It is the media Anniversary of D-Day, and Juno Beach, and my stomach turns to watch Julian Fantino read platitudes in France while snubbing his veterans and their families back home in Canada. I have heard the stories of Juno Beach and D-Day from veterans, from Steven Spielberg, and from a proud son who visited Juno with his veteran father for the 50th Anniversary. The young who died there did so in the hopes that they were liberating the world from an evil fascism. How horrified they would have been to discover that it would be replaced by a corporate greed dictatorship that served not the peace of the world, but the insatiable appetites of the 1%. A 1% that will use whatever means necessary to maintain their power and privilege.

My father, a WW2 veteran, pilot, and POW camp survivor, made me promise to always exercise my responsibility to vote. I will not abide anything that interfers with that right, whether it be robocalls, buying of candidates, or false advertising by political parties. Any interference in the affairs of an open and honest democratic society is an insult to the honour of those who defended it with all of their youth and innocence. Don’t celebrate D-Day if you can’t walk the talk. As the old wagon masters used to say when a wheel fell off,  “Either get out and push, or get out.”

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

The recent spate of editorials bemoaning Andrea Horwath's betrayal of most things traditionally NDP has it's roots in a previous ideological betrayal.

Way back in 2005, Jack Layton did the same thing. Jack knew that if Paul Martin's Liberal platform got majority impetus, the federal NDP would have no campaign. And so he signed his deal with the devils, Giseppe and Harper, and killed Kelowna, Kyoto, and National Child Care. The end game in that betrayal of NDP principles was to ensure the survival of the federal NDP. The result of that is the one term Opposition status that Mulcair currently enjoys and will lose in 2015.

Similarly, with an NDP wish list budget on the table, Horwath saw the writing on the wall for the NDP. If that budget passed, there would few scraps left on the table for the left of centre to champion. And so, she betrayed the principles of the party to try to ensure their survival. It has backfired badly. Traditional NDP loyalists like Stephen Lewis,  Michelle Landsberg and Gerry Caplan have publically admonished the shift to the right and the defeat of the "most progressive budget in recent Ontario history."

Citing distrust of the Liberal government over the gas plant cancellations, Horwath protested that she could not trust the current government. it is important to remember that all the parties wanted the gas plants cancelled. The NDP's concern was that it was being done for political, not environmental reasons. Just like not supporting the Liberal budget was done for political, not social justice, environmental, or sustainable economy reasons.

The will be another Orange Crush in this provincial election, Andrea, but not the one for which you hoped. The Ontario electorate has seen what the federal NDP betrayal of principles has done for Stephen Harper, and they certainly don't want that opportunity given to Tim Hudak and a return to the dark days of the ReformaTories and the Harris regime policies.

You should have supported the budget, Ms. Horwath. That way you would have remained the Honourable Third Party. No longer.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

I had a nightmare last night. I think it was inspired by watching "The Book Thief" and a frightening scene of Adolph Hitler in the stands sneering down at Jesse Owens on the track at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. I woke up in a sweat with the vision of Hitler and those Olympics and what happended next in Europe, blending into a vision of Putin and his Olympics and what is happening now in the Ukraine. Could it be possible that dictatorial governments, whether fascist, corpocratic (we no longer have democracies – we have corpocracies), or communist, use the Olympics as a way of softening global opinion into inaction?

This is a direct quote from the Jewish Virtual Library:  "For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Soft-pedaling its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that — some observers at the time claimed — might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other “enemies of the state” accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust."

Now, how about this: For two weeks in February 2014, Vladimir Putin camouflaged his racist, militaristic character while hosting the Winter Olympics. We raged about his homophobia, mused about boycotts, but, bedazzled by his soft-pedaling and the distracted by the scope of the construction in Sochi, did nothing. International resistance to his tyranny melted away in the media blitzkreig of feel good ceremonies and medal counts . With the conclusion of the games, Russia's expansionist policies accelerated, beginning with the invasion and annexation of Crimea, and destabilization of the Ukraine, and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of Russian speaking peoples" , and….and….

Be very, very careful.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon