There are two ways for the Canadian media to deal with the success of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – grudging admiration or venomous hatred. Let’s slot Michael Byers in that latter category.
The Ottawa Citizen labels his November 2 column as an example of ‘Harper Hatred‘. Byers obviously sees the Prime Minister as some kind of national threat. The mission therefore is to get rid of the Conservatives. The only way to accomplish that objective is to unite the left. So forget good policies and trying to figure out what Canada really needs. It’s still all about the power, ideology and fear-mongering for Byers:
…The chances of the Liberals forming government appear to have slipped away. The future of the country is in the balance. Whether we like it or not, the parties of the progressive centre have reached a decision point.
Will we let an outdated electoral system deliver a majority Conservative government on the basis of the preferences of less than 40 per cent of voters – and less than 25 per cent of those Canadians who are eligible to vote?
Or will we seize the moment, pull together, and put the country back on course?
The Citizen calls him on out it:
...In media interviews, Byers suggests that a Conservative majority would be a tragedy for Canada. Basically apocalyptic. The end of our country as we know it, he seems to think. Now the Citizen’s editorial board has been as critical of Harper as anyone, but Byers’ fearmongering is so over the top that you expect him any moment to come out and call for the Conservative party to be outlawed…
(Yeah well, he’s not the first to suggest that.)
By way of contrast we see that Lawrence Martin at least attempts to conceal his contempt for all things Conservative and instead focuses on Stephen Harper’s gift of political acumen:
…Harper’s conservatism is making Canadians feel good, or at least not dismayed, about what’s going on. He’s been lucky, helped along by the ineptitude of the Liberals. But in part, it’s been the prime minister’s craftiness that has made them appear that way….
But in the real world I sense that Canadians are by and large quite content with the way Prime Minister Harper has been competently managing the economy and other crises such as H1N1. (H/T Mary T)
People are not marching in the streets. There is no call to ‘throw the bums out’.
Rather than attempting to take down the Conservatives with desperate columns like Byers’, the Canadian media might try suggesting that the opposition parties try a little introspection and come up with a better vision of Canada – one that the average Canadian can relate to.
Of course, Stephen Harper is already doing that. So the best his enemies can hope for is that he stoop to their level of insults and anger.
But lately he has managed to stay above the fray. I strongly urge him to remain there.
* * * *
Update:
Dear Tommy Clark: It’s Peter Braid, not Bain. Did you not think that was a coincidence? Was that intentional or just another amateur-hour goof?
P.S. Memo to Peter: Total class. Well done.
The liberals have nothing to come up with. Liberals jobs now is to keep us entertained by coming up with screwy things to make us laugh. The left can’t unite, that is just too much weirdness at once.
What is up with Martin, actually using the words Liberal Fearmongering re H1N1 in his column today.
And how about the Transparency Group, (not sure what it is) saying Canada is the least corrupt government in the Americas.
And how about Byers suggestion of only one opposition candidate/riding-doesn’t that say they don’t need that 1.95/vote, or will they split the money. And isn’t that an attempt to elect a coalition government via stealth.
And what makes him think that all the voters would take part in selective voting instead of staying home.
I doubt there will be an election till 2012, and PMSH will win it.
Whether we like it or not, the parties of the progressive centre have reached a decision point.
In what fantasy world is Byers living in where the NDP are a “centre” party?
The left leaning pundit are losing their influence. We have too many options to get the news. The world has not ended regardless of what Gore and other snakeoil salesmen are selling this month.
We have tuned out the BS. The younger generation are not showing up to support the left. Those who have a vested financial interest will vote with their wallets.
More bad news for the left. We are not interested in paying for more “social engineering” experiments. We only need an alternative to replace the kooky left in power.
What is up with Martin, actually using the words Liberal Fearmongering re H1N1 in his column today.
More shock and awe. Thanks for that, Mary T. I just embedded the link on the main post. It fit in very nicely.
Our PM is an example of how to keep your head and carry on with important business when the fools and boors in the media, talking heads and scribes and the pseudo experts on everything in academia are losing theirs due to the green monster called envy.
Byers should be slammed for such outrageous, hateful commentary. There’s simply no call for such screed.
This sort of stuff does make one wonder, just how far down will these Liberal trumpets go? Do they have a limit or will we fix one for them by putting in a Conservative majority and let them grow up, get down to the business of forming something that resembles an Opposition. I’d say they need to find a leader, it may take some time, let’s give them lots of it.
Actually Jack Layton has been the real Opposition since Ignatieff uttered the phrase that did him in, “Mr Harper, your time is up”. Layton decided to act like a grown-up, realizing we don’t need a second election within a year.
On Sept 25th, 2008, Steve Paikin of TVO hosted a debate The Left — Too many Parties ?
Panelists were Tom Flanagan, John Duffy, Linda McQuaig, a Greenie and a university prof.
Lots of entertaining stuff from frustrated uber-lefty, Harper-hater McQuaig, and the smug, still whistling-past-the-graveyard Duffy.
But the best inside baseball stuff for us junkies on the right came from Flanagan, as he described how Harper united the Right, and gave advice for the Left. I just love watching Flanagan stick the knife in and give it a twist, as he does a couple of times.
If you just want Flanagan’s stuff, fast forward to the 12, 27, 30, 38, 46 and 53 minute marks
The Lefty in the audience at the 46 minute mark looks familiar, but I can’t place him. He asks Flanagan, what’s wrong with Dion ? Flanagan replies: “I don’t know if we have another hour, or another show …” LOL.
During the last federal election I had an assigment in my Cdn Politics class to examine the coverage of the election in the Globe and Mail vs the National Post.
It was not surprising the ridiculous amount of negative bias in most articles in the Globe, especially from Martin… the National Post on the other hand was balanced… in comparison to the Globe coverage it almost seemed pro-Harper, with the exception of Don Martin (what’s with these Martin guys?).
I find it hard to believe that any level-headed Canadian takes anything these far left-leaning columnists seriously or even bothers to finish reading anything they have to say.
In their attempt to make the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper look bad, they ultimately humiliate themselves and reduce their I.Q. by leaps and bounds. Do they not realize this? Makes me wonder whether they share the same space as the Liberal Party in their little self-contained bubble, protected from the real-world.
”…a Conservative (government) majority would be a tragedy for Canada. Basically apocalyptic…”
That has been the left’s battle cry since PMSH lead the CPC into the 2004 election.
That fearmongering is about as relevent as Spinsella and the LPC these days, not.
The stars are lining up for the NDP,
it would be a huge mistake for them to re-attach to the Liberal butt, instead of go for Official Opposition (2 elections to achieve by first splitting the vote, and then winning the vote).
‘..In their attempt to make the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper look bad, they ultimately humiliate themselves..’
and their readership stops trusting them,
which means their paper loses money!
The msm needs to accept that Harper won the media war,
and get on with some good journalism.
They also need to attract conservative readers, which is a majority they can no longer ignore,
if they want to survive.
A couple of quotes from Peter Donolo’s letter to Liberals introducing the new Dream Team :
” He (Ignatieff) understands the huge, long term economic challenges our country is facing – and the tremendous human cost they are already exacting across Canada under a callous, uncaring, incompetent government (emphasis added)
“our future depends on innovative thinking and caring, engaged leadership to enable our country to secure the industries and jobs of tomorrow – and the prosperity and the strong, vital social programs that go with them.”
Sounds like more of the same-old, same-old. And then there’s this piece of original thought :
“Our job in the OLO is to help Mr. Ignatieff and his Liberal Team across Canada bring that message of hope and change to Canadians in the months ahead”
That hopey-changey thing isn’t working too well for the big O these days. I thought Donolo was supposed to be some kind of communication genius, but seems like he’s just another retread who has to copy other peoples ideas.
Good morning! H1N1 advice from the usual suspects, wash your hands, a lot! Cough into your elbow, IGNORE LIBERALS! LOL
It just had to come to this HM PM Harper has stayed above the fray, ignored the so called “reporters” in the press gallery, and simply put been doin’ the best he can to give us good orderly Government, no small task in these times.
The results are impressive, our neighbors to he south have elected a very left-wing hopey-changy Leader, MSM just love him, everybody else outside the bubble are countin’ the days, I wish them well (the people) that is.
The press gallery, actively aiding the Liberals, with their shrieking, embarassing faux outrage over minor at best concerns, manufactured stories, have managed to cut themselves off at the knees. The majority of Canadians now see the Conservatives as stable, responsible Government. HM PM Stephen Harper is “just getting on with the job” no heroics, how very “typically Canadian”. Thats why we love the guy.
I have not watched any network “news” in quite some time, I don’t really care if they sit, stand or juggle flaming chainsaws, until they begin to speak the truth, act with integrity, they are and will continue to be irrelevant. A little advice from an “old Canadian” Grow Up!
Well back to my reno one more room to put flooring into, Cheers Bubba
So much for the “new” Liberal leader who boasted HE would do politics differently.
Now that he has the “old” Liberal operatives from the Chretien/Martin days calling the shots any hopes for renewal for the Liberal party are down the drain.
Same old-same old – just with a new puppet monkey to mouth the words fed to him from back room power mongers.
Ignatieff is a new puppet with the same old puppet masters. Quite sad.
Is this* the Byers’ memo cited above?
Citizen must read Blue Like You.
Citizen says: “Byers wants the NDP and Liberal parties to collude”.
Citizen has omitted Duceppe’s commie Bloc. But, the Bloc is necessary for the Separatist Coalition to seize power in a legal coup.
Hitler and his National Socialist Party seized illegal power in Germany by using legal means.
That is the road Byers wants his left-liberal to take: the shining path of National Socialism.
…-
November 2, 2009 at 7:12 am
Byers: Memo to Liberal Iffy and Taliban Jack and commie Duceppe.
Unite the left.
Bring back the Separatist Coalition.
…-
“*Liberals and New Democrats together could unseat Harper
Electoral ceasefire would put nation’s centre-left majority in political control”
“Michael Byers lives on Salt Spring Island and teaches political science at UBC. In October 2008, he ran for the New Democrats in Vancouver Centre.”
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/719037
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2009/10/31/what-does-that-say-about-iffy/
Spin? Chretien spin? Ad$Cam Chretien spin?
Same old Liberals*.
Iffy is now a prisoner/puppet of the Gang From the PET Cemetery.
How can Iffy’s intellectual Ego survive with his voice box gagged by his inferiors?
Note also that the Gang is a mix of Chretien-Martin oldies.
Watch/listen for the infighting/quarreling between the factions to begin.
Also, KTheMole is waiting/watching for his entitlements: a Senate seat/free booze, etc.
Commenter sums it up:
“Michael
The doctor is in the house:Peter Donolo as Ignatieff’s chief of staff is little more than a political “spin doctor” to be sure. One wonders what conversations Donolo must have had with Chretien over the likes of Adscam or Sponsorgate? Spin doctor is so appropriate.A veteran politico, Donolo represents the old Chretien guard, the old boys network along with the likes of Warren Kinsella the Liberal war room talking head who [never] met a mirror he didn’t like.Liberals still aren’t getting the message yet from Canadians. They still think its business as usual the Liberal way with a little help from THEIR friends. ARGH!”
“*New inner circle surrounds Michael Ignatieff”
“http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091117/ignatieff_staff_091117/20091117?hub=Canada
Didn’t Chretien win 3 back to back majorities with LESS THAN 40% of the popular vote nationally and a majority of seats(100+)in Ontario? I’m sure there is a reference to that somewhere. The Libs are too “lazy” to rouse themselves to political relevance. They are lazy elitists, entitled to their entitlements and unaccustomed to “working” for what they perceive as their “due”.
They “use” others to do the dirty work for them, the MSM comes to mind, as they are too damned lazy to get up off their duffs from their sinecured, political cozy, easy chairs to do anything about it. The current electorate are leaving in droves. The tried and true “Great Leader” policy is failing because Canadians are finally realizing for themselves that hard work and perseverence works better than “who ya know”.
There is no pride in being as poor as your neighbour is.
Well, appears Donolo hasn’t much in the way of anything original to offer up when he’s coming out echoing the Obama chant of HOPE and CHANGE.
Will Iggy have room to even breath surrounded by the tired old Chretien inner circle? Will we be seeing Ignatieff plugged or unplugged and how will we really know for sure?
Re: the Peter Donolo letter to Liberals introducing the new Dream Team referenced by Jad:
“… and the tremendous human cost they are already exacting across Canada under a callous, uncaring, incompetent government. And he knows that our future depends on innovative thinking and caring, engaged leadership …”
That sounds more like a personals column than a mission statement. Sorry, but if I want “caring” I’ll look for it in my immediate surroundings from my family and friends, not from a political leader who apparently cannot gain enough appeal on his own.
I’ll follow a leader whose appeal is based on his own strengths; I will not follow a leader who needs to be schooled in what to think and say in order to appeal to the electorate.
AARDVARK has a new post up re the head honchos in iffys office.
Missing is any mention of Warren K.
A couple of the new names ring a bell, but can’t remember why.
Lots of French names in the list.
“… the best his enemies can hope for is that he stoop to their level of insults and anger.
But lately he has managed to stay above the fray. I strongly urge him to remain there.”
Sage advice, Joanne. I hope the PM and his communications staff, including those who design CPC ads and 10%ers, follow it.
Columnists worth reading would be a nice change on the political landscape. These two bozos are tired and old.
Don’tnolo starts off by out with the old and in with the old regurgitated, Mario Lague, Patricia Sorbara, Brian Bohunicky, Heather Chiasson, Jean Marc Fournier, Jim Pimblett, Sachin Aggarwal, Jeremy Broadhurst, Karen Redman.
If I’m not mistaken, all of them including Don’tnolo were all around when ADSCAM was happening.
Pathetic.
It is no small wonder why the LPoC is losing support all across the board.
OT, but turned on QP to hear Iffy complain of no plans for copenhagen. He said, China has invested x amount of dollars in green tech, and in the United States they are investing 6 times what the US is doing. His new communication guru messed up.
Again Bennett on H1N1.
I watched the closed caption to make sure I heard him say what he said.
Steven Taylor has a new post up, also showing the connections to the new guys to the sponsorship program/scandal.
Bet Donolo never expected all this info to get out within hours of his announcement. It will get worse.
O/T…interesting little article @ NNW today in the Ottawa Citizen by David Pugliese…
‘ Soldiers Could Get Uniform For Urban Jungle’
A rather innocuous article as it appears on the surface…though deadly as regards the political ramifications that could be construed from this ‘little gem’…IMO.
This has the hint of the ‘Soldiers in our streets…we’re not kidding you’ contrived hysteria of Paul Martin’s failed campaign of 2006.
I know my post today seems off topic, but believe me, it isn’t. It is very scary indeed to think that the Ontario teachers’ unions want to bring a vision of “social justice and anti-poverty” according to the United Nations — and everything else “left” — by indoctrinating teachers who will then indoctrinate our kids and grandkids. And, they want to share that information with teachers across the country. And, wait for it, the Ontario Liberal government is giving ETFO taxpayers dollars to do it!
http://crux-of-the-matter.com/2009/11/17/on-taxpayers-funding-etfo-to-indocrinate-teachers/
What scares me even more is that I am having a low traffic day which means conservatives are not paying attention to this issue and how the left works — by influencing the next generation’s ideology!
Let’s get this message out there — that parents should pay very close attention to what they are being taught in school. Is it anti-conservative by simply being neo-Marxist?
On the contrary Sandy, that post is very much related to the kind of Ontario…nope, Canada the Liberals envision not just for educators but those sitting ducks known as students. What really has me pissed is that the ETFO is now openly writing curriculum for the government.
If we ever needed a new wave of opposition from grass roots, the link you have posted to ETFO should sound alarms bells loudly.
Donolo’s federal Liberal vision must will surely support their provincial cousins in all of this.
The education reform folks from ten years ago need reinvigorating BIG TIME.
Taber has her eyes/ears open at the keyholes.
Look what her has found in the litterLiberal box: Katmeat.
Aren’t those KatmeatAd$Cam Liberals “clever”? from brass doorknobs to “a very clever little prop” by Barney.
Notice the pun Katmeat dreamed up: NOLOGO. WOWSER.
More, please.
…-
“Meanwhile, the Liberals are continuing to mock the Tories. They came out with a very clever little prop yesterday – water bottles that say “NO LOGO: Keep Conservative Propaganda out of our schools.” There is a red line through the Conservative “C”. The water bottles – which look like Grit war room chief Warren Kinsella’s handiwork – were inspired by Manitoba Tory MP Shelly Glover who was giving out free water bottles – with the big Tory C logo – to French immersion students in Winnipeg.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/donolo-aims-to-ice-tories/article1366150/
Liberal Cap’n CSL MartinJr reporting for duty, Sir Iffy.
More on CSL Cap’n MartinJr*.
This is a bad omen for Iffy and his Circle.
…-
“Grounded ship to stay put overnight
CARDINAL — Two tug boats trying to pull the grounded CSL Assiniboine back into the channel near here have given up until Wednesday morning.
“The tugs did not succeed in extricating the vessel,” Andrew Bogora, a spokesman for the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, told The Recorder and Times Tuesday afternoon.
“There is a third tug en route and that tug will join the effort tomorrow.”
That third tug boat is also bringing along a barge, said Bogora.
“If the three tugs are not able (to free the vessel), then part of the cargo will be transferred to the barge,” he said.
The Assiniboine, a bulk carrier belonging to Canada Steamship Lines (CSL), weighs 30,000 metric tonnes and pulling it free is not a simple matter, he noted.”
http://recorder.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2180134
*Note: The website was shutdown as a result of Liberal Party lawfare/libel chill; however, here it is from cache:
“Paul Martin’s Dirty Coke Habit”
“In August of 2003, residents rallied in Sydney in protest that debris from CSL ships was polluting their neighborhoods. Dozens of homes on countless streets were coated by petcoke, a fine black dust created as a byproduct of petroleum refining. In February of the same year, one of Paul Martin’s cargo ships unloaded the coal-like product, overfilling a hopper on the coal pier in the process. Martin has been accused of several environmental infractions in Cape Breton, including the cumulative impact on residents’ health because of the dust from the piers.
That incident occurred only a couple of months after CSL was caught dumping litres of petroleum into the Atlantic Ocean. In November of 2002, a Nova Scotia judge ordered CSL to pay one quarter of a million dollars for dumping oil. The damages incurred by the CSL Atlas, of Paul Martin’s fleet, ranked among the highest in Canadian history for a marine pollution offence.
When Paul Martin says he wants to get rid of Sydney’s waste problem, what does Martin propose we do? One cannot simply “get rid” of waste. It must be diluted or shuffled elsewhere. Come to think of it, Paul Martin has a lot of experience doing both with Canadians’ environmental concerns.”
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:peACW0ZVSlgJ:paulmartintime.ca/story/000494.html+oaul+martin+csl+polluter&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
Will we let an outdated electoral system deliver a majority Conservative government on the basis of the preferences of less than 40 per cent of voters – and less than 25 per cent of those Canadians who are eligible to vote?
Where has Michael Byers been for the last 40 years when Canada’s “Natural Governing Party” was imposing its Liberal agenda on the nation (except of course for the Mulroney interregnum) with the support of 40% of voters? Was he leading the charge to “unite the right” because the fact that there were too many parties on the right and no serious alternative to the government was not good for Canadian democracy?
Liberals love to work the parliamentary system for all its worth when they have their hands on the levers of power. When Conservatives get a shot at the brass ring, it’s an affront to democracy.
Liberals fundamentally don’t believe that any right-of-centre ideology has any place in free political discourse in Canada. Now who’s the anti-democratic party?
wilson: “The msm needs to accept that Harper won the media war” …
Exactly. But they’re stuck on stupid, with a foot nailed to the floor, going around and around, heading nowhere.
OTOH, Prime Minister Stephen Harper just keeps forging ahead. He doesn’t have time to stop and entertain the Liberal, Dipper, MSM crap. They’re in the basement. He’s flying high. Why stop to smell the **it?
Reuters/MSM:
“MP apologizes for insulting rival on Twitter”.
Headline above by MSM means nothing until:
Rewrite and it becomes:
Liberal MP apologizes for insulting Conservative MP.
Rest of the story:
“Michelle Simson of the Liberals, unhappy at the behavior of Conservative parliamentarian Dean Del Mastro during a committee meeting, sent a Twitter message saying “Del Mastro should grow up (not out)”.
Del Mastro, who is not slim, stood up in the House of Commons in front of hundreds of legislators to demand Simson say she was sorry.
“I apologize that I’m not perfect and perhaps my stature doesn’t meet the criteria that some members of the House might set but I have actually battled that problem since birth,” he said.
Simson then apologized publicly, saying she had been wrong.”
http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE5AG5KF20091117
Bubba Brown, you’re truly adorable! Glad to see you in here again. Don’t give away any platform to the Liebrals while you’re doing your floor reno work. I agree with you that “HM”PM Stephen Harper is going a very commendable job at the federal tiller these days and nights too, even tripping the international light fantastic. (Now a Bollywood star, without any extra makeup.) The sooner this Liebral MSM crew of whimsical so-called journalists realizes that the PM is the real deal, the sooner they’ll direct their attentions to other more constructive issues, like somehow formulating a viable option for HOC in-house representation, ie. balancing the political spectrum with some “substance” on the Left, if at all possible, by putting together some planks comprised of wood cut from other than the Igneutered…
http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20091117%2fignatieff_staff_091117
Liberals new inner circle?? LOL LOL LOL LOL
Guys that worked for Martin, Chretien & McGuinty are the “new” innner circle. What a farce!!
The Liberals must believe that Canadians are fools. They continue down the same path. Really, it’s beyond pathetic!!
The Liberals are lucky we do not have the right of re-call. Otherwise, we’d be recalling the whole damn Liberal party!!
They still don’t get it, the whole party needs to be totally revamped from top to bottom!!
Well, at least, it’s quite clear who is running the Liberals!! What a pettiful outcome for this party!!
Yesterday he said PM Brian Mulr-oops, been off for a week.
Today he gets another name wrong.
And how about Bains trying to equate the cheques with corruption. Or the 10%ers. Or ethics inquiries.
Perhaps he should google the word corruption in government, to find out what it really is. Stealing taxpayers money,
would be a good start.
The ndp gal did do a lot of talking with her hands, but she brought up the corruption in Quebec being investigated now.
And bringing back all the adscam people wont help.
Take a look at the picture of Iffy at Bourque, sneering or something at Dion.
Loved the way our guy responded to the ad, saying they were just using his own words. And Tom saying, I can’t recall him saying just visiting.
Mary T – It’s a losing battle with CTV. But Peter BRAID did very well against the other three.
(Caps meant for Tommy)
I am also quite happy with the way the PM is showing lately. It’s nice to see – hope it continues.
Contrast/compare this:
“PM Paul Martin Guest Stars on Corner Gas”
http://www.andpop.com/2005/11/03/pm-paul-martin-guest-stars-on-corner-gas/
With this:
“Just Bust a Move, Prime Minister Harper”
http://www.andpop.com/2009/11/17/just-bust-a-move-prime-minister-harper/
Included in the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial, “Hate Harper”, is this statement:
“Many leftist intellectuals despise Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in no small part because they see him as a traitor to the educated class.”
The New Criterion has this*.
Let it serve as a rebuttal to Byers and an exploration of the persona of Liberal Iffy and his fellow intellectuals.
Warning: the following* includes this:
“The following passage is self-evidently that of a man struggling to describe something so terrible that is almost beyond description:
Famine is … quite peculiar. Somehow famine goes beyond hunger, and puts on each face a kind of lewdness; a kind of grey unwholesome longing. People’s white gums and mouldering flesh suggest rather a consuming disease like leprosy than appetite. They seem diseased, even evil, rather than pathetic. Their eyes are greedy and restless, and linger greedily, it sometimes seems, on one another’s bodies. Their skin gets unnaturally dry and their breath parched and stale like air in a cellar.
Cannibalism is well-attested during the famine, incidentally, and the parched breath that Muggeridge refers to is obviously the smell of ketones that starving people give off.”
…-
“*The costs of abstraction
by Anthony Daniels
On the intellectual irresponsibility of Soviet sympathizers.
One of the most extraordinary episodes in the intellectual history of the twentieth century—if, indeed, something that lasted half a century or more can properly be called an episode—is the moral and sometimes material support given by much of the western intelligentsia to the Soviet tyranny, a tyranny that made all previous tyrannies seem relaxed, liberal, and almost amateurish by comparison. Men who found the slightest circumscription of their own freedom intolerable raised hosannas to the most systematic and concerted abrogation of personal liberty yet attempted; many were those who strained at gnats to swallow a camel.
No doubt the explanation for this phenomenon is psychologically and sociologically complex. A commonly cited factor that supposedly contributed to it was ignorance of the real situation obtaining in the Soviet Union: intellectuals were therefore able to project on to the Soviet Union their utopian fantasies unconstrained by any appreciation of the sordid realities. This explanation, however, is entirely false.
I mean no disrespect to the brave and colossal labors of figures such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Robert Conquest, nor do I deny the scope of their actual historical effect upon the opinions of the Western intelligentsia, when I say that they added nothing whatever of deep moral significance to the material that was readily available in the west in the 1920s and 1930s, and that could and should have enabled people to form a proper moral judgment about the Soviet Union and its “experiment,” and this at the very time when it was doing its worst. Everything about the Soviet Union was known at the time; the problem was that nothing was believed.
Let us take the Ukrainian famine as an example. The dust jacket of Robert Conquest’s book The Harvest of Sorrow, published in 1986, says that that it “will register in the public consciousness of the West a sense of the darker side of the history of this century,” and so, no doubt, it did. But more than half a century earlier, in 1934, the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, who could hardly have been suspected of anti-Soviet prejudice or bias because he went to Russia actually intending to emigrate, hoping that his second child would be born a Soviet citizen, published a book called Moscow Winter.
It is a very barely fictionalized account of what Muggeridge saw in Russia: so barely fictionalized that, when he published his autobiography thirty-eight years later, he felt able to lift whole passages almost verbatim from it, save for the names of the characters. The book has not, so far as I am aware, been reissued as it was written, probably because it contains passages that are unpleasantly anti-Semitic in tone. The first chapter devoted to the Ukrainian famine begins:
The class war hung over the North Caucasus and over its population like a heavy cloud; filling the fields with weeds; killing off cattle and horses; and spreading famine and trouble everywhere. Under the direction of the OGPU, the Red Army ravaged the country. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were exiled, and thousands shot. Everything edible except some millet and potatoes was requisitioned by the government. These potatoes were counted over one by one like jewels.
Muggeridge goes on to recount the story of a peasant woman whose hut is visited by requisitioning soldiers, led by a Comrade Babel. Her husband has already been removed (along with nineteen other peasants) and presumably killed. Comrade Babel tells her that she is in arrears with her taxes, and—despite her plea that she and her children are starving—that he and his soldiers will return the following day, when she will be expected to hand over sacks of grain. This, of course, is a threat.
Muggeridge describes what happens after Comrade Babel has left:” (more)
http://www.newcriterion.com/articleprint.cfm/The-costs-of-abstraction-4307
If Michael Byers thinks Stephen Harper is a disaster, just imagine Byers as Foreign Affairs Minister.
“Iranian prison guards beat and raped a Canadian citizen to death? And the Iranian regime is doing nothing about it? We can still deal with them.”
Regards the Tommy Clark PeePee episode in the Update,it may seem petty on the outside but one would expect he’d get the names of his guests right at the very least. Introducing Bains and then Bain should have rang a bell but it appears for Tommy, it’s not important to get a Conservative’s name right.
We could ask CTV to provide Tommy with a pair of reading glasses.
BTW,IMO, Bains is just one very bitter and shallow Liberal, like so many of that party, he keeps carping on pseudo scandals because it’s all they’ve got to offer. Adscam is still the all-time scandal of scandals and he has the gall to talk about “checkgate”.
I guess Bains is glad that Tommy didn’t refer to him as Braids.
“untrustworthy”
“secret agenda”
“armed soldiers in the streets of our cities”
How is it that a Conservative can NOT mention these particular statements, all written, approved and used by the Liberals, when asked about the ‘negative’ advertising campaign aimed at Iffy? They defined Harper during that election campaign and the next and continue to do so.
Nice to see Graham Richardson whining on ctv this am about the tightly controlled and scripted media access to PMSH on his trip! Also..the cbc is just giddy over the Afghan detainees hearings taking place today! Doesn’t the msm get how petty they sound? Or are they getting their direction from Lib headquarters???????
One thing the Conservatives did do was define Mr Ignatieff out of the gate. It was truthful, it stuck with the people. He is just visiting, showing his “True Patriot Love” on the wings of opportunity, an otherwise stranger in a homeland he chose not to live, work, raise a family in for more than three decades. All this has left the Liberals scrambling from pillar to post in disarray fueled by desperation.
Their media hacks have a choice, cut the crap, tell us the facts free of spin and gotcha games or be reduced to the lowest form of journalism where no one will trust anything they put out.
I thought Tommy might have been in a “party celebration” state of mind he seemed to have a bit of trouble with the whole show
I hate the way he keeps talking and doesn’t wait for the person he has introduced to respond
Peter may have recognized this Great job Peter
fh
Why do lefties always assume that liberals, NDP and Greens are one voting block? The only way his theory could work would be if the NDP’s and Greens disappeared leaving only the libs and CPC. Even then it might not work because many on the far left might stay home. In any scenario where the liberal candidate sat out, at least half of the traditional liberal voters would switch to the conservatives not the far left parties. There just isn’t that many raving socialists in the country. The far left members of the lilberal party are simply infiltrators who realise they can’t get their agenda elected in an open way.
Why has there never been a poll asking us, are you concerned re afghan prisoners, possibly being abused by their own countrymen. I bet it would be at least 80%, NO.
Story at NNW and Bourque re how the new team will control the message from now on. Did Graham mention that.
And why should the PM give access to those who will ask stupid questions.
And someone wrote that the PM was too stiff and unemotional while on stage.
I notice the PM was given a bust of Ghandi, good thing they didn’t give one to O, he would send it back, like he did with the one of Churchill. He could have just removed it from the office, not send it back to England.
How insulting of him.
[...] « Shock and awe – or rage [...]
So, today the new head chief visited the liberal caucus for the first time, and the last time if his stmt is true. This is your caucus and I will visit again when we have doubled our seats. That would mean 144 seats, and that will take years to accomplish, if ever.
Good morning Canada! bit OT Thankyou “Tripper523″ I have been called many things in my life “truely adorable” is a first! Anyway another day doin’ my bit to move our economy foreward. It was a knock em’ dead moment watching Al Gore blather on about the earth’s core being “Millions and millions of degrees and the heat from there could be used to “create steam which then could turn turbans creating electricity”? No wonder this “great Pretender” never took questions. This bounty will be accessed by “special drills” that will bore through “molten rock” without “Melting” Sounds to me to be as plausible as his “the Earth has a fever” theory. I think his “tinfoil turbine” needs adjusting. I guess we can expect a lot more of this in the run-up to Copenhagen, desperate, deluded, ranting IMO. Gotta love you-tube.
As far back as you can go in recorded history there have always been those that predict disaster, end of days. If you do what they say, disaster will be “narrowly averted” right, drink the Kool-aid. Throw your first-born into the volcano, I will look after your gold. Same old, same old. Just like the Lieberals, out of power,
out of ideas,
out of leaders,
out of policies,
out in “left field” lookin’ for an audience,
Will be competing with middle aged “fading child stars” soon opening new laundrymats and strip malls.
Here is the lonk to “Big Al’s steam turban moment” hilarious!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/16/gore-has-no-clue-a-few-million-degrees-here-and-there-and-pretty-soon-were-talking-about-real-temperature/