What does the CBC have to do with it, i'm going by Harper's words, of which excerpts were posted on yahoo news, also i caught a bit of the same speech on television, might have been the CBC channel, don't know .... his general slant was that 'we should support their military adventures as when and where they decide to have them, against any whom they declare as enemy, no matter the cost to civilised international dialogue, because they are our friends' ... alright, maybe he worded it somewhat differently -g- ... a lot of his speeches are posted on the alliance site, which is in the header here
But what he was missing, was some indication that he realises the current regime down there are emphatically not our friends .... friends don't impose one-way 'free trade' deals on friends, they don't expect friends to jump to their orders, they don't make threats, however veiled, on friends .... certainly we are kin and allies with the people of the US, but we have no way to deal with them directly, we are presented only with a ruling machine that is hostile to us
'The Alliance ... certainly would not reflexively follow the "Bushistas".'
... mmm, well this appears contradicted by your last sentence, which i believe to be more applicable -
'Of course, there is also a strong neocon element to the Alliance, which makes support easier to obtain.'
It is a crying shame that, to get the reasonable libertarianish benefits of reduced government cash flow and regulation, one must also sign on for really ugly stuff, of which subservience to a foreign regime is only one ... thinking here first of the faction of the party who would have government control women's reproductive functions, but there are others .... upthread we talked about APEC diddling at the foundation of Reform, and that's gone now sure, but sometimes i wonder ... Day and the born-agains are absolutely scarey, i don't care what anybody says, i am less than completely assured that no evil will come of power in such hands
Which is the thing with political parties, if you want one thing you have to accept the other, you have to buy the package, it's like going to the auction and buying a box of tools for the wrenches on top, you get it home and it's got a dead rat inside ..... about twelve or so years ago i thought about joining Reform, in the last couple of years i've thought again about joining Alliance, but there's always something that's hard to swallow, or something they're missing
'The fact that they support this war is more a reflex against Chretien's attitude than a manifestation of any particular party policy.'
Could be, i typed something similar in a recent post .... well if so then that just means they are deluded in a different but equally unnecessary manner ..... the job of the opposition is to oppose, certainly, but i should think the job of a good opposition would be to oppose well, in an intelligent and constructive manner .... which in my view would include having the courage to stand up when appropriate and say to the house that yes, we agree on this or that point of the government, because it is good policy
Some of Chrétien's statements regarding the importance of working systems of international dialogue were quite good i thought .... some were not at all, and some were only partially valid, like when he mentioned the UN in unqualified manner, but a good many of them reflected a rational canadian internationalist viewpoint ..... it is simply un-canadian to hand by default our foreign policy to another capital, no matter whose capital .... no more Diefenbakers killing the Arrows to appease foreign business interests, no more subjugation to anybody .... remember San Laurent and Pearson standing with Eisenhauer when he was right and Eden was wrong? - that was smart, we made the right choice, we stood to principle there, we were still kin with the brits but we did not aid them in their mistaken course du jour |
