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Waskesiu --- fat cats and bureaucrats turn a peoples' park into a gated community for bears, mosquitoes and rich folk
by the Old Contrarian from Pincher Creek Friday, September 03, 2010 ---
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Was Prime Minister John Diefenbaker a ku kluxer?
by the Eye Opener's U.S. affairs correspondent, John Ware Monday, August 30, 2010 ---
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Kop-Speak for Dummies
by Paddy Nolan, Q.C., The Eye Opener's Legal Specialist Friday, August 20, 2010 ---
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British Petroleum -- why Americans love to hate Englishmen
by the Eye Opener's expert on Financial Manipulation, Lord Strathcona Monday, August 16, 2010 ---
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Kanada doesn't need a census because ...
by Chief Chapo-Mexico, The Eye Opener's Aboriginal Correspondent Monday, August 16, 2010 ---
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Bill Gates and Henry Ford duke it out at the Alberta Long Bar then constipate
The Eye Opener's special correspondent at the Long Bar at the Alberta Hotel Thursday, August 12, 2010 ---
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Feelin' the pain --- $3,000,000 for Clinton wedding
by Paddy Nolan, Q.C., The Eye Opener's Legal Specialist Sunday, August 08, 2010 ---
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Big Brother crowns how-high-yes-man King of Kanada
by the Old Contrarian from Pincher Creek Thursday, July 29, 2010 ---
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by Chief Chapo-Mexico, The Eye Opener's Aboriginal Correspondent
27-Jul-09
- On Saturday, 111-year-old Harry Patch, the last survivor of the charnel house
that was trench warfare in World
War I, died. He was drafted into the British army at 18. During the bloodbath
known as the Battle of Passchendale a German shell landed in the midst of his
machine gun company. Shrapnel perforated his body ... of the rest of his company:
"... there was nothing left, nothing left to bury. It wasn't worth it."
Although, when the war started in 1914, the excitement of a heroic war for the glory of the motherland
and empire "excited" most Englishmen, 16-year-old Harry Patch "didn't
welcome the war at all." He foresaw well --- the war was a slaughterhouse
which European diplomats could easily have prevented. Most young men of 1914,
coursing with testosterone, were excited by it's prospect. Europe's ruling classes
may have thought war was a way of diffusing too much young energy. Germany's
generals were competent but narrow minded. England's were incompetent. The English
tradition of the ruling classes was that the stupidest son in any family went
into the army. The major English general, Douglas ('Butcher") Haig, could
not have possessed an IQ of over 90. The British General Staff should --- for war crimes against their own men --- been marched in mass to Piccadilly Circus, horsewhipped and drawn and quartered. But so should have the politicians
and the newspaper reporters and owners of the day --- they took the easy way
out --- they said nothing --- for to oppose any war, any time is an unpopular
uphill battle. Early in the conflict, Canadian soldiers refused to serve under
putty-headed British officers and Canadian generals protected their men from
them --- but Canadian politicians should have withdrawn Canadian troops from
the execution grounds. French generals were equally incompetent. Over 15 million
human beings died in World War I.. Had there been television at the time, the
war would have ended quickly. World War I was an unjust and stupid war. The
aftermath was Hitler and, to stop Hitler, the better side of human nature had
to fight a just war, World War II. But when British prime minister Gordon Brown,
seconded by the Queen of All the Canadas, calls the sheep who went to slaughter
"the noblest of all generations", then Dr.
Johnson's famous quote must be amended to read that "patriotism is the last
refuge of an imbecile." It is true, as Bob Edwards
argued on Remembrance Day three years ago, that, once started, unless
peacefully settled, World War I had to be won. But to glorify World War I is
to worship a barbarity and stupidity unknown since the days of the Neanderthal.
Harry Patch would agree.
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