Mike and Bob: revolution and adultery at U of T

Forgive me for not being surprised at the hypocrisy of the McGuinty Liberals, who have attempted to smear PC leader John Tory with Tory’s own youthful admission of his law school toking. After all, is this not the crew headed by Premier Pinocchio, who also “partoked” as a youth, and recently lauded his health minister, Furious George Smitherman, for admitting to a drug addiction?

Fiberal hypocrisy aside, it is propitious that today’s electronic version of the University of Toronto’s Varsity should include some of the published musings of Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, when they were BMOCs at the University of Toronto. Some excerpts (registration may be required):

If the present administrative system of our society is incapable of salvaging the century, then we must have political and social revolution, a revolution shaped not by an ideology but shaped by the problems we must face. A re-organization of society to snuff out the population bomb, to rebuild the cities, to halt our ecological rape.

Revolution may be impossible within the system. Revolution occurs (here I am more than usually derivative) when elements of the administrative system become demonstrably dysfunctional to the people at large. Thus, the question of whether a revolution in Canada is possible is not answered by saying that radicals across the country are busy outlining an ideology and a strategy for that revolution. Revolution will become possible when ordinary people decide that the system is not realizing the goals that it has set out for itself.
--Michael Ignatieff, Source: The Varsity Review, Sept. 22, 1968

Holidays are essentially hypocritical, in that we feel and say and do friendly things that we hate doing the rest of the year. Freud has said that tribal holidays represented an institutionalized form of de-repression. In other words you could make love to your neighbour's wife one day a year, but never on any other day. Hence the mistletoe. A pretty unsatisfactory replacement, I'd say.
--Bob Rae, Source: The Varsity Review, Dec. 18, 1968

I daresay there are few among us who would not be embarrassed if confronted with our undergraduate pontifications. Prose that appeared bold and profound in its time, may shout "retard" and not soixante-huitard today. Luckily, most of us will not run for leader, and can remain blissfully smug for the rest of our lives.