babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
My dad was severely injured in training in England - C. C. J. Bond of Ottawa wrote about this incident in his biographical book - the commander of the regiment was a sadistic bastard who should have been in a mental institution, not the military.
I think the lesson drawn from Vimy Ridge and other battles is that Canadians from all across the spectrum, very ordinary Canadians who were farmers and clerks, railroad workers, mine workers, fishermen, what have you, proved themselves to be superior to any other force on the battle field of the day, forces that had centuries of experience virtually unkown to Canadians.
We should on one hand be proud of that. And, understand that those people at Vimy are no different from us, or our children. They were not giants.
Now, is it a vast horrific tragedy that this came about in what was one of the most criminal, stupid wars ever, that Canada had no vital interest in protecting?
Most certainly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQynsWpBpQ
I've only read "Blood Meridian" Twice. I'm not sure if Holden is a stand in for Virgil in this re-telling of the Inferno, or whether it's Satan himself. I think Satan.
I do too. It makes you wonder what home life brought him to that pass.
I think the NDP caucus should be encouraged to read Johnny Got His Gun. Maybe then they will get the World War one vets cry of Never Again.
Vimy Ridge: Birth of a Nation? talks about the mythology of Vimy Ridge, and briefly mentions some of the resistance to conscription. (Although, I disagree with the author's belief that immigrants to Canada need to disavow any affinity to their homelands.)
Arthur, I should apologize. I didn't realize it while I was writing it that it would seem like that, but I wasn't aiming that last paragraph of my post at you specifically. I was parodying the usual glurge you get from politicians and people who haven't really thought all that critically about their support for World War I.
M. Spector, that IS very sad. I'm glad he survived it.
A brief history of the Conscription Crisis of 1917-1918.
Michelle, no problem. If I had realized your intent, I wouldn't have posted anyting back either. Not to worry. I am glad we can talk things through which is what motivated my posts on this topic anyway.
No, rereading it, it looked like I was tearing a strip off of YOU, not in general. What happened was, I got writing a response to you, and then got into run-on-ranting-post mode. :D
I had read somewhere (and I did a quick search only to find out that I'd probably have to search for half the night to find it) that the actual rates of volunteerism between French and English Canadians was about equal-- when you looked at service aged unmarried men.
The raw numbers difference came as a result of the fact that French Canadian men tended to marry and start a family at a much earlier age than English Canadian men.
I think a lot of historians kind of skip over this, rushing to the two crisis on conscription, but in doing so, it misses the point that maybe both French and English Canadian young men went to war for things other than "King and Country"-- even if that was the claim at the time.
My dad joined the 1st RCR because it was clean clothes, a roof over his head and three square meals a day.
..my background is french canadian manitoba. i come from a very large family. my grandmother alone had 21 children. i can only remember seeing 2 pics of 2 men in uniform and there was never any talk of fighting wars or god and country. i'm glad for this. did include priests and nuns though which had a different set of obsticles to overcome.
My grandfather signed up because it allowed him to get a cow, which made him and my grandmother self-sufficient in those days. He was fortunately not sent over because of the end of the war. Two other relatives of mine were not so lucky; one came back without a leg, and another not at all.
And I can think of plenty of reasons why people would feel driven to sign up in a horrible situation like that; an inlaw of mine wanted to fight, but was forced by an older relative to make himself appear shorter, and get on the refugee boat, because he was the only man left in the family.
Michelle, I still say no problem. As long as people talk and we try to hear what the other is saying, I don't think you could ask for more.
Cheers to you!
My dad was drafted in 1941 then released after a month because he had 6 toes on each foot
My brother requested dad's WWII record from the feds. We suspect there will be a record of his time off for good behaviour in a British field punishment camp somewhere in North Africa. All we knew was that dad was in amazing physical condition after the war. His thoughts on war were another thing. He was generally quiet and always changed the subject when we kids asked him about the war. He never mentioned being at Ortona, but my uncle told us later that dad was there.
Prospecting for gold, fishing, hunting, anything but the war. He said to me whatever you do, stay the hell out of the army.
I wanted to respond to this post when it was made, but I have only now gotten around to it. CanadaApple, your rejoinder is not very clever, but it deserves an answer nonetheless. First, propositions such as "the U.S. is an empire" or "the current NATO military adventures in Afghanistan and Libya are imperial in nature" are not of the type that can be "proved" by some brief argument, or reference to authoritative opinion. They are propostions about which each person has the responsibility to do his own investigation.
Personally, I mostly believed the official story until I was somewhere around 35 years old. Since then, I've had another 30 years to fill in the details of what I never learned in school, or from the newspapers. My conclusion is the same as Spector's. The world (and more particularly the U.S. and it's little cousin Canada) has a ruling class which owns all the newspapers and tv stations, and doesn't want people to understand what the true situation is. The U.S. military has been used by the dominant American faction of the ruling class to further their imperial ambitions since shortly after independence from Britain. In the 20th century, the U.S. empire, through the 2 world wars, came to dominate the rest of the world.
As to why you never hear about these matters, Noam Chomsky's book "Necessary Illusions" is a detailed description of how the U.S. press has restricted its discussion to "acceptable" subjects throughout the 20th century. Most of the examples are from the Reagan administration, which was in power at the time the book was written. Many specific examples show how the U.S. applied barbaric imperial agression in places like Nicaragua, ruled by the "Communist" Sandinistas. Scholarly sources are given for all claims. The facts thus established are then compared to what was written at the time in newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post. The results are not flattering to those so-called news organizations. There are also many other books by Chomsky which you would profit by reading.
Any reading list on the subject of the U.S. empire should also include Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" and later "People's History of American Empire". Zinn was an American who served as a bombardier in WW2, dropping thousands of pounds of explosives on German cities. After the war, he became a professor of history, and reconsidered the rightness of his own actions. As with Chomsky, his work is relentless in its scholarly dedication to facts.
There are plenty of videos on YouTube where you can see these 2 wise men describing the U.S. empire in person.
There are also plenty of blogs doing a good job of chronicling the current exploits of the U.S. empire. My personal favourite is by a guy named Chris Floyd. He is a great writer and a damned good musician to boot. It is entitled "Empire Burlesque, High Crimes and Low Comedy in the American Imperium". Start with this recent post, and follow the links from there.
Good luck in your quest for the truth.