It’s the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.
[…]
Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, “Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?” “Oh,” they said, “he’s a Bolshevik. Lock him up!” So they put him in jail.
But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea. – Tommy Douglas, 1944
Why even at the NDP convention last fall the Premier updated the Mouseland fable originated by Tommy Douglas.
You know that fable about Mouseland where the cats were governed all the creature the gophers who tilled the land the beavers who worked in forestry and pigeons who reported the news� until the mice led by Tommymouse changed the government. It is a clever fable. And it was delivered by a great orator
Well, Lorne Calvert updated the fable last fall. He talked about Bradcat who was a nice enough cat who tried to look like a mouse.
There have been other updates also pretty clever by journalists when they were out of things to write about. So we have read about Roy Mouse and Elwincat and the list goes on.
Well I think that fable needs a final chapter. But who should do that? The Final Chapter in the Mouseland Fable:
But after 60 years �other animals began to realize something about mice.
They�re not exactly the most productive species in the animal kingdom.
In fact, they don�t really produce anything accept droppings.
What they are good at is wrecking stuff that others have produced.
They chew holes in things.
They just generally leave a mess wherever they go.
And these particular mice were the worst.
One time, they got into the potatoes.
Now, the crazy thing about that is,�
Mice don�t even like potatoes.
But they had this one mouse named Eldon Mouse,�
Eldon mouse talked the other mice into it. He told them they weren�t really potatoes�”just cheese with peelings..�
And by the time they got done chewing through the potatoes,�
The potatoes were completely ruined,�
And the other animals were left to clean up the mess.
And here�s the other thing about mice. Even though they had promised a way for creatures to be healthy – a lot of mice in one place isn�t always good for health.
And a lot of the other animals were getting sick.
But when they went to the mice for help,�
The mice wouldn�t actually do anything to help.
The mice would just tell them how lucky they were they didn�t have to pay to see a doctor bird.
Except that there weren�t any doctor birds.
The mice hadn�t bothered to get any.
They were too busy chewing on potatoes.
So every day, the mice would force all the sick animals to stand in line and wait to see a doctor bird,�
But nobody ever got to see a doctor bird. So they just stood in line.
One day, all the animals were standing in line, grumbling about the mice,�
When one little gopher named Yogi looked up at his dad and said,�
�Dad, why don�t we just get rid of the mice?�
His dad looked down at him sadly and said,�
�We can�t get rid of the mice. The mice run things. The mice have always run things. That�s why they call it Mouseland.�
And all the other animals heard this and just nodded sadly in agreement.
Except for one old gray horse named Milt.
He�d been around longer than the rest of the animals,…
And he said, �That�s not quite true.
�The mice don�t have to run things.� �In fact� he said �when given a clear choice between cats and mice�.who would choose a mouse�they wreck things?�
And at that moment, all the other animals looked up and down the line,�
And they realized something.
There were more of them than there were mice.
They were all different animals, but they had a lot of things in common.
They didn�t like the mice wrecking all their food.
They didn�t like their babies moving to that place that had never been run by the mice.
They didn�t like standing in line when they were sick.
Most of all, they were just tired of the mice.
They began to realize that a lot of mice in one place for a long time is not a government but an infestation:
How will we deal with this infestation? We gotta get us some cats!! They said. Clear minded, compassionate cats with a plan and a vision for mouseland
And the animals chose the cats who cleaned up the mess left behind by the mice.
One day soon after that great change�a cat that liked details and going on about stuff and reading a lot ..named Wayne Cat discovered an old history book about Mouseland. He dusted it off and was shocked but what he found.
Why Mouseland wasn�t even the actual name of this place after all. This place was called Sask Cat chewan.
(Updated with notes from speech as delivered)
SaskParty now has the Mouseland 2006 audio available on their website, Look for the link at the left of the main page.
“Mouse” lore dies hard. I know of millions of little crop raiding mice in who still are racing for that shining sun of NDP “free eats”. What do the mice do when the graneries are bare?
Wow! Did I just hear Kate say something good about cats??
Oh, no, of course not – she was just quoting. Still, it’s a strange day.
What about this mouse???
http://bureaucrash.com/contraband/mickey_che_tee
California was Eden? Not so.
Shocking: Indians decimated birds before white man, French, Spanish, English, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Scots, Irish, Vikings, & etc., arrived in North America.
Shocking; smashing the phony concept of the “noble savage”.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Early California: A Killing Field — Research Shatters Utopian Myth, Finds Indians Decimated Birds
ScienceDaily ^ | February 13, 2006 | University of Utah
Posted on 02/13/2006 7:31:14 AM PST by ConservativeMind
“The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay … in flocks of millions…. When disturbed, they arose to fly. The sound of their wings was like that of distant thunder.” –George Yount, California pioneer, at San Francisco Bay in 1833
When explorers and pioneers visited California in the 1700s and early 1800s, they were astonished by the abundance of birds, elk, deer, marine mammals, and other wildlife they encountered. Since then, people assumed such faunal wealth represented California’s natural condition — a product of Native Americans’ living in harmony with the wildlife and the land and used it as the baseline for measuring modern environmental damage.
That assumption now is collapsing because University of Utah archaeologist Jack M. Broughton spent seven years — from 1997 to 2004 — painstakingly picking through 5,736 bird bones found in an ancient Native American garbage dump on the shores of San Francisco Bay. He determined the species of every bone, or, when that wasn’t possible, at least the family, and used the bones to reconstruct a portrait of human bird-hunting behavior spanning 1,900 years.
Broughton concluded that California wasn’t always a lush Eden before settlers arrived. Instead, from 2,600 to at least 700 years ago, native people hunted some species to local extinction, and wildlife returned to “fabulous abundances” only after European diseases decimated Indian populations starting in the 1500s. >>>
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1577540/posts
We had a mouse problem once upon a time in Alberta… well, more of a rat problem really. Then we created the “RAT” patrol, aka “How to have Fun With Dynamite”.
No more rat problems.
You might try that for your Mouse problem Kate.
Kate; loved this tale of mice and cats. Here in B.C. we are always told that Saskatchewan thrives under the NDP, with nary a scandal, or misspent dollar. Now, the NDP in B.C. are good little mice too, like their Prairie brethren, but they have to keep cleaning up the mess left by those lousy fascists. We are assured if we give them enough time(mandates)this will become the socialist paradise that Saskatchewan is. News like your story, Spudco, never makes the MSM out here. The last Provincial election in Manitoba warranted not a mention in the B.C. media. Doesn’t Manitoba, my home Province, live under utopian socialism, too? Thanks again for providing the information that the MSM seems reluctant to mention. SDA and other bloggers continue to make the MSM less relevant. Next time I’m conversing with some socialist friends, I will have to mention this story, and SDA, just to ruffle their fur a bit.
maz2 Shocking; smashing the phony concept of the “noble savage”.
We already know they wiped out a number of species (2 species of horse, short faced bear, mammoth). The same goes in Australia (about 4-6 large species) and New Zealand (the two biggest birds in the world).
That’s what happens when you introduce a really kick ass predator into an environment where the fauna is clueless as to how dangerous they really are.
Thanks Maz2
Presently the natives are responsible for neeting spawning walleye and salmon into extinction with special extra rights that preclude them from harvest limits.
Walleye reared and raised in volunteer hatcheries set up by sportsfishermen.
“netting” ….sorry
Jose; was that a not- so -subtle reference to Canadas’ immigration policies?
In Alberta, we gave all our rats $400 and a bus ticket to Saskatchewan 🙂
This deserves an online poll… which is the better critter, mouse, or cat?
Of course, you better have a good “security moat” around it in case the king mouse and his court decide to nibble on it.
You can’t lock up an idea, but you sure can forget the bad ones.
Western Standard site been hacked? Down?
<h1>Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)</h1>
is being served as the Western Standard index page right now… anyone know what’s up?
I was coming here with the same question as Shaken.
Maybe it’s a DOS.
BTW their blog is up. http://westernstandard.blogs.com/
Not a DOS, looks like a hack. The server is responding well, and providing an html response to GETS, but the page is bogus.
Hope they are busy archiving all the logs over there…
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010087.php
Looks like Western Standard made the list.
Just called Western Standard and they know that have been hacked and are swamped with calls.
There’s a reader’s tip thread for off topic comments, kids. Thanks.
RE: Mice. Sounds a lot like Animal Farm. The CCF was a good thing originally, but power corrupts. Grant Devine was a sad case of power gone wonko.
Hey besides, I heard Calgary was Saskatchewan’s biggest city.
RE: Western Standard
Well well well. What do you expect for trying to get 15 minutes of fame…? Nothing like grabbing a tiger by the tail.
All in the name of “freedom”.
Right.
Socialism consumes itself; eats its own; chews through humanity; spits out destruction; depression, death.
The natural end result of socialism: states such as Zimbabwe;
provinces such as Saskatchewan.
Zimbabwe: where being poor is a crime:
Saskatchewan:
where Tommy Douglas said/preached; Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of Welfare, forever & ever. Amen/Women/Children.
Excerpt:
The white minority finally consented to hold multiracial elections in 1980, and Robert Mugabe won a landslide victory. The country achieved independence on April 17, 1980, under the name Zimbabwe. Mugabe eventually established a one-party socialist state, but by 1990 he had instituted multiparty elections and in 1991 deleted all references to Marxism-Leninism and scientific socialism from the constitution. Parliamentary elections in April 1995 gave Mugabe’s party a stunning victory with 63 of the 65 contested seats, and in 1996 Mugabe won another six-year term as president.
In 2000, veterans of Zimbabwe’s war for independence in the 1970s began squatting on land owned by white farmers in an effort to reclaim land taken under British colonization�one-third of Zimbabwe’s arable land was owned by 4,000 whites. In Aug. 2002, Mugabe ordered all white commercial farmers to leave their land without compensation. Mugabe’s support for the squatters and his repressive rule has led to foreign sanctions against Zimbabwe. Once heralded as a champion of the anticolonial movement, Mugabe is now viewed by much of the international community as an authoritarian ruler responsible for egregious human rights abuses and for running the economy of his country into the ground.
In March 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations. That month Mugabe was reelected president for another six years in a blatantly rigged election whose results were enforced by the president’s militia. In 2003, inflation hit 300%, the country faced severe food shortages, and the farming system had been destroyed. In 2004, the IMF estimated that the country had grown one-third poorer in the last five years.
Parliamentary elections in March 2005 were judged by international monitors to be egregiously flawed. In April, Zimbabwe was reelected to the UN Commission on Human Rights, outraging numerous countries and human rights groups. In mid-2005, Zimbabwe demolished its urban slums and shantytowns, leaving 700,000 people homeless. >>>
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108169.html
You can vote for fable-ist Lorne Calvert in the Greatest Moose Javian contest. It’s at http://www.discovermoosejaw.com. Click on the contests link.
Great story, Brad! Humour helped bring down communism, I think it will do the same to Saskatchewan socialism!
Good speech by Wall.
My only wish is that they were more conservative. I live in Sask. have a Conservative party membership yet I’ve never been compelled to buy a Sask. Party membership.
The mice have done a lot of damage to Saskatchewan but I’m not convinced that there aren’t some mice in the Sask. Party caucus.
Oh Kate,
What a nice ‘mousie’ story for a very mousie guy – eg Culvert. He looks like a field mouse, acts like a field mouse, sqeeks like a field mouse, lives off the work of others like a field mouse…is he a field mouse? In Canada? In a poor province? Robbing others to keep his nest warm? Are you making this up?
Tomax – CCF was NEVER any good. It was founded by a left wing preacher who had no respect for human intellegence; he introduced Medi care and it spread accross the country like pond scum – now we have paid HUGE amounts of $$ for a useless ‘health care’ regime, he spawned the Wheat Board, he RUINED Sask. with Bolshevic Ideas that COULD not and DID NOT work because the ideas of the left lead to ruin. Sask. people MOVED (my family moved because we were not socialists and we could not afford to live in the Socialist la la land as producers – I still resent the fact that we were forced out). There is NOTHING good I can think of to say about CCF or NDP. The NDers ruined the Yukon also, but because the Yukon elected a Liberano, federally, the Dippers and Liberanos just joined hands and built a luxury (for government workers PETA, Sierra Club, Environmentalists – every left wing outfit in the book parks here!) welfare State at the expense of EVERY OTHER TAXPAYER in Canada!!! The poorest taxpayer in Canada funds return air fare tickets for paper shufflers and janitors in the Yukon for anywhere they wish to go in Canada, you fund return air fare out for any sick person – often with a friend to help shop! – and you pay for the Doctors and hospitals. The Yukon is what Culvert and his cronies dream of – too bad he has NO Liberano Feds and he has more that 29,000 people to take care of. Plus, in spite of the Dipper gov’t, Sask produces things – the Yukon does not – and EVERYONE in Sask. can’t live in Regina. The mouse should be squeeking about how unfair the system is to his fleas vs Yukon Ice worms. BTW I can’t find Shotgun either.
Come on, Jema54 … don’t be bashful. Tell us how you really feel.
Yes–another fine speech by Brad Wall. Very effective to use humor–especially in these troubled times. If we can’t laugh at the situation in Saskatchewan, it will never get better and we’ll die a lonely, cash-strapped bitter death.
We can play these cat and mouse games all we like, but we have to see some REAL change–and soon.
By the way, where’s the dog in this scenario?
Or is Alberta the dog?
Is anyone else sick of hearing about Tommy Douglas? Jesus Christ, when is someone going to tell Saskatchean that the bloody Depression is over? Talk about a culture of defeatism.
Gosh dang mama, the tractor done broke down, the younguns left to find work in Alberty and it’s a 10 hour wait for my sore hip at a decrepid old hospital a two days drive away. Let’s all just close our eyes and think of the days of Commie Tommy.
Look you stubble jumpin’ socialists: communism doesn’t work. The sooner you get rid of successive provincial governments that have done nothing but keep the province as a perpetual welfare case the better.
Start drilling for natural gas in the south west. Start strip mining for bitmumen south of the shield near La Loche and for God’s sake start looking for more yellowcake and fire up the frickin’ nukes. Here in Alberta we don’t apologize for our success and fortunes. There’s no glory in failure, especially when there are proven alternatives to sitting around waiting for starvation to kill you.
My father is retired from selling John Deere farm equipment and he used to talk about the GPS technology they were developing along with other amazing high tech inventions designed to make farming more productive and profitable. I can only shake my head that after hearing about this exciting 21st century stuff we have relatives in Saskatchewan that just got electricity and running water, but still run out to the shithouse in minus 40 weather. Sounds like the middle east, not Canada.
Hey Craig, then get to work! The decision I made was between joining the SK party or moving away! No organization is perfect, not even the Conservative Party! But that’s no excuse not to help out!
Wasn’t that a plot summary of The Lion King?
If Tommy Douglas created a workers paradise in Saskatchewan, where are all the workers?
http://www.prairiecentre.com/pdf/2005/2005-05-03.pdf
Eskimo,
“Gosh dang mama…” are you sure you’re not listening to a country song? Only thing missing is the jail, a dog, and a train (okay grain trains that USED to run count).
I served in Saskatchewan, my daughter was born there, I have friends there, I’ve photographed there and hell, I even have a brother there. Bottom line: There is no future for those who live in the past. When government is the number one employer then you know it has become a cancer, growing from within and sucking dry the body that can’t sustain it.
The animal analogy was good. Worthy of a George Orwell comparison.
Couldn’t agree with you more, eskimo–used to be an Albertan myself. An I like the way you fellers think…
An don chu worry, boy–change is a comin…
Kate, one of my favourite quotes of all time seems appropriate here…
“I am opposed to socialism and everything that it stands for, because given time, it destroys a person’s initiative and independence.” – Premier Ross Thatcher, 1964
Then of course, the Left responded with the ‘hugely popular’ “Robots”, in which the hero seemed to be an organizer for an FDR type figure.
Damn Eskimo is a culture of defeatism.
Oh sorry, did I use your name in vain?
The NDP are not Bolsheviks. They were labelled that way in the 40’s by their rivals. They saved Sask and their policies benefitted all Canadians.
That is PRICELESS !
🙂
I prefer the Animal Farm analogy, myself, liking neither cats nor mice/rats.
The ndp are a cat-astrophe; Freudian ?
The NDP are not Bolsheviks. They were labelled that way in the 40’s by their rivals. They saved Sask and their policies benefitted all Canadians.
Posted by ok4ua at February 13, 2006 07:39 PM
So true. They are not Blosheviks. They are scum of the earth who make leeches look good. The only thing they saved Sask from was prosperity. Them idjit flatlanders have more oil-sands then us redneck Albertans, and they are a have not province.Way to go CommieTommy and all your off-spring.
What legacy has any tory government left that is admired by the world? Tommy Douglas made it so people like me and even idiots like you can voice their opinions without pesecution.His policies were admired by civilzed countries not countries like Russia or the USA.
freedom.
freedom from oppression.
freedom from having others that simply disagree with you, be regarded as “idiots”
Wow Tommy Douglas gave us free speech! Is there anything Tommy Douglas can not do with revisionist history. What are kids learning in school these days? I grew up in Saskatchewan and his policies were dispised in my neck of the praires.
You must’ve been the minority of rich farmers,the rest of us voted CCF/NDP. And you didn’t answer my question: what legacy has any tory government given us that is admired by people around the world? Tommy Douglas was a thinking man’s politician. If he was communist then Tories must be facist.
ok4ua,
Please tell me you aren’t as delusional as you present yourself to be.
While farmers did once vote for the CCF/NDP, that is clearly no longer the case. And, while Tommy Douglas was a charismatic, engaging politician with a vision for the province of Saskatchewan, it was unfortunately an ideological vision that does not work in realistic terms and one that has been to the detriment of the people of Saskatchewan. One must remember that captivating leaders are not necessarily advocates of good policies. I won’t go into this too far, as I do not want my views misrepresented and do not wish to offend anyone but one must only look as far as Germany in the 1930s for proof of this.
As far as the admirable things that the Tory government did, one must keep in mind that the Tories have only governed for 14 total years in Saskatchewan’s 100 year history. Please also keep in mind that this was during the great depression and a period of international economic recession and provincial drought. I will, however, mention to initiatives that did greatly benefit the people of Saskatchewan. Firstly, the royalty holidays Devine offered while in government attracted oil companies back to the province that had been driven out by the previous NDP government. The royalties that the province now receives to this day because of this initiative are largely responsible for Saskatchewan’s new “have” status. keep in mind ok4ua, this status is not a credit to Lorne Calvert and his NDP government but rather, has occurred despite of Mr. Calvert and his lot of socialists. Secondly, while Mr. Romanow never did manage to provide relief to the province’s farmers, Mr. Devine was able to negotiate a major relief package with the federal government that offered assistance to farmers at one of the industry’s most desperate times. And, before you retort with the typical, trite claim that Devine almost bankrupt the province, let’s come clean on the fact that Blakeny was hiding deficits via the crown corporations for years and the fiscal situation was not entirely the fault of the Devine government.
As for your statement that if Tommy D. was a communist that the Tories must be fascist, the claim just doesn’t scan. No, Tommy Douglas wasn’t a communist – he was a socialist and no, the Tories aren’t fascists – they’re capitalists. However, if one was to claim that Douglas was a communist – moving him further to the left than he truly was – how would this move the Tories further to the right? Wouldn’t they become centrists under this hypothetical scenario? Admittedly, my point is frivolous and has no other meaning that to point out the flaw in your own. However this does point out that accordingly, one espousing flawed reasoning is in support of the NDP and its policies. What a shocker!
Sorry, Kevin and fellow travellers. The facts speak for themselves. NDP:balanced budgets. Devine conservatives: debt, deficit, corruption. It was twenty years ago that Devine got his thanks a billion, Brian bailout and farmers have been wallowing in the trough ever since. All that has done for agriculture is to create a cycle of dependence and a culture of entitlment. If that’s capitalism, give me socialism.
what legacy has any tory government left that is admired by the world?
freedom.
“farmers have been wallowing in the trough ever since. All that has done for agriculture is to create a cycle of dependence and a culture of entitlment”
It is never very hard to pick out when an urbanite Saskatchewanian speaks…..
And the NDP wonder why they cant win in rural Saskatchewan.
Wallowing in the trough of what? If you ever managed to poke your head out of the city you would find many a farmer who would be revolted by your comments Rod.
When are people going to wake up and realize that we arent talking about the ability of some farmers to earn a decent living here. The real crisis is going to be protecting our food supply. Where is our food going to come from when there is no one left to farm? No one left to farm?? Crazy talk you say…..
You can already see it in my area in the amount of land that was untouched last year because the owner has retired or gone to work off the farm and can not find anyone to rent the land.
As for corruption, just wait Rod, once the NDP is not able to hide behind the shield of being the goverment there will be more than enough scandal and corruption exposed to keep the courts busy for a long long time.