Musings —11.13.2016 03:21 PM
—Here’s the kind of “working class economic anxiety” I’m getting via email and Twitter
Tons of it. Along with dozens of racist epithets, anti-Semitic slurs and suggestions – over and over – that I kill myself.
All since Tuesday night. What’s the significance of that night, I wonder?
Warren,
God is the great equalizer. Some already know that. Apparently, many more will find out later.
The lunatic fringe is not only overjoyed at the thoughts of smearing its intellectual feces all over the world, rather than just the walls of their own personal hell, but also are dangerously emboldened by having the President Elect operating as their toxic point man.
Anyone delicately holding his nose and pretending otherwise (for expediency) has his head up his ass.
It’s so sad. Just makes me want to do what I haven’t in years – cry for us all. Because this kind of thing is a disgrace – I’ve always said that racism, or bigotry;whether regional, ethnic, or based on skin color is the result of intellectual laziness, but you can go on YouTube and see the kind of propaganda and brainwashing that happens these days –
But it’s usually accompanied by unwarranted suspicion, devaluing education, less freedom, more tabloid expertise, less privacy, and less rights – my father was occupied by the Nazis in Holland, and here they come again.
And don’t think being a Canadian cleanses your soul. I have worked in “professional” settings where they discriminate against you for playing basketball because they don;t like the “brown” people, but also have entrenched views of Eastern Canadians, and everybody who isn’t the same. What’s shocking is that this same crowd always abuses suspicion, and has a moralized view of the law they break so often when they discriminate against people based on generalizations and ignorance and stereotypes –
Don’t ever question the fundamental importance of our charter of rights and freedoms – there’s more emphasis, these days, on irrational frenzy born of tabloids than a just society –
WTF is wrong with people?
https://twitter.com/thereal_beck/status/797597403088125952/photo/1
The rage isn’t confined to Drumpf supporters. There is plenty of pond scum on both sides.
When they actually show up at the same place at the same time, we’ll know its all over.
Not only will we see more racism but we will see even more anti LGBT stuff because Trump’s voting audience are full of them. Women will suffer even more I am afraid. Trump probably thinks groping is legal.
I think bigotry has always existed, Trump just brought out what was always there. The alt right is disgusting, but hopefully now that they are exposed we can destroy them. Defeating racism won’t be easy, it is going to be a long hard fight and I feel too many thought when Obama won in 2008, this was a triumph of a post-racial society when it was not. It may be tough but we must keep fighting on and hopefully in the long-run those who believe in tolerance can win, but it will take quite a while and won’t be easy and yes there will be future setbacks.
Sighing – in disgust, not in resignation. This just underlines the need never to shut up in the face of such outrages. Doesn’t matter who lives in the big house, we’re not powerless.
pat mentioned the Nazis in Holland, and it sent me on a trip down memory lane. My father-in-law was Dutch too. He was in the Resistance – motorcycle courier. He’d run messages from one cell to the other. (In my ironic moments I’d think “really Eric, did you really think that tooling around Scheveningen in the middle of the night on a motorcycle would make you inconspicuous?”). He was captured a few times and kept for a few hours for some amusement. Eventually lost an arm.
He was the kindest, serenest, most generous person I’ve ever known. But to his dying day let a German come close and you could feel the anger and hatred in him. I can’t condone that sort of thing, but in his case I can certainly understand it.
Wear the pin.
Pretty grubby stuff!
In a way, the bigotry and racism was with us all along, and was used all along. The Trump campaign used it openly, and now the grubbiness is used openly. The new executive and congress will have to deal with the consequences of what they have used to win.
Something else that has bothered me the past 15 years is that the congress down there, after 2001, seemed to give up its function as a check and balance on the executive. Bush 43 and Cheney gathered a lot of powers to the executive with little or no check from congress. Obama has accelerated that gathering of unchecked power to the executive.
Now, that power is being handed over to Trump and Pence. A GOP heavy House of Reps and Senate is unlikely to provide much of a check or balance. Looks like any executive supreme court nominees will have a relatively easy ride, as well, eroding another oneo fhte ‘check and balance’ levers they claim they have down there.
My friend, it is a disgrace that you and others have had to put up with this. But it shows that fighting them does scare them. And on that point, you’ve set a positive example for others to follow. Going forward, it is everyone’s job to document this kind of hate-fuelled thuggery wherever we see it. This is how monsters are defeated: naming them and describing them act by act, word by word.
The election of Donald Trump is deeply disturbing. As a political junkie, I follow Canadian and American politics. In elections you win some, you lose some but I never thought any of the Prime Minsters or Presidents that have been elected in my lifetime, 1969, were overtly bigoted as the President-elect.
There was a sense that they would do the responsible thing to diffuse any racial tensions that might be brewing under the surface.
The American Republic will survive Donald Trump and those who voted for him will be on the wrong side of history, but it will be a long 4 years for many minorities.
Warren, whereas I sympathize with your desire to expose racism and anti-Semitism south of the border, we have our own home grown Nazis wreaking havoc in Canadian communities. Specifically, “Your Ward News” appears to have been unaffected by the Canada Post ban, and has expanded beyond Toronto. Friends in the Roncesvalles area of Toronto received the paper yesterday. I came across this post today: https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/comments/5cheyy/hate_literature_in_mailbox/ which confirms Ottawa delivery. Then I did both a twitter and facebook search on the latest news for “Your Ward News” and have come to the conclusion that they are delivering as we speak throughout Toronto and the two provincial ridings holding byelections (with newest issue accusing Premier Wynne of being a pedophile for having a progressive sex-ed program). I thought the police were investigating this Nazi rag. Can you give us a little bit of clarity on the situation, since you are part of the force leading the fight to shut it down? According to the new issue of their paper, they will be expanding to a distribution of ONE MILLION HOMES! Where does the money come from for that type of reach? Even with 100% volunteer delivery, the printing costs would be astronomical. The Nazi punks who spray paint swastikas on synagogues are cowardly deplorables, but at least they lack the financial resources to terrorize a wide swath of the populace. Your Ward News is far more dangerous, and I am sure they now feel emboldened to step up their game, with their man heading to the white house.
One cans always count on the myopic, badly raised and easily led to live down to expectations.