U.S. politics

What you should worry about when you worry about President Trump (Hint: not where Ivanka sits!)

djclimenhaga — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 07:02:19 +0000

It's actually pretty hard to know who to root for in the emerging war between U.S. President Donald Trump and the mainstream media.

I mean, seriously people, I find Mr. Trump as scary as the next sane person -- although apparently not for the same reasons as the MSM, which seems to think he hates Russia with insufficient fervor.

'They're People Not Terrorists' photo campaign challenges prejudices behind U.S. travel ban

rabble staff — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 19:38:47 +0000

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Photographer Adam Zivo's work may be familiar to those aware of his project #LOVEISLOVEISLOVE, which he launched after the Orlando nightclub shooting. It featured tender, happy portraits of LGTBQ couples.

The Toronto-based photographer is now launching, on Friday, a new project in the wake of the U.S. travel ban that targets people from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Toronto photographer Adam Zivo is launching a new project to counter hate and prejudice in the wake of the U.S. travel ban that targets people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

A Tale of Two Traitors: Or, does President Donald Trump even get this betrayal thing?

djclimenhaga — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 07:22:55 +0000

Harold Adrian Russell Philby, better known as "Kim," the British spymaster who turned out to have been working all along for the Soviet Union, denied that he had betrayed his country.

In My Silent War, the 1968 autobiography Philby may or may not have written himself during his residency in Moscow, with or without the assistance of a KGB minder, he made the point he did it, if not quite for England, for mankind then, because of what he called "my persisting faith in Communism."

Philby died in Moscow in 1988, where he was given a hero's funeral. He was awarded posthumous medals by the Soviets, and a nice grave marker was erected in his memory.

Buffoon or manipulator, Trump rightfully inspires fear

rabble staff — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 14:38:41 +0000

Friday, January 27, 2017

Which Trump were you watching last weekend? The moronic mediocrity with a skimpy vocabulary who can't keep focussed and who's as self-absorbed as an infant? Or the shrewd new president who bolstered his crucial constituency in the rust belt and dealt with an economic abyss that no one else over the past 30 years dared touch? Me -- I'm rivetted by both and, as a result, more than a bit confused.

Which Trump were you watching last weekend? The moronic mediocrity or the shrewd new president who dealt with an economic abyss that no one else over the past 30 years dared touch?

Canada's right doubtless dismayed as The Economist boots the U.S.A. off its list of 'full democracies'

djclimenhaga — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 08:01:34 +0000

Hmmm… The venerable Economist magazine's research arm yesterday booted the United States off its list of "full democracies," demoting Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill" to a mere "flawed democracy."

This happened in the wake of the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. However, the impeccably right-wing British magazine's Economist Intelligence Unit generously concluded, it was not because of it.

That is to say, the researchers for the pretentious news magazine for people who wish they were rich didn't blame the decline in American democracy on Trump. They blamed Trump on the decline in American democracy.

Lies, truth and alternative facts: Trump's bad weekend

rabble staff — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 16:19:11 +0000

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." --Samuel Adams, revolutionary (1722-1803)

"We shall overcomb" -- Women's March protest sign this past weekend

It is remarkable to me that in less than three days as President of the United States Donald Trump has managed to so exuberantly, beautifully and effortlessly alienate the press, bring a million or more women to the streets, leave himself and his closest aides open to exquisite satire and scare the shit out of sane people everywhere.

Over the course of one weekend the press has realized the game has changed, social media killed it with savage, pointed satire and fact-checking of Trump's press secretary shredded his credibility.

Support by Rachel Notley for Donald Trump's Keystone XL Pipeline decision may be unnerving, but it's politics

djclimenhaga — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 06:06:06 +0000

Premier Notley just pledged to work with Trump administration on Keystone XL. WTF?
-- Environmentalist Mike Hudema, Tuesday afternoon on Facebook

It's hard not to feel Mike Hudema's pain.

Hudema is a Greenpeace Canada campaigner, well known for his anti-tar sands activism in Alberta. I suppose some people in the oilpatch don't like him very much, but he's generally viewed with respect. God knows, he's consistent.

Hudema ran for the Alberta NDP in the Edmonton-Meadowlark riding back in 2001. He was 25 at the time.

Is a Pink Revolution beginning in America? This genie will be hard to put back in its bottle!

djclimenhaga — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 07:21:40 +0000

Was it just my imagination, or was there a whiff of "colour revolution" in the air yesterday south of the Medicine Line?

Yesterday was the first full day of Donald J. Trump's first term as President of the United States, and he was promptly and perhaps prudently off to visit the offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, thought by some to be our planet's No. 1 fomenter and organizer of so-called colour revolutions.

Trump’s first presidential stopover in Langley, Va., may show "marks of foresight, beginnings of wit,” as the great Canadian poet Milton Acorn described such inklings, or merely that the newly sworn-in blowhard still confidently believes he can fool anyone.

W.H. Auden's poetry resonates on Trump's inauguration day

rabble staff — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 13:25:33 +0000

Friday, January 20, 2017

How did Auden (W.H.) get it so right? He died in 1973, but his lines come to mind during the 21st century's most wracked moments.

Sept. 1, 1939, was written around that date from "one of the dives/ On Fifty-second Street" in New York, at the end of "a low dishonest decade," the 1930s. It included the Great Depression and the global spread of fascism, with World War Two just ahead. Fair enough, he was there.

But on Sept. 11, 2001, with Auden long dead, his poem seemed to rise from the rubble in Manhattan -- reprinted, quoted, viral etc. That was at the end of a proud, boastful decade, which followed the Soviet Union's demise, with smug Western declarations of victory and much reaping of economic spoils.

How did Auden (W.H.) get it so right? He died in 1973, but his lines come to mind during the 21st century's most wracked moments.

Not Rex: The coming dark age of Trump

rabble staff — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 16:00:20 +0000

Is this show currently playing?

January 19, 2017

Not Rex delivers an alternative poem in the epic style on the coming dark age of Trump.

YouTube

Not Rex delivers an alternative poem in the epic style on the coming dark age of Trump.

Obama's expulsion of Russian 'spies' from the U.S. is deeply ironic

djclimenhaga — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 08:18:43 +0000

In the lead-up to the expulsion yesterday by President Barack Obama of 35 suspected Russian "intelligence operatives" from the United States for their government's effort to influence the recent U.S. presidential election, a strenuous attempt has been made by many North American news organizations to leave the impression the 'hacking" in question involved manipulating the actual ballot count to give the election to Republican Donald Trump.

North Carolina Republicans provoke political firestorm with attacks on democracy

rabble staff — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:59:19 +0000

Friday, December 23, 2016

North Carolina Republicans have provoked a political firestorm. First, Gov. Pat McCrory refused to concede his loss for close to a month. Then, under the guise of providing Hurricane Matthew relief money, they convened several back-to-back special sessions, all geared at stripping power from Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper before he takes office. The North Carolina General Assembly has seen mass protests and civil disobedience in defiance of the assembly's middle-of-the-night proceedings. Whereas President Barack Obama is honouring the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, North Carolina Republicans are taking a different path.

Whereas President Barack Obama is honouring the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, North Carolina Republicans are taking a different path.

The threat of Trump isn't Trump

rabble staff — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 14:47:17 +0000

Friday, November 25, 2016

It will be an odd experience: the Trump years. On election night I thought the main task would be deciding what to do about them -- and in less than a day, young (mostly) people were in the streets across the U.S. protesting. Hallelujah. But it's also going to require a lot of thinking about what's going on. We'll need to think our way, as well as act, through the experience because otherwise it will be overwhelmingly upsetting and nobody will get any decent sleep.

In this task, I'm indebted to a Globe and Mail editorial about Trump's newly appointed "chief strategist" titled, "Steve Bannon isn't the problem, Donald Trump is." It helped because it made me realize that I think Donald Trump isn't the problem, Steve Bannon is.

The true danger of Trump isn't the man himself -- it's capable, malign people insinuating themselves under his umbrella and pursuing their own ambitions.

Trump likely to turn peaceful Black protests into race war

rabble staff — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 20:58:00 +0000

Thursday, November 24, 2016

I guess we should be glad that no member of the Trump family or transition team actually attended the white supremacist event in Washington last weekend where Trump's victory was celebrated with Nazi salutes.

For those looking for good news in the face of Donald Trump's presidential victory, these are the sort of slim pickings on offer.

The post-election reality -- in which such a gathering was openly held in the Ronald Reagan Building a few blocks from the White House -- suggests America's darkest tendencies have been given the equivalent of a hot massage.

The soft, itchy underbelly of American racism has been given a good scratching by Donald Trump. Whatever damage he is likely to do around the globe, at home he is going to inflame existing tensions.

If Donald Trump won't knuckle under, could he face an American 'Colour Revolution'?

djclimenhaga — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 07:11:34 +0000

It would be an irony if the troubles the United States has visited on much of the earth were now visited upon the United States -- and, lest you’re feeling smug about that possibility, it's not likely to be a happy irony if you happen to be a citizen of that country's next-door neighbour.

Still, filmmaker Michael Moore probably has it right when he predicts Donald Trump will not serve out his full term as president.