René Lévesque

Enough mush mush.. time to vent...

So we were walking in the parliamentary grounds... and there were all these statues of former Québec premiers, among them, my favorite and most respected, René Lévesque. I know he was a vocal advocate of QC separation, but not in this racist exclusive way this Marois woman does. I have always claimed that it is hard to be a separatist without being a racist, with the one exception of René Lévesque. Besides he fits my ideal human - he gave his life for the cause that he thought was right (and actually under him I would have voted for separation, if I hadn’t known what crazy successors he would have, and Marois is not alone, Parizeau also comes into mind...), lived a common man’s life smoking and having café in your neighborhood coffee shops (in those good old days when you could smoke inside coffee shops and politicians could exist without body guards) and also apparently dressed shabbily and smoked his life away (as evidence by the missing button on his statue). To clarify, I don’t care too much for smoking and being the health freak I am prefer non-smoking, but I advocate the right of an adult human being to do what they want... and smoking does impart some romantic idealism.... :) So anyway, this group of people walk up to his statue, clearly at least some of them were Quebecois francophone, just said a couple jokes and posed for photos, hugging the statue or cradling their head in his larger than-life palms... and they did not say a word, about the struggles of the man who fought so they could walk freely and speak French without embarrassment, here in Québec. I wonder what René Lévesque would have said about that episode... probably taken a deep breath of nicotine and said “c’est la vie”... I on the other hand am disgusted...