Especially right after 9/11. Especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on. There was a real sense that you don't get that critical of a government that's leading us in war time.

The Canadian government continues to say they will not help us if we go to war with Iraq. However, the prime minister of Canada said he'd like to help, but he's pretty sure that last time he checked, Canada had no army.

Among all the upheavals of war with al Qaeda, the surest indicator of the historic stakes is the ongoing rotation of top U.S. government managers - scores at a time - into a bunker deep underground and far from Washington.

In 1884, for the first time since the Civil War, voters had elected a Democrat to the White House. Grover Cleveland promised to use the government to protect ordinary Americans, and to stop congressmen from catering to wealthy industrialists.

I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government - the Kennedy administration at that time - into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen.

The '50s in general are written off as a boring decade following the turmoil of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath - the postwar Labour government, the cold war, the arrival of the New Look in fashion, etc. But I remember it as a very exciting time - a pioneering, rule-breaking time, especially for the young.

Share This Page