No. He's not a Nazi, or a white supremacist. First of all, he's Filipino. And, while he might be dismayed to find out what Steve Bannon really thinks of him when the chips are down, "Breitbart" (which he reads regularly) has a big enough tent that it features the gay, partly Jewish, Greek (and utterly vile scum-bag) Milo Yiannopoulis as one of their star editors. (Which is not to say that the "grassroots" of "Breitbart" wouldn't kill Milo along with my co-worker if given their druthers.)
When I first got transferred to his section of the factory I had a lot on my mind and wasn't in the mood to be sociable with anyone. Bizarrely, without having known me more than a couple of days, he asked if I wanted to date his cousin. (He's 56, I'm 50. I'm assuming that his cousin is also in late middle age, which is not a good age to be single in. So, her choices are probably fairly limited, but it was still bizarre.) I said no. Truthfully I'm not interested in a relationship. He also made intimations of having a drink after work. But by then I'd heard enough of his other views and, combined with my long-term bad mood, I chose not to take him up on the offer.
We ended up in the same strip-plaza restaurant for lunch once and sat with each other. Out of nowhere he told me that while he had guns back home in the Philippines, he couldn't get one in Canada, but if he'd had one he would have killed his ex-wife. I was flabbergasted. I mumbled something about how I tend to want to harm myself when my relationships go sour, but chalk one up for Canada's gun laws 'eh? He'd be in prison now and his children would hate him. (Obviously his ex-wife would be dead, but that might not have bothered him.)
A big part of our relationship is that I don't really know what I'm doing with this piece of machinery I'm operating and I need his help on a regular basis. So I'm not going to debate/argue with him about politics. But all our conversations ended up somehow into a chance to showcase his right-wing views. And he seems to get frustrated and angry quickly. I don't want to give him ammunition. Early on, I only asked him if he'd heard of the pipeline protest at Standing Rock. I wondered if the mainstream media was even reporting on it. Indeed he had. I was treated to a lengthy statement about how the First Nations (not his term) simply had to get with the program and forget about all their claims and nature and all that other shit. (Of course, none of that has anything to do with the markedly different treatment of the desires of the people of Bismarck South Dakota to not have the pipeline so close to their drinking water and those of the people of Standing Rock to not have the pipeline so close to their own drinking water supplies.)
I didn't get into it with him. I just repeated that I was wondering if he'd even heard about the stand-off.
So, it's been a couple of months or so. And I notice that the guy is fairly lonely. I'm thinking that more people don't want to end up having to listen to long-winded, right-wing tirades. (Especially about topics they might be blissfully ignorant about.) So, one day I was reading CounterPunch and there was a long article about the struggle for Mosul. It sounds horrible. Like a mini-Stalingrad. But I figured it being a manly topic (war) and dealing with attacking the terrorists where they live, that he and I could have some mutual agreement. Bringing up the topic I was treated to him telling me that they should just flatten the place. Bomb it to obliteration. Too bad about the civilians. Including the children. They'd probably grow up to be terrorists too. You can't reason with such people. Their religion makes them fanatics. They're all the same. Which is why it's so foolish for white liberals to say "let everyone in" when it comes to refugees. Why, did I know that Denmark is now 45% Muslim? [That struck me as implausible.] They've brought Sharia Law to Denmark. That's what they do. White people don't have big families. Because we're selfish and narcissistic. But Muslims do. They have 4-5 kids, minimum, and they abuse all those liberal multiculturalism values to establish their rights and they fucking just take over. Pretty soon, nobody has any rights. White people don't notice because we're all into "personal growth" and "personal development."
It wasn't until I saw one of these nut-bars standing right before me that I appreciated the murderous, fanatical bigotry that leads some of them to commit atrocities like the Quebec City mosque shooting. And then this guy's devotion to "Breitbart" (despite not being a Caucasian) made more sense. His contempt for white liberals and/or privileged white individualism became explicable. He's a salt-of-the-earth Filipino. He works hard and he has to know what's-what. He can neither afford to financially, or mentally, stick his head in the ground and dream about yoga classes, or the brotherhood of all mankind, or about degenerate liberal nonsense like sharing one's wives with Black men. He recognizes better than people like me the danger that Western Civilization faces from Islamic Fundamentalist Jihad. (Responding to his murderously bigoted drivel I only joked that the Muslims would have a fight on their hands if they took away my right to have bacon on my pizza.)
Just like the incoherent, rambling garbage that comes from fellow "alt-right" ("white nationalist on paper") Davis Aurini, this guy sees himself on the front-line of a cultural war. He sees liberals as being blind to the danger and even enabling the danger with their imbecilic values of "social justice" and "multiculturalism" and "human rights." That's why they're all so angry at liberals and Muslims. They stew in their conspiracy theories and they build their fantasies in exquisite detail. (Like Davis Aurini; who simply piles groundless assertion upon groundless assertion, until he can say stupid things like "anyone with an ounce of sanity is voting for Donald Trump.")
They believe this shit. They live this shit. They've worked themselves up into a state where they actually call out loud for bombing children to death. And then they go and shoot-up mosques.
So, the thing is, I'm needing this guy's assistance less and less as I become more proficient at my job. Should I confront him? I hesitate because we're a small team on this shift. It could end up creating an extremely stressful situation. ("Productivity is down because [thwap] and Ernesto are fighting over politics again. Fire one or both of them.") More likely the problem will be cognitive dissonance. As the years go by, I see this effecting people more and more. My faith in rational, fact-based discussion weakens when I read progressives saying stupid shit like "Barack Obama was a progressive" or "Trump avoiding nuclear war with Russia is bad, but threatening nuclear war with China is also bad." I can see only too plainly that trying to reason with this guy would be a complete waste of time.
More and more, I think I'll just write for myself and pursue my cartooning and to hell with everything and everyone else.
When I first got transferred to his section of the factory I had a lot on my mind and wasn't in the mood to be sociable with anyone. Bizarrely, without having known me more than a couple of days, he asked if I wanted to date his cousin. (He's 56, I'm 50. I'm assuming that his cousin is also in late middle age, which is not a good age to be single in. So, her choices are probably fairly limited, but it was still bizarre.) I said no. Truthfully I'm not interested in a relationship. He also made intimations of having a drink after work. But by then I'd heard enough of his other views and, combined with my long-term bad mood, I chose not to take him up on the offer.
We ended up in the same strip-plaza restaurant for lunch once and sat with each other. Out of nowhere he told me that while he had guns back home in the Philippines, he couldn't get one in Canada, but if he'd had one he would have killed his ex-wife. I was flabbergasted. I mumbled something about how I tend to want to harm myself when my relationships go sour, but chalk one up for Canada's gun laws 'eh? He'd be in prison now and his children would hate him. (Obviously his ex-wife would be dead, but that might not have bothered him.)
A big part of our relationship is that I don't really know what I'm doing with this piece of machinery I'm operating and I need his help on a regular basis. So I'm not going to debate/argue with him about politics. But all our conversations ended up somehow into a chance to showcase his right-wing views. And he seems to get frustrated and angry quickly. I don't want to give him ammunition. Early on, I only asked him if he'd heard of the pipeline protest at Standing Rock. I wondered if the mainstream media was even reporting on it. Indeed he had. I was treated to a lengthy statement about how the First Nations (not his term) simply had to get with the program and forget about all their claims and nature and all that other shit. (Of course, none of that has anything to do with the markedly different treatment of the desires of the people of Bismarck South Dakota to not have the pipeline so close to their drinking water and those of the people of Standing Rock to not have the pipeline so close to their own drinking water supplies.)
I didn't get into it with him. I just repeated that I was wondering if he'd even heard about the stand-off.
So, it's been a couple of months or so. And I notice that the guy is fairly lonely. I'm thinking that more people don't want to end up having to listen to long-winded, right-wing tirades. (Especially about topics they might be blissfully ignorant about.) So, one day I was reading CounterPunch and there was a long article about the struggle for Mosul. It sounds horrible. Like a mini-Stalingrad. But I figured it being a manly topic (war) and dealing with attacking the terrorists where they live, that he and I could have some mutual agreement. Bringing up the topic I was treated to him telling me that they should just flatten the place. Bomb it to obliteration. Too bad about the civilians. Including the children. They'd probably grow up to be terrorists too. You can't reason with such people. Their religion makes them fanatics. They're all the same. Which is why it's so foolish for white liberals to say "let everyone in" when it comes to refugees. Why, did I know that Denmark is now 45% Muslim? [That struck me as implausible.] They've brought Sharia Law to Denmark. That's what they do. White people don't have big families. Because we're selfish and narcissistic. But Muslims do. They have 4-5 kids, minimum, and they abuse all those liberal multiculturalism values to establish their rights and they fucking just take over. Pretty soon, nobody has any rights. White people don't notice because we're all into "personal growth" and "personal development."
It wasn't until I saw one of these nut-bars standing right before me that I appreciated the murderous, fanatical bigotry that leads some of them to commit atrocities like the Quebec City mosque shooting. And then this guy's devotion to "Breitbart" (despite not being a Caucasian) made more sense. His contempt for white liberals and/or privileged white individualism became explicable. He's a salt-of-the-earth Filipino. He works hard and he has to know what's-what. He can neither afford to financially, or mentally, stick his head in the ground and dream about yoga classes, or the brotherhood of all mankind, or about degenerate liberal nonsense like sharing one's wives with Black men. He recognizes better than people like me the danger that Western Civilization faces from Islamic Fundamentalist Jihad. (Responding to his murderously bigoted drivel I only joked that the Muslims would have a fight on their hands if they took away my right to have bacon on my pizza.)
Just like the incoherent, rambling garbage that comes from fellow "alt-right" ("white nationalist on paper") Davis Aurini, this guy sees himself on the front-line of a cultural war. He sees liberals as being blind to the danger and even enabling the danger with their imbecilic values of "social justice" and "multiculturalism" and "human rights." That's why they're all so angry at liberals and Muslims. They stew in their conspiracy theories and they build their fantasies in exquisite detail. (Like Davis Aurini; who simply piles groundless assertion upon groundless assertion, until he can say stupid things like "anyone with an ounce of sanity is voting for Donald Trump.")
They believe this shit. They live this shit. They've worked themselves up into a state where they actually call out loud for bombing children to death. And then they go and shoot-up mosques.
So, the thing is, I'm needing this guy's assistance less and less as I become more proficient at my job. Should I confront him? I hesitate because we're a small team on this shift. It could end up creating an extremely stressful situation. ("Productivity is down because [thwap] and Ernesto are fighting over politics again. Fire one or both of them.") More likely the problem will be cognitive dissonance. As the years go by, I see this effecting people more and more. My faith in rational, fact-based discussion weakens when I read progressives saying stupid shit like "Barack Obama was a progressive" or "Trump avoiding nuclear war with Russia is bad, but threatening nuclear war with China is also bad." I can see only too plainly that trying to reason with this guy would be a complete waste of time.
More and more, I think I'll just write for myself and pursue my cartooning and to hell with everything and everyone else.
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