Wednesday, November 12, 2003

POST REMEMBRANCE DAY

A friend of mine directed me to this National Post commentary piece by one Claire Hoy.

Hoy attacks the student council at the University of Guelph writing:

"Last year the student council at the University of Guelph voted to ban any recognition of Remembrance Day on campus on the extraordinarily ignorant grounds that it somehow "glorified" war."

While this action by the student council is ignorant and regrettable for the reasons Hoy outlines it does not seem to have mattered much. According to this press release the administration seems to have done an excellent job in organizing a service.

What I find most interesting about this article is that amongst all of the excellent Remembrance Day tirbutes in the media the Post takes the opportunity to take shots at the federal government. Hoy writes:

"Successive governments have fought every step of the way as various veterans groups have pushed for modest improvements in social programs to assist them. That, combined with the systematic destruction of our armed forces... has contributed to a popular culture which dismisses war and the recognition of war as pure evil."

It seems to me that Remembrance Day should be about remembering our veterans. Every other day of the year the Post can grind its ideological axe against the misdeeds of the federal government. Using vetrans and Remembrance Day as an easy segue into political bashing seems rather cheap on the 11th. But that's just me, I never liked the Post to begin with.

Posted by Matthew @ 1:10 a.m.