Sunday, January 08, 2012

1812 - 2012: Harper's Zygotian Canada Day Bicentennial Event Spectacular

This whole War of 1812 glorification schtick the Harper-toons are pushing is actually starting to amuse me - to a point. Most recently, the mucous ones have hired a firm to inject 1812 into this year's Canada Day celebrations.

Nevermind that to include 1812 would logically mean renaming Canada Day British North America Day because that's what Canada was called in 1812, if only by the colonial power. However, one can understand the Conservatives thinking around this as many of their leaning also believe that life begins when the sperm meets the egg, and not nine months later when a living human exits the birth canal. It makes sense that they'd also believe Canada began when Aboriginal ancestors crossed the Bering Land Bridge to become the original inhabitants of this land, Vikings landed in the East, Jacques Cartier went up the St. Lawrence, the British Crown confirmed military and political domination over the remainder post-American Revolution northern North America, and not at Confederation. Or the signing of treaties with conquered peoples. Or Gawd-forbid, the commie-Liebrul repatriation of the Constitution in 1982.

This stuff stops being funny when it is understood as a form of historical revisionism that ignores inconvenient facts and time-lines.  It stops being funny when it glorifies the colonial-imperial military history of Canada. This is a form of history which ultimately leads to needless death and disruption of the lives and livelihoods of a great many at the hands of those who find satisfaction in guns and uniforms and the conquest of territories.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Any commemoration of the War of 1812 by the Harper clown car is bound to be full of regenerated bullshit.

What are the odds that the "Militia Myth" gets replayed over and over and over, despite the fact that it was British regulars allied with the Shawnee, Lenape, Sauk, Creeks, Iroquois, Chickamauga, Potawatomi, Ojibway, Mascouten, Fox and other peoples, who actually did the fighting.

Hell, the American Northwest at the time was the Mississippi river valley. To anyone west of present day Ontario the War of 1812 was a non-event.

And, if Harper is going to make it a "Canadian" thing he can take ownership for the British abandonment of aboriginal allies after 1814 and the subsequent slaughter, pillaging and imprisonment of those peoples at the hands of the Americans.

West End Bob said...

Like most other chickenhawks, stevie loves to glorify all things military - warranted or not.

Let's see.

What is his record of military service?

Oh, yeah . . . .