For the despondent Democratic shills doing postmortems on the Clinton campaign, looking back on the big picture, assessing the damage and reflecting anew on how Trump became politically prominent in the first place, there are few sins greater than the president-elect’s original sin of questioning Obama’s “legitimacy” through his leadership of the “birther movement.”
What do today’s right wing Quebec and Israeli nationalists share in common? A claim to victimhood that enables them to deny their role in oppressing others.
This commonality became clear when a prominent right-wing Québec nationalist politician cited the French language and Jewish sensibilities to criticize immigration and the veil. It also reflected a historic reversal in Québecois/Jewish relations. More significantly, it highlighted the dangers of an ‘empowered sense of vulnerability’, a psychological state many Quebeckers and Jews seem to share.
A castaway in the sea was going down for the third time when he caught sight of a passing ship. Gathering his last strength, he waved frantically and called for help. Someone on board peered at him scornfully and shouted back, ‘Get a boat!’ ―Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure
It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.”
Words matter, my friends. And if you are running to be president, or you are president of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences.
— Hillary Clinton, August 10, 2016
The homeless people’s suffering belongs to amusement of our political order under a game over the right of marginalized group being transformed into citizens for merely punishment and humiliation. The Public Space Protection Orders is a penalty over one’s condition suffering – it is a fine over the disempowered for being disempowered. This act allows power to fragment the homeless into sub-humans punishable for the state of utter misery.
— Bruno De Oliveira
Violence against American Muslims is growing faster than at any time since 9/11, with assaults on Muslim individuals and their places of worship having tripled since the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks. A New York Times article published last December cites several examples, which include shootings and vandalism.
Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court marks a continuation and deepening of the lopsided ethno-religious representation in the US judicial system. If Garland is appointed, Jewish justices will comprise 45% of the Court, even though they represent less than 2% of the overall population. Roman Catholics comprise the other 55% of the Court – even though they represent approximately 30% of the population.
The real crisis is not the influx of refugees to Europe, per se, but a toxic combination of destabilising foreign policy agendas, economic austerity and the rise of right-wing nationalism, which is likely to push the world further into social and political chaos in the months ahead.
[This is an edited version of a talk given to Common Ground for Texans in Austin, TX, March 5, 2016.]
To avoid being conned, politically and intellectually, it’s important to examine how a debate is framed and what ideology is advanced by that framing. What is the scope of the question? How was the direction of the inquiry decided? Who set the boundaries of the conversation?
The anger, xenophobia, and polarization so sharply on view on Super Tuesday didn’t come about overnight, or even since the Great Recession began or since 9/11 in 2001. It’s been a long time brewing, a product of some 50 years of unfolding bipartisan crisis.
