I know Canada for over 55 years, having spoken there at rallies,
and to the Canadian Army, and over CBC during World War II, and
taught at the school sponsored officially by the national labor
movement. During the McCarthy years, I would ski in eastern
Canada [traveling by Greyhound Bus, because, having been
blacklisted, I was broke], specifically because the tension of
living in the U.S. under those circumstances was relieved by
going to a country of very similar culture that shared my view
that the U.S. had gone crazy. For seventeen years during and
after the Vietnam War I visited Canada every couple of years
because one of my sons was a war refugee there. In the 80s, a
remarkable retired schoolteacher in Edmonton would circulate my
Pacifica broadcasts throughout Canada on tape and organized a
national lecture tour for me as well as having me address a major
event there by phone, along with a retired U.S. vice-admiral who
headed our anti-war Center for Defense Information. Finally, the
University of Alberta co-published, with an American house, the
last of my five books on the Soviet Union, SOVIET BUT NOT
RUSSIAN, 1985.
So I believe I have a basis for opinion on Canada, and I
agree with you. It is, for want of a better single word, a
sensible country. Its people are quite right in thinking we are
primitive in not understanding the benefits of what we call
single-payer health care. The remarkable thing is that Canadians
are conservative in culture but highly progressive, relative to
us in the U.S., in socio-economic and political matters. After
all, we don't have anything like the New Democratic Party, for
all its faults.
In terms of your recommending books to your students to help
them understand the feel of the McCarthy era in the U.S., forgive
me for suggesting my own new SAYING NO TO POWER, because I was
most intimately involved in that. You can hear my challenge to
McCarthy in his own hearing room on my website,
www.BillMandel.net.
William Mandel
Scott Kerlin wrote:
>
> In response to the posts earlier this week on this topic, I'd like to
> share these impressions:
>
> One of the core topics we discussed in my sociology seminar in the U.S.
> last term was the question of whether 1968 should be considered *the*
> turning point year of the last half of the 20th century, and whether the
> election of Nixon was ultimately the beginning of the end of the illusion
> of democracy that had for so long pervaded American political ideology.
>
> The conclusion we reached was that Nixon represented a deep tendency
> within the American electorate to drift rightward, in favor of
> unrestrained capitalism (and potentially fascism) and away from
> participatory/direct democracy. Remember Kevin Phillips' book, "The
> Emerging Republican Majority"?
>
> And yet, somehow the "Republicrats" seem largely successful at preserving
> the illusion that America remains a "liberal democracy". Why? As I ask
> this, I will underline that Marty Jezer's book "The Dark Ages" was one I
> encouraged my students to read, to help them understand what life was like
> in America during the McCarthy years
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