US Politics – Page 4 – Scripturient

The day that reason died

I’m not a believer in alien visitations and UFOs, but I’ll bet if an alien did swing by, after an hour or two observing us, checking out Facebook or Twitter, they’d lock their doors, hang a detour sign around our planet, and race off. They’d tell their friends not to visit us because we were all nuts. Scarily, dangerously crazy. Seriously. What sort of world can be called civilized when it has people touting — and believing — homeopathy? Reiki? Chemtrails? Anti-vaccination screeds? Anti-mask whines during a frigging pandemic? Wind turbines cause cancer? 5G towners spread COVID-19? Creationism? Reflexology? Alien ……… click below for more ↓

Whatever happened to conservatives?

2020-08-04 2020-08-05 Canadian Politics / International politics / Municipal Politics / Politics / Provincial Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe these days, but in many nations, conservative political parties were once actually the defenders of the nation’s interests, of the greater good, of the public, and of the state. They weren’t always the corporate shills, protectors of billionaires, privatizing libertarians, lobbyist puppets, Talibangelist lapdogs*, and racists they all seem to be today. No, once upon a time they actually cared about their country and its people, not just themselves and the firms that own them. Look at the Republicans in the USA. It the Republican party under Lincoln that fought racists and went to war for ……… click below for more ↓

Stalin’s ghostly influence today

2019-05-19 2019-05-20 Books & Reviews / International politics / Politics / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

I recently finished reading the second volume of Stephen Kotkin’s magisterial biography of Josef Stalin: About 1,700 pages so far, with another 400 or so in small-type notes. Brilliant stuff, but a lot to absorb and consider. A bit of a slog if you’re not at least somewhat familiar with the history – there are many events, places and people to keep track of. Volume one ran from Stalin’s birth to 1928, the year of the first Soviet show trials and when Stalin had fully established himself as undisputed leader. The second volume in the trilogy picks up there with ……… click below for more ↓

How capitalism has failed us

2018-12-29 2018-12-29 International politics / Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin… our homes are covered with mortgages, labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists… The fruits of toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for the few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two great classes … tramps and millionaires.* You might be forgiven for thinking that was something that came ……… click below for more ↓

Why are American evangelical Christians so cruel?

2018-03-16 2018-06-24 Christianity / Evangelicals / Faith / Religious intolerance / Theocracy / US Politics4 Comments

The article in Forbes’ Magazine, March 11, didn’t ask that question I used in my headline. Instead, the headline simply stated the piece would explain, “Why White Evangelicalism Is So Cruel.” (The author later republished this on his own site under the less pointed title, “Why the Religious Right is so cruel.”) In America, where theocracy is a more powerful political force than free speech and where its president has publicly threatened to muzzle journalists and uncomplimentary media like other tinpot dictators do, such a piece was apparently unwelcome. Forbes removed it – but not in time to prevent it ……… click below for more ↓

Fire and Fury reviewed

2018-02-10 2018-02-11 Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Politics / Pop Culture / Reading & Literacy / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Dysfunctional. Childish. Self-centred. Narcissistic. Ideologically myopic. Illiterate. Cranky. Capricious. Arrogant. Scheming. Petty. Ill-educated. No, I’m not writing about our local council (although, yes, all those words apply equally to The Block). These are some of the words that came to mind as I read Michael Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Dysfunctional popped into my mind most often as Wolff described the lurching, staggering, fumbling and bumbling of Trump’s staff and family advisers after their unexpected – and for some unwanted – victory. (I know: curiously coincidental how that description also echoes our own council’s meandering, ……… click below for more ↓

The dystopian present

2017-02-23 2017-02-24 Books & Reviews / Council / Scifi and fantasy / Social Order & Disorder / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

If there is one good thing to come out of the election of Donald Trump, it has been the renewed interest in a certain genre of literature. Sales of dystopian novels have skyrocketed on Amazon, in particular what might be called “The Big Three” of dystopian tales: George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. From each of these novels, allegorical threads can be woven into some narrative aspect as a metaphor for the Trump administration: 1984’s newspeak, media manipulation and paranoid Big Brother; Brave New World’s elites-vs-savages mentality, exiled intellectuals and its psychological manipulation; ……… click below for more ↓

Kellie Leitch’s politics of division

2016-11-12 2016-11-12 Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / Politics / Uncategorized / US Politics5 Comments

They’re not like us. They’re not our religion. They’re not our colour. They don’t speak our language. They don’t dress like us. They don’t eat like us. They don’t drive like us, shop like us, read like us, walk like us. We need to control them. Deport them. Jail them. Make them convert. Make them speak English. Make them dress like us. Screen them before we let them in. Them versus us. The politics of division, of polarization and separation. Dog whistle politics that appeal to the most vulnerable: the poor, the poorly educated, the illiterate, the disenfranchised, the unemployed, the ……… click below for more ↓

Dear USA: I’m sorry for your loss.

2016-11-09 2016-11-10 Canadian Politics / Politics / US Politics5 Comments

Dear United States of America and my American friends: While I am sorry for your loss on election night, I’m afraid, however, I cannot agree to open the border and let you flood in. Canada is a country, not a convenience for Americans trying escape a self-made disaster. You made your own bed, now you must sleep in it. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic. It was devastating to see decency, integrity, honesty, fairness, equality and compassion all die in the same wreck. I cannot imagine the pain you are feeling. It must seem as if all the good has ……… click below for more ↓

A cunning plan

2016-07-19 2016-07-19 Ethics & morality / Logic and reason / Politics / US PoliticsOne Comment

I see Donald Trump’s plan to utterly eviscerate the Republican Party is working very well. Just look who he picked as his running mate: possibly the only white man more bigoted, vile, close-minded, racist and misogynistic than the passel of presidential candidates Trump bested earlier.* Brilliant. You couldn’t do more than that to alienate the remaining American intelligensia, the moderates, the women, the Latinos, the blacks, the Jews, the Muslims, the gays… now pretty much every social, racial, educational and cultural group has an opportunity to be offended by Trump and his potential Veep all at once. Now, although pretty ……… click below for more ↓

More relevant words from Nixonland

2016-06-20 2016-06-24 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Politics / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Once again, as I continue to read through Anthony Summers’ biography of Richard Nixon, The Arrogance of Power (Penguin Books, 2000), I am struck by the uncanny resonance of many comments quoted within it to local politics. It’s like people living in the 1950s had a device through which they could view the politics of today, see the politicians on our own council and were reflecting on them, instead of their contemporaries. Some time viewing device right out of science fiction. Of course, we know they are speaking and writing of Richard Nixon and his activities, but nonetheless… the word ……… click below for more ↓

Alger Hiss, Richard Nixon and Collingwood

2016-06-16 2016-06-16 Collingwood / Council / History & Biography / Politics / US Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Remember the case of Alger Hiss? I didn’t think so. It was before your time. Mine too. But let me jog your memory, just in case you’re older than I am. Or perhaps just well read in recent history. Hiss was a US government employee, a diplomat at the centre of a House Un-American Advisory Committee (HUAC) investigation in 1950. He was accused of being a Soviet spy and eventually sent to jail (coincidentally on the same day George Orwell died…). Ring a bell? How about the Pumpkin Papers? Remember HUAC? You know, the committee investigating Communism in America, the one that ……… click below for more ↓

Demagogues and dictators

2016-06-12 2016-06-12 Books & Reviews / History & Biography / International politics / Politics / US Politics / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

I’m not sure why they fascinate me, but I’ve been reading about demagogues and dictators for many decades now and still can’t seem to get enough of them. Of course, it’s in part because I like to read about politics in all its forms and fashions, but there’s something more than just celebrity watching with these. There’s the psychology of propaganda and mass movements, the inoculation of widespread ideologies, the use of technology and mass culture. The period between the two World Wars in particular intrigues me because it was an era of great social change. Upheaval, really. The rise of the ……… click below for more ↓

The Political Agnostic

2016-01-16 2016-01-16 Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / Politics / Provincial Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

Watching the American political debates, especially the increasingly vituperative and acerbic Republican debates, reminds me again why I am a political agnostic when it comes to party politics. I simply cannot believe that any single political entity, any party or person, has all the answers or can dig us out of whatever hole we’re currently in. And America, with its rigid, two-party system, has seen its electoral options, choices and opportunities reduced to caricature status. On one side, a group of frighteningly racist, homophobic, xenophobic, gun-fanatic Christianists. On the other, a woman with no clear policies but a sense of entitlement. And ……… click below for more ↓