tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5611409863712113861.post4757707301111870813..comments2023-06-27T10:33:35.086-04:00Comments on kirbycairo: Harper's Poisoning of the Nation. . . Kirbycairohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17528654183160305877noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5611409863712113861.post-62915152051971498112015-10-12T11:51:36.115-04:002015-10-12T11:51:36.115-04:00This is why I have always fought against xenophobi...This is why I have always fought against xenophobia in whatever form it takes. It is incredibly toxic and dangerous. The way this Harper government has played to it though goes well beyond anything I've ever seen as openly acceptable in Canadian society, behind closed doors I've seen/heard some incredibly ugly things, but in the public square, no this is something beyond my near 50 years experience, and it horrifies me! Being someone who is "old stock" (when your direct family lines all predate Confederation I think you are in that group Harper was trying to appeal to), look and act like a classic straight white male (you wouldn't believe the amount of sexist and homophobic crap I've been assumed to share, which given I'm comfortably bi and have been since my late teens...*rolls eyes*) you are presumed to share a lot of these xenophobic beliefs, at least you were when I was growing up and in my early adulthood, the last couple of decades people have started to become a little more wary that way about making such assumptions, which I took to be a sign of progress myself.<br /><br />I really hope and want to believe that Harper went too far in this, and I think he may well have. It is one thing to go after a tiny fraction of a percent as your whipping person, but when you attack dual citizens and 2nd and even 3rd generation immigrants as the Harperites did with this citizen stripping insanity, suddenly you are attacking a lot more people where they live, as you noted. Which since part of the Harper vote has been rooted in the social conservative immigrant communities especially on the west coast as well as TO, this was quite likely the straw that broke the CPC camel's back. One can certainly hope so, and not just for the defeat of Harper but that it was for naked pandering to xenophobia that it happened!<br /><br />Until Oct 19th shows me Harper has lost decisively, and preferably to a Lib majority (I've always maintained a majority is the only guarantee Harper will leave power, that any minority situation I fear he will try to game and I simply do not trust his GG appointee to not aid in such) I will still work as hard as I can for that outcome and take nothing for granted, and I'm hoping so does every one else out there that makes up the anti-Harper vote. Better a Lib or even NDP majority than any chance of anymore Harper has been my view all along, obviously for me the Libs are preferable, but if it had been the NDP leading in the last week instead I would have been praying for them to get the majority, the most important thing now, and clearly the moral necessity now is the removal and repudiation of Harper!Scotianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06284856315992405261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5611409863712113861.post-76975567939904151922015-10-09T10:50:17.296-04:002015-10-09T10:50:17.296-04:00Fear of the other is as old as the race itself, Ki...Fear of the other is as old as the race itself, Kirby. Ir has always been part and parcel of what Twain called "the damn'd human race."Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.com