Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Posted on 09/08/2004 2:47:28 PM PDT by saluki_in_ohio
Draft-dodger memorial to be built in B.C. Last Updated Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:27:18 EDT
NELSON, B.C. - B.C. activists plan to erect a bronze sculpture honouring draft dodgers, four decades after Americans opposed to the Vietnam War sought refuge in Canada.
The memorial, created by artists in Nelson, B.C., ties into a two-day celebration planned for July 2006 that pays tribute to as many as 125,000 Americans who fled to Canada between 1964 and 1977.
* LINKS: Seeking Sanctuary: Draft Dodgers
"This will mark the courageous legacy of Vietnam War resisters and the Canadians who helped them resettle in this country during that tumultuous era," Isaac Romano, the director of the Our Way Home festival told a news conference in Nelson Tuesday.
The event will honour people who came to Canada and resisted war efforts, from burning their draft cards during the Vietnam War to leaving the army to protest the war in Iraq, Romano said.
Musicians – many of who participated in the anti-war movement – will play at the festival, scheduled for July 8-9, 2006. Historians and critics of U.S. foreign policy will speak and a documentary about American war resisters by director Michelle Mason will be screened.
Estimates of the number of Americans who came to Canada because they opposed the Vietnam War range from 50,000 to 125,000.
They sought refuge in Canada between 1964 and 1977 in one of the biggest political exoduses in U.S. history.
The first wave of Vietnam era immigrants, called "draft dodgers," was largely middle class and educated.
Deserters from the army came later, mostly with little education or money.
Many of the war resisters settled in British Columbia, especially in the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast and the West Kootenay, the B.C. Interior region where Nelson is located.
Thousands returned south after President Jimmy Carter granted them amnesty in 1977, but the 1986 census indicated that half stayed in Canada.
Oh, good grief. What next?
the only thing missing is 100 gallons of barf
Thank God.
will clintoon pose for them?
If I am ever there I will leave a loogie with it.
Several things I've noted about American expatriates in Canada as a class:
1. They are often the most viciously bigoted anti-Americans, far more so than even viciously bigoted anti-Americans born and bred in Canada.
2. They tend to the socialist left politically; relatively few are even just centre-left. They usually wind up in the ranks of the New Democratic Party.
3. They gravitate towards education, social services, the performing arts, journalism and the trade union, and few of them to commerce.
I can only think of a handful of American expatriates in Canada that I've met who didn't fall under these categories.
What the heck will the sculpture look like? A hairy bum in blue jeans and sandals with a burning U.S. flag in one hand and a bong in the other?
Nelson, B.C. is my metropolis, almost a 2-hour drive from my hidey-hole!
Baker Street, the main drag, looks like a down-at-heels chunk of Berkeley, Boulder, or Seattle.
It's plumb full of youthful moochers, and elderly, pony-tailed, time-warped hippies.
A smugger, more fatuous collection of Trudeaupian socialists you will not find!
Appalling. I do my business and get out.
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
So was I - he should have stuck them with 6-month jail terms at least. But no, not Jimmuh.
I don't think you are alone. This may be a plot to attract American tourists who will come to the city to spit, piss, or defecate on it.
Svend Robinson, that girlie-man who heckled Reagan, I heard he is ond of those filthy draft-dodgers. I pity you.
Good, if I am ever up there, I will have a place to piss.
How about a statue to draft dodgers who went to prison? At least they were willing to pay a price for their decision, however misguided it might have been? Nothing heroic about going to Canada, except having to listen to a lot of jealous Canadians constantly criticize the US.
This is a stupid memorial but I have a heck of a lot more respect for someone
who went to Canada than I do Bill Clinton. At least they stood for something.
Ping..possibly a Bill Clinton memorial in the works?!
Normally I don't condone defacing statues, but in this case......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.