Category: Politics

Work in progress: Statement of Principles

I’ve been working on this Rants and Revelations » Statement of Principles page for a couple of days now. It’s sort of an enumeration of the things I believe, even the contradictory ones. I’m still working on it, so check back for updates. But check it out, I think it’s getting into a decent form.

There will be a permanent link to it under the “Pages” heading on the side bar of this blog.

The Greatest Canadian

The CBC is having a series on “The Greatest Canadian”. I haven’t been following it, mostly because we don’t get CBC TV here in Rochester NY. (Yeah, we get two channels in Russian and one in Vietnamese, but the closest neighbour country, and one that speaks the same language as us? No way!)

Anyway, my pick for the Greatest Canadian would be Pierre Trudeau – Joe, the “I AM CANADIAN” guy in the beer commericals isn’t in the running. My dad probably wouldn’t agree with that, because I don’t think he ever forgave Trudeau for that time he did a pirohuette behind the Queen’s back. I know my western friends like Les never forgave him for the National Energy Plan and the time he gave the finger to protesters in Salmon Arm, B.C. In the last couple of years he was in power, I hated his arrogance – but that was before Mulroney and Cretien showed us just how arrogant a Canadian Prime Minister could get.
Continue reading “The Greatest Canadian”

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever

1984 arrived 20 years late last night. It didn’t come with violence and guns and tanks, all it took was an unholy alliance between three things:

  • a political party that will do anything to win, from lying to massive voter disenfranchisement, and which is so full of their own lies that they use “reality based” as a perjorative.
  • a media that follows the orders of their owners, who know that they personally are better off even if the country and the world are considerably worse off under that political party.
  • a public who swallows their lies and does what their told without thinking. A public that believes that one man is better on fighting terrorism even though it was his opponent that was fighting terrorism 20 years ago when he was snorting cocaine in Camp David, a public that believes that one man is a better war president even though it’s his sole and complete fault that we’re even in this war, that this war was entered because of his lies and every major decision he’s made on this war has been wrong, a public that thinks that because they got a $300 check a few years ago that they’re reaping the benefits of these tax cuts that are really only helping the incredibly rich (and whose economic policies are actually reducing their chances of becoming incredibly rich themselves).

I weep for America.

I wonder if I could get a job back in Canada.