Bush and Australia's conservative Howard got re-elected, and non-idiotarian Blair is hanging on.
And now even anti-American, terrorist-friendly, Liberal-ruled Canada might swing to the Conservative Stephen Harper in the upcoming elections due to the arrogance and insanity of Paul Martin's Liberals. Though rocked by ever more outrageous scandals, the Liberals finally crossed a line of all decency and morality such that even their own Liberal-biased media had to disown them in a deliciously shocking on-air spanking.
But before we go to video, a little background.
In 1915, Canadian military surgeon John McCrae found himself in the Ypres salient, and wrote of that experience in the classic WWI poem Flanders Field:
In Flanders fields the poppies blowNo silly unrealistic John Lennon "Imagine" sentiment here. No carefully calculated "where have all the flowers gone" communist propaganda. No magically infantile "the world put an end to war" dreams.
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
No, despite the horrors of 17 days of treating the steady flow of wounded and dying, a steely resolve.
And for that reason, the Poppy is still important on Remembrance Day in Britain.
Or at least, to those who share its values, as we find, via Melanie Phillips:
The poppy is a symbol of the terrible loss of life in World War I in the fields of Flanders, where these blood-red flowers sprouted above the acres of corpses of fallen soldiers. As the decades have passed, the poppy has been worn to show one’s respect for the millions who have died in successive conflicts as recent as Iraq and Afghanistan. On British television, every presenter and anchor wears a poppy. In keeping with the motto of the British Legion -- 'Wear your poppy with pride' -- every shopkeeper, publican, hotel manager and cabbie wears a poppy. This year I proudly bought mine at my local doctor’s office.But I digress.
It was therefore all the more astonishing last week when I took a long walk along Edgware Road, the most densely Muslim section of London, and discovered that not one person was wearing a poppy. This all started because I was accosted on my corner, a few yards from where I have lived for twenty-eight years, by a young Arab man who began to get very aggressive with me. Was I, he demanded to know, 'from the Jewish'?
He also wanted to know why I was wearing a poppy. I tried to explain the concept of the Cenotaph and Armistice Day. But he seemed determined to establish that I was a Jewess above all else. No matter how hard I tried, I could not shake him off. I began to get very alarmed. I hailed a taxi and, thankfully, my pursuer, who was by this time shouting, did not get into the taxi. The driver was enormously sympathetic but told me that I had been 'asking for it' by walking in what he called 'Little Beirut.' He then told me that we were in World War III. His white, working class anger at what he perceived as 'the Islamic takeover' of Britain was palpable. He was not the first London cabbie who has told me he would gladly join the far-right British National Party if pushed.
Small Dead Animals, a Canadian blog, cleverly but bitterly contrasts McCrae's poem with what must be the most ill-conceived if not treasonous political ad ever devised!
The text of the ad is:
Stephen Harper actually announced he wants to increase military presence in our cities.I love the snarky and Freudian "We did not make this up!" Harper, of course, was talking about having the military better able to help in case of disasters, man-made or otherwise, such as it did during the great Manitoba floods of 1997.
Canadian cities.
Soldiers with guns.
In our cities.
In Canada.
We did not make this up.
- committee to re-elect Paul Martin, 2006
But the party in power is basically telling Canadians, what, that they should be afraid of their own military -- who serve this very same Liberal government???
That Canadian soldiers -- "with guns!" -- are something to be disgusted about and fearful of?
That Canadian soldiers in Canadian cities is such a shockingly unthinkable concept that only a baby-eating Conservative could come up with it?
That the defenders of Canadian freedom are evil?
Yep, that's what they're saying.
That attitude will do wonders for the morale of the Canadian volunteer soldiers, who at this very moment are engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan.
We're a long way from Flanders Field.
Talk about "breaking the faith."
Such vicious treason for political gain by the Liberals should disqualify them from ever holding power again.
Now of course, the Liberals are trying to lie about it, saying the ad wasn't aired so they shouldn't be held responsible for it.
But it's stamped "This message has been authorized by the registered agent for the Federal Liberal Party of Canada." It was approved, apparently, by Prime Minister Paul Martin himself. It was sent to the media as part of a package of 12 approved ads. It was released openly on the internet from their website.
And it continued to run in a French language version on Quebec tv!
Your denials are pathetic!!!
Watch the video of the ad here, as well as a clip of a Canadian tv news man -- apparently known as a usually dependable Liberal hack -- delivering a brutal smackdown to a Liberal strategist who tries to evade responsibility for the ad.
It is truly sweet.
Who in their right mind would vote for a party that holds its armed forces in such open contempt?
As Canadian commentator David Warren puts it,
Once again, I don’t feel angry, I feel sick. Even though I have nothing whatever to do with these ads, or any part of the Liberal campaign, the very sight of them makes me feel dirty, tarnished, used, insulted. And the thought that Canadians might fall for such a thing, makes me feel ashamed.We'll know in about a week how the voters feel.
...
We need more than a clean start with a new Conservative government. We need a Liberal Party brought so low, that it must rebuild from the ground up. A party capable of disowning its immediate past, and the indecency of Paul Martin. Our own decency depends upon this.
