The Obama Fan

So on FaceBook there was a meme with all the leading figures of the bush II regime pictured besides a list of their several crimes including torture and illegal wars of aggression. It was posted in a group someone had hooked me up to so I didn't know many of the people posting.

Three comments about the evil, perfidious Repugnicans and how they should be forced to pay for what they did.

I posted "I prefer to look forward, not backwards."

Some youngster liberal posted "Da - what??"

I said "I'm quoting Barack Obama."

The liberal said I was probably quoting him "maybe out of context or in a sense of "back to business". He's not trivializing nor should anyone".

I said "That's the worst response you could have given. Give your head a shake."

He posted: "Da -what?" Then followed this with:

I am saying he wasn't trivializing it. He is NOT SAYING that it should be ignored, nor forgiven and forgotten.

How does refusing to investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity get a pass? How does one "get back to business" after crimes such as war and torture? (In reality of course, Obama got "back to business" by engaging in more war crimes and other atrocities. But that would be too much for the wittle pwogwessive wibowull to even begin to process.)

Right now I'm remembering how beleagured Bernie Sanders chumps shouted "No more war!" at the 2016 convention only to be drowned-out by Hillarybot scum shouting "USA! USA!"

The Rob Ford Fan

At work it's mostly all immigrants. West Indians and South Asians mainly. But lots of Jamaicans, Arabs, Africans too. Whites are definitely in the minority on the shop floor. It's a lot of fun. Young women from India innocently flirting with young Jamaican men. Chinese and Indian people speaking Hindi to each other. Comments about one another's cultures that have none of the venom of majority population racism.

We're not colour-blind. I'm "the hard-working white guy." If we're referring to someone who is Black, we say "the Black lady" or "the Egyptian guy" so newcomers to the place know who we're referring to.

Anyhow, one day I found myself working with one of the other white people there. An older woman who's been there for over thirty years. I'd seen her in the lunch-room reading the Toronto Sun. We talked as we worked. She's completely bought into the Sun's pathological hatred of Justin Trudeau. (I don't like Trudeau, but for different reasons.) She referred mockingly to his obnoxious selfies and the reports about the Chinese girls swooning for him at the G20 conference.

Out of nowhere she says "I miss Rob Ford."

I laugh and ask her why.

She says "Everyone liked him."

I replied: "I didn't. He ruined public transportation. He said he could $3 billion in gravy. He guaranteed he could do it without cutting services. Then he cut bus routes; talked about closing libraries. He was a total hypocrite about drugs and gangs."

I stopped myself before I ended up preaching. She, of course, had nothing to say. Her affection for Rob Ford wasn't based on any coherent understanding of his "policies" or their consequences. He was just a regular shlub. He wasn't slick. He spoke in ways people like her understand.

We work in silence for a few moments then her face twists into a snarl and she snaps: "I can't believe we've got 6 hours still to go!"

To me, this outburst was a reflex. An outlet for her frustration at hearing her beloved, dearly departed Rob Ford being criticized with damning (and damnable) facts. I don't think it was directed at me. She's too nice and polite for that.  It was just inarticulate rage.

Later, during one of the breaks, she pointed to a story in the Sun about some activists trying to get air-shows banned because they traumatize immigrants and refugees from war-torn countries. She sneered about immigrants being "upset." I said "traumatized." She said "Yeah, 'traumatized'" with the same level of contempt.

Not the slightest bit of empathy or any attempt to understand how maybe having your home destroyed and loved-ones killed by one of those deafening abominations might actually be traumatic and that the suffering caused by hearing the death-bringer again might be more important that the thrill of spectators.

You know, I honestly believe that Rob Ford genuinely cared about people who were right in front of him. Aside from his homophobia, I don't think he really hated any group of people. But he could not grasp abstract principles and he was too lazy and stupid to really figure out how things worked. And he could be the most caring person in the world one second and then a callous, boorish bully the next.

Such people should be able to vote. But there need to be filters in place so that they don't run for office. They shouldn't be pandered to. They can choose to vote for an "intelligent" (or at least non-Rob Ford/Donald Trump) sort of "conservative" candidate or they can stay home.

Jason Kenney

So, Jason Kenney had the luxury afforded by a six-figure income, to ponder at his leisure about a move to Alberta provincial politics. Ostensibly he was going to "unite the right" against the upstart Alberta NDP government of Rachael Notley.

Only things haven't turned out that way. Jason Kenney is a Catholic social conservative whose views are, perhaps informed by his being (perhaps) a self-hating, closeted homosexual. (I only mention this to convey the intensity of his social conservatism.) As a social conservative, he will be far to the right of the values of the Alberta PC's, who were much more interested in a "fiscal conservatism" of the greedy, earth-destroying, money-grubbing oil pimps who ran that party. So he's not really welcome there and he won't really bring them into the fold.

Kenney appeals more to the version of "conservatism" practised by Wild Rose Party. (This "conservatism" involves sending threats of rape and murder to female politicians they don't like, with the leadership offering milder barbs about how it's illegal to beat them up.)

But the Wild Rose Party already has a leader and he has no plans of stepping aside from his little fiefdom and the party grass-roots has no desire to merge with the Alberta PC's.

So, in other words, there's really no place for Jason Kenney in Alberta politics. The Alberta PC's don't want him because they don't like him. And the Wild Rose sorta likes him, but not that much, and they don't want to be re-absorbed by the rump PC's.

Only Kenney's arrogance and stupidity prevented him from anticipating this reality. So now he's driving around the backroads of Alberta hoping people will take him in for the night and give him a meal. After all, he's only making something like $170,000 a year. (For a job he's not doing because he's campaigning in Alberta.)

And don't just nod your head and agree with me. Try to think about how stupid Kenney must be to have done something so stupid. And remember that stephen harper endorsed him. Because stephen harper is not a smart man. Despite what some people say.

These people are turds. Stupid turds.