Ottawa City Council should keep the ribbons off its vehicles
This has me absolutely furious. Words fail me. Glenn Brooks you are completely unclear on the concept of “public service,” a rank amateur and I hope your constituents throw you out on your ass at the first opportunity.
And shame on the rest of city council for being so cowed by the hysteria around the three cursed words: Support our troops.
How can he possibly claim the yellow ribbons aren’t about support for our invading Afghanistan? Why was he not laughed off the floor? How many people had those bloody things on their cars before we invaded Afghanistan? Did the sticker industry spring up for our peacekeeping mission in Cyprus? Rwanda? Bosnia?
It’s nice that Diane Holmes proposed a second motion to be clear that “this isn’t about Afghanistan” but that doesn’t help me suspend credulity. I’m sure she had her reasons. Bravo to Alex Cullen for calling bullshit on the whole exercise. And hats off to Calgary city council for doing the right thing.
What I think about Canada in Afghanistan isn’t at issue here, for me. I wouldn’t want city buses and works vehicles sporting peace symbols either. You just don’t do that to the public service.
Public support for our war on Afghanistan is a minority and dropping steadily, but it doesn’t matter where it’s at now. To put such a political symbol all over the collateral of an organization that is supposed to work for all it constituents is to spit on my sense of propriety.
Imagine your average city worker, cleaning out a sewer covered in the crap we put down it and having to come up and defend the city truck against someone who’s irate over our involvement in Afghanistan. Doesn’t matter what he or she thinks of the issue, the worker has to do it.
I don’t mind if city workers want to put the lapel pins on, or go march in pro-war rallies or enlist. Whatever. But it’s wrong for city council to enlist them all and all the city’s mobile assets in a partisan cause.
September 18th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Personally, I think every police vehicle should sport a pink ribbon. And green, black, white, red and rainbow ones. So many goddamned ribbons that we can’t even tell we are looking at a police car. Seriously, if the cops are going to be wearing their support on their bumpers, why stop with just one ribbon?
Or we could just say that such expressions of support are not appropriate for public service vehicles?
I share your views, Chris, on the war in Afghanistan but I also agree with you that this is one particular slippery slope down which I don’t think we should be descending, for any reason.