Words
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“Warren Kinsella can have an effect on as many Canadians as The New York Times.”
- Peter C. Newman
“Kinsella is a modern-day Machiavelli...the mastermind who ran war rooms for Jean Chretien and Dalton McGuinty...”
- Sun Media
“I really think that Warren guy is on to something.”
- Stephen Harper
“The top Canadian spin doctor.”
- National Post
“Kinsella knows how to run a winning war room.”
- The Hill Times
“Good news drives out bad, and Kinsella adheres to that golden rule.”
- Pat Gossage, Press Secretary to Pierre Trudeau
Letter from a former slave to a former master
Now I’m waiting for Gord Tulk to come in and defend Colonel Anderson.
Ha!
Why would you think that? Where have I ever shown support for slavery?
It was a republican president who led the defeat of it and the emancipation. (and they paid the price politically for a century) And the last member of the KKK (for many years a wing of the dem party for all practical intents and purposes) was Robert Byrd – a close friend of Ted Kennedy and the same Robert Byrd who cast the vote that saved Clinton from being removed from the office of POTUS.
All true. But it was Kennedy and LBJ who proclaimed civil rights, and which the conservative GOP fought every step of the way. From Wallace to Nixon to Reagan, they championed state’s rights and segregation.
No one has a monopoly on virtue. But conservatives shouldn’t attempt to whitewash their more-recent misdeeds.
Nixon fought busing – not desegregation. Both he and reagan opposed what the Dems were doing as a violation of states rights (think NEP being foisted upon alberta) and the precedent set by it has been a very costly one.
Wallace was a lifelong democrat before he became an independent.
State’s rights are important and the segregation issue was a subset of that larger issue constitutionally speaking.
Kennedy and LBJ supported Affirmative action which is now coming back to haunt the American workplace.
The civil rights bill was sponsored in the senate by the GOP and passed filibuster with only one GOP senator voting against (18 dems voted against)
Let’s stick to the facts not the MSM myths…
One of which is that conservatives are racist – which is what Chris is implying that I am above.
I find it interesting that a disagreement over energy policy can be seen as equivalent to apartheid. Perhaps states’ rights can have a legitimate point when it comes to constitutionality and the proper division of federal and provincial/state jurisdiction; but not when it comes to basic human rights.
And, if we want to stick to the facts, we also have to note how many of the formerly Democratic southern senators who opposed integration wound up defecting to the Republican party over a period of decades as Nixon’s Southern Strategy brought the former champions of segregation over to the Grand Old Party. I also seem to recall that the only current voices in the American political scene who have a lingering issue with the Civil Rights Act both hail from a strongly Republican family.
Lastly, what exactly is the point you’re trying to make about affirmative action here? You can have a debate about the efficacy of the idea and how it was put into practice (I for one am a strong supporter of affirmative action), but I can’t for the life of me understand the comparison with segregation and slavery here. More false equivalencies…
I implied no such thing.
I was merely pointing out the fact that you seem to offer a contrarian viewpoint for virtually every post on this site.
And now you’re engaging in your other trademark behaviour – whining about how poorly you’re treated.
Right Gord, Cause the NEP was so like slavery…….
The problem with your argument is that it equates conservatives and Republicans, progressives with Democrats.
Shows a lack of historical knowledge and understanding.
(Oh, and by the way, the Alberta government, elected by the people, signed an agreement acceopting the NEP. One of the great revisions of Canadian history is the decades old whine about misperceptions about the NEP. It was dumb policy,b ut it isn’t what Albertans claim.)
Abrogating a states constitutional rights to enforce an individual’s rights leaves everyone without rights. Eisenhower was very empathetic to the abuses happening in the south but argued that it wasn’t yet time to use force – that it could happen in a less bloody less damaging long-term way. And affirmative action is racism-lite in reverse – sure it may have helped intergration when it began, now it is a very divisive precident in the workplace.
Chris: I will take it as you insist that your comment was not an implying I was racist. But you have to admit that it could certainly be seen as doing so.
Agreed that not all dems are of like mind – nor are repubs. But for about a hundred years the left-wing dems were more than happy to take the support of the Dixiecrats rather than splitting with them. Even JFK was prepared to have lbj as vpotus a man who counted the segregationist leader of the Dixiecrats – the speaker of the senate as one of his primary mentors and closest friends.
Sorry, Gord, but it seems clear that historical reality doesn’t fit into your overly-simplistic binary world view.
Democrats were conservatives until the 1950s. FDR fought them all the way. William Jennings Bryan was the first great fundamentalist, fighting tooth and nail against evolution until it killed him. The Great Depression and WWII changed the parties as well as the country. There was a great re-allignment of power to what we now understand conservativism to be. Much in the way that Conservatives in Canada were the the believers in a protectionist, big gocernment, strong federal/weak provincial, interfering state and Libereals were the free-trade, strong provinces/weak national government believers, really the true ancestors to Harper.
The world, and especially history, is full of colour. It’s not black and white, gordie.
Great find – thanks for sharing.
Jim has a point, but I think it applies to all races.
What is the point. I fail to see it.
That our letter dictating skills (apparently the author dictated the letter) have deteriorated significantly since then…
Perhaps you could enlighten me as well, W.B.
I think i was merely trying to put a more fair minded twist to Jim E’s point that the level of literacy in pop culture has declined a lot in recent years. His example was a bit exaggerated, but there is no doubt the average citizen wrote with greater clarity and style a few hundred years ago than they do now. If you examine letters that settlers to Canada wrote back and forth to Britain in the 1800′s you will find, as with this former slave letter, a real level of coherence and clarity.Like Jim E I am not too impressed with hip hop lyrics, or for that matter this new ‘tweet’ style of expression. I am trying to think of a really great writer among the columnists and pundits in journalism. Not having much luck.
Isn’t it amazing that slavery could have existed under the United States constitution, so beloved of the Teaparty faction of the Republican Party ?
The tea party supports the constitution as it exists today – not the one that was drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. The current constitution outlaws slavery.
Actually, they call for “what the Fathers wanted” just as often as anything, and even proclaim the falsehood that they founded a Christian nation as grounds for claiming that is what we should have now.
Do show me where they want the constitution changed. They want it enforced – not to have judges write into law things like they did with roe v wade (the opinion I agree with but not how it was done). They want judicial constructivism – not judicial activism.
In other words, they want to roll back every important decision the Supreme Court has decided up to and including the New Deal. Stop trying to defend the indefensible, Pumpkin.
Or how about Brown vs. Board of Education?
Judicial activisim is just a conservative’s way of whining “I don’t like that result.”
They also want to erase the division between church and state, censor free press and use the power of state to spy on fellow Americans, and kill mentally deficient and child murderers, and require prayers in school, and require teaching of “intelligent” design if not outright creationism and putting an asteriks on references to evolution, and criminalize homosexuality, and deny due process to anyone charged with serious crimes, etc.
They are NOT defenders of the Constitution, whether as drafted by the Fathers or as currently drafted.
That is one of the really unfortunate “misses” by non-conservatives: letting conservatives define the past and accepting it; i.e. that they are the defenders of the true Constitution. It’s total poppycock.
There are some who even accept the that Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, etc. wanted to establish a “Christian nation” which is the OPPOSITE of what is in the Constitution and what they each wrote passionately about.
Oh dear, Gourd, don’t you ever tire of being so completely and consistently wrong ? The Teabaggers want the Constitution and its interpretation to be rolled back to the utopia that never was, a constitution that restrained the power of the federal government and protected the rights of the states – and that means, naturally, the federal government not being able to stop any state from retaining slavery laws, among others. Very sad that you are an apologist for this.
Not true. They want the constitution enforced and adhered to by the courts – including the amendments. They are in agreement that amendments canbe added and repealed – but that kind of change should be done by politicians – not judges.
Not true.
They only want some of it enforced and adhered to by the courts and some of it they want the state to do their bidding regardless of the Constitution, such as due process for criminals, spying by the state, censorship of the press, separation of church and state, etc.
Let’s not forget that slavery is a part of history north of the 49th as well.
I’ve never heard that before. I teach History and have a degree in it. Where did you find evidence to support such a claim?
Unfortunately, if you go back far enough, you will find that slavery did exist in what is now Canada. It did not proliferate on any kind of comparable scale to the US. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to simply state that a few people who lived in what is now Canada had a slave or two. But there was slavery.
The good news is it became socially unacceptable even before it was legally unacceptable in the 19th Century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Canada
Wow. Are you sue you’re a history teacher? The first New England planters who came to Nova Scotia brought their slaves with them. And while you won’t read it in this article: http://www.yarmouth.org/villages/argyle/history/mack1.htm it’s fairly common knowledge that Colonel MacKinnon owned slaves who worked his ‘northern’ plantation in Argyle. I’m sure glad I didn’t have you as a teacher, Mike.
Slavery was never seen as being as necessary in the north as it was in the south where crops like tobacco where very labour intensive.
Which, sadly, is probably the single biggest reason it didn’t proliferate.
That’s right, it’s just math. Capitalism carried to a logical conclusion. We have been discussing the capitalist model lately haven’t we?
I was going to post the last line of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, “They endured.”
But it doesn’t really do justice. Because the descendants of slaves go on to pretty much own American culture.
Know what I’m sayin’?
C&w versus hip hop. No contest.
That’s the most diplomatic GFY I’ve ever read.
A masterpiece.
Yes Steve. I am sure. And what I suppose you missed, given the nature of the medium, is that I wasn’t contradicting the information but legitimately had never heard that claim before and asked for the evidence to support it. I read the reputable wikipedia source you shared and your link with no details about slavery. Had you had me as a teacher you might have learned a bit about using quality sources and evidence but I digress. From your snarky reply I think I am glad you were never my student.
Considering the fact that slaves were discouraged from learning to read or write, on punishment of having their thumbs cut off, this man who dictated the letter (I presume for the reason above) still had a better command of the English language and more articulate phrasing than many people in our society today. Our conversation has certainly been “dumbed down” in the past 75 years.
Call me crazy, and I know you will, but I believe that in 150 years our descendants will look back upon abortion with precisely the same head-shaking disbelief which we today reserve for the existence of slavery.
Nobody likes abortion.
I aspire to live in a world where it isn’t necessary. But I live in a world where it is.
I agree but I also point out that the people who want to make abortion illegal are usually the same people who want to cut funding to inner city schools and for the social programs that help young women who find themselves pregnant.
If every woman who considers terminating a pregnancy could receive the counselling and help she needs either to put the baby up for adoption, or to keep the child and be able to raise him or her without worrying about poverty or lack of education opportunities then abortion could become a rare option. More flies are caught with honey than vinegar.
You should be ashamed of yourself. That was neither funny nor enlightening. Wise up, or you’re going to be gone.
I’m an asshole.
For the record, I’m not agreeing with his point – just trying to clarify it.
As for everything changing – Economics is closer to math in this regard – Adam smith is almost as current now as he was when he was alive. The facts of economics do not change our level of understanding has and does but more on the fringes – the basics of supply and demand, capital and labour are as solid as 1 + 1 = 2
I would think that W.B. should be the one to clarify his own statements.
Supply not for sale is not supply. Unless the price is high enough. Demand for which the is not enough subsides because the price rises. That is fundamental economics which is fundamental human nature which is anthropology. Capitalism recognizes these fundamentals. Communism tried to go against them and failed. Communism is anti-human. Capitalism is based on the very things that make us humans (and not apes).