Vincent J. Curtis
18 July 2013
[This piece was written in response to a story which originated out of the Toronto Star. The story critized those who from the 1940s through the 1960s provided education and accommodation to native Indians. At the time, this was regarded as helping natives integrate themselves into the larger world. It was "progressive," in other words. Some instances of abuse smeared the reputation of the entire program. The underlying article to the commentary below accepted the smear of the entire program without discriminating between the good and the bad.]
The article on "Fixing the Indian
problem" was a strange one for the Toronto Star to write. They seem
quite unconscious of the fact that those who instigated the programs that are
now deplored were the liberal-progressives of their day.
Those who
developed and ran the programs exhibited the same ideological commitment, the
same know-it-all intellectual arrogance then, as their lineal descendants do
now. Those lineal descendants are those white people who today condemn the experimentation done on natives for
their alleged betterment.
Liberal-progressives have no shame as they have
no memory.
It is also strange that the Toronto Star, for a century practically an organ of
the Liberal party, would casually remark upon "Such paternalistic ethos of
Canada's administration of aboriginal people during the postwar period."
Well, the Liberal party under Mackenzie-King and St. Laurent were the
government in those postwar days.
Not a word of regret or introspection
concerning the Star's role in applauding such things back then. Such lack of introspection the Star would hang
like a canard on a conservative.
How silly, they have no memory!
Well, next time liberal-progressives get into high moral dudgeon about
something conservative Canada ought to do but isn't doing, they should recall such
things as this. And eugenics, another great progressive invention for the
betterment of man.
Except they have no memory and no shame.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment