A Piercing Sound

I am almost deafened by the dogwhistle here, as a tired and deflated Trump blows as hard as he can.

You can provide your own translation of "suburban housewives" here, I am sure, to uncover the real message to the red meat Maga crowd.

Blatant Racism

I don't have anything especially interesting to about write today, so I thought I would put up this video that exemplifies the unapologetic racism of Don Trump and his adherents. 

This is not a dog whistle. It is a loud, piercing, desperate scream of fear that he will lose the presidential race to Kamala Harris

A Plague Nation

I wonder if Americans realize that is how their country is seen by the rest of the world, in no small measure thanks to their having elected a raging racist psychopath as their president.

The following video takes a few seconds before beginning to play:

An Abysmal Nation Led By An Abysmal Racist

Whenever I post something about racial injustice, I feel some unease. By what stretch can I, as a white person who lives a comfortable existence, truly feel the murderous oppression that others experience? What right do I have to comment upon something that I will never experience? It is not as if aggregating and commenting upon such egregious crimes will make any difference in the world.

Is writing about it from my position simply something I do to feel better about myself?

I don't know the answers.

But I also know that the inaction of silence can never be the preferable alternative.

The repercussions of George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police continue to unfold. Pouring fuel on the flames that have erupted, Donald Trump, true to form, unleashed an abysmal dog-whistle Tweet heard loud and clear by his baying, salivating followers:



He knew precisely the origins and implications of that Tweet:

Twitter said early Friday that a post by President Donald Trump about the protests overnight in Minneapolis glorified violence because of the historical context of his last line: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

The phrase was used by Miami's police chief, Walter Headley, in 1967, when he addressed his department's "crackdown on ... slum hoodlums," according to a United Press International article from the time.

Headley, who was chief of police in Miami for 20 years, said that law enforcement was going after “young hoodlums, from 15 to 21, who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign. ... We don't mind being accused of police brutality."

Miami hadn't faced "racial disturbances and looting," Headley added, because he let word filter down that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

The phrase was considered to have contributed to the city's race riots in the late 1960s, according to The Washington Post.

Headley, who died only a few months later in 1968 and had been denounced by civil rights leaders, was described in an Associated Press obituary as the "architect of a crime crackdown that sent police dogs and shotgun-toting patrolmen into Miami's slums in force."

And now America is led by a racist rabid dog intent on totally destroying whatever shreds of credibility remain in the first part of his country's name.

Requiescat in pace, oh moribund nation.

UPDATED:The Last Refuge Of The Scoundrel.

It was Samuel Johnson who first coined the above phrase. Watch the brief video embedded below to see how germane it is today:

.@POTUS on NFL owners: When it comes to the respect of our anthem and flag, they have no choice. You have to have people stand with respect. pic.twitter.com/ApAuTFjAvY

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 28, 2017

UPDATE: Pursuant to The Mound's timely observation in the comment section, here is what Mrs. Betty Bowers has to say about the American national anthem:

Dear @RealDonaldTrump: Please learn from my Video Epistles about something you don't understand at all: Patriotism! 1/10 #TakeAKnee pic.twitter.com/yVIoAbRQ3W

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) September 28, 2017

Strong Evidence Of Trump's Racism

The CBC's Neil Macdonald has written a searing assessment of Donald Trump that leaves little doubt that the Americans elected a racist president. His starting pint is an interview conducted by the NYT of one Derek Black, a former white supremacist nurtured since childhood by a family that embraced racism; his father started that shrine to hatred known as Stormfront.

... the arc of the interview was that eventually Derek Black went off to college out of state and found himself contending with educated people who would systematically shred the studies and pseudo-science Black cited in support of his beliefs that, for example, there are IQ differences between races.

In short, Black himself received a humiliating education, decided white supremacy was a fringe movement for ignorant, angry people and publicly abandoned it. In return, his family basically disowned him.

After the terrible events of Charlottesville, Black expected a full-throated denunciation by all politicians, despite the fact that the 'protesters' had used code words well-known in racist circles, such as "protecting our history and culture."

That Donald Trump did not immediately denounce the marchers (though he read a boilerplate repudiation from a teleprompter on Monday), said Black, was "weird" and was taken as somewhat of a victory by his racist former fellow travellers, some of whom had shouted "Hail Trump" at the rally.

Then came Trump's news conference on Tuesday, Aug. 15, when he said that some of the marchers in the white nationalist rally were "very fine people" and focused on criticizing the counter-protesters and those who wanted to take down the statue of Lee.

Ask yourself this: how in heaven's name do "fine people" find themselves among torch-waving men shouting about non-white minorities and "blood and soil?" (Look up the provenance of that slogan). And why would a fine person not bolt at the first chant of "Jews will not replace us?"

Trump then said: "You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name [Emancipation Park]."

Now. Look at those last three words: "to another name." Donald Trump, president of the United States, not only thought there were fine people among the white supremacist marchers, he refused to say "Emancipation Park."

The consequence of this abysmal failure of national leadership was far-reaching:

Derek Black, listening in a coffee shop, said Trump's words "took my breath away."

The president had, in his view, validated the white supremacist messaging strategy in a stroke.

What they heard, he said, was "Donald Trump thinks we're fine." All the people who just needed a little extra nudge, to be told their son would be denied university because of affirmative action, or that an immigrant would take their jobs, had just been nudged.

Black called it the most important moment in the history of the modern white nationalist movement. David Duke and other white supremacists rejoiced. They've crawled out from under their rocks and are basking in their president's complicity.

To fight an evil, one must first be able to name it. Trump's conscious choice not to denounce racism in any credible way, along with his pardon of convicted racist Joe Arpaio, leaves little doubt that a racist is now occupying the White House.

Part 11 - Echoes Of History: 1955 And 2017

In Part 1, I discussed the murder of Emmett Till, the exoneration of his murderers, and the tactics used by the racists of 1955 Mississippi to try to discredit both the NAACP and the entire trial. Efforts went so far as to suggest Till had not been murdered at all but was in fact living in Detroit, part of an elaborate scheme by the NAACP to embarrass the South and discredit its traditions.

Fast forwarding 2017, it is apparent that not much has changed in the racist camp, now known as 'White Nationalists'or the'alt.right', euphemisms that do little to obscure what they really are. Following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that became abundantly clear.

There was, of course, the now infamous press conference by Donald Trump which seemed to use the time-honoured, disingenous and quite cowardly tactic of arguing for a moral equivalency between the swastika-bearing white supremacists and the many who showed up to oppose them.

"What about the 'alt-left' that came charging at, as you say, the 'alt-right,' do they have any semblance of guilt?" Trump asked. "What about the fact they came charging with clubs in hands, swinging clubs, do they have any problem? I think they do."

He added: "You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. nobody wants to say it, but I will say it right now."

From the never subtle or nuanced Trump, it was an obvious and rather pathetic display of his leanings. Other efforts can sometimes be more subtle. And that subtlety often comes in the form of presenting the racists as victims of intolerance and 'liberal' hypocrisy rather than as perpetrators of hatred. Consider, for example, two of the aggrieved memes circulating widely on the Internet:



Of course, racist strategy goes far beyond such memes. In the Charlottesville violence, the torch-bearing supremacists presented themselves as full-throated Americans marching in favour of free speech and the preservation of historical monuments, yet their real motives are clear to most. As Patrick Sisson recently wrote:

“The Charlottesville protesters revealed what we know to be true about these monuments: They are monuments to white supremacy, and the threat that we’ll tear them down is a threat to their ideology and movement.”

Those not certain of this need only to listen to the chants of Charlottesville 'protesters.'

Casting doubt on the veracity of events is also a time-honoured racist tactic. As noted in Part 1, there were dark hints that the NAACP had engineered the 'killing' of Emmett Till as a tactic to advance their cause. That very same approach was recently used by Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka who, in answering why his leader did not make any comments about the August mosque bombing in Minnesota, discussed Trump's need to have all the information about the bombing (a restraint he has never practised in attacks initiated by Muslims) before offering a public statement to ascertain it wasn't a "fake hate crime."

"We've had a series of crimes committed, alleged hate crimes, by right wing individuals in the last six months that turned out to actually have been propagated by the left," he said.

In Till's day, there were efforts to present the NAACP as a communist-infiltrated organization whose purpose was to upend American society. Efforts are also underway today to conflate those involved in clashes with the supremacists as hypocrites and violent thugs:

Then there was the shocking, disgusting Twitter post by Jason Kessler, the far-right activist who organized the Charlottesville march, to denigrate and slander the 32-year-old woman killed by a hate monger during the demonstration:

“Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist,” the post said. “Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”

Or consider the smear campaign uncovered by the BBC:

Far-right activists are using fake Twitter accounts and images of battered women to smear anti-fascist groups in the US, an online investigation has revealed.

The online campaign is using fake Antifa (an umbrella term for anti-fascist protestors) Twitter accounts to claim anti-fascists promote physically abusing women who support US President Donald Trump or white supremacy.

One image shows the slogan "53% of white women voted for Trump, 53% of white women should look like this", above a photograph of a woman with a bruised and cut face and an anti-fascist symbol.


The woman pictured is actually British actress Anna Friel and the photograph was taken for a Women's Aid anti-domestic violence campaign in 2007.

How about this one, another picture promoted on a false Twitter account:


This is the kind of post that could go on almost ad infinitum with examples of racist strategies. Rather than prolong it, I will recommend that you check out two articles that are quite instructive: Michael Coren's recent article, Lessons on how to confront fascists, and How I Became Fake News, Brennan Gilmore's account of what happened to him after he posted his video of the car heading toward and killing Heather Heyer.

But I will close now with the hope that people will be more critical in their thinking and not let their biases blind them to such basic tasks as checking the bona fides of news sites, especially those that abound on the Internet, go to multiple legitimate sources of information, not fall down the rabbit hole of mindless conspiracy theories and, most importantly, use the brains they were born with to constantly assess and reassess the best approximations of the truth we can have in this life.

Oh, and just one more thing. Lest we feel smug and think racism and discrimination are things that afflict only our southern neighbour, this disquieting video from Manitoba should be a source of shame for all Canadians:

A Very, Very Timely Message

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a timely and very powerful message for Donald Trump and his racist supporters:



If you go to the YouTube page where this video is posted, you will see by the many vile comments that his message needs to be spread widely.

For Your Consideration

They Never Disappoint Me

'They' would be Star readers who write letters to the editor. The following demonstrate that, like many others, they have taken the full measure of Donald Trump and found him manifestly wanting.

Re: Trump slow to respond to violence in Virginia, Aug. 13

U.S. President Donald Trump’s response to the rioting is hypocritical and hard to stomach. Calling out racist organizations who supported his political campaign and who responded to his attacks on Mexicans, Muslims and many more is a blatant corruption of the facts. Trump himself has incited Americans to hatred, and now violence.

Canada needs to be vigilant about the spread of hate propaganda and the recruitment of youth who feel disenfranchised and are looking for scapegoats. Haven’t the wars of the 20th century taught the world the consequences?

Diane Sullivan, Toronto

What a strange reality it is to come from the 1950s, when the U.S. still imposed racial segregation in schools, buses, washroom facilities, concerts, restaurants, stores and an endless list of public services.

We would see the Ku Klux Klan on television covering their faces like the cowards they were. And now I see their successors, the same group of disenfranchised, mindless hordes that used to show up at public lynchings and hangings for entertainment.

The biggest shock to me is how many of us don’t learn from history. That hate is taught in the first place is enough to sicken even the hardest heart.

These are strange times, brought on by a man who is sick in his heart and mind. He is a harbinger of what may come if we don’t keep those who would embrace hate and intolerance in check. These people look upon him as entertainment because they’re bored with the status quo. They have a longing, a hope for an alternate reality beyond what they have created with their miserable apathy and bland mediocrity.

What a strange reality it is to witness the most powerful man in the world stand aloof and seemingly indifferent to the things taking place on his watch that assault our sensibilities.

Donald Trump is not fit to hold the office of The President of The United States.

Jay Paul Baldwin, Mississauga

Athough Donald Trump’s failure to call out white supremacists in Charlottesville is reprehensible, it provides one more reason why the nation should ignore him and look for leadership elsewhere.

Hopefully, he will become largely irrelevant, a large boulder in a river, impeding but not stopping the water’s flow. Unable to lead and addicted to self-aggrandizement, he is already being sidelined — even by some in his own cabinet.

Shakespeare said, “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” In the case of Trump, it’s the American public that is getting more than a little uneasy.

Geoff Rytell, Toronto

Unfit For Office

I am not writing as much these days, preferring to read, learn and reflect. Perhaps serendipitously, I am currently half-way through a book entitled The Blood of Emmet Till, a wrenching examination of the murder of a 14-year-old black lad visiting Mississippi in the summer of 1955, an event that galvanized the civil rights movement. His murderers were found not guilty due to the systemic racism of the South, a racism that clearly is alive and well today if the the horrible events in Charlotteville, Virgina are any indication.

One thing is certain, however, despite the cant of the white supremacists who are now playing the victim card: their lord and mentor, Donald Trump, is manifestly unfit for office:

Trump's Bitter Harvest

This may not surprise us, but it should still horrify us.

In the middle of a crowded bar, Adam Purinton yelled at two Indian men to "get out of my country," witnesses said, then opened fire in an attack that killed one of the men and wounded the other, as well as a third man who tried to help.