Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 2.

There is a commonly held misconception that all members of Canada's armed services and, by extension, discharged veterans are Conservative supporters. That, of course, is simply not true on more than one plane.

What is true, is that many voted for Harper and his uber-right-wing thugs based on a load of false propaganda, seriously limited information, and for purely selfish reasons, (which is why we all vote in a specific direction). It would not be a stretch to say that most members of the armed services had little use for Chretien and his Liberals long before the general electorate swung away from them. Chretien was viewed, (with good reason), as being anti-armed forces and if you're in the service you're going to fight back with the only tool allowed armed service personnel in a democracy: your big X against the name of someone who isn't going to return a Liberal government. That meant Paul Martin, despite making some immediate and needed course corrections when it came to the Canadian Forces, didn't stand a chance amongst CF voters. But that's more history than an explanation.

The truth is most members of the armed services are pretty apolitical, especially in their early years of service. When a kid joins the service he/she is not politically engaged and definitely doesn't possess a political ideology. Young (put any political party name here) ideologues don't, as a rule, join the armed services, particularly during peacetime. It would interfere with their ability to get inside the political machine. And, although this is likely to create a poo-flinging session, my long association with armed services has taught me that among those few young service members who do have a political view, none of them are conservative of the Harper ilk. That kind of young person avoids military service like a plague, although there is an exception I'll identify later.

Service in the navy, army or air-force is very insular. Long deployments, active service and isolated bases mean limited interaction with the civilian community. A very different lifestyle leads many service personnel to further isolate themselves (and their families) from too much civilian contact. Politics becomes dirty, invasive and unwanted. Politicians are viewed as dirty, invasive and unwanted. A majority of service personnel therefore distrust all politicians. Political interest only arises when it directly affects serving individuals or the organization to which they belong. Thus, political motivation depends on how they view the treatment offered by the gang in place at the time. Disband an airborne regiment, lose the votes of the entire army and likely chase them into the arms of the first party who says we'd never have done that. Cut the defence budget so deeply that there are not enough crews to man ships, lose the votes of the entire navy with the same end result.

Veterans are odd creatures. They have a tendency to take those particular political views and emotions with them on the final walk out the main gate and there is a good chance they'll hang on to them for decades. They maintain an emotional affinity with their former service that most civilians do not fully comprehend. It is born out of the fact that while serving they were a part of more than just an organization. The people they served with were and are a part of a very close-knit family with intentional barriers preventing those who did not serve from ever entering the deep centre of the military psyche. You didn't serve? You don't ever get to be a part of the ethos and no one is ever going to explain it to you.

So, it will likely come as something of a shock when I tell you that in the 1960s prior to Paul Helleyer committing the heinous crime that was Unification, most service personnel found themselves voting Liberal.

You see, Diefenbaker was a tough pill to swallow. He had done little to foster the armed services. Pay was poor and conditions were not improving. Cancellation of the AVRO Arrow iced Dief in the eyes of many service personnel. That and a long held belief that the Liberals were a better option for significant pay raises and an improvement in conditions put them ahead in the minds of people who had endured enough of Diefenbaker's draconian austerity measures, most of which had to do with keeping service personnel impoverished.

There was something else. The Liberals under Louis St. Laurent had engaged in a purpose-bent re-equipment program. Diefenbaker inherited a modernized or modernizing armed forces as a result of the government which preceded his. That fact was not lost on the long service veterans who were starting to leave the service in the 1960s and taking their political affinity for the Liberals with them.

Here, I'll end part 2. Part 3 will be a little longer in coming. 

Veterans are outraged. Now they need to do what they once did best. Lead. Part 1.

There is no doubt Canadian veterans have been treated in the most vile way possible by one of the most ignorant people in the Harper government. Julian Fantino has demonstrated, quite clearly, that he feels a greater duty to his benefactor, Harper, than he does to the armed services veterans his department is mandated to assist. In fact, his recent behaviour demonstrates a total disdain for veterans. He believed he could appear at a time of his choosing and start issuing orders. This to a group who, now no longer in uniform, would loudly tell a serving general where to go if they didn't like what was being said. Fantino forgot, (or perhaps has never understood) who it is he actually works for. Not surprising, actually. Fantino has a long and documented history of being a dangerously stupid person with too much power which he felt was his to abuse and then to attack anyone who shone a light on his activities.

Some people are giving Fantino credit for "sincerely apologizing" to veterans for the spectacle he created. Except that it wasn't a sincere apology and accepting any part of it would be a huge mistake. Professor Stephen Kimber explains why.

Sincerely? In the next breath, Fantino was bitching to his stenographers at the Toronto Sun that the multi-medalled, wheel-chaired vets had been “duped… jacked up” by the union representing public servants who will lose their jobs and who had paid the veterans’ airfare to Ottawa.
When those mindless-dupe vets failed to show Fantino the due deference he required, he told the Sun, “I wasn’t just going to play dead.”

Keeping in mind, of course, that on one of Fantino's previous yap-sessions with those same stenographers he tried to paint himself into the same frame as a combat veteran. That should have told the veterans who attempted to meet with him that such endeavours were likely to fail. Fantino, who does not know how to control his authoritarian impulses, views himself as a hero. A self-styled hero who brooks no protest without his explicit permission.

Fantino clearly does not understand veterans. Worse though, is that he expects veterans to kneel before him and then be grateful for his very existence. His style is to issue orders; not to listen. And he further insults veterans by telling them they have been "duped" by the public service union, PSAC.

Really? Duped by the very union veterans watched like hawks when they were serving? The same union whose collective wage and benefit package formed the basis for the Canadian Forces compensation and benefit negotiations with the Treasury Board? Ya think?!!

If there's been any "duping" going on it's been by Harper and company, Fantino included. They have made a point of positioning themselves as "friends of the forces" and the "protectors of veterans", all without having done much except make loud noises about it. While the Harperites have been diligent in making certain they applied a nice shiny surface paint job, they have been hacking away at personnel, cutting pay and benefits, cancelling equipment acquisition and fighting against veterans attempting to hang on to disability benefits.

Not to mention the biggest duping of all. Harper, on Sunday, 1 March 2009, on CNN in the U.S., (he never says this kind of thing where a Canadian can get at him), told Fareed Zakaria that the war in Afghanistan was futile. And rather than call the Chief of Defence Staff and require that all Canadian troops be withdrawn to a safe area, he continued to knowingly send Canadian kids to their death. That made them cannon fodder and it highlighted Harper as a dangerous sociopath. Fantino too, is a sociopath but with perhaps a more lingering aroma of corruption.

And here ends part 1. 

Get Rob Anders off the Veterans Affairs Committee

It's not just that he's a waste of good room air or even that he continually falls asleep on watch.

It's that he clearly can't stand veterans. When Jim Lowther and David MacLeod, of Veterans Emergency Transition Services, criticized Anders for sleeping through their presentations, this is how he dealt with it.

“It’s a smear job,” Mr. Anders said, categorically denying that he fell asleep during the presentation.

...

“They praised Vladimir Putin, at one point, for the way he deals with veterans, and then he just went on and on praising Peter Stoffer,” Mr. Anders said. “[Mr. Lowther] is the same guy who tried to crash one of the Prime Minister’s rallies and is on NDP press releases.” 

Lying little chickenhawk. Anders did fall asleep and his attempt to smear two veterans is nothing short of contempt for every person who ever wore a uniform, has campaign medals, has wound stripes and lives with nightmares.

From Jim Lowther:

“I’ve been called a Canadian hero – I did two tours of Bosnia and one in Afghanistan – and now I’m a NDP hack? Never been called that before.”

 Especially since he appears to be a Conservative party member.

From David MacLeod:

“I’m an ex-intelligence officer and worked on the NORAD closure. ... How likely do you think it is that I support Vladimir Putin?” Mr. MacLeod said. “I was just saying Russia, which doesn’t always treat its vets well, had a hospital for Afghan and Chechen vets who had post traumatic stress disorder.” 

Mr. MacLeod said he, too, is not an NDP supporter. In fact, he has voted for Peter MacKay in his Central Nova riding and is a member of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party.

Who also added:

“It’s just stupid to say we’re NDP hacks and frankly, I don’t think this reflects well on the party,” he added. “[Mr. Anders] should have just said he was sorry he fell asleep and that would have been the end of it.”

Not anymore. No veteran should be put in a position to have to share the same space with such a useless and self-absorbed piece of shit as Rob Anders.