The Normalization Begins

The other day, I wrote about a New Yorker article by David Remnick in which he warns of the insidious normalization of Donald Trump and his twisted values that will take place over time. It appears this is already happening, as the following makes clear. To her credit, Fox's Megan Kelly would have none of the poison that Trump surrogate Carl Hibie was peddling.

UPDATED: The Responsibilities Of Citizenship

Given the times we live in, it is not enough to simply talk the progressive talk. Action is also required. The following two videos clearly convey what we can do when circumstances demand it.



And closer to home:



And Michael Moore makes a very similar point:

“White people, no matter how painful, have a responsibility to reject anybody who stands in front of a camera who spews racism,” Moore explained to host Reid. “Who spews sexism, misogyny. Who brags about being a sexual predator. I don’t care what your race is, but especially if you’re white. Because that means that you belong to the race that’s been in power forever.”

“This a country that was founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves,” He continued. “So you have a special responsibility as a white person to always object to anybody who uses racism, who spews this hatred.”

“And do not call yourself a Christian if you are not willing, literally, to put your body in front of whoever is coming to hurt the other — the people who are not you.”

Strong videos and strong words, all necessary in the times we now find ourselves in.

For those who hope for some modification of Trump's lunacy, The Toronto Star has a sobering editorial on his appointment of hate monger Stephen Bannon to the position of chief White House strategist and senior counsel:

The move is a tacit endorsement of the race-baiting rhetoric that helped propel Trump to the White House and which has contributed to a surge in hate crimes and racially motivated harassment since election night.

The message Trump is sending has implications beyond the United States. The bigotry let loose by his campaign knows no borders. Several posters popped up in Toronto this week calling on white people “sick of being blamed for all the world’s problems” to join the alt-right movement. On Monday, an Ottawa rabbi woke up to find an anti-Semitic slur and a swastika spray-painted on her front door. In another part of the city, a school was defaced with the Nazi insignia and the letters “KKK.”

That’s the dangerous result of Trump’s campaign, which unleashed and legitimized racism, misogyny, homophobia and anti-Semitism south of the border and, to some still-unknown extent, here, too. By offering Bannon a prominent post in his administration the president-elect has sent a clear signal that hate will remain on the agenda. It’s the alt-right’s dream come true. For the rest of us, it’s a nightmare.

The chance of turning back this nightmare is one that falls to all of us, like it fell to bystander Valeska Griffiths who, along with others, intervened in the racist Toronto streetcar incident depicted above:



UPDATE: This should serve as a timely reminder of what is possible when we act with goodwill in our hearts.

Bernie Sanders Offers Both A Prescription And A Warning

Spending five minutes watching this video will likely provide more truth and insight than were heard in the entire U.S. presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Back At Home

While the Gong Show unfolding in the U.S. will likely continue to preoccupy a great many of us in the weeks, months and years to come, we would be remiss to ignore disquieting occurrences in our own country. Many of these occurrences are unfolding under the blinding glare of our prime minister's sunny smile; indeed, many of them are being orchestrated by Mr. Trudeau, under the not-so-subtle aegis of his neoliberal agenda.

One of these issues is the Infrastructure Bank Trudeau is establishing, one that seeks to meld public and private money to finance projects. The key question one must ask, of course, is what is in it for the institutional and consortia investors he is trying to attract. Kate Chucng, a Toronto Star reader, recently raised a very pertinent point.

So the federal government plans to start an “infrastructure bank.” But we already have one. It’s called the Bank of Canada, and it was set up for this very purpose.

The Bank of Canada exists to make low-interest loans to all levels of government. So why are they wanting to borrow at high interest rates from private investors? Could it be that the 1 per cent controls the government?

It is a question all of us should be asking.

In his column today, Paul Wells writes about a meeting the prime minister and nine of his ministers had on Monday in Toronto at the Shangri-La, where they were guests

of Larry Fink from New York’s humongous BlackRock investment firm, pitching Canada as an investment destination to some of the deepest pockets on the planet.

Around the table were all your favourite emissaries from global capital. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, with $360 billion (U.S.) in assets. Norway’s Norges Bank, which may be the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, though it’s hard to tell and the Norwegians hope to keep it that way. The Olayan Group from Saudi Arabia, with assets somewhere north of $100 billion. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, closer to $200 billion. The Qatar Investment Authority. The Lansforsakringar, which is Swedish for “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

Interestingly, for a government that promised openness and transparency,

the whole day happened behind closed doors and surrounded by heavy security.

This kind of secrecy and preferred access, so typical of the former Harper regime, should cause all of us concern:

The novelty of it all, and the long trains of zeros and commas following all these visitors around, has generated a very large amount of skepticism among the relatively few Canadians who’ve been following this project so far. How will the investors generate returns? Toll roads? Jacked-up hydro rates? What kind of bargain is it if Canadians pay for all this fancy new stuff through their daily out-of-pocket expenses, rather than through their taxes?

Nearby, at Nathan Phillips Square, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union was staging a protest of the whole business. “When people find out how much of their money private contractors are skimming off the top, they don’t want anything to do with it,” Smokey Thomas, the OPSEU president, said in a news release.

There is no philanthropy in business. Everything is done with an eye to the bottom line. This fact alone should give Canadians deep, deep cause for concern over the direction our 'new' government is taking us in.

At The Altar Of Baal

All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering.

The above is but one paragraph from a penetrating and, I suspect, prescient, article by David Remnick in the New Yorker. Even if you are feeling sated from Trump coverage, try to make room for this piece, rich as it is in insight and prediction.

What especially resonated with me in the above was Remnick's observation that Trump's election is a crushing blow to the spirit. I doubt that I am alone in feeling both dazed and demoralized by a demagogue's elevation to the highest office in the U.S. When it happened, I felt that a giant middle finger had been offered to all the things that I and most progressives believe in: education, critical thinking, fairness, acceptance and compassion, to name but five. For about two days I was mired in a kind of existentialist funk, wondering what the point was in continuing to write and advocate for the things I value - none of it seemed anything more than an exercise in vanity, catharsis and futility.

But after two days, my perspective changed.

I realized that to stop, to give in to despair, would be to abdicate to all the things that I despise in my life: racism, intolerance, ignorance and profound, willful stupidity. And so the fight continues.

I will take but one more excerpt from the Remnick article to comment upon:

In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”

We are, of course, already seeing the normalization of Trump, the legitimization, if you will, of a man who inhabits his own universe, at the centre of which is a black hole sucking in values and beliefs that most of us hold as preeminent guidelines to anything approximating a civil society. This normalization would not be possible without the cooperation of what Henry Giroux calls 'a supine media.' A good illustration would be the interview last night on 60 Minutes with the president-elect and his cheering entourage, a.k.a., his family. I did not watch it, but saw a sufficient number of clips touting the interview to get a good sense of it. Soon, some people will be saying, "Trump's not really a bad guy at all."

Another disheartening example of normalization came from a disappointing piece written by Garrison Keilor. While he may not be happy over what the electorate has chosen, his ultimate advice is to take it in stride:

We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids and we Democrats can go for a long brisk walk and smell the roses.

That is something none of us should do. We need, as Michael Moore said the other day, to be resolute and active against all that Trump represents:

“White people, no matter how painful, have a responsibility to reject anybody who stands in front of a camera who spews racism. Who spews sexism, misogyny. Who brags about being a sexual predator. I don’t care what your race is, but especially if you’re white. Because that means that you belong to the race that’s been in power forever. This a country that was founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves. So you have a special responsibility as a white person to always object to anybody who uses racism, who spews this hatred.”

Donald Trump now has something he has always dreamed of: the adoration of many, the attention of all. What he will never have, I hope, is respect from the people who truly matter to our humanity.

I have no illusions about the reach or efficacy of my little soapbox called a blog. But if it helps me, and perhaps a few others, to penetrate the darkness we are mired in, it is worth it. The alternative is just too frightening to contemplate.

A Sad Anatomical Fact

This is what happens, boys and girls, to those who have had their head up their posterior for more than the recommended duration:

Sadly, I Am Inclined To Agree With Sir David Attenborough

His logic seems impeccable:



Or, to put it another way: