity and orientation. It would be a "British North American" society, clearly positioned as such, and intended to be a better way than the American way.
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