The tendency of history to repeat herself, as so often claimed since Karl Marx' tiresome rather than precocious, but notwithstanding memorable observation that Louis-Napoleon's seizure of power was something very different to his uncle's both in its merits, conduct, grandeur and all else except mayhaps for its eventual conclusion, so almost as to be absurd.
Yes, history does repeat itself often enough that I need not repeat the rest, and the pup once praised by Nixon (a seldom-broadcasted factoid) and bestowed a teddy bear (invoking one of the better if, arguably, not the most constitutionally minded of his party forbearers) by the soon-disgraced attempt at an autocrat has grown into a man or - invoking the words of the Lord of Horn Hill - something resembling one at least. And if Marx had lived, as he does for so many - if hardly for young Justin - what would his remarks have been - apart from the usual analyses ending in the one precocious (?) statement of "capitalism" and "decay"? Neither him, nor his belligerent scion Lenin would be likely to offer support.
Most interestingly, and very symptomatic for its time, the tendency is to blame these critics of authoritarianism and repression in defence of a market-governed state as "fascism" and so forth, a tendency echoed to accepted to mildly eschewed across the broader recognised left. Indeed,
The action itself, a rebuke of the federal government's policy of lockdown, particularly (but not most grievously) offsetting the truck drivers vital to the Canadian economy; more so than other groups less vilified, better cared for, at any rate.
Now, let us - in the name of giving Godwin's law, in all its incarnations, a good kicking - say it out loud: This puerile son is not the rock that was the father - and the causes that forged Pierre's good speech are not those of the unfettered, prejudiced condemnation and Ceausescian oral defecation ex podio spouted like diarrhoea over the Canadian public, fittingly from a remote, even undisclosed location freed from white, softening walls. The statesman selecting not to confront "his" people, but behaving
When the tanks rolled into Montreal, and hundreds of figures whose support for the terrorist FLQ extended to that of the (and I'm being generous to Ottawa on that account) in a move which could not have been as obviated and expunged had it occurred south of the border,
Now, for so worse reasons, we see the same currency peddled by the same blood - if worse in every regard. Whereas Pierre Trudeau may have enjoyed significant support, and maintained power (but for the brief, almost strategically engineered interregnum of Joe Clark) for nearly one and a half decade afterwards, in elections where his opponents to left and right were given the opportunity to bash that face and act of statesmanship with this sledgehammer, and nevertheless saw re-election in polls that have hardly been called out as unfair, and where and when memory of the government's response remained strong. Never was there an attempt , let alone to call out the NDP or Progressive Conservatives out as fascists for opposing his, ostensibly, fascist policy aimed very really at quelling the independence movement - and arguably successfully, with the 1990s plebiscite as the last gasping attempt by the Quebecois.
Now, worse for worse reasons , . This style does indeed not limit itself to the perilous questions of viral pandemics, reasonable efforts to restrict , and the "need" of a particular protest particularly aiming itself at the administation's policies (arguably, the most ). Indeed, in the last two elections, Justin has maintained himself in spite of the Tories taking a majority of the votes.
So, how did we get here?
The decision to cancel bank accounts - not to individuals engaged in supposed rioting, with a mind to preventing their current efforts, mind you - but against financial supporters, evoking the debate regarding financing of organisations ostensibly designated (or even actually, and by "loudable" sources too) as terrorist, the , and of course the already and very-much-more trampled right, in 1970, to demonstration . I am sorry to invoke this sordid episode many more times, but asides the mystical quality of blood, of a son born after it (dare I say consummated during it) by a father born in the aftermath of Canada's most sanguinary conflict (it's the same as the more australian, almost as grand then-colonial possession) it is a bit predicative, as well as exposing before the advent of proper liberal democracy of the constitutional, Madisonian type, the weakness of even a democratic, prosperous, parliamentary order - perhaps especially a Westminster, majoritarian one dominated by a single party (even of the kind called "Liberal", as millions of British men, many not yet enfranchised but nonetheless finding themselves in blood-filled ditches with broken eardrums in France five and a half decades earlier may attest to), a lesson now repeated by the very same party, under the auspices of a far weaker Prime Minister - who has lost the last two elections, in fact, due to similar vicissitudes as those pertaining to the electoral college - to crush a popular uprising, not a "coup" in any sense, under the most . In this regard, the echo of history rhymes in a humorous fashion, but whereas the first bleating was strong, even admirably so, and vindicated by great prose and popular support, this one was a garble of Ceausescian, or even Qathafian diarrhoea, blaming in part the (by almost any measure peaceful) demonstrators for a range of infractions, many of them hardly comprehensible, as well as the range of a paranoid schizoid's concerns for the public: They have, it is said, brought the symbols of Nazi Germany, the former great enemy (not Wilhelmine Germany, then) into the proud capital (perhaps, in a hastened, haphazard way) an attempt to introduce the memory of the rambunctious rioters of the southern neighbour thirteen months ago into this wholly unrelated event; they have, it is then said, stolen from the homeless, food in particular, because it sounds to foul and not because it is by any measure well attested; and they have, finally, relieved themselves of bodily fluids over our precious war monuments (a subject scarcely attended by this prime minister before). In combination, these mad ramblings - which would have awoken a particular dread of a now-infamous kind regarding the southern, former counterpart - collectively paint an image of pure revulsion, one , now aimed at the striking . any case, the
