“Well, mommy, I learned that Stephen Harper is a…”
Two of Canada’s largest unions paid to bus hundreds of school kids to Parliament Hill on Tuesday to rally against what they call government inaction on First Nations education.
Officials with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Canadian Union of Public Employees denied the elementary school students were enlisted as props in the unions’ ongoing public battle against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.
Lisa Howell, a teacher at Pierre Elliot Trudeau School, deadpanned –
“I don’t feel like we’re advancing an agenda.”
Of course not. Don Moran, a senior officer with CUPE:
“We sponsored the bus to bring them…CUPE and PSAC. We kind of had a joint venture to bring them down so that all the voices could be heard here…I think (the kids) are speaking from their hearts. I don’t think there’s any brainwashing.”
h/t ET
Victim Toews >
“They also learn to be politically strong, rather than hide behind fake names on web sites.”
I guess we’ll find out in another decade or more won’t we “victim”?
I post under a pseudonym because most of my comments are made from Islamic countries, many of which are about ‘sensitive” Islamic issues and could cause me great difficulty to say the least. What is your excuse?
It’s one of the reasons I am vehemently an “anti Islamic immigration” proponent. As I have little doubt that you most likely support further Islamic Immigration, what are your kids going to say online in the future about honour killings and fatwa’s against Jews, gays, journalists, cartoonists once Canada is as embroiled with Islam as Europe is today?
Either they support Islam or they will speak out. If they speak out, will they use the real names you hypocritically insist that they have been taught to do?
So, “Victim Toews,” what is your real name? You mock people who comment here under “fake names” and yet, your moniker is about as fake as it can be. You even pick on Vic Toews, someone for whom we know you feel contempt.
We’d love to know your real name. Go on. Tell us.
been around the block
The quotes I provided from the Lady Evelyn Alternative School web site are “. . . mistakes . . . on the Lady Evelyn web site”?
Victim, you’re kidding, right? What a cop out! That you’d suggest such a lame and idiotic possibility is laughable.
The few quotes I provided were all up-front (and some, long-standing) parts of the extensive, gloating, “we’re the best” self-promotion at the site.
But, if the quotes are “mistakes . . . on the Lady Evelyn web site”, as Victim suggests, I suppose it could be that the Lady Evelyn types can’t edit either . . .
VT: Nanananana — “I’ll show you mine when you show me yours.”
I’m not complaining about people’s nics. You are.
And I did tell you. batb = been around the block
Victim Toews >
“Yea, fool, go put some more words in my mouth. What a tool!”
Juxtaposition
“ET continues with the ad hominem, the straw men, the lies, the distorted facts, …………But it’s nice to see the hysteria level rising.” – Victim Toews 8:49am
Indeed.
Just stay the hell away from everyone else’s kids.
Victim – do you know the meaning of ‘ad hominem’? I don’t use ad hominem – but you do, eg,
“Of course, the bigots on this site hate all Indians on a good day and can’t get enough of that Tory Kool-Aid. And like the feckless John Duncan, they don’t have the guts to face some Ottawa school kids.”
Now – that’s ad hominem. My criticism of you allowing your child to be used by a union, in an anti-govt demonstration, is not ad hominem but a valid criticism of you as a parent and of your child’s school.
Having your child meet children from the reserve is not the issue we’ve been discussing. We’ve been discussing your allowing your child to take part in a union-organized anti-govt demonstration – a demonstration that would do nothing to deal with the problems of this or any other reserve and that, indeed, made her a pawn of that union. You allowed her to be used this way.
After all- the problems on that reserve weren’t caused by the govt; they were caused by the people on the reserve. Yet, you have so far ignored this factual reality – and allowed your child to be used in a unionized sham protest against the govt – rather than recognizing that the reserve problems are caused by the reserve people! NOT the govt!!!!
And when you use such terms as ‘straw men, lies, etc, you have to provide examples – otherwise, your comments are functionally EMPTY.
Harper says that the Indian Act is too embedded to be, in one swoop, abandoned – because its rules are supporting the native population of Canada. BUT – he also says it requires change. No, it is false to say that all native chiefs want to get rid of the Indian Act; they’d lose power. Only a few want that.
And read lookout’s excellent comments on your child’s school, which is rejecting critical thinking skills, rejecting logical analysis and evaluation (you, for instance, don’t know what ad hominem means, don’t know what straw man means etc)…in favour of just their own subjective opinions. As Aristotle would say – that’s how to raise a sophist, the ‘chattering class’.
Politically strong – means, to you, to ‘use one’s own name on a web site’? That’s a strange definition. After all, by this definition, you are politically weak.
I think that political strength comes from a thorough knowledge of the historical facts, along with a rejection of subjective opinion-making (favoured by your child’s school), an insistence on critical thinking skills, on logical analysis, on fact-based arguments rather than opinions.
Hear, hear, ET!
Victim – your outline of yourself is logically fallacious and filled with critical fallacies.
That is, my criticism of your allowing your daughter to be used by a union in an anti-govt protest has nothing to do with my ‘judging your child’s school by its ‘silly mission statement’ (and this adjectival description of the statement is yours and you’ve been waffling on this description for some time). In fact – I’d never read the mission statement. Your error is a fallacy of fact.
Equally, the number of years you and your wife spent in university studies is totally irrelevant to your views on ‘how to deal with native reserve problems’. Nor is the number of books, even if well-read, in your library relevant and as such, can’t be used to define someone as capable of critical and rational thinking. Same with claims of publications.
These are all fallacies of cause – which means that the existence of X can’t be causal of Y. I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase ‘correlation does not equal causation’.
Then, your claim that Lisgar Collegiate is excellent, and since your child’s school leads into this Collegiate, then, your child’s school is also excellent – well, this is a ‘modus ponens’ fallacy, or, the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Because L (Lisgar) is excellent, does not mean that LE (your child’s school) is excellent.
No, don’t move into the ad hominem (with your guesses on what I do). Stick to the issues – which are:
That the union used young children to stage an anti-govt protest; that the parents allowed their children to be so used; and
That this protest had no validity in its premises, that more govt money would solve the reserve problems.
The problems with reserves are multiple, and have to do with the exclusion of a population from participation in the modern economy (industrialism) by their own work; and setting them up as dependent on govt funding; setting the reserve up as incapable of self-support as no private capitalism is allowed; setting up leadership on the reserve as inevitably corrupt.
Now, if your children had been working through these issues, and you and the school had openly refused to be part of a union self-serving anti-govt protest – I’d be sympathetic and very supportive of your courage and rational perception.
Now, with regard to your comment: “The racist bile that oozes from the postings, plus the complete lack of criticism of that bile is more than enough evidence that this site is full of the lowest kind of bigots who lamely try to hide their prejudice behind sloganeering and talking points.”
As someone who, by self-definition, is well-read and capable of crticial thought, would you provide evidence of:
‘racist bile’ on this site? Please provide evidence.
You say that there is no criticism of this bile. But you first have to prove that such bile exists!
Otherwise – you are committing yet two more fallacies: non-cause and that ever-present modus ponens fallacy.
Sloganeering? Provide evidence.
Talking points? Explain with evidence.
Victim – So far, you have failed to deal with the concerns expressed by people that a union should not use young children for its own agenda – and that this demonstration did not deal with the real problems of the reserve system in Canada.
Well, Victim, talk about bile. And please document your accusation of “racist bile” at SDA. In fact, “racist” is the lazy man’s epithet: when it gets flung around indiscriminately, as you’ve just done, it doesn’t pack the punch it used to. (Actually, name calling is a poor loser’s game.) I think what you might be seeing here is the refusal to engage in “the soft racism of lowered expectations”. I never did that with any of my disadvantaged students from a multitude of other cultures, including Native Canadians: my expectations were high, I provided the tools and encouragement to meet them, our relationships were strong and respectful, and their academic skills and behaviour improved dramatically: that’s what EARNED them their increasing self-esteem. If that’s racism, I guess I’m racist.
Re the Lady Evelyn School (LES) “mission statement” you mention: it was nothing of the sort. The quotes I posted here (including the grammatically challenged one) were embedded in dozens of pages available at the web site, one of them in a PDF document. It seems that LES is rather like Justin Trudeau, who wants the world to know absolutely every little thought that pops into its head. Or maybe the web master just never bothers to remove anything. I’m surprised that such a well educated person as you, whose kids apparently go to this school, thought that what I posted was, first, a “mistake” at the web site and then a “mission statement”: wrong on both counts. If you’d bothered to visit the site, you might have found that the passages I quoted were neither mistakes nor mission statements.
P.S. I didn’t quote the part where the school was discussing “no marks” report cards: of course, that would introduce an element of competition, which, even in team sports, isn’t allowed (OXYMORON!) at LES. That information is under “What You Won’t See” at the school. And, in the November, 2011 newsletter, there was mention of both the soccer teams—boys and girls—and a chess club, where “38 students are now spending Thursday afternoons learning the finer points of piece movement, forks and checkmates”. If there’s no competition allowed, why would one bother with such activities, where the competition is built in? It seems that LES is “alternative” all right: alternative to human nature! Social engineering to eliminate competition is a fool’s game.
(BTW, I’ve tried to find out just who this Lady Evelyn is. The LES web site is unhelpful, as in, there seems to be only an unattractive, maybe student-produced, logo, with her head and name on it. I’ve searched the site for any information about her and have come up empty-handed. The school is on Evelyn Avenue . . . I believe she may have been Lady Evelyn Baillie-Hamilton (nee Campbell), but who knows. And why was this particular school named after her? Do you know?)
And another comment, Victim. [What happened with your statement that using a blog name is a sign of political weakness?’
You state about your children: “Their critical thinking skills would run circles around most of the posters on this board. They also care about other people and believe they can do some good in the world. In these bitter, cynical times, that’s a breath of fresh air.”
Since you yourself have obvious problems recognizing your own critical thinking fallacies, well, to assert the exceptionalism of someone else’s skills in this area is unreliable.
And, your next move into the ‘feeling motif’ is equally problematic. This is where you claim that IF someone ‘feels for’ someone else, THEN, this is in itself, admirable. Well, sure, concern is admirable, but when the actions resulting from this concern are based on ignorance resulting from being misinformed by the teachers/unions/parents – then, the actions are problematic.
People who care are not also, uncritical and ignorant. Many of us on this thread know a great deal about the reserve situation and the Indian Act, Treaties, etc etc; many of us care about the dysfunctional modes of life on reserves – you deny these facts. And we are able to critically evaluate the causes of this dysfunctionality – and do something about it. Constructively.
I, and some others, happen to feel that allowing young children to be used in a protest against the govt, demanding yet more money and dependency from that govt – is not a productive response to the reserve problems. You think differently.
3,000 books ain’t that many, not for a lifetime, for people who pride themselves on their well-roundedness; and genuinely well-read people don’t boast about how many read books they can check off their list. Insecure people keeping score do that. If it doesn’t concern you that the “educaters” who compose “mission statements” for your childrens’ school are no more literate than Michelle Robinson Obama was when she was “writing” her unreadable thesis then your priorities appall me. Using children as brainwashed agitators is very wrong, no matter the politics; in a public school, it should be reasonable grounds for firing, not that it’s humanly possible to fire teachers. (And don’t tell me that a bunch of pro-Harper students [i.e. pupils with pro-Harper parents] would have been encourged to “develop their passions” or however you’d refer to it. They wouldn’t have been, nor should they be. Even smart children are just children. Have you no sense of decency?)
You’re “published”? Great. How many losers do I know who are “published”, somewhere, sometime? Meanwhile, Mr. “Published”, you praise “critical thinking” but exhibit none, nothing that I can recall from this thread; you just cry “racist”. Come up with one “racist”, as opposed to “culturist”, or just “not lefty”, statement that you’ve read during the course of this discussion. Do that, or I’m officially bored.
ET is entirely correct. You appear literally not to know the meaning of ad hominem. Yet you seem to like the expression so much.
And everything ET and lookout have said.
Do you get the idea we’re being baited here?
VT objects to people hiding behind pseudonyms on this board, yet chooses a somewhat transparently provocative one of his own. Further, he describes what he imagines to be a list of credentials which include years of post-secondary ed, scholarships, and the number of tomes in his home, and even more impressively claims to be able to “see” a “shreik” (but can’t spell it).
It just feels as if we’re being asked to play the game “spot the howler” in each of VT’s posts. Will this thread form the next “teachable moment” at Lady Evelyn’s? If so, it would be useful for the students to learn from ET’s posts about logic and facts as bases for discussion. Being educated involves more than “feeling”.
Lookout and ET you have improved my understanding of these issues. VT, not so much.
BTW, Victim, you say how excellent your and LES’s critical thinking skills are. So, on (at least) two counts I have a beef with you:
As I’ve pointed out before, the Liberals were in power—majority governments—for most of the last three decades, and Charlie Angus has been NDP MP for Attawapiskat for about the last seven years, and then there are the adults who actually LIVE there. The disasters of this place HAPPENED ON THEIR WATCH.
Why aren’t the LES students and you holding those people to account? Scapegoating the Conservatives and PM Harper because you’re not on the same political team . . . hmm, isn’t that competitive? You folks are such hypocrites—and cop outs too. My second beef: you’ve avoided addressing these inconvenient truths. Rev up those thinking skills and get back to me.
rita – yeah, I don’t like calling people liars, but on balance I’d say s/he’s a troll. Probably has no kids.
@ Victim Toews
You say “The racist bile that oozes from the postings, plus the complete lack of criticism of that bile ……”.
Throwing hissy fits because no one agrees with your perspective is typical of someone whose logic is in question. We have given you more than enough reason why Indian affairs is a waste of time. This is a opinion forum. That the 10 billion spent annually is a bottomless pit. Also opinion. Please tell us exactly what you would like us to agree with. Your vision on making everything as it should be. Your opinion, without the childish insults.
I find the Lady Evelyn Grey information very interesting. She was not mentioned in an extensive Google search. Why doesn’t the school provide that information on its web site for those who are interested? And, keep in mind that you called her “the sinister” Lady Evelyn, I made no such suggestion. Are you sure you aren’t (a) grade five student(s) at this school? Your “nya-nya-nya” demeanour is definitely puerile.
So, the kiddies on the Hill are the sole reason this “resolution” is being voted on? And, if it has “all-party” support, what’s the reason for the kids’ unpleasantness to the PM, who is not only NOT responsible for the ongoing dreadfulness of Native schools, but is obviously in favour of doing something about it? How about the oversight he’s instigated at Attawapiskat, which the incompetent chief objects to? You think you can have it both ways—typical, juvenile lefty—but, guess what? In the real world, you can’t.
Re death threats to LES: that’s terrible. But it would most likely be vitriolic, lefty idiots and subversives like you who would do such a thing in order to discredit your opponents. That’s such a typical, “progressive” tactic, and it’s quite clear from your involvement here that playing fair is not one of your strong points. Making death threats is a serious crime. If there really have been threats, and if some have been made by phone, if I were the principal, I’d have the police trace them. Then I’d be sure that charges were laid.
I know that I, like everyone else here, would very much like to see high quality Native schools: not only are we paying big bucks in order to achieve that goal, the children deserve no less. Isn’t it too bad that the adults, who actually live with them, have not been able to see that their kids get the best? There’s certainly enough money. But, where’s the will? As I said, it’s mainly been on the watch of successive Liberal majority governments and the NDP MP, Charlie Angus, that the Attawapiskat educational system has been in the sub-basement. Where were the LES kiddies then? Not on the Hill, that’s for sure. Why not?
Well, if they have the impression that they and the political left are the only ones who CARE and that C/conservatives and the PM are mean, nasty people, who don’t care—the impression the LES kids and you give—NO, I don’t think they’ll be great leaders.
Great leaders need to have a sense of humility and a desire to serve ALL Canadians, not just the ones on their side of the political spectrum.
I’ll keep an eye on the Lady Evelyn—I can’t see the picture—web site for the LES reports of this initiative. The tone will be telling, as will whom gets credit. Let’s wait and see.
How very sad. Deny the children their due for working hard to bring this problem to public attention.
Go ahead. Stalk their web site. Pretend that by reading a website, you actually know what’s going on ina school. Our kids aren’t full of your bile. They don’t hate anyone. They just live as good citizens, and now they’re about to see the fruits of their labour when Stephen Harper — someone my kids know personally — rises in the House of Commons and endorses their project. The kids will be celebrating and will have confidence to move forward in their lives. You’ll be, well, you’ just be you for another day.
Ooooh. Victim has raised the stakes. Kid on a first name basis with Stephen Harper no less.
I do give you credit for inventiveness and persistence. First, a self-identified scholar who owns 3000 books, and now a name-dropper. Well done!
Quoting someone else who was talking about a person’s “amazing ability to contradict himself without ever realising he was doing so . . . I have never seen anybody spend so long missing the point, or so willing to repeat the exercise.”
Re Shannen’s (RIP) Dream: “After the community’s [Attiwaspiskat’s] school was closed in 2000 due to soil contamination from a diesel spill, a group of students, including [Shannen] Koostachin, made it their mission to lobby government officials to build a new one.”
http://www.thedailypress.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2606585&archive=true
This was not an all-of-a-sudden occurrence. The Conservatives didn’t form their MINORITY government until 2006, and not a majority until 2011. (And Charlie Angus, NDP, has been MP there since 2004.) So, I’ve wondered why all kinds of political activists are blaming the Conservatives for the educational travesties—there are several—at Attiwapiskat.
VT…….youtube ezra lavant..understanding attawapiskat.
he will explain racist to you.