THOUGHTS OF THE DAY

"Whatever else history may say of Dr. Goebbels, it must credit him with one contribution to the science of politics, - a terrible but positive contribution which, like the atom-bomb, may be deplored but cannot be undone: he created a system of propaganda, ironically styled 'public enlightenment, ' which persuaded a people that black was white. Certainly Hess and Goering and Bormann could claim no achievement comparable with this." H.R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler, 5th edition, 1978, p. 19.

The straight line from Goebbels to Stephen Harper is clear. One could produce many examples of Harper's lack of integrity - I produced half a dozen of them at the All-Candidates Meeting in St. Mary's Church the week before the election, but I think especially of the disgusting attack ads leveled at Michael Ignatieff,who is a decent and honourable man.

A small consolation for me is that the two candidates in whom I had personal interest won seats: Joyce Murray for the Liberals in Vancouver Quadra and Elizabeth May for the Greens in Saanich-Gulf Islands, who saw off the widely-despised Gary Lunn..

Here is a letter I sent recently to the Vancouver Sun, which they did not print; I then sent it to Daphne Bramham, who had written of dirty tricks during the 2008 election, and I had responded with an account of dirty tricks in Saanich-Gulf Islands:

"I wish that Stephen Hume, in advocating a vote for Elizabeth May (March 29) had mentioned the dirty tricks which got Gary Lunn his seat back in 2008.. Unless my memory is even worse than I think, the NDP candidate withdrew late in the day, Elections BC refused to print new ballot papers with his name off it, and the night before the election, Lunn supporters deluged voters with phone calls urging them to vote NDP, with the result that a good many people spoiled their ballots by voting for a non-existent candidate. Lunn got 27,998 votes, Briony Penn 25,367; the non-existent New Democrat got 3,667. So it was the dirty tricks that got Lunn back . Briony Penn got a bigger share of the popular vote as a Liberal than anyone, except maybe Joyce Murray."