Thanks very much Mr. Fox for enabling this JuicyLesson, or part of it anyway. First, we’ll reprint your comment on JL 154 as well as my somewhat hurried response to it. Then I will feature the lyrics and music to the John Lennon tune I refer to in my answer.
But before going there, allow me to present some more information which you will hopefully find edifying.
Guy Fawkes was arrested, tried and convicted of treason due to his participation in a plot to blow up the British House of Lords which never came off. At first glance, this so-called “Gunpowder Plot” of November 5th, 1605, appears to have been a fascist, rightist act in the sense of it’s having been anti-democratic until we think about what the political situation was in Great Britain in the early part of the seventeenth century, and still is in terms of the manner in which members of the Lords are allocated their seats in their Upper Chamber (as opposed to the Lower Chamber there, the House of Commons).
At that time, only Aristocrats – that is large land-owners with no need for any other income beyond that which the land had traditionally provided for themselves, their ancestors and their families – sat in Parliament. These wealthy individuals were the only ones who could afford to sit in Parliament since parliamentarians were not yet paid.
So instead of Guy Fawkes’ act being right-wing in the sense that it flew in the face of democratic principles which would gave been the case had the people in the British Parliament in 1605 been elected by the majority of the British population, and if this Parliament had, as a result of it’s having been elected by this majority, been held responsible and accountable to that majority. But clearly that was not the case. That particular circumstance changes how we classify the plot and the people who conspired, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to execute it, which in turn led to their executions … The sixteen conspirators were all executed in early 1606.
The plot is classified as left-wing, radical, as it was designed to protest in the strongest possible manner the treatment of British Catholics under the Protestant King James I by conspiring to assassinate him in 17th century England. Since the conspirators hoped, in the very long term to perhaps provoke a change for the better in the status quo in the sense that there would be a more equal distribution of power and wealth, then their actions must be attributed to leftist views, the desire to increase the numbers of people with a political say, as well as augmenting the amount of say each of these people both had and have.
The only people who had the vote at this point in history were landowners. Factory workers and members of the middle class and women in England only received the vote beginning with the first Reform Act of 1832 which extended the franchise to the bourgeoise (the Middle Class). This was succeeded by a series of nineteenth century reform acts which gradually expanded the franchise or vote to include all British males of at least a certain age.
As far as the extension of the female franchise in Canada and Quebec goes: Beginning with a 1919 federal voting act, Canadian women were gradually enfranchised. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s when native Canadian women were extended the federal vote, that all Canadian had the vote. Women first got the vote in Quebec provincial elections in 1944, during the Liberal wartime administration of Premier Adelard Godbout.
Now here is the promised reprint of your comment to my Juicy LesSon 154:
English quebecer’s have no back bone!!! They seem to run, at the notion there maybe blood shed for a noble cause such as their own rights, and freedoms! Get some back bone and maybe I’ll buy a load of guns and try to smuggle them across the boarder at russ’s point quebec. Maybe you all should blow up a few mail boxes around town to get they’re attention. Or maybe not, just keep on doing what you’re doing now, bury your heads in the sand and hope you done get it up the ass!
Still radical after all those years!
Guy Fox
This is my response to your comment:
You are a regular laugh riot Mr. Fawkes. Note spelling by the way. You are way too violent for us. We Québécois are lovers, not fighters, unless of course we really feel that we have to be. Guess we are not yet at point, haven’t quite reached it yet.
One more thing, Guy. Your actions on the 5th of November more than five hundred years ago may have been radical. Your mention of gun violence in this comment is certainly not radical. It is the opposite.
It is reactionary, arch conservative, extremely right wing in other words and is diametrically opposed to radicalism which is progressive and leftist.
Blowing up mailboxes is not really our style.
… and just to finish this comment off in style: Remember! Remember! The 5th of November.. BEEG KAPOW … Courtesy John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band, Remember.
Peace, mate.
Out, mate.