How Gad Horowitz Survived Israel Apartheid Week

A message from Gad Horowitz. Enjoy.

 

israel apartheid week drove me up the wall.
the term is supposed to induce guilt but is equally likely to induce fury…
as a leftist i have always wondered why so many of my relatives and friends who were socialists in the past have become right wingers on almost every issue. now i understand. but it won’t happen to me. because I will not be sucked in.  instead i will emulate the “language poets” who play with word-viruses in order to divest them of their hypnotic power.  so here we go: (best declaimed aloud to ward off the demonization-demon)
END ISRAELI SARDINES
End Israeli sardines
End Israeli marsupials
End Israeli pincushions
End Israeli matzohballs
End endodontic apartheid
End fingerlickin apartheid
End testicular apartheid
End macadamianut apartheid
End frapuccino apartheid
End umbilical apartheid
End kakapoopoo apartheid
End arootintootin apartheid
End applecorrie apartheid
End deliverdeletterdesoonerdebetter apartheid
End blueish apartheid
that’s funny, you don’t LOOK blueish

End monosodium glutameit
End jambalaya afartfeit
End mouthfrothish hyperboleit
End gefultefush expansionheit
End slithery hypocrateit

Advertisement

The Dorchester Revisits Responsible Government

Enjoying the Dorchester Review again! The debate on responsible government continues in Volume 1, No 2.

Craig Yirush, Department of History UCLA, Los Angeles, argues that what the British North American colonists got in 1848 was merely a limited form of responsible government. I have to say that all the secondary sources, British and Canadian, agree with him. All that is, but John Ralston Saul (or so I think) and Janet Ajzenstat.

In his Introduction to the 1963 edition (Carleton Library No. 1), Gerald Craig says, “Responsible government was the dynamic idea in the Report, but it must not be forgotten how severely the idea was qualified by Lord Durham. It would apply to what he called internal legislation, and he would withhold only those matters that concerned the relations of the colonies with the mother country.” That is the standard view. On that point Yirush is correct.

But why don’t we get the opinion of the colonists who lived through the period from 1848 to Confederation? I can tell you immediately that without exception – I believe without exception –  participants in the ratifying debates on Confederation report that their province was rendered free in 1848, free in the way that independent countries are free. Indeed after 1848 speakers feel comfortable using the term “country” to refer to their province.

In Nova Scotia’s Legislative Assembly, Stewart Campbell said: “I am a free man. I claim the right and attributes of a free man, speaking in the presence of a British free assembly (Canada’s’ Founding Debates, ed. Janet Ajzenstat et al., [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, hereafter CFD], 60.) Campbell’s term “a British free assembly” refers to the Legislative Assembly of the province. Nova Scotia’s William Lawrence boasted: “We are a free people, prosperous beyond doubt, advancing cautiously in wealth … Under the British Constitution we have far more freedom than any other people on the face of the earth (CFD, 60).

In Newfoundland, George Hogsett said: “We have here a constitution for which the people nobly fought, and which was reluctantly wrung from the British government. We had the right of taxing ourselves, or legislating for ourselves (CFD, 98). In the same legislature, Ambrose Shea said that responsible government had brought “virtual independence.” He claimed moreover, that the colony had legislated tariffs “hostile to the commercial interests of England” (CFD, 219). In New Brunswick, John Mercer Johnson boasted: “We want nothing better than British institutions, for under them we have as much liberty, and a little more, than they have in the United States (CFD, 180).

The speakers I cite to this point are among the anti-Confederates. I could multiply examples. In the Atlantic Provinces the chief objection to Confederation was fear that union with the Province of Canada would impair the liberty enjoyed from 1848. But the argument that the colonies had enjoyed a singular liberty from 1848 can also be found among the “Confederates,” those committed to colonial union. In the Canadian Legislative Assembly Thomas D’Arcy McGee said: “The two great things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency. We have had liberty enough – too much perhaps in some respects  – but at all events, liberty to our heart’s content. There is not on the face of the earth a freer people than the inhabitants of these colonies” (CFD, 16-7).

In the National Post (March 5, 2012), letter writer Alex Harrison contends that Canada will thrive only if “we rebuild our government into a Parliament with a common goal.”

Mr. Harrison, we are a free country. A loyal Canadian may disagree with the government of the day.

A country with a common goal is at best an oligarchy and more likely a tyranny. The saving grace of party politics and parliamentary government is that it allows disagreement, and continuing deliberation. It’s true that national and world events do not always wait for extended debate. In the short run, the political executive (in Canada, the Cabinet) must sometimes decide matters. But Cabinet’s decisions can always be called in question and in that fact lies our proud designation as a free country.

In the same issue of the Post, letter-writer Roger Friedman argues that the biggest issue facing Canada is our self-serving politicians. “With the exception of our Prime Minister there are no true leaders in Parliament, unafraid to do what is right rather than what is expedient.” “With good people at the helm,” says Friedman, “Canada can overcome most of its current problems.”

Harrison wants to turn over government to a Parliament with a common goal. Friedman wants to empower the Prime Minister.

Democracy is more demanding.