R.I.P.

I met him. I did, and I was better for it. More than 20 years ago, in Jerusalem. The next day, we Canadians were supposed to meet with the Palestinian leadership at Orient House. The Canadian Embassy was pushing us to do it, but we were a bit nervous.

Peres – sitting in his dimly-lit, main floor office, reminding me of a Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness – looked at us, unblinking.

“You must go,” he said.

The cabinet minister I was with asked why. We were anxious about the controversy the visit may cause, he said.

“You must go,” Peres said. “They will never stop trying to kill us if they are hungry or lack shelter. We need them to succeed.”

I never forgot that – and it actually shaped my view of politics, in two ways. One, per Rabin, who do you make peace with but an enemy? So, in recent years, I have endeavoured to make peace with all my enemies.  (Some I’ve tried to make peace with, but they rebuffed me. Their loss. I will tell them what I had to say at their grave site.)

Two, if people are desperate, and poor, and feel that they are despised, they will usually turn to violence to express their frustration and anger. Ipso facto, ISIS, et al.

What a giant of a man. We are all diminished by this loss, whether we presently know it now or not.

 

 

Comments (4)

Comments (0)

#debatenight was won by:

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) September 27, 2016

Comments (15)

Comments (12)

Now this is a political spot. Wow. Feels like Daisy. 

Comments (5)

Really high.

I was back and forth, this morning, with a friend who is very senior Clinton guy – he’s one of the ones who goes on TV for her – and I told him that basically “everyone up here in the Great White North is crapping themselves,” but that we hope tonight goes well.

“From your lips to God’s ear,” he said.

Actually, it’s from her lips to the ears of undecided American voters.  She needs to remind them that, if this psychopath is elected, really bad things that will happen.  Here’s the top ten.

1. He will ensure the press is free no more.  Trump has made very clear that he regards the media as the enemy.  He calls them “very bad people” and “the lowest form of life.”  He has yanked credentials for coverage he doesn’t like.  He has threatened an avalanche of legal actions – “open them up!” – against reporters if he wins.  He has approved physical attacks on journalists. And, most ominously, he has suggested he plans to limit press freedoms as president: “If I become president, oh, do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.”
2. He will ban abortion.  In March, Trump could not have been more clear.  When abortion is banned by his administration, he said, “some form” of punishment will come to women who get one anyway.  As in, prison.  He attempted to modify his statement later, but his objective is clear: no more reproductive choice for women.
3. He will be have anti-women policies, because he hates women.  That devastating Clinton ad says it all.  He calls women “fat and ugly.” He talks about girls being “flat-chested.” He calls women “slobs” and “pigs.” He admits he doesn’t treat women with respect.  And, as Huffington Post and others have reported, he is being sued by a women who alleges he raped her when she was 13 years old – and, as is well known, his ex-wife also accused him of rape.
4. He will build that wall, and more.  He has never wobbled on this one: he wanted to build walls around America, and make others pay for it.  The people who will, pay, however, are Americans.  As Obama said last week, walls around American make prisoners of the American people.
5. He will ban religions and bar immigrants.  He said in December he wanted “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” In June, he doubled down, saying “we have to do it.” Later that same month, he dramatically increased the scope of his ban: “We must suspend immigration from regions linked with terrorism until a proven vetting method is in place.”  It wasn’t just Muslims: it was any “region” that is “linked with terrorism.”  That’s everywhere but the Vatican, pretty much.
6. He will institutionalize anti-black racism.  The past is present: in the past, Trump’s been sued by the Department of Justice for racial discrimination – twice.  He said Obama was not born in the U.S. He said in 1991 that blacks are “lazy.” He refused to disavow the Ku Klux Klan and promotes the words of racist groups. He blames blacks for most crime.  He dismisses police-on-black violence.  In his words, in his deeds, we know who he is.
7. He will institutionalize bigotry generally.  He attacked Gold Star parents because they were Muslim.  He said a judge was biased against him because he was Mexican – and he said Mexicans are “parasites and murderers,” as is well known.  He has encouraged mob justice against non-whites.  He indulges in anti-Semitic stereotypes, telling Jews: “You’re not going to support me, because I don’t want your money. You want to control your own politician.”  He ran arguably anti-Semitic ads about Hillary Clinton. And so on.  His America will be one where it will be open season, rhetorically and otherwise, on anyone who isn’t a WASP.
8. He will alienate the world.  He has attacked our allies in Mexico (repeatedly) and cosied up to our enemies in Russia (repeatedly).  He has suggested we don’t need NATO, and that Eastern European states should be left to defend themselves.  He is the most protectionist presidential candidate in modern history.  He says he will tear up treaties and agreements with allies.  Trump literally fills world leaders with fear.
9. He will ensure there are more guns.  He’s invited gun nuts, twice, to murder Hillary Clinton. He’s said, falsely, that she plans to end the right to bear arms.  He opposes any restrictions on assault weapons; he’s against gun-free zones; he wants guns in schools; he even said – over the NRA’s objections – that guns should be allowed in drinking establishments.  The NRA: “No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms.” But Trump does.
10. He will almost certainly start a World War.  And this, alone, should chill the blood of every American – and everyone on this planet.  As president, he will have access to the nuclear codes and to nuclear weapons.  He has asked: “Why can’t we use them?” He refused to say he wouldn’t bomb Europe: “It’s a big place.”  He has said, over and over, he would use nuclear weapons: “I’m not going to take it off the table. And I said it yesterday. And I stay with it.”  With his appalling judgment (see above), with his hair-trigger temper (see his Twitter feed), we cannot let this man get access to the codes.  It would mean a nuclear conflagration – I am convinced of that.

The fact that Donald Trump is even with Hillary Clinton in numerous polls is an unmitigated disaster – and the most significant threat to all of us now.  Nothing matters, politically, as much.

She must beat him tonight, and in the days ahead.  And all of us who believe in freedom and decency and security need to help her – this is not the year to have a protest vote, America.

So, me and the missus are heading to Hillary’s NYC headquarters this weekend to help out for a week, in any way we can.

We can’t stand by and let this happen.  We can’t.

You can’t, either.

Comments (31)

…but he’s kind of totally full of crap. Just saw a lonely copy of his new book in Indigo. I won’t bore you with all the details – it’s long ago, life goes on, etc. – but his book contains some unmitigated bullshit. Including, inter alia, that he and the Chow campaign decided to mutually “part ways” with me. 

Um, no.  I parted ways with them.

When Olivia Chow lied, and told a disbelieving Toronto media she didn’t really know me, that I was just one of “thousands of volunteers,” blah blah blah, I decided to quit. But Laschinger repeatedly refused to accept my resignation from Chow’s campaign, by email, text and voicemail. Below is part of just one email exchange in which (a) I tell him I’m quitting and (b) he implores me not to.  Not at all the impression he tries to give his readers in his little book, that’s for sure.

Anyway.  Whatever. My opinion came to be that Chow was a lousy candidate, and that a really lousy job was done running her campaign. But the fact is that we didn’t “part ways.”

I quit.

 

Comments (0)

In today’s Sun:

• Warren Kinsella (Daisy Consulting Group) 

“I think Trump has the advantage. 

“He was created by TV, and made famous by TV. He understands TV better than just about any politician around. 

“Hillary needs to take him very, very seriously. If she gets down in the muck, she risks looking unpresidential. But if she doesn’t respond to some of his low blows, he will win the war of the clips. 

“I prepared plenty of leaders for TV debates, but never a debate with stakes as high as this one — and never with the traditional rulebook being so irrelevant. 

“It’s going to be the hottest show on TV this season.”

Comments (13)

This is extraordinary and horrifying. I am astonished by this.

If you object to Canada placing children, inter alia, in solitary confinement, contact your Member of Parliament here. And contact the CBSA, who are detaining children, here.

Comments (1)

As a rule, I don’t ever name terrorists, mass murderers and their ilk. They don’t deserve the recognition they seek. 

But this New York Times front-page profile of the Chelsea bomber is worth your attention. What struck me – having written this book, and having written this one, coming out in the next few months –  I was struck by how much Rahami reminded me of the dozens of neo-Nazi skinheads I knew and interviewed over the years. 

He, like them:

• fought all the time with his family, or came from a broken one
• was disinterested in school
• had troubled relationships with the opposite sex, often involving domestic violence 
• had regular run-ins with the law
• initially was enthusiastic about the society he would later pledge to destroy 

The change – the transformation from unremarkable loser to front-page-news killer – always, always comes about in the same way: the young man somehow comes under the influence of an older man, who gives him a credo, a uniform, a brotherhood and a mission. 

And then, like all converts, all zealots, he starts to make up for lost time. 

Comments (11)