If you follow world history, leaders like JFKennedy, Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Nixon who stood up (blatantly if not bluntly) for their pro-democratic, pro-capitalist militaries all ended up miserably if not dreadfully. These are the reasons why we need Stephen Harper for life to be our Prime Minister. Fence sitters like those of the Liberal Party have their own hidden agendas like sellling our government to hostile foreign states like Cuba. I do not want to name names. Imagine if Reagan had a photo-op with Fidel Castro's arms around his shoulders? What would be the reaction of the public?
Militarism on rise in Conservative Canada
- Thread starter GAP
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Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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I don't want any leader for life, as a memeber of the civil Service I can recall the mistakes of the Liberals (being polite here) and can see the mistakes being made by the conservatives. At some point the conservative need to be kicked out, I hope there is a viable alternative by then that is not to wingnutish.
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One of the most skewed interpretations of our military I've read in a while...
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"Bloody juveniles", "drivel", "left wing nuts", and let's not forget Biblical references... Oy! I'm as concerned about the level of discourse in parts of this thread, as about the intellectual accuracy (or not) of the original article.
My general inclination is that we should continue striving for peace, while recognizing that there will always be others who don't, and that we should be prepared to defend ourselves and others. Is this left wing or right wing? Probably both.
Neither "left wing" nor "right wing" thinkers have a monopoly on stupidity, nor on valid points. The strongest society will probably maintain a balance between both perspectives - and respectful discourse.
My general inclination is that we should continue striving for peace, while recognizing that there will always be others who don't, and that we should be prepared to defend ourselves and others. Is this left wing or right wing? Probably both.
Neither "left wing" nor "right wing" thinkers have a monopoly on stupidity, nor on valid points. The strongest society will probably maintain a balance between both perspectives - and respectful discourse.
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Could you point one out? ???bridges said:
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Journeyman said:
Well, maybe "interesting" is in the eye of the beholder. ;D But I was thinking of this kind of stuff:
-Nothing else can pacify ... the enemies of our sovereign state but a strong military.
-What Obama did for health care in Chicago, before becoming President [I'm not sure of the background there.]
-Ideology being akin to a religion for some people, not for others [True, and I'd submit that this happens in ALL ideologies.]
Anyway, disruptive behaviour makes it hard to take any viewpoint seriously, and has been quite rightly identified here, IMO.
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That's the HQ of the left wing funactics.................did you really think you could go in there and not be noticed??
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This, an episode of the summer session of The Agenda with summer replacement host Piya Chattopadhyay, features polemicist (masquerading as historian) Jamie Swift (Queens University) who has some strange but mostly childish ideas about the military, history and Canada,
The short form is: Jamie Swift is either deeply troubled or terminally stupid.
The long form is that Swift's new book, Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, is Yves Engler's diatribe (which leads this thread) taken to excruciating lengths.
One valid point Swift almost manages to make: most modern military historians, folks like Jack Granatstein and David Bercuson, are not writing history, they are not even trying to write history - they too, like Swift, are little better than pamphleteers.
In his famous exchange with Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, hoping to find a bit of uncontroversial small talk said something like, "What do you think are the long term results of the French Revolution?"* Zhou replied, "It is too soon to tell." That's what historian must think about e.g. World War II, Korea and everything after them - the results are still unclear, they are too close to us, we cannot, yet, separate fact from fiction. What we have, in the forms or e.g. Jack Granatstein and Jamie Swift are dueling polemicists pretending that what they say has even modest significance.
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* It may be that Kissinger actually asked Zhou about he Paris student protests of 1968 - but the French Revolution makes for a better anecdote. Kissinger needed an entrée to make up for the notoriously rude snub administered to Zhou in Geneva (in 1954) by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The short form is: Jamie Swift is either deeply troubled or terminally stupid.
The long form is that Swift's new book, Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, is Yves Engler's diatribe (which leads this thread) taken to excruciating lengths.
One valid point Swift almost manages to make: most modern military historians, folks like Jack Granatstein and David Bercuson, are not writing history, they are not even trying to write history - they too, like Swift, are little better than pamphleteers.
In his famous exchange with Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, hoping to find a bit of uncontroversial small talk said something like, "What do you think are the long term results of the French Revolution?"* Zhou replied, "It is too soon to tell." That's what historian must think about e.g. World War II, Korea and everything after them - the results are still unclear, they are too close to us, we cannot, yet, separate fact from fiction. What we have, in the forms or e.g. Jack Granatstein and Jamie Swift are dueling polemicists pretending that what they say has even modest significance.
__________
* It may be that Kissinger actually asked Zhou about he Paris student protests of 1968 - but the French Revolution makes for a better anecdote. Kissinger needed an entrée to make up for the notoriously rude snub administered to Zhou in Geneva (in 1954) by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
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E.R. Campbell said:
To be fair, Swift is a self-proclaimed "journalist" who apparently lectures at the Queen's University School of Business. The Wiki entry on him claims only that "....in 1968, he pursued a degree in African Studies at McGill University" -- there is no mention that he actually received even a BA. Yes, I had to Google him since I'd never heard of him before (and I have a passing knowledge of Canadian military history writers). I think the literacy in the sole comment on him in "Rate My Prof" speaks volumes.
The book, Warrior Nation, however, is co-written with Ian McKay, PhD, a fervent anti-militarist who teaches Labour History at Queen's, which is to say, parroting Marx, Foucault, Gramsci, et al, in order to demonstrate that anyone who's broken a sweat is oppressed (well, except the military, of course; they're evil). I'm not sure of the division of labour, but Swift does have pride of place on the book's cover, so I suspect he's using McKay for some historical "credibility," notwithstanding McKay never having remotely studied military history.
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