Christmas Good-bye from the House: Hansard Dec 13, 04--Canadian Security depends on luck
Bud Talkinghorn: Stop bashing the Republicans over the Iraq war
It is always entertaining to see the Canadian liberal left at their protest posts. They come across as a hodge-podge of whiners. Ottawa featured the "Butt pirates against Bush" boys waving their rather suggestive placards--the ever vigilant CBC crew were there to film them when one said, "Hell no! We can't put that on the air." The rest of the usual suspects--government grant-NAC members, some spare union guys, "The Raging Grannies" from the Unitarian Church in Fredericton, the Vegans who want the cows of Texas left to die of old age, the tree-huggers always able to muster a few attendees, the seriously indoctrinated university students bused in from Eastern Canada, and no protest would be complete without the professional anarchists. Who finances these marches? The transport? Food and hotel bills? My guess is that part of the taxpayers' money that the NGOs and other funded Liberal/liberal lobby groups receive pays for them. Probably the labour unions and the NDP funnel in some covert payments too.
So now we have the main players and the supposed reason for protest--they are against that warmonger, Bush. In the United States, President Bush has been portrayed as Satan by the Democrats. The cowboy boots are just to disguise his cloven hooves.
Somehow the left has developed amnesia. That period from 1962, when the Democratic president, JFK, sent a few thousand troops to Vietnam, until 1973, when a Republican arranged a truce and got the troops home, has simply disappeared down the memory hole. JFK said in 1963 that if troop levels in Vietnam ever went over 15,000 he "would eat his hat". When Democrat Johnson quit, the troop level was above 600,000. The anti-Vietnam war protests were enormous and the protestors came from every segment of society. Their message was focused on stopping the war. They were not the lobbyists for faddish leftist causes that we have today. America had already fought Saddam over Kuwait previously. This current war is to make sure they are not going to have to fight his proxy terrorist army in the streets of America. There is not as solid a justification for Vietnam. The French, who learned the hard way told Kennedy, "Don't go into that swamp." But Kennedy knew better.
So the next time the War-Protests-R-Us crowd hold another march, ask them about Kennedy and Johnson. Ask them why, in the face of all intelligent analysis, these presidents kept fighting an enemy that posed zero direct threat to America. Or ask why they wouldn't admit that their allies, the South Vietnamese, were rather useless. This is not a slur on the soldiers' courage, for this reluctance was mainly caused by not being paid by their corrupt officiers and politicians.
I doubt that the protestors will have the mental wherewithal to see this parallel. JFK will always remain in their minds as a Camelot figure, but not as the orginator of the savage and useless Vietnam conflict. For you young folks out there; consider that on top of the 57,000 U.S. soldiers killed, a far number were wounded. As to the cost, consider that--to me anyway--having 16,000 of your planes shot-down or disabled constitutes rather hefty material loss. And finally, consider that Kennedy and Johnson authorized the infamous Operation Phoenex, where 60,000 Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by Marine special forces or their CIA partners. People were "terminated with extreme prejudice" on the flimsiest evidence they might be Cong. Imagine what the outcry would be if Bush authorized the same tactics in Iraqi. Perhaps the protestors should try cracking the spine of a history book.
Last night on The Fifth Estate, CBC presented such a biased program on Dick Cheney that it should be used in journalism school as an example of what journalistic bias is. I know so little about the VP of the US that I stayed up to watch. What viewers were treated to was a classic hatchet job. CBC is becoming shrill in its utter demonization of President Bush and his administration -- which leads to Barbara Kay. NJC
Propaganda in the classroom -- Dear Barbara Kay, please do a poll on the CBC's ideological brainwashing
Today's column is in part an amateur poll on intellectual harassment in our universities. I'm asking Canada's future educators and lawmakers -- students in, or recent grads from, the humanities and social sciences -- if they're being ideologically brainwashed by their professors. So without further ado: Do you see a balanced ideological perspective in your courses? Does your professor direct you to alternative points of views? Is dissent or diversity of opinion encouraged in discussion? Are Judeo-Christian perspectives denigrated or mocked? Are grades a reflection of the merit of your arguments or conformity with the professor's ideology?
[. . . . ] Unlike the United States, we have precious few institutions to monitor academic freedom in the universities, champion the merit principle and promote ideological neutrality in teaching and hiring practices. One such is the admirably vigilant, membership-funded Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (www.safs.ca).
So students (and parents), please send me your responses. Confidentiality is assured. Validate my keen assessment, or shame me for my wildly off-the-mark rush to judgment: It's your call. Survey 101 results TBA. [. . . . ]
Need I say go and read her article? The following contrasts the intellectual milieu over a period of years.
Universities--Bastions for the Left
In the National Post, (Wednesday, Dec. 15--A 17) Barbara Kay takes issue with the Left's take-over of intellectual development in academia. Using a survey done in the States, she shows that the vast majority of professors are Democrats, hence liberals. On average, they vote 15 to 1 for Democrats and their activist ideology. Kay speculates that the Women's Studies faculty is probably a 1000 to 1.
Rather than just take these statistics at face value, I pondered my own experiences in university. Having taken my undergraduate degrees before the great tide of American draft dodgers arrived, I did not notice much indoctrination from the Left; in fact, my political science prof was practically a fascist. It wasn't until years later when I was working on my masters, that I saw the relentless socialist curricula come into play. My Chinese history course was heavy on how the imperialists had destroyed and ravaged much of all South-East Asia. The course could have been labelled "White Guilt 5301". Luckily, my main mentor was a man of free-wheeling intellect and appeared to have no ideological ax to grind. One of the perks of the graduate program is that students have access to the faculty common room, where students and professors mingle over coffee. It was there that you got to heard the professors as indoctrinaires. It was obvious that the old "truth", that education was to open minds, had been vanquished. The Left does not see anything wrong with biased, often false, theories being the whole meal for impressionable students. They see the universities as a major launching pad for their world socialist vision.
If they can reach a critical mass of the students, then the students will carry those socialist dogmas into the public domain. On campus, they have fostered all kinds of idiotic 'politically correct' rules and regulations. The result is either a student population afraid to voice their own beliefs, or one that is left bitterly divided. Didn't we witness this at Concordia last year. A handful of Palestinian students, along with their Canadian contingent of useful leftie fools, stopped the lecture by a former Israeli Prime Minister. Then the university refused to let another Israeli leader speak on campus. The university claimed that it was for security reasons only. This type of decision is usually made with staff imput. I suspect that the staff went along with the decision because they consider these ex-leaders to be war criminals for their actions against Palestinian terrorists. The Left, having watched their cherished communist dream collapse when the Berlin wall came down, are now forced to advance more peripheral socialist societies. Palestinian oppression is the current cause.
This persistent indoctrination is open and unapologetic. For the Left, the university must be an agent of social change. However only one line of that change can be correct--theirs. John Furedy, a professor at U of T, portrayed this stifling politically correctness movement as "the velvet underground". Fortunately the Right (and their politically neutral allies) are staging a comeback. Student groups are now actively monitoring lectures and curricula, looking for leftist slants. Go get them boys. It is time that ideolgical wall came down.
Bud Talkinghorn
Gay marriage--the fall-out to come
The cry of the pro-gay marriage people is, "What is the difference if they marry? How is that going to affect the act of marriage? Well, as a letter to the National Post from Gary Clymbaluk pointed out, it changes everything. He quotes the great social critic, Neil Postman, who saw television as a disaster. "The introduction of television into a culture isn't just the old culture plus television. It is an entirely new culture." We have witnessed in our lifetime the withering of the marriage institution. Everybody has a number of friends who simply live common law, as we have those many who divorced. To further rot the core of marriage any further is to make it even more meaningless. And it is the slippery slope. What legal defense would the Supreme Court have in denying Mormon or Muslim polygamous marriages. Their feminist leanings would not be enough. Perhaps most galling of all is how this smashing of a millennia-old ceremony was done. A small group of activist judges have sanctioned this social engineering. As most were appointed by the Liberals they know how to please their benefactors. They also know they can't be replaced till retirement. Also any criticism of their increasing ideosyncratic decisions gets a full court press against you by the elites and their politically correct followers--not to mention the vociferous homosexual lobby.
Rob Martin, a law professor from the University of Western Ontario, states that these Supremes not only feel free to tinker with any tradition, but to dramatically change it. They are not averse to simply inventing new laws according to their liberal--as opposed to Liberal--ideology. To make matters worse, there is a large "L" Liberal party that hides behind them. The Liberals under Martin and Chretien have allowed these Supremes to carry on as though they alone could interpret the constitution and the Charter. The worst of them, Justice L'Heureux Dube, thankfully has departed, but her spirit is still there. Dube thought the courts "should help the government in formulating laws." Democracy is going to suffer from this judicial hubris.
A weary group of Canadian pilots, aircrew and maintenance technicians is on its way home today after two months of flying long, gruelling patrols over the Mediterranean Sea hunting for terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants.
[. . . . ] Operation Sirius was Canada's contribution to NATO's campaign against terrorism in the Mediterranean, using allied warships and aircraft to watch shipping traffic for shipments of arms, terrorist leaders or smuggling.
[. . . . ] He said his crews can take much of the credit for significantly cutting down on illegal immigration in the Mediterranean. [. . . . ]
You think flying for hours is easy? Then, read the details.
Subs corroded while Chretien considered optics: Collenette -- Now, he speaks out.
The wife of the ex-Minister, Penny Collenette, worked in the PMO; as I recall, she wrote an article on the difficulties faced by a whistleblower in Ottawa and the certain repercussions to one's employment, should one speak out. How very interesting that this couple are speaking out or writing now -- and now that their pensions are assured.
If ever Canadians needed whistleblower legislation that would protect all whistleblowers, it is now!
[. . . . ] The Commons defence committee was considering whether to call Chretien as a witness after David Collenette told them his former boss balked at the $800-million lease-to-purchase plan cabinet approved in 1995.
Chretien didn't think Canadians would accept such an expenditure in the midst of health-care and other social service cuts, as well as defence, said Collenette, who is no longer in government.
[. . . . ] "There was a concern about committing to big chunks of money when we were cutting everywhere in society," Collenette added. "It could be argued that this (delay) created more challenges in making the submarines fully operational, not to mention the additional costs that this would incur."
The all-party committee is looking at the acquisition of the four diesel-electric submarines from Britain after the last of them, HMCS Chicoutimi, caught fire Oct. 5, killing one sailor.
Witnesses have said the subs were a good buy when first considered in the early '90s.
But they were in bad shape when Canada finally decided to buy them in 1998. Witnesses have described leaks, electrical problems and equipment malfunctions - largely, they said, attributable to years of neglect. [. . . . ]
I would feel empathy for Mr. Chretien's having to make hard choices in bad economic times were his government--and that of his predecessors for years--not the author of much that has contributed to continued hard times. Has it not been since Pierre Trudeau that the Liberals have taken Canada deeper into debt and the consequent waste of money on interest on the debt? Short term vote gain for long term debt pain! Under Chretien's leadership money was thrown away:
* at mouthing platitudes about our health care as we daily were exposed to the reality
* at failing ideas and companies -- think Bombardier as only one example
* at sponsorship programs where money stuck to favoured friends. Should the word 'allegedly' be appended here? If so, consider it done.
Paul Martin, after claiming government poverty, has discovered a gold mine--is it $9-billion instead of $1-billion or so?--and we can expect that he'll be throwing money at anything to maintain his position. (This man has issues with trying to live up to whatever it is -- seemingly related to his father's expectations, in my humble opinion. He is not really Prime Ministerial material.) Now, he's going about the world avoiding Parliament, trying to drum up business with authoritarian regimes (China) and courting dictatorships (Libya). I expected him, already being rich, to be more of a statesman but it is his quest for power and money (His sons now own his shipping companies, but hey, it's all in the family, isn't it?) that bothers me. There are warning signs if he would but look.
He could start by reading some of these articles and his Auditor General's reports.
