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Sorry to hear that in Canada those from Alberta are called "rednecks- ey?"-- That great province gave its name (from prince Albert I should guess, back when Canada was part and parcel of the British Empire) to two great songs, one written by a Canadian- no, not Neil Diamond, Ian Tyson's 1960's song-- "Four Strong Winds"-- the other was from America's prison based black Bluesman- Huddie Leadbetter- "Alberta, Alberta, where you been so long" Eric Clapton did a cover of this classic on his "Unplugged" session circa 1998-In July of 1988 I went with some TU pals to Calgary to fish to Bow River- loved it and would like to return, albiet wioth passport now- As Bobby Dylan sang- "The times, they are a changin'" sure nough!!

How you know all that stuff, Fox?

Canvasback was correct on reference to rednecks in Alberta; I'd guess that it's more of the past than now.

Alberta had a distinctively different cultural aspect 50-60 years ago, a Social Credit government of "funny money" and strong fundamentalist streak.

Now with-it, culturally very mainstream, taking a back seat to none anywhere. Recent catastrophic floods proved its magnificent cooperative spirit.

Calgary's great mayor is a man of colour, a Muslim and, always leads the gay parade as "mayor of all the people." Calgarians love him. No rednecks there!

Fox, I love your eclectic and wide ranging knowledge!

To be fair, King, the redneck label is in the past if you think of the past as the nineties and aughts. Certainly didn't go away at the end of the Social Credit ERA and the rise of Peter Lougheed.

In fact it blossomed in the nineties with the rise of Reform, most vehemently from the PC's of Eastern Canada, outraged that Westerners would have the temerity to complain about the ruling cartel of the Ontario/Quebec axis of power.

It's only changed recently with the final realization that demographics and the economy have been pushing the centre of power west. But you don't have to scratch very deep to find that redneck perception in places like Toronto and Montreal. It has been recently expressed to me by Liberal/Greens right here where I live in the bastion of Ontario liberal elites that is Port Hope.

Those who are used to power don't like to cede it.

Fox, speaking of the Bow, flyfishing and Clapton et al, I used to flyfish with a guy whose brother was Amos Garrett, a spectacular guitarist who counts Clapton among his occasional playing partners and who did my all time favorite guitar work on a song called Midnight at the Oasis by Maria Muldaur. Years ago he moved to Alberta and lives close to the Bow specifically to flyfish.

In my younger days I did a canoe trip, starting just below the falls on the Bow in the shadow of the Banff Springs Hotel and finished 24 days later in The Pas, Manitoba. 1100 miles or thereabouts in pre GPS days. Retracing one of the fur trading routes. And having lived in Banff for three years, I feel a special bond with that river.

I don't know how it is around your neck of the woods, but the US is known to have among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. 'Our taxes are used as bait' isn't so as you keep implying it is taken out of mouth of needy and redistributed to the hand of another. Very similar to how a prez and libs propagate falsehoods of better healthcare, or 'cut' taxes. Give one time token rebates and tell a nation things are better. Or, scale back a massive spending increase in entitlements and blame political opponents for taking food out of childrens mouths or punishing women in need.

Most of voting age will believe talking points that are repeated by liberal ideologs. If we know it's an economy close to socialism, you win, and the complaints are to mislead. If your complaints are genuine then maybe socialism isn't enough, and we get references to communism. Do 'bad things happen' if the private sector manages business, 'seems they do much better than governments'. Again, any way you cut it, the government doesn't create, it drains, and if you want funding for ideological entitlements, it would make sense to acknowledge where it comes from.

Let's cut it half-way, differing only from our ages in historical perspectives! Complaining about the Liberal "Natural Governing" Party, as it seemed for decades, isn't redneck to me. Anyone in any part of the country not complaining was brain-dead.

Redneck was more like Jack Horner and his rancher friend true-blue Tories in fist fights blowing off steam against anyone who didn't agree---and once just outside an arm's length from poking me in the Chateau Laurier during a leadership convention.

The Reform Party led by careful Preston Manning wasn't radical to me; it made sense to demand more accountability and less regional favouritism in making national policies, Trudeau's "It's not my job to sell your wheat," his insulting National Energy Policy; Reform seemed almost pious to me in retrospect.

Okay on Port Hope as Liberal bastion now that Farley is vacationing nearby at his summer home!

You make my point: we're all socialists now.

Intrinsically, in a mixed economy, there's no guarantee that one side will do better than the other.

Americans find it harder to accept this. I don't know why. What's gone are the days of Mellon, Carnegie, the financial and industrial barons and the notion of the US as a moral project stemming from the Enlightenment.

King, I agree about Jack Horner and you are making my point. Of course Manning and Reform's platform wasn't "redneck" He was too careful for that. But that didn't stop the PC's, Liberals, NDP and the Eastern media derogatorily using that term every chance they could.

I'm not talking about you here. I'm talking about the people who surrounded me when I lived in Toronto in the nineties and when I traveled there almost weekly from Winnipeg during the last decade until I moved again. They still have pulpits today. Do you ever read Heather Mallick in The Star?

While you may have had an enlightened view of the west and the leaders who came out of it over the last 25 years, you'd have to admit the East worked pretty hard to discredit them.

While we have gone off on a bit of a tangent here, to me it still relates to the original topic in that we see regularly the ideological left, using their support through the media, schools and NGO's, demonize those who disagree and frame the argument in terms of Rednecks or Racists. It is lies and those propagating it know it.

Yes, eastern chattering classes certainly demonized Albertans and they're still at it today for selfish and jealous reasons of power shifting west. I don't think any party has the copyright on demonizing or bullying; the conservatives attack ads are more prevalent, and effective, although I believe racist stuff is self-defeating. Not even racist, but remember the public blowback when the Tory cartoon ads mocked Chretien's crooked mouth, a birth defect?

You know my feelings about politics from our private correspondence. I don't denigrate those who want to contribute, to give it a go, to strengthen values but it's truly a punk's game. More so now with Harper as Trudeau running the country from the PMO, telling their supporters and MPs, as Trudeau did, "You're nobody 100 feet from Parliament Hill." I don't know why the country puts up with it. Or maybe not, just waiting quietly to kick him it out, as it did with Trudeau for the same reason.