{"id":20763,"date":"2018-05-31T11:26:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T15:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20763"},"modified":"2018-05-31T11:26:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T15:26:48","slug":"we-have-a-real-choice-this-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/we-have-a-real-choice-this-election\/","title":{"rendered":"“We have a real choice this election”"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Re: Brock\u2019s Banter, May 10)<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing that hasn\u2019t blown away is the bias toward the two main parties. Nowhere in a column about the forthcoming election are Andrea Horwath and the NDP even mentioned.
\nTommy Douglas once called the Liberals and the (no-longer-progressive) Conservatives, the \u201cTweedle-dum\u201d and \u201cTweedle-dee\u201d of Canadian politics. We should recall that, according to Lewis Carroll, they \u201cagreed\u201d to have a battle, assuming that whichever prevailed no basic change would occur.
\nUS novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote this about the similar situation in the US (Harper\u2019s Magazine, November, 1972): In the United States there are two imaginary political parties – the Republicans and the Democrats; there are also two real political parties – the Winners and the Losers. And, since both imaginary parties are run by the Winners, in every election this much is certain: the Winners will win.
\nWe needn\u2019t be so cynical. We do have a real choice – not between tired, corrupt Liberals and blustering, hypocritical Conservatives. We should stop being in thrall to the imaginary parties notice that there is a real option.<\/p>\n

Howard A. Doughty
\nOak Ridges
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Re: Brock\u2019s Banter, May 10) One thing that hasn\u2019t blown away is the bias toward the two main parties. Nowhere in a column about the forthcoming election are Andrea Horwath and the NDP even mentioned. Tommy Douglas once called the Liberals and the (no-longer-progressive) Conservatives, the \u201cTweedle-dum\u201d and \u201cTweedle-dee\u201d of Canadian politics. We should recall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5oT","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 14:41:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}