Kate,

You do realize of course that WWI didn't really have "good guys" or "bad guys". It was nothing more than an ugly collision of several empires. I can't remember, but one of the English or French war leaders later admitted that if the general populace knew what the war was really about, they would have refused to fight it.

If you really think labor should have approved of the first great futile slaugther of young men in the 20th century, then you are the purest form of war monger, glorying in it no matter how
stupid or trivial the motive behind. Is there no war in history that you would have disapproved of?

Do you fellow smalldeadanimalians also thrill to bathing in human blood? The Canadian mainstream wants to know!

It wasn't all bad, as Delegate Willoughby pointed out that "wars educated people, and thus did good." Would that LumberJack Layton could be as sagacious.

Cheers
JMH

Wars only educate the people they don't kill, stupid. I'm sure education can be got at a cheaper cost.

If it wasnt for the fact that some would think what I have to say was in such bad taste I would tell biglyingliberano what I real think.

Fascist, anti-semitic, buddy of Castro, admirer of Mao, father of National Energy Policy (NEP) & more: Trudeau... not dead enough. +

Closest friends surprised by Trudeau revelations
Many didn't know extent of former PM's involvement in elitist organization

HUGH WINSOR

Special to The Globe and Mail

E-mail Hugh Winsor | Read Bio | Latest Columns
OTTAWA -- Some of Pierre Trudeau's closest friends were not aware of the extent of the former prime minister's involvement in a fascist-type secret organization in the 1940s until the publication of a book this week, but his participation was a reflection of the dominant intellectual currents in Quebec Roman Catholic circles at the time.

One of the closest of those friends, Marc Lalonde, who was part of the Quebec nationalist ferment along with Mr. Trudeau when both were in their youth, and subsequently one of the pillars in the Trudeau cabinets, said yesterday he was not aware of the organization described in Young Trudeau: 1919-1944, Son of Quebec, Father of Canada until he read the book.

But he was not surprised: "Quite obviously, it was a very small group led by a couple of Jesuit priests," he said yesterday, but it was fostered in a climate of church-led Quebec nationalism that was quite widespread, especially among the intellectual elites produced by the classical colleges in the 1930s and 1940s.

Mr. Lalonde said the book's authors, Max and Monique Nemni (who were also editors of the briefly revived Cité Libre, a magazine that Mr. Trudeau co-founded) have done their homework, had access to all of the documents and have provided an accurate picture of the times.

As a young man, Mr. Trudeau was very much influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, which at that time was very inward-looking and nationalist, Mr. Lalonde said. "They talked about creating La Laurencie [a Laurentian nation] that would be very Catholic, very French and very corporatist. They talked about a kind of perpetual revolution that went beyond the Trotsky notion of revolution," he added. + more
http://www.voy.com/178771/12014.html

He regarded anyone 'below' him with contempt. Look closely at his so called marriage to Maggie. She was nothing more than breeding stock he never cared for her. No wonder she's crazy today.

Trudeau was a communist. In later life he no longer wanted Quebec as a nation on it's own...he had bigger plans...he wanted Canada. He said to the separatists of the day..."Why settle for a mere province when WE can have the whole country." I really believe he saw himself as a God-like idol and it was his dream to be a dictator of a French nation. With Trudeau and his protege Chretien the war was never over. Look around you today at how much power 23% of Canada's population has...they were winning.

...
.... in 1944 .... wearing his German Nazi helmet and tooling around Montreal while his father's company ... Champlain Oil ... delivered fuel oil to homes and gas for cars ..... like the rich little prick that he was ... while anglo suckers were volunteering and even being conscripted into the war in Europe .... dying so that Trudeau and his Quebec ilk schemed to control the country .... and that sh!t Pearson started it all .... and now we have a beautifully divided Canada .... a ghettoized Toronto .... and PM Stephen Harper as our last and only hope to keep Canada viable as a nation.

Fluck the Liberats .... may they descend into political oblivion ... once all their slime and crime and corruption are revealed.... !!!! +
http://www.voy.com/178771/12020.html

Don't let me stop you, Tory Boy. If you tell me what you really think, how long can it take? In fact, I can guess what you're thinking now. Its: "Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow."

Some one has neglected to account for the failed efforts of the Socialist International to develop "alternate" solutions to the conflict. And to the less than unified disapprobation with which the labour movement approached the war.
But then the inability to pass the MENSA tests often found in Reader's Digest can have a deleterious effect on budding intellects. Thus we acquire "progessivity".

Cheers

meow."
Posted by bigcitylib at April 8, 2006 12:19 PM

Your buddies, bigcitylib. +

[PDF] Dining with terrorists
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Genial dinner hosts to Martin and. Minna, Tamil Tigers have been pegged as the. most ruthless and murderous terrorist group. in the world. ...
diarmani.com/Articles/Past%20Articles%20of%20the%20Week/Dining%20With%20Terrorists.pdf -
Tamil Tigers outlawed -- Group added to Canada's terror list
National Post ^ | 2006-04-08 | Stewart Bell

Posted on 04/08/2006 6:50:49 AM PDT by Clive

TORONTO - The Tamil Tigers have been added to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations, the National Post has learned.

The designation was to be finalized yesterday, a day after Cabinet met to accept a recommendation from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

An official announcement was scheduled for Monday.

The Tigers are the 39th terrorist group to be outlawed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the first added to the list by the new Conservative government.

The move was spearheaded by Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, who in opposition repeatedly condemned the Liberals for not outlawing the Tigers.

The decision means it will now be a criminal offence to participate in the activities of the Tamil Tigers, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, a Sri Lankan separatist group responsible for more than 160 suicide bombings. For example, anyone convicted of financially supporting the Tigers could be imprisoned for up to 10 years.

But while the Tigers were placed on the list, the government stopped short of listing any of the terrorist group's Canadian front organizations.

The Cabinet order will likely have implications both at home and abroad. It will criminalize the Tiger "war taxes" that have long been paid -- both voluntarily and involuntarily -- by some Tamil-Canadians. Also, Canada has the world's largest Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, estimated at 250,000, and the listing could deal a blow to the Tigers, who are heavily dependent on Canadian and other foreign donors.

"It is estimated that between one and two million dollars are raised annually in Canada, making it one of the largest contributors of funds to the LTTE worldwide," according to a classified CSIS report circulated in 2000. "The LTTE has traditionally raised these monies through the use of fronts groups."

The Tigers were formed in the 1980s to fight for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority, but the guerrilla group quickly embraced terrorist tactics.

Buses, trains and office buildings were bombed by the LTTE's suicide squad, the Black Tigers. The LTTE is considered one of the world's leading practitioners of suicide terrorism, and has assassinated scores of political opponents, among them the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1611475/posts

bigcitylib:

"the first great futile slaugther of young men in the 20th century"

Tell me was WWII also as futile in your mind? Or are there some things actually worth fighting for?

If more people had listened to labor and not acted like a colony of Britain, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. The only thing gained from the war was the development of more effective means of killing soldiers. New generations of these advancements came in very handy during WWII.
Labor doesn't like slaughter under any guise becuse most of those slaughtered are from the working class.

"WW1, no good guys or bad guys"

Looks like someone attended the University in Moscow in the 1960's, or better yet, is a butt buddy to Ward Churchill or shares bedpans with Castro. Leftist historic revisionism is so much fun to watch.

I gotta get me one of those Che Guevara T's.

Labor works for Capital
No capital, no work
No work, no labor
No labor = Africa

we need greedy business men to create wealth and jobs for idiots to fund their malcontent.

No matter how many times it's stated, leftist idiots cannot connect the dots. Maybe that's why they must labor.

"bigcitylib" - if you persist on that type of comment, you're not welcome here. Discuss and debate all you like, but I'm getting tired of this petty crap of yours eating up my bandwidth.

I was brought to this country from Britain-at the age of one and a half years, aboard the Aquitania, (fortunately- not aboard her sistership, the Lusitania- some of you know what happened to her.)( My Mummy was a 'war bride').
When I walked into that hospital room in Halifax, N.S. where my Dad was, (in the year 2000), he said: "What is that written on your toque, (which I bought from the beer store)?"
I replied: "It sez 'Canadian'.)!?!
My Dad said: "I do not hear you! Say it louder!"
!?! What the...............
"CANADIAN!"
"Right! And don't you ever forget it!"
Huh? (Thanks, Dad- I coulda been brung to a worse place!)

I'm pretty sure none of the left-wing reflexively anti-Iraq, anti-bush MSM will be reporting the trend shown in this graphic:

http://icasualties.org/oif/hnh.aspx

Kate, darling, I have never in all my years on the internet run into anyone who was pro WWI, before you. Its astounding! Put my remarks down to utter horror and shock. But your views are your views, and I apologize if my language was impolitic.

I know very little about WWI but I'm under the impression that the "labour" movement in this article is against Canada's involvement.

It should be noted that the rest of the paper screams such things as "Liege Streets Run Blood", "25,000 Slain in Battle", & "Paris-Appeals to the US", "London Raises Arms" & "neutral ships sunk".

As usual the "labour" movement is to late, the shits hit the fan already!

Dear Ryan, WWII gets a thumbs up in my book. More recently, so does Kosovo. But I am astounded that anyone could (as Kate seems to do) think of anything but the 1st World War as anything but a futile waste.

Anyone that has any knowledge of the time, that is...

And what would be the point of disapproving of a war that started 90+ years ago?? Other than that warm and fuzzy superior feeling that big city Liberals like to have?

(and here I thought WW1 had ripple effects for the rest of the century, but then I'm not a big city Liberal)

Perhaps you should write an alternate history where Labour cripples the war effort and the Germans win WW1.

Where did Kate suggest she was pro WW I? She just provided a graphic showing how the language and the rationale of the Left hasn't changed. "Capitalist greed" is the sort of thing you see on the placards of anti-war protesters today, and it's just kinda funny to see the same old, same old, 92 years ago.

Kate, darling, I have never in all my years on the internet run into anyone who was pro WWI, before you. Its astounding! Put my remarks down to utter horror and shock. But your views are your views, and I apologize if my language was impolitic.

Big City Lib (must be toronto) You make a mistake talking to Kate in these terms. You show great disrepect toward your host here on this blog.

You are a boor and a fool. Kate may be too magnanimous a person to kick you girly ass off of here, so why not grow up and be more respectful in return.

Your demented views will be read and debated, that's what happens here, but your disrepect toward Kate and others only shows the extent to which the big city has rotted your brain.

Believe it or not ... you can change.

Kate implies that Labour was wrong about WWI. They were not.

davie:
Great story. Thanks for sharing it with us.

http://centreofcanada.blogspot.com/

WW1 was like all wars avoidable had sanity prevailed. And almost no other war was as spectacular in its degree and means of slaughtering those involved.

Essentially WW1 can be seen as a European civil war triggered by a Balkan incident and brought to a global scale conflict by the competing imperalist forces and links. The amount of carnage and the ghastly huge numbers who died or were wounded in such wasteful ways as trench warfare and gas attacks can be blamed on the application of pre-industrial revolution military thinking to post industrial revolution military technology.

But there was a good side and a bad side and the good side won in the end. Had the German/Austro Hungarian side won Europe and much of the rest of the world would have fell under the rule of a bloodline dictatorship.

As it turned out democracies were introduced to much of Eastern Europe and the class systems on on both sides were mortally wounded and brought into question. Certainly the versailles treaty and the acceleration of the rise of Communism were to have negative results in the future but it can also certainly be argued that WW2 was in large part round 2 of the euro-civil and that Communism would have taken root eventually with unknowable consequences.

The left opposed the war for its own narrow motives. And that, as Kate notes, is unchanged today.

maz2:...thanx for adding another book title to my "must read list" and for your post. Your post contains factual information that has been known/speculated, by some, for a long time. Not all have been prepared to believe it. I look forward to reading the afore mentioned book to see what is revealed.

Only Kate would know, bcl, but I don't see any indication on her part that Labour was wrong about WW I, just that their rationale is always the same.

Consider, more recently, a famous Leftist who refered to the US's "new imperialist war", stating that it was undertaken with "deception, falsification and misrepresentation". Who made the statement? James Cannon, the founding leader of the Socialist Worker's Party of America, in the 1940's -- refering to WW II.

steve d. said: "If more people had listened to labor and not acted like a colony of Britain, ...
Labor doesn't like slaughter under any guise becuse most of those slaughtered are from the working class."

The above is total, unadulterated, socialist lies/propaganda & bs.

From socialism has sprung the isms: communism, nazism, fascism, islamist terrorism, anti-Americanism, with a huge dollop of anti-semitism included.

"On August 4, 1914, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) fraction in the German parliament voted in favour of war credits enabling German imperialism to go to war."

Blood trumped socialism.

The socialists betrayed their own "supporters", the so-called "working-class".

Down with socialism.
Long live freedom and democracy. +

Ninetieth anniversary of the German SPD voting for war
August 4, 1914, and its consequences
By Peter Schwarz
6 August 2004
This Wednesday marked the ninetieth anniversary of the most fateful date in the history of German social democracy. On August 4, 1914, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) fraction in the German parliament voted in favour of war credits enabling German imperialism to go to war. With the notorious statement of its chairman Hugo Haase, “We will not desert our fatherland in its hour of need,” the SPD placed itself firmly behind Kaiser Wilhelm II and his government in what was to emerge as the bloodiest mass slaughter in human history until that time.

The vote in favour of war credits represented an unprecedented betrayal of everything the SPD stood for. The German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg described the betrayal as follows: “Never before in the history of class struggles, since there have been political parties, has there been a party that, in this way, after fifty years of uninterrupted growth, after achieving a first-rate position of power, after assembling millions around it, has so completely and ignominiously abdicated as a political force within twenty-four hours, as Social Democracy has done.” And she concluded: “On August 4, 1914, German social democracy abdicated politically, and at the same time the socialist International collapsed.”

For a period of more than four decades, the SPD had educated the working class on the basis of international solidarity and hostility towards imperialism. In November 1912, the party had played a leading role at the congress of International Socialists in Basel, which expressly called upon the working class to resist moves towards war.

The manifesto drawn up and agreed upon at the conference by all the major European socialist parties declared: “This congress...calls upon the workers of all countries to oppose capitalist imperialism with the power of the international solidarity of the working class.” The manifesto threatened the “ruling classes of all nations” with revolutionary consequences in the event of war and warned: “It would be insane should governments not realise that the mere thought of the monstrosity of a world war would evoke the outrage and anger of the working class. The proletariat regards it as criminal should they be forced to shoot at one another in order to further the profits of capitalists, the ambitions of dynasties or in order to honour secret diplomatic treaties.”

The declaration in favour of “defence of the fatherland” represented a radical departure from these principles. Applied to the International as a whole, it meant that the workers of every country were obliged to participate in the slaughter of workers from other countries in order to defend their own “fatherland.” The decision represented a death blow for the Socialist International.

The support for “defence of the fatherland” meant that the SPD had shifted into the camp of German imperialism. The party went on to suppress any opposition to the war. Along with the vote in favour of war credits went a commitment to a social “cease-fire”—a halt to the class struggle in all its forms so long as the “fatherland” was in danger. Following the declaration by SPD leader Haase, the German chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, was able to state with satisfaction and to the furious applause of the right wing that the German people “united down to the last man” were behind the German army and navy. Social democratic party organisations and the party’s press switched to disseminating propaganda for the war and conducting a venomous and chauvinist campaign.

The SPD had been transformed from an opponent of the ruling order into one of its props. Just four years later, the party took over responsibility to rescue anything and everything that could be saved from the ruins of the Wilhelmine Empire—its military elite, which it embraced as an ally against the revolutionary working class; the dilapidated army units (Freikorps), which later became the backbone of Hitler’s stormtroopers (SA); the authoritarian state and its legal system based on officialdom; the aristocratic large-scale land owners (Junkers); and the capitalist private property of the major industrial barons, banks and trusts.

All the anti-democratic forces and institutions, which would later be described in tones of angry criticism by some social democratic historians, were only able to survive thanks to the support of the SPD. The SPD garbed these institutions with the mantle of the Weimar constitution and allowed them to fester until they shifted into the camp of National Socialism in the 1930s. +++
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/spdd-a06.shtml

Gord, the Left opposed the war then and was right to do so, however "narrow" its motives. Bit like the Iraq War now. Looks like Labor was two for two, so far.

EBD-- exactly right,
BCL-- regardless if war is right or wrong, i for one thank my family & 80,000+ Canadian's that had the guts to volunteer to put there life on the line so that you may voice your opinion.
there will always be debates on the subject & 9out10 the left will disagree & argue against any sort of conflict, as long as they have their cozy little world to live in.

Speaking of the First World War, and anti-war leftists, it's worth recalling this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jaures

And don't forget how socialist saint and Anglo-assimilationist, JS Woodsworth was the only Canadian MP to vote against going to war against fascism in the Second World War

Left liberal socialists have allied themselves with Islamist terrorists in Iraq & elsewhere in the world.

Socialism: the religion of nihilism & losers.

Down with socialism. +

Iraqis mourn victims of Shiite mosque attack
Canada.com - 7 hours ago
Iraqi mourners walk through the streets carrying a coffin containing the body of Ahmed Ali, an engineering student who was killed in Friday's suicide attack on a mosque Saturday April 8, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq. ...
Shiites condemn mosque bombing, remember Shiite cleric Monsters and Critics.com
Explosions at mosque leave 79 dead in Baghdad Globe and Mail via googlenews +

Belmont Club: Wretchard:

Eggplant said...

I find much of this beyond comprehension:

First, think of the cowardice this represents, i.e. a moslem man dressed as a woman in a burka using a suicide belt to kill other moslems in a mosque on the moslem sabbath. Wow!

Secondly, think of the amazing hate this represents, i.e. the suicide bomber committed murder against innocents in a way having almost no hope for redemption in his imaginary afterlife. Wow!

How can a mere human have such insane hate? +

whit said...

eggplant asked:
"How can a mere human have such insane hate?"

It's so simple even the morons can do it.

Step 1:
Indoctrinate the children in the misogynistic, intolerant theology of the death cult. This indoctrination may be initiated at a very yound age beginning with cartoons and coloring books. The real payoff comes in the fine secondary education afforded by madrassas for the footsoldiers or various Saudi universities for the expediters, handlers and finaciers.

Step 2:
Identify and cultivate potential death cult martyrs. Potential martyrs may be loners, shamed women, sisters of prior martyrs, the mentally retarded, etc. Occasionally, it may be necessary to convince a martyr by puting his family in "protective custody."

Step 3:
Await orders, record martyrs video, escort martyr to target and if necessary, detonate.

Of course, The Palestinians perfected the process. +

http://www.paulding.net/bin/url.cgi/13246.10

bcl - all you do is assert your conclusions.
Assertions are not explanations and provide no proof of the validity of those assertions. All they do is 'assert'. Any propagandist does that.

Your subsequent assertions about that, and other wars, are all similar. Assertions. When someone has a different opinion, quite possibly based on data and logic, you assert that they are morally and/or intellectually deficient.

But - that is all you do. Assert. No data, no evidence, no analysis, no logic, no proof.

Heck - that's the simplest rhetorical tactic in the world. It's also completely fallacious but..
After all, I could do the same with any topic. I could argue that aliens have taken over the world, secretely injected their minds into the minds of Only Americans and Non-Socialists..etc, etc.. Using your tactics, all I'd need to do would be to ASSERT this idea. No data, no argument, no analysis. And, to prevent rebuttal, I'll simply ASSERT that anyone who doesn't agree with this - is ignorant, amoral, blah, blah.

It's easy.

How about a little data, evidence, causal analysis..and logic? No ad hominem, no accusations that anyone who doesn't agree is somehow degenerate or lacking half a brain. No patronizing comments. Just hard facts and logic.

You might find that wars are not as 'stupid' as you consider them. And sometimes, they must be fought. That included the first World War, which was actually an aspect of the Second.
You, for example, are a beneficiary as the wars against fascism and communism. We are now fighting Islamofascism. And there are good reasons to fight Islamofascism.

Facts? Don't confuse moi with the facts. Here are some facts about socialism.

Socialism: The ideology of euthanasia, aka Death, aka Thanatos. +

Belgium to Consider Legalizing Under-18 Euthanasia
Posted by wagglebee
On 04/08/2006 12:26:54 PM PDT · 17 replies · 205+ views

LifeSiteNews ^ | 4/7/06 | Gudrun Schultz
BRUSSELS, Belgium, April 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The government of Belgium is considering a proposal to legalize euthanasia for children and youth up to age 18.The Flemish Socialist party, a member of Belgium’s coalition government, has called for an extension to the country’s euthanasia laws to give teenagers under 18 the right to choose assisted suicide, and parents of younger children the right to “choose” it for them.Euthanasia was legalized in Belgium in 2002. Under the current law, a patient must be over 18, terminally ill and in constant suffering in order to qualify for euthanasia. The country has... +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse

BCL:

Unless you think that the wrong side won in WW1 then the left was wrong in that instance.

As for the Iraq Conflict, we have yet to see the final result. Go look at the link I posted above and try and out assert yur way into saying that the tide it seems is turning in the coalition's favour.

More importantly the left is wrong for the same reasons you are: You oppose without proposing solutions.

bigcitylib,

Can I hear you explain how Hitler and Mussolini weren't socialists but really right-wing capitalists in disguise. I've heard over lefties explain, but I laugh every time.

bigcitylib,

Could you explain to me how Hitler and Mussolini weren't really socialists but right wing capitalists in disguise? I've heard it before from other lefties, but I laugh every time.

HAving trouble with my internet, please forgive me repeating myself.

Labor's views are always the same: Capitalist, western society bad... period. Labor is communist, marxist, and socialist utopian, and it never takes the side of free market economies, even when those economies thrive primarily in democracies and have provided labor with.... labor. During WW1 labor unions were heavily infiltrated with communists and by WW2 in North America unions were primarily fronts for the communist party. That is why labor opposed WW2 until Stalin was attacked... then all of labor in North America couldn't get into the war fast enough. It opposed Korea though (wonder why), and opposed any involvement in China post WW2. It's so trasnparant a blind monkey could see it.

If you view the opinions of labor or the NDP, through the simple prism of Capitalist versus Worker... everything these socialists do and says makes sense. Democracy, humanrights, freedom, free speech, etc. mean nothing to these latter-day-communists; it's all about opposeing the free market economy.

bigcitylib and others on this thread demonstrate their incredible lack of WW1 knowledge. They've read so little, that they confuse two different concepts, as expressed by most historians. The once concept argues that the battle tactics during WW1 were incredibly wasteful of human life; which is true. But, this is a tacticle military structural debate.

The other concept deals with causes of the war and potential fallout had the Allies not won.

These are two different concepts, but the "read the headlines only" boobs commenting don't understand the difference.

To think, that the allied forces fighting against German, Austro, Hungarian enemy, were fighting simply as a result of clashing empires is so simplistic, and Socialist, that it's laughable. I recommend they bone up on their history, and not rely on what Noam Chomsky, or their high school teachers "told" them.

There was an obvious agressor, and obvious defenders, and even more obvious unwilling participants who entered only as a last resort to save Europe. The only thing missing was Hitler's saddism on the part of the Austro-Hungarian-German enemy, which was the aggressor in the west; and had been for decades prior.

Thank You Debris Trail.
You saved me from posting a long screed on the whys & wherefores, of the first World conflict of the 20th Century.

If one reads Hemingway, he figured it was the socialist , communist ravings of it being the munitions makers for profits. There is a play he wrote. The name escapes me now. I have seen the production a few times. Its very true. Leftists despised any war with Hitler while he had a pack with there great leader Stalin to portion out Poland like a mutton chop.

In Canada it was England who was hated by the communists & leftists of the day. That is until after ww2, & America took over from England, as the Canada's Protector de-jure .England was broke. The Empire dying. With cheers from leftists on the sidelines.

America became the champion of civilisation as Briton declined. To Despotic ideologies like the left this was intolerable.

Those interested in why the war was fought can apply themselves at this site or others.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

I don't pretend to know the exact causes of WW1, and none of the historians seem to either, though they all have their theories.
Kate is right about one thing, Communists haven't changed their tactics.
I grew up in a small town on the prairies, in the 50's and 60's. My dad was a veteran of WW2, grandfather a highly decorated veteran of WW1. Every able bodied man, in both my mother's and father's families served in the World Wars.
Just about every adult I knew back then had served and I grew up listening to their tales. The veterans of WW2 told funny stories, always accentuated the humourous side of war. The veterans of WW1 never did, those poor bastards were still in shock 40 years after it ended.
I cannot imagine the horror they lived through, and in respect of their memory, I would never question their effort.
All I know about WW1, apart from the many versions of history I've read, is that my home town lost too many of our best young men, and so many who came home were grieviously wounded, and died long before their time.
In gratitude, the Government of the day did as little as possible for the returning veterans, and tried especially hard to screw the Indians out of any benefits they were due. That is why my Grandfather, and his fellow veterans, joined their various service organizations (Great War Veterans, British Empire Servicemans League, etc.) to form the Royal Canadian Legion. I wish everyone on this blog could talk to the people I've had the privilege of knowing, who served in both those Wars, you'd get a much different insight into what it means to go to war.
You would also hear about the Governments' lack of interest in the veterans after the fighting is over, after both Wars.
Most of the veterans did come from the "working classes". Who in hell did you think did the fighting, lawyers and CEO's? Most of the men from my home town had never been more than forty miles from home in their lives, dirt poor farmers mostly, who answered the call because, we were told, Gavrilo Prinzip shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
In my heart of hearts, I wish someone had said, "well if it bothers you so much, go fight them yourself".
I will never be satisfied with "official theories" on why we had to join the Great War, all I know is good men from places like Gruber, Fork River, Elbow, Sifton, had to go a long way from home and die.
Twenty-one years later we had to go through the same fucking exercise again, and we lost the cream of another generation.
Most of those little towns dried up and disappeared, their lifes' blood spilled all over foreign soil. My uncle, who I'm named after, was killed at 19.
Sometimes we have to go to war, but when we do, the people must hold Governments responsible for their failures that led to war. And we have to hold the ungrateful s.o.b.'s to their promises to look after the returning veterans and their families, and the families of those who never return.

o thrill to bathing in human blood? The Canadian mainstream wants to know!
Posted by bigcitylib at April 8, 2006 12:03 PM

Is this the best your pathetic mind can come up with?

You have demonstrated a total lack of comprehension of history, but then being a Liberal , we shouldn't be surprised,

Dou you vere wonder why you blog has no traffic and SDA has lots ??

Its because nobody gives a flying foo-foo what you thnk because you, and your "thoughts" are trivial, pathetic and of no consequence.

You just don't matter, you aren't worth the typing time to respond anymore.

You are, like all Liberals, a waste of time and enegy, condemmed to the the ash heap of useless ideas and comments.

However, your comments are mildly amusing in a childish sort of way.

Too bad about your blog.

Too bad there is no traffic.

Too bad you don't matter.

dmorris: Well said. Compared to the way the USA government treated its WW2 vets, Canada was an embarrassment. The GI Bill of Rights in the USA gave many returning vets wonderful opportunities to start over. It wasn't perfect, but much much better than anything Canada had.

The prairie provinces in particular were bled dry by the First World War. Prairie boys volunteered by the thousands, and died by the thousands. Keep in mind that the population was tiny. Then, for those who came back, they were often given stony pathetic tiny parcels of land... as a gift. Most of those "settled" regions ended up back as crown land afterwards because they were not capable of sustaining farms.

Fast forward: After Bosnia and Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Canadian government gave very poor support to troops suffering from PTSD. I don't know what it does today, but there was a stubborness to recognize that troops in Peace Keeping could get PTSD. We now know that peace-keepers who are not allowed by crazy UN rules of engagement to intervene on the behalf of civilians being slaughtered, suffer PTSD at rates higher than combat forces. Yet, our government did not to spend significant funds to help Canadian Forces victims. Thank the Liberal Socialist mentality in this country.

Let's hope that under Harper, a new sense of responsibility will prevail.

ps: Don't let me get started on the Indian Vets. Canadians should be very very ashamed of the way they were treated.

Keerist ... I just checked out BCL's blog.

It's so juvenile, I was embarrassed to be there.

BullshittyLiberal, you are critiquing inane rock bands that haven't a clue what real music is but then you are clueless yourself so I can see the conection.

You are either very young or old with brain damage.

You have no business here pissing with the big dogs.

Go get your government job if you don't already have one and take your place in grey line.

The light is far too bright here for a vampire like you.

WRT WW1 being "good" or "bad". It may very well be true that WW1 was bad (whatever that means). To me the issue is that the "left" or "labour" are against using arms at any time. Even if they are "right" on this, they have no credibility here. It's like someone being right about a hockey game being bad, when they hate hockey. Wars are not nice (understatement), but force is sometimes necessary. Appeasement only encourages monsters like Hitler and bin Laden, and they use this weakness to convince those they hate (non-arians and infidels) to not oppose them. History has shown us the price of stopping monsters now will invariably than the later cost. If Hitler had been stopped in 1936, I doubt as many millions would have died. As far as WW1 is concerned, it is difficult to see merit, though people thought they were fighting against German authoritarianism (remember, they did invade Belgium and France). I guess life is easier for the Chomsky crowd if they simply view the West as racist and ethnocentric. I think, however, it is the foes (haters) of the West who are those things. It's funny how the left calls others ideological, followed by some slogan. In my opinion, the "left" is bigoted, ethnocentric and hopelessly naive and malleable. Before bin Laden, the world was making excellent progress in the search for peace in the ME, particularly in Israel. Notice I'm not saying the people of the ME fit this mold; they are quite happy buying western goods/services. It is a cop out to say one hates western leadership but not the people (you know the ones in the WTC). Bin Laden set that course back; he is the one with blood on his hands.

steve d., bigcitylib: Perhaps it might have been better if the British Empire (which, as you may or may not remember, in 1914 included Canada, automatically at war if Britain was--though up to Canada to determine the extent of our participation) had not gone to war with Germany and A-H. At least then, without the defeat of the Central Powers, there would have been no victory of Bolshevism/Communism in Russia and no Hitler in Germany.

But I doubt if that is the sort of counter-factual that would ever occur to you.

Bang, bang.

Mark
Ottawa

steve d., bigcitylib: One could also argue that the victory of the allied and associated powers in WW I gave freedom to the oppressed Slavs of Central, Eastern and Balkan Europe; and eventually to the Arabs from Ottoman rule.

Whether or not those have been good developments, on the whole, is something that Chou En-lai might consider it too early to judge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Enlai

Mark
Ottawa

Of course we can point to wars where the Left took the wrong stance. We can also do the same with respect to the Right. For example, the Reform Party or CRAP or whatever they were called at the time (mid 1990s) had all sorts of reservations with respect to the old Yugoslavia, which now seem the result of sheer cowardice. The Republicans down South were also quite disgraceful in that regard.

BCL has changed the topic...

Gord,

BCL has responded to an earlier string of posts not posted by you. It isn't personal. Do try and read the whole thread, though.

bigcitylib: I await your comment on this article:
http://www.varsity.utoronto.ca/archives/119/apr08/news/camp.html

On the other hand, one can hardly be proud of Reform in this instance:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0010534

The attitudes of that time certainly seem to resonate today, do they not?

I think the common ground is that Canadian students and politicians simply approach things with the attitude that one must me be against whatever those we don't like are supporting. Without any serious consideration of the facts or the principles involved.

Intelligence lite. Canada, so to speak.

Mark
Ottawa

It's true that the Reform Party at one point opposed greater Canadian participation on the ground in Bosnia because Canada simply didn't have the capability at the time. However, earlier on, and just prior to the Srebernicia massacre, Reform advocated in one of those useless "take note" debates, that our fighter jets already on duty in Bosnia be used against the Serbs gathered around that doomed city. Of course, nobody paid much attention - one of the expressed reasons being that this would provoke the Serbs to attack our soldiers on the ground.

And lets not forget Stalin was the anti-capitalist, pacifist,left-wing posterboy, who spent all his time spreading joy,love, and peace.

Mark,

I am not sure what I am supposed to be commenting on here. The enclyclopedia link goes to the front page.

The other simply tells me that David Orchard and Michael Bliss jumped wrong on the Kosovo war, which I already knew about.

bcl said:"If you really think labor should have approved of the first great futile slaugther of young men in the 20th century,..."

bcl said: "Of course we can point to wars where the Left took the wrong stance."

bcl eats crow ... CAW CAW CAW!

Here is why bcl eats crow:

Socialists... "labor", as bcl puts it, approved Germany's aggression in WWI.

"On August 4, 1914, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) fraction in the German parliament voted in favour of war credits enabling German imperialism to go to war."

So-called "Labor" in the days of WWI were largely ranks of domestic bolsheviks or Fabian socialists who had sympathy with the Russian civil/worker's revolt. They believed that if they could keep Canada and the US out of the royal entanglements in Europe that the Monarchies of Germany and Russia would collapse creating a general domino effect in the decline and disempowerment of royalty/aristocracy in the European continent...which was a desired goal of global socialism/bolshevism....and one I might add that many populist democrats and republicans supported at the time.

The difference is that once aristocratic autarchy was disempowered socialists wanted a utopian worker's central dictatorship where as the populists of the era wanted to see European aristocracy's plutocracy replaced with international free market capitalism and "liberal" ( as in JS Mill) democracies.

Strange how the only nation on the European continent that has escaped the ravages of tyranny in the age of kings, the tyranny and Military crusades of post modern political fanaticism (fascism and communism) is tiny unaggressive Switzerland...the world's oldest democracy and neutral power...where every citizen is armed and empowered as an extention of the government, the military and the police....strange how that works out eh?

I always recall the proxy war in Spain '37 - '39. Where from Canada (left) came the McKenzie/Paps to aid the cause and bleed for Stalin, while Hitler perfected his war machine. Read Shirer "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" or the now released files from the Kremlin proving the Soviet leadership.

Damn those German Socialists for being patriotic into the bargain and thus not saving the world from two world wars!

I commented recently on propaganda distorting the issues on all sides, and that it was left to historians to separate fact from fiction after the event. I also should have pointed out that history is the handmaiden of politics (historians do have to teach and publish, and it's easier to do both when you don't swim against the stream.) Reading the exchanges of propaganda in this thread confirms both views.

There is no point trying to argue for or against either side, because the arguments are not about facts but about interpretation. But let me raise a couple of general points.

1. The socialism/communism decried so vehemently on this blog is a product of the unfettered capitalism of the 19th century. If you want pure capitalism, look at the 19th century and see how you like it and how it would work to-day.

2. If you want to find out what WWI (or any war) was about, you are going to have to go beyond the "fast-food" scholarship of the internet and the personal opinion of bloggers. You also have to go beyond a good deal of general history (see the point about historians above.)

3. Wars escape the control, direction and intentions of their initiators. One step leads to another, even in directions in which they might not want to go. Which is why it is very important to know what you are doing for what reason when you start, and how far you are prepared to go. Perhaps Clausewitz was right in suggesting that limited war is a contradiction in terms.

4. Easy on fostering antagonism through propaganda. Would WWI have happened without the anglo-german antagonism that had been fostered for decades by both sides? Just make sure that your war against "islamofascism" does not turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5. There would have been no WWII without WWI. And the empires that were preserved in WWI were lost through WWII. And without the need to pacify the soldiery after the wars, there would have been no social measures - no "socialism" - in Great Britain or Canada!

All in aid of being careful in judging the past and considering the future.

Why,oh why,are so many here wasting so much energy shouting at a wall....How futile!

Shaking the Foundations
Excerpts:
UK Secretary of State for Defence John Reid recently gave a widely publicized speech called "20th-Century Rules, 21st-Century Conflict". Defence News (follow the link to the speech) summarized Reid's theme: the era of great power wars is probably over and the system of laws which stemmed from them may no longer be suitable for the wars of the 21st century.

Mr Reid said that the strategic landscape and its threats were new and unprecedentedly complex, with interlocking uncertainties in the ecological, economic, political and social spheres. The barbarism and lack of constraint of our terrorist opponents made it necessary to consider considering the legal framework in which they and we operated. The Defence Secretary said that without making specific proposals, it was time to ask whether current international law-originally developed for a world of state-to-state conflict now needed to be rebalanced between security and freedom, as UK domestic legislation has been. In particular, did international law adequately now address:

* the threat from international terrorists, who can now threaten mass casualty attacks -and where there might be a case for new Geneva Protocols ?
* the potential need to take pre-emptive action against imminent attack?
* the possible requirement to intervene to stop mass murder and genocide?

Although delivered in quiet, non-inflammatory phrases, Reid's speech nevertheless managed to impugn three of the basic pillars of international law. His first question is whether the Geneva Convention needs to be updated.

For centuries conflict between tribes, cities and states was completely unbridled and savage. Very gradually, mankind developed a range of conventions that they applied to constrain and moderate what is in essence a brutal activity. Eventually, these agreements became rules, which became laws. ... But warfare continues to evolve, and, in its moral dimensions, we have now to cope with a deliberate regression towards barbaric terrorism by our opponents. A few weeks ago I spoke to students at King’s College here in London about the uneven nature of the modern battlefield, and the unconstrained enemy ranged against us. ... Historically, of course, laws have always been adapted to better suit the times. When they have become out-dated, or less relevant, or less applicable to the realities of the day they have been modified or changed. This is true of all laws, domestic or international.
...
John Reid's last point challenges the principle of territorial sovereignty which has underpinned international law since the Peace of Westphalia. "Following the Thirty Years' War ... the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the notion of territorial sovereignty as a doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of other nations." The doctrine of noninterference resulted in the opacity of sovereignty, in which the community of nations was literally blind to acts committed by sovereigns within their borders, however brutal those might be. Saddam Hussein for example, could gas the Kurds and the US actions to topple him for these and other reasons are perceived by some (such as by the Christian Peacemaker Teams, for example) as "illegal". But Reid asks whether this opacity can still be sustained.
...
Reid, before becoming the UK equivalent of SecDef was "a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (of which he has said: 'I used to be a Communist. I used to believe in Santa Claus')" and his views may be colored by his background. But I have no doubt that Reid's remarks, whatever their actual merit, are the first stirrings of a debate which will eventually reshape the international environment of the 21st century. And the world is changing. Austin Bay links to a long article in the National Journal which talks about a new "strategic convergence" within NATO which basically asserts the alliance is gradually going to war as concretely expressed by its growing commitment to combat in Afghanistan. One of the implied objectives of NATO's Afghan commitment is to gain experience in a new kind of warfare for which most of its members are unprepared but a recent hearing of the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations on Islamic Extremism in Europe strongly suggests that for the Continent at least, the war will also have a significant domestic component.
...
The issues that Reid raised were all prefigured in one way or the other by the US experience from 2002 to the present. They find their echoes in the Plame Affair. Guantanamo Bay. The McCain Amendment. In Iraq. That these problems are now coming to the general attention of Europe suggests that the problems themselves are real. If so, there is no Last Helicopter out of the situation unless it can take us away from the 21st century.

posted by wretchard at
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/

Nasty bickering aside -- this blog does a superb job of drawing out informed, passionate debate on Canadian history. Bravo, Kate.

When the gullible become seduced by the religion of world order: Wokers World Government - Communism, in other words, the coverts get disconnected from the morality of right and wrong, as understood by the rest of us - the right-headed, right-minded citizens of canada and the planet.

Socialists and communists shock the rest of us by their willingness to cut their neighbour's throat - or watch - in the name of some International world movement of .... labour .

Looking back at newspapers during times of national crisis truly demonstrates how some things never change. Politcal forces in orbit.
9-11gmm

April 09, 1917, Vimy Ridge.

Lest We Forget.

John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place; ... We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. ...
www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/McCrae.html - 2k - +

Shock and Awe, 1917 (Vimy Ridge, April 9, 1917
National Archives via CBC ^ | April 9, 2003 | Gary Graves

Posted on 04/09/2006 7:59:03 AM PDT by Clive

We may marvel at the firepower of the hundreds of missiles and smart bombs used in U.S. attacks on Iraq, but an overwhelming battlefield fusillade creating shock and awe is not a new idea. In fact, Canadian soldiers fighting in the First World War were pioneers of the tactic.

It was at Vimy Ridge, a strategic 14-kilometre long escarpment that overlooks the Douai plain of France. German occupying troops controlled the ridge using a network of trenches that snaked along the crest and down into the valley, connecting with another network of natural caves. 150,000 French and British soldiers had died trying to take it back. Allied commanders believed the ridge to be impregnable.

But the Canadians had a plan, the first battle strategy for this new nation's commanders to conceive and execute on their own. Even military "experts" of the time admitted dubiously that the Canadians' plan couldn't be any worse than the British tactics at the Somme, which cost 24,000 Canadian casualties. So the Canadian army – all four divisions, totalling 100,000 men – got the go-ahead.

The ground assault had been planned meticulously for months. Full-scale replicas of the Vimy terrain were built to rehearse unit commanders on what to expect both from the enemy and from Canadian units on either side. Canadian spotters had identified and mapped about 80 per cent of the German gun positions. Five kilometres of tunnels were dug in order to move Canadian troops and ammunition up to the front without their being seen by German observers. And for a couple of weeks leading up to the battle, Canadian and British artillery pounded the Germans with 2,500 tons of ammunition per day.

At 5:30 in the morning on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, the assault began. It was raining. It was freezing cold. And it began with a huge artillery barrage… shock and awe 1917-style.

Over 1,100 cannons of various descriptions, from British heavy naval guns mounted on railway cars miles behind the battlefield, to portable field artillery pieces dragged into place by horses, mules or soldiers just behind the Canadian lines, fired continuously – in some cases until they exhausted their ammunition.

The Canadian battle plan was simple: the withering barrage provided a screen for the Canadian troops to hide behind. Hundreds of shells would land at once, spraying plumes of muddy earth upward like a polluted version of some giant decorative water fountain. Every three minutes the 850 Canadian cannons would aim a little higher, advancing the row of shellfire forward by 90 metres.

The attacking Canadian foot soldiers were expected to keep up, advancing, taking and occupying German positions, moving forward, never stopping, never racing ahead. Falling behind would make them clearer targets for German guns mounted higher up the ridge. Getting ahead of the artillery would put them in danger of being blasted by their own guns.

The giant naval cannons focused on the reinforced concrete bunkers protecting German heavy gun emplacements. The immense but inaccurate shells sent plumes of dirt, concrete and shrapnel skyward with every impact. The craters left behind were as large as houses.

The fight to take Vimy Ridge cost Canada dearly, but it would become the cornerstone of the nation's image of its place in the world. In four days, 3,600 Canadian soldiers died, another 5,000 were wounded. But the ridge was taken, much of it in the first day. The valour of the troops, the originality of the plan, the success where larger, more established armies had failed, all contributed to a new nation's pride.

The battle was hailed as the first allied success of the long war, achieved mostly due to the innovation of using a creeping, continuous massive artillery barrage to protect squads of advancing troops. Both sides used the tactic in future battles.

But even today we're paying the cost. At Vimy and other former First World War battlefields, the ground is so full of unexploded ordnance that visitors are warned not to stray from marked pathways. The risk from shells that fell and never exploded is still so high that it's too dangerous, nearly a century later, to walk onto the actual battlefield to search for remains of soldiers listed as "missing." +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1611918/posts

Haroon Siddiqui, everyone's favourite Toronto Star Muslim columnist, writes in "A misguided mission that is destined to fail" that "Our 2,300 troops [if Afstan] are part of a "multinational operation" in which we are the only nation, the Dutch and the British having delayed their deployments."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1144446612409&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

That is simply not true. According to a March 27 BBC report: "Britain began an enlarged deployment to Afghanistan last month, sending an extra 3,300 troops to the south." No delay there. The same story also reports the death of a British soldier in in a road accident in southern Afghanistan. His deployment, rather than being delayed, was sadly ended.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4849074.stm

The Dutch deployment of some 1,200 soldiers, to serve under the NATO International Security Assistance Force with the Canadians and British in southern Afghanistan, is proceeding as scheduled with arrival planned for early August.
http://www.mindef.nl/en/

Meawhile there are already 450 Dutch military personnel based at Kandahar along with our forces--where the Dutch fly ex-Canadian Chinook helicopters in support of our soldiers.
http://server09.densan.ca/archivenews/060217/npt/060217aw.htm

The Dutch also have some 250 special forces in the area engaged in, one would surmise, gasp, combat--alongside our JTF2.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020102130_2.html

The British, the Dutch and the Canadians are all now under US Operation Enduring Freedom until they transfer to NATO command this summer.
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/operations/archer/view_news_e.asp?id=1703

More inaccurate and misleading drivel from our major media.

Mark Ottawa

The Germans are there as well, although some question their commitment.

Although this is a clear example of how the left only has one position on war (bad) no matter what the circumstances, the reality of the fact is that the First World War was a useless waste of life started by fat old men more concerned with their arrogant pride than with the lives of their people.

Just another reason why we should have ditched our "ruling families" in the form of monarchies centuries ago, the worthless inbred degenerates.

All that aside, though - nice research on the paper. Two thumbs up on that.

Thanks maz 2 for the post on the Tamil Tigers...well financed by the past Liberal lefties. To use someone elses(bcl) words..it is the Libs who "thrill to bathing in human blood"
Thank you to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for cutting funding to the Tamil Tigers.

Wretchard posts on: War, as she is writ today: the Shadow War of which the MSM dares not report.

The blogosphere is reporting: read on: +

The world outside

There's a fascinating article in the Weekly Standard which grants a glimpse into the shadow war between state-sponsored terrorists and their pursuers. The accounts, based on documents captured in Afghanistan and Iraq, describe Saddam Hussein's support for the Abu Sayyaf terror group in the Philippines.

Up to this point, those materials have been kept from the American public. Now the proverbial dam has broken. On March 16, the U.S. government posted on the web 9 documents captured in Iraq, as well as 28 al Qaeda documents that had been released in February. Earlier last week, Foreign Affairs magazine published a lengthy article based on a review of 700 Iraqi documents by analysts with the Institute for Defense Analysis and the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. Plans for the release of many more documents have been announced. And if the contents of the recently released materials and other documents obtained by The Weekly Standard are any indication, the discussion of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq is about to get more interesting. ...

The documents indicated that Iraqi support for the Abu Sayyaf was handled through an Iraqi Embassy cell consisting of Ambassador Salah Samarmad, Third Secretary Ahmad Mahmud Ghalib , most likely an Iraqi intelligence officer and author of the "security report"; and Iraqi intelligence informers Muhammad al-Zanki, Abu Ahmad, and Omar Ghazal among others. Their reports record a roller-coaster relationship with the Mindanao-based terrorist organization. The Iraqis supported the Abu Sayyaf up until they kidnapped twenty civilians from a beach resort in Palawan in June 2001, an operation which netted three Americans: Guillermo Sobrero and the couple Tim and Marcia Burnham. Sobrero was subsequently beheaded; Tim Burnham died in the rescue attempt. The Iraqis briefly suspended their support and covered their tracks as the kidnapping became international news but resumed their assistance shortly thereafter. As the Weekly Standard put it: "Why did the Iraqis begin funding Abu Sayyaf, which had long been considered a regional terrorist group concerned mainly with making money? Why did they suspend their support in 2001? And why did the Iraqis resume this relationship and, according to the congressional testimony of one State Department regional specialist, intensify it?" The post-September 11 stages of Saddam's relationship with the Abu Sayyaf are exemplified in a 2002 operation which successfully killed an American soldier and attempted to kill Filipino children in a school playground. + more
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/990ieqmb.asp

Trouble in Marxist Paradise: Protesters Take to Streets in Venezuela
ChronWatch ^ | April 09, 2006 | Jim Kouri

Posted on 04/09/2006 5:25:14 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill

Protesters in Venezuela are taking to the streets in the thousands in anger over the recovery of the bodies of three boys kidnapped on their way to school. Don’t expect to read or hear about it in the US news media. There’s trouble in President Hugo Chavez’s Marxist utopia and it’s not a pretty sight for his leftist cheerleaders in the US and Europe.

Police wearing riot gear fired tear gas at demonstrators blocking a road as thousands of marchers brought Caracas traffic to a standstill while demanding justice, according to video from the BBC.

After the protests, the capital’s mayor said he was replacing the chief of police with an army brigadier general, which probably means the government will use more force when dealing with demonstrators, reports the BBC.

According to several English-speaking correspondents, there is frustration over the “perceived rise in crime.” Perceived nothing. Caracas is turning into the crime capital of Latin America -- and it’s President Chavez’s fault. Most of the violence is targeting Venezuela’s upper-middle class and wealthy, something he’s encouraged in his vitriolic speeches.

Jason, Kevin and John Faddoul - aged 12, 13 and 17 respectively -- were abducted while being driven to school in February. They held dual Canadian-Venezuelan citizenship, according to the BBC.

The bullet-ridden bodies resting in fetal position of the three Faddoul brothers -- John, 17, Kevin, 13, and Jason, 12, with dual Canadian-Venezuelan citizenship -- were found on Tuesday just outside of Caracas, more than a month after they were kidnapped at a bogus police checkpoint on their way to school. Their driver was also killed and the kidnappers remain at large and the police have few clues.

In a country suffering from rampant crime, the killings drew an enormous amount of mourning and a sudden outburst of frustration at the anxiety Venezuelans feel about their security. Alejandro Linares, a 19-year-old university student, spoke of “a sensation of insecurity that at times you don’t trust your neighbor,” according to Associated Press-UK. + more plus photos...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612153/posts

"Don’t expect to read or hear about it in the US news media."

whoever wrote this shouldve probably at least checked some US media webpages before he wrote it.

Williamlyonmakenzie; Your post re: the underlying causes and motivations behind WWI are absolutly accurate from all that I have read. I have also read that Germany sent the people of Russia a nice little "present" in a special sealed railway passager car - Mr. Lenin. The Russian army was in crisis, the Czar was ruled by his unbalanced wife who was driven 'around the bend ' with anxity over the health of the Tsarivitch and she had put all her faith in the fanatical ravings of a craven monk from the Russian outback who appeared to be able to keep the child alive.
Russia was on the brink of becomming a DEMOCRATIC super power prior to WWI, the Czar took over though when war was declared and the inability of the Duma to make decisions during the conflict allowed the people to be hoodwinked by the communist thugs that staged a 'coup d'etat' right after the Czar resigned; the Russians had about three months of 'freedom' from assorted Czars, and the bloodthirsty Commies who moved in with the 'help' of the German government. Canada sent troops to help the army that was fighting the Communists but they eventually left because the 'White' army had been bled to death on the German frount and the senseless slaughter that had been allowed to happen by the Czar, ruled by his wife, ruled by a debauched monk (Rasputian). Apparently, the 'target' for the commie intelectuals in Europe was England but the Brits didn't take to Communism (too used to having a say in who was running their country, I guess), anyway GB told them to get out, so the Commies moved into poor , crippled, semi educated Russia where the element of surprise worked for them. I have knowticed this about the left - they never pick a fair fight and they love to kick the entity they are aggressing against when that entity is down.
After the coup ,the Russians slammed the door to the rest of the world and tortured their people without restitions or outrage from the free world for 70 years. This is the free world's shame - this is what happens to people when everyone stays at home and says nothing as fingernails are pulled from unarmed citizens in Totalitarian countries. My mom was a RCAF girl in WWII and she says the soldiers wanted to go liberate the poeople of the Soviet Union after they had won the war against Germany but because McKenzie King was 'not at home' (crazy) and old Rosevelt wanted to go home to die, the peace at Yalta was signed. The soldiers and Churchill would have freed the enslaved Russian people if they could have had their way. BTW did any of you know that 30,000 Cossaks, in the Ukraine, were slaughtered by Stalin AFTER the treaty of Yalta was signed and they shot POWs as they got off trains in their own country. (unarmed soldiers! ) It does not get more brutal than that.

Today we debate our role in Afghanistan. This is a non voting debate, we will discuss but there will be no vote afterwards.

Please take note that our troops are in Afghanistan because of a Liberal commitment NOT CPC! Also note that although liberals avoid war they will approve of it when it is just and necessary.

I'm not making this up.

It is refreshing to see our government take a stand on something. For too many years we have been unwilling to directly commit to anything without polling, talk, feedback, more talk, more polls and then half-assedly doing something.

The Cons have committed to Afghanistan and with this take note debate are forcing the ndp and liberals to state their positions. For good or bad the other parties are going to have trouble weaseling out of this.

This is what Canada feels like with a leader in charge.
enough

This is a dirge for a people who have castrated

and spayed themselves in obeisance/submission to socialism.

Woe to the people of Zimbabwe.

Down with socialism. +

We deserve no sympathy

(we Zimbabweans remained unarmed and cowardly in the face of Mugabe)

NewZimbabwe.com ^ | 04/09/2006 22:53:56 | Masola wa Dabudabu

Posted on 04/10/2006 8:06:27 AM PDT by dead

I SHALL start with the things we have done in an effort to shake Robert Mugabe off our weary backs.

We have shied away from confrontation. In our meekness as Zimbabweans, we have offered our spears, shields, knobkerries and clubs to Mugabe in a self-defeating stance of pacifism. We have avoided our right to defend ourselves from aggression by assuming that if we remain unarmed and cowardly, Mugabe the aggressor may not attack us.

We have shamelessly sold out our dignity to Mugabe’s wicked ways. The proverbial phoenix may never rise again. We deserve the humiliation; for in our expedience to avoid shedding a few drops of blood from the throats of our adversaries, we have allowed our enemies to drain all the blood that could possibly flow in our veins.

What we have done is pure spineless cowardice of the worst dishonour. We have shamelessly committed infanticide and crowned the cowardly act with suicide. There is no worse way of killing your own progeny. There is no worse way of castrating oneself.

Politically, we are neuters that parade sterility everywhere we go. We are what we are because we choose to be what we are; castrated men and spayed women. Our courage is as effective as that of a pride of toothless lions wondering in a zoo somewhere in Beijing.

Dancing is one way of celebrating humanity; happiness and achievement. We have attended dances organised by Mugabe. We have tucked our sorry tails between our ungainly legs and accepted invitations to Mugabe’s séances. Without contrition, we have accepted gourds filled with the blood of our own and taken gulps that would shame a camel that has not been to an oasis for months. We have enjoyed the self-demeaning dances we have had with the witching Mugabe.

In mitigation, we have all asked, ‘What effect will a single dance with a demon do to a whole life-time?’ We have been extremely careless with our conscience. We have been unkind to ourselves and our own kind. There is no defence in dining, wining and dancing with the enemy; not even in your dreams! At every instance Mugabe dances with us, he puts a tally in his black book of notoriety. We are affording Mugabe achievements he ordinarily should not enjoy. We are to blame.

We have voluntarily accepted to swimming session in a sewage pond full to the bream with Mugabe’s excreta. Can we call ourselves a people with dignity? Should we not be called yellow-bellied cowards? Countrymen, enjoy the breast-stroke in the pond of shame! It is so ironic that some of you have gone on to excel in the Olympics through persistent swimming lessons in Mugabe’s dirty pond. What would we say; the reward of a diplomatic passport is testimony!

We are disgusting cry-babies of the worst bloodline! We sob and expect Mugabe to exercise some tender-heartedness in soothing us. We forget that at the moment Mugabe wipes off our tears, it would be to give us false hope; to lull us into submission so that when the spirit of Dracula in him urges him to have our blood; we would be so engrossed in our small false comfort zone to defend ourselves. We are utterly brainless, spineless, and to say the least, lost in our own domain!

Like the farmer who fattens his livestock for slaughter; Mugabe has the ability, time and depraved motive to feed us growers’ mash for a blood-sucking day. We are Mugabe’s sheep. Probably when he sucks our blood we do not even bleat in agony; we donate all our blood in silence.

We have done nothing to emancipate ourselves from Mugabe’s perfidy.

Now for the places we have gone in search of deliverance from Mugabe’s unearthly evil!

We have all flocked to Zvimba to pay ungodly homage to Mugabe’s cruelty. We have saved huge sums of money for Zimbabwe’s own version of the Hajj; the ‘greatest trip on earth’. We have made pilgrims to Zvimba in a fashion Mecca is religiously pilgrimaged. Forgive me for knowing where Zvimba is!

Mugabe’s state house is one other place we have visited. We have presented our credentials of dishonour to him in an amazingly dishonest fashion. We have accepted hugs from the brute and pecks on the cheeks from his less-than-honourable wife. We have joined the empiric family in their cannibalistic dinners. Hail Emperor Bokassa! Hail Emperor Mugabe. We have recited poems of praise to the cannibal! I know where state house is. Forgive them Lord those who visit state house for they do not know that the meat they eat there is the flesh of their own kith and kin.

We have been to Cuba, to China and to Iran. + more
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612421/posts
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/masola35.14017.html

enough,

Enough of conservative paranoia.

The Liberals did take a stand and did send our troops into Afghanistan.

Do I have to say it again before conservatives start getting it.

The Liberals did take a stand and did send our troops into Afghanistan.

Now that myth is dispelled lets start working on some other ones. Like the so called infantilisim that conservatives accuse Liberals of. Conservatives are infinitely more child-like than Liberals.

.... the more they [the left/socialists/communists] remain the same:

yesterday, today, & forever:

Control, coercion, Death.

Kim Marxist Party in US/Korea, & Doer Marxist in Manitoba, Canada. +

Immigration protest organizers tied to Marxist Party

One of the key organizers of the immigration protests and rallies nationwide, including yesterday's in Washington, is a group whose leaders are tied to the Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has expressed support for dictators Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. +

Manitoba to ban floor crossing by politicians

"If you're elected as a Conservative, you can't cross the floor to the Liberals," Doer explained on Monday. +
via nealenews.com

Some strange things come from the lips of the CBC. For a couple of days up to the discussion last night on Afghanistan, the CBC kept saying that the country was divided on this issue and that people were discussing this on coffee row, at the water fountain and on and on and on creating this sense of urgency and this sense that people were really talking about this a lot. I have never heard or overheard ANYONE speak to this...... NEVER. I do not know anyone who does not understand why we are there and exactly what we are doing there. This is blatant politiking at it's most vile by the CBC.

Before rushing off in a tizzy after reading poster Cjunk, who is extremely nervous about Moslems, one might reflect that the Moslem population of Canada is estimated at 253,000 while the Canadian Jewish population is at 364,000. Not much to worry about there in a population of over 30 million, but it might be a good idea to find out why we hear so much positive Jewish propaganda and so much negative stuff about the Moslems. And why does our government sound like a branch office for Israel Inc. Have the Aspers bought that too?
Maybe it is because the Israeli's are poor, oppressed lovers of human rights while the Moslems are dominating land greedy murderers who brutally crush the helpless Israelis, right?

Funny thing is, I did read one of the important Rabis saying that the lives of 27 Moslem people murdered while at prayer were not worth one Jewish fingernail.

The Moslem people here seem to have checked their guns at the door. Why not propose the same to Canadian Jews.