I want Donald Trump to become the next President of the United States of America. Not because I think he deserves it. Or that he is the best choice for the country. Or the world. Or that I agree with any of his politics. Or even that I think he’ll do a good job. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I think he is a disgusting, repugnant human being. He represents greed and racism and heartlessness. He is a vulgar, arrogant narcissist who is a very conceivable threat to global political stability, the quality of life in America and, most importantly, the environment. The world’s environment.
With all that said, why would I want him to win? Because he is the culmination of America. He is America. And it’s due time that America reaps what it sows. Even if such a predicament holds great potential to harm the rest of us. America needs a bigger taste of America before it will change.
Ever more felicitous are Jeremiah Wright’s words that caused such a hullabaloo during Obama’s first presidential campaign: “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
In the months preceding the Canadian federal election I began to see this growing trend of “acceptable prejudice” from many friends and friends of friends on Facebook. That typical Facebook World of people you know, people you knew and people you never will. But, of course, that was Stephen Harper’s election plan after all — divide and conquer. That’s why he hired the detestable and despicable Lynton Crosby to be his Campaign Manager of Propaganda & Fear. And it worked. Because it seems most people have very little capacity for independent critical thought. What I saw, day in and day out, was quite saddening. People, they really are the masses.
All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
I have a very low tolerance for intolerance, so most of my Facebook posts for the better part of 2015 were anti-Harper posts. And it got tiring. And heated. And somehow, Islamic cultural attire became the most important campaign issue facing the nation. I was honestly surprised at how many people are so vehemently anti-Muslim. And that this overtly racist sentiment (absolutely no different than antisemitism) is apparently quite acceptable to a great majority of people. Of Canadians. The idiotic fake driver’s license of a burka-covered face was quickly shared by an astounding number of people. Without even questioning its prejudice, let alone giving a half-second thought to its veracity.
By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
I got into more than a few debates, dialogues and arguments with friends and strangers. And I realized — it’s not worth it. So in late September I decided that after the October 19th election I’d pack up my virtual Facebook bags and take a break. A two-week vacation, in fact. Two weeks from actual Facebook time that is. And I figured that if I spend an hour a day on Facebook that amounts to 365 hours a year. And that equals 15 days — or about two weeks. So on October 21st, with a very brief post simply asking people to get hold of me via email, phone or some other avenue, I stopped visiting Facebook.
And it’s been bliss.
However, after seeing news of the attacks in Paris I logged into Facebook to check on my friends who live there. I was relieved to see both are fine. (One of their friends was actually at the Bataclan. Thankfully, she made it out okay. Physically.) I then made the mistake of glancing at my newsfeed. I saw a friend of mine, his profile pic overlayed with the French flag, had a status asking people not to spread the hate because, obviously, all Muslims are not evil terrorists. The reply from a friend was as swift and seething as it was ignorant. But this, this is now par for the course in Canada. In the West. This is blatant, vocal racism is acceptable to a great many people. And there is apparently no shame in it. It even got “likes”.
I had only to scroll down one small flick of my finger to see another post of a similar vein. But this one, she was blaming the refugees! The people running away from the chaos! Her thoughts and prayers were with the people of Paris, but not with the millions of people displaced by war outside the French capital. Heartwarming. And, of course, she had people immediately support her call to close the gates and fuck ’em all.
Anyways, two ignorant posts were more than enough. I had confirmed my friends were safe and that was my reason for being there. It was time to quietly duck back out before I had another friend warn me about evil refugees and fucking jihadis. Maybe they don’t know The Forgotten Rebels were being sarcastic when they sang Bomb The Boats.
It’s not unheard of, or even rare, nowadays in this world of clicks and impressions and maximizing the online ad revenue of every single pixel. But that doesn’t make it excusable.
Today in The Ottawa Citizen, smack dab in the middle of an open letter titled “Fear-mongering shows contempt for a politics of mutual respect”, was an ad by Christianity.com justifying the genocide and apartheid currently underway in Palestine. It is promoting the very “wedge politics” and “fear-mongering” that the letter is denouncing.
Mind you, it only showed up when I read the letter on my phone, but was not there when I checked it on my PC.
The letter is not about what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and it is safe assume that it hit upon some keywords that Christianity.com was hoping to attract: fear-mongering, Harper, barbaric practices, etc.
Still, that does not absolve the news outlet of responsibility. Unless it was intentional. Then that, of course, is a different matter altogether.
The federal Conservative Party of Canada has taken a commanding lead in a new poll conducted after the French language leaders debate yesterday.
Canadian Crime Minister Stephen Harper stood back and smiled as the other party leaders tore each other apart, assuring his party another five years of majority government.
With the assistance of Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe delivering ominous warnings of Quebec’s one hundred niqab-wearing women representing a greater threat than climate change, mass unemployment and unaffordable health care combined, Harper and his followers are set on cruise control to victory. They won’t even need a lot of their supporters to show up on Election Day.
So be thankful Conservative voters, you don’t really need to vote this year. Take the day off and relax. Fishing, hunting, church. Whatever! The day is yours.
The last time the federal Conservatives lost an incumbent government was in 1993, shortly after the much-despised Brian Mulroney had absconded and left Kim Campbell as his Fall Gal.
The doe in the headlights (mis)led the party to a jaw-dropping defeat in which they fell from a majority government with 156 seats down to only two. It was incredible. An absolute bloodbath.
It was from within the filthy dust and rubble and rotting corpses of that decimation that Harper was able to weasel his way into power. It would be nice to see him go out the same way.
While the real aim should be to abolish the party system altogether, political parties must be indulged for the present time. They’re like that kid with hockey net who nobody likes. And somehow, even though highly undemocratic, they are paradoxically a feature of self-proclaimed democracies around the world.
But I digress… This simple chart helps illustrate where the four major Canadian federal political parties stand on selected issues. It’s quite straightforward: the checks and crosses indicate a FOR or AGAINST the corresponding issue. It makes no declaration about whether it is GOOD or BAD to be for or against said issues. The check does not indicate whether they have the “correct position” on an issue. There is no judgment here. Just the facts. Pure, unadulterated objectivity.
For example, the first issue is the environment. Does the Green Party support the environment? Well, sure. That’s pretty evident. But do the Conservatives? Well no, not really. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That’s up to everyone to do decide on their own.
Lazysupper 