All Purpose Politics and News Thread

[Lynn49]

@walkonby, crazy like a fox, Bannon was, calling a reporter to "venr" his thoughts without asking that they'd be " off the record". He dang well knew he was using that reporter to distance himself from trump. He was looking after himself. But, it just confirms that no one is safe within the inner circle.

Can I dream that trump will resign, saying he's "too good" for the job of president?!?! It's imploding around him. It's a matter of time.........fingers crossed, prayers said....

[walkonby]

hey @Lynn49 forget all about Bannon and 45, here is an even scarier thought! THIS is Greg Pence,




older brother of Mike Pence

( you know the silver fox, or should I say very wise fox who will eventually replace 45 when he leaves through any manner of ways....resignation, impeachment or being found mentally unfit? )

Seems Greg may be running for office now.


INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — One of Mike Pence's older brothers is being courted as a possible Republican candidate for the same eastern Indiana congressional seat that the vice president and former governor of the state represented for 12 years.

Greg Pence, who once ran the family's now-bankrupt chain of Tobacco Road convenience stores, says he has been courted to run for the district, which covers a broad swath of central and southeastern Indiana, including Muncie and Columbus, The Indianapolis Star reports (http://indy.st/2sjzEPL ).

One of six siblings, Greg Pence and his wife, Denise, now own two antique malls. Denise Pence was also a delegate to the Republican National Convention last summer.

Were he to pursue the seat, Greg Pence would almost certainly have strong support from the Indiana Republican Party. But it remains to be seen if he is actually interested in the position, which is currently held by Republican Rep. Luke Messer, who is weighing a run for Senate.

This fellow sure bears a striking resemblance to the actor John Mahoney who played Kelsey Grammer's Dad on Frasier.

[Darth Penguin]

Unidentified Canadian WWI soldier laid to rest

A First World War soldier who could not be identified by the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) was today laid to rest with military honours at Canadian Cemetery No. 2 in Neuville-St. Vaast, France, within Canadian National Vimy Memorial Park. The Commander of the Canadian Army, Lieutenant-General Paul Wynnyk, was in attendance at the ceremony. Remains discovered at Thélus, Pas de Calais, France, were deemed to belong to a Canadian First World War soldier, but his identity could not be determined, as he was found without personal or unit identifiers. The soldier would have died between the end of October 1916 and the end of July 1917, the nine-month period of Canadian Corps action in the Vimy sector.
The remains were discovered by the Service archéologique municipal d’Arras on September 27, 2012, during an excavation prior to the construction of an industrial estate. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was notified, and took possession of the remains and associated artefacts. The case was subsequently investigated and closed by DND’s Casualty Identification Program. Both maternal and paternal DNA profiles have been obtained from this set of remains with the hope of a future identification.

[Darth Penguin]

Two Canadian WWI soldiers laid to rest by their units

Private Reginald Joseph Winfield Johnston and Sergeant Harold Wilfred Shaughnessy, First World War soldiers whose remains were identified by the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), were today laid to rest with military honours by their units in Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, France. The families of the soldiers were present, with the support of Veterans Affairs Canada.
Private Johnston was a member of the 16th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, a unit perpetuated by The Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s) of Victoria, B.C. He died on August 15 or 16, 1917, at the age of 22, in the Battle of Hill 70.
Sergeant Shaughnessy was a member of the 13^th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, a unit perpetuated by The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Montreal. He died on August 15, 1917, at the age of 33, in the Battle of Hill 70.
In both cases, the remains were discovered during a munitions clearing process in advance of a construction project near the village of Vendin-le-Vieil, France. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was subsequently notified, and took possession of the remains and associated artefacts. Private Johnston and Sergeant Shaughnessy were later identified by DND’s Casualty Identification Program.

[Lynn49]

So, plaaying "follow the leader " with the US once again, what are our thoughts on the new debate wrt the removal of John A MacDonald's nane from schools?
Personally, I don't believe wiping out historical statues changes anything, amof, it's a slippery slope for anyone who feels hard done by for any reason by what may have been acceptable in the past. USE that to teach how things have changed, how far removed we are from what was acceptable in the past to what's acceptable and what isn't, now.
Yes, absolutely mistakes were made in the past, but to wipe out those reminders instead of teaching the lessons from the past, imho, isn't changing history, it's ignoring it.

[Lynn49]

So not a single, solitary medal for Canada in the IAAF games. But hey, they'll still get their "Participation" ribbons, won't they??

[walkonby]

So, plaaying "follow the leader " with the US once again, what are our thoughts on the new debate wrt the removal of John A MacDonald's nane from schools?
Personally, I don't believe wiping out historical statues changes anything, amof, it's a slippery slope for anyone who feels hard done by for any reason by what may have been acceptable in the past. USE that to teach how things have changed, how far removed we are from what was acceptable in the past to what's acceptable and what isn't, now.
Yes, absolutely mistakes were made in the past, but to wipe out those reminders instead of teaching the lessons from the past, imho, isn't changing history, it's ignoring it.

About that @Lynn49 ....I listened in tears as I watched Don Lemon break down describing what it is like for a young black child to grow up attending schools named after their prior oppressors. I asked myself how would my life had been shaped if I had experienced that sort of climate growing up?
You can still learn about the past and study history without namesake schools and statues.

I feel those statues in the U.SA. should be removed, ( just like the Confederate Flag was taken down in South Carolina ).
The statues could be relocated to a Museum type setting, ( if that is what they choose ) then all the devotees of those particular " war heroes " can go visit their statues whenever they like.

In the deep Southern States even though slavery was abolished and laws were changed, seems generations of white people were very slow to have real change happen in their parts of the Country wrt to black citizens. They resented their ancestors losing that battle and that is why those types of statues were erected in the first place.
What could they possibly be celebrating about General Robert E Lee? The man wanted to keep slavery going??
Good grief!

In Germany for instance every child must learn about the holocaust and must visit the camps. They don't have statues of Hitler around or high schools bearing his name on them to mark that history. It is illegal for anyone to display/sell ANY Nazi paraphernalia in Germany.

How privileged I was as a child that I never experienced being looked at as inferior simply because I was born white. It is a fact that suddenly tugged at my conscience the moment I heard Trump defending the White Supremacists.

jmho

[Lynn49]

Oh! @walkonby , I couldn't agree more!! Those confederate statues were put up in the 20s, the Jim Crow era when the KKK and Nazis wielded a lot of power in the southern states that legalized segregation!...they were put up as warnings, as support for slavery, to "keep the {black folk} in line", and are honoured that way to this day by those hate-groups. They're rallying points for people who honour the conditions that existed in the south at the time of the civil war. I totally agree with taking them down, as well as not publicly displaying the southern cross. They're symbols of hatred, tyranny, oppression.

But founding leaders of a country ... we have to think back on what it was like back then..just like we look back on the 1950s as a "nicer" time, forgetting what was stuffed in the closets of households back then. I'm not defending the broken treaties of the past, the wars and repercussions of war, but to remove historical statues of people who were to create, a country, then that's a slippery slope. Did they make mistakes? Absolutely! And that's the lesson that has to be taught. Keep the statues, but tell the story on the plaques that are with them...if we ignore the past it's almost like we're condoning the past rather than learning from it.
Ukranians, thousands of them, were rounded up and placed in internment camps during the first world war for the duration of the war under the war measures act because many of them (my grandfather among them) were from Austria. Forced labour, particularly brutal in the building of Banff National Park was part of the package: should we, as Ukranians protest at the entrance to the park? Should we ask that statues of Robert Borden be hauled down because he ignored the pleas of Great Britain to refrain from acting against those people? Where is our outrage?
Where does it all stop?
True and real history has to be taught in our schools, not the {ahem} white-washed versions of our historical figures. When we look at MacDonal's statue, we should do so not through rose-coloured glasses, but with the knowledge that mistakes were made, that history shouldn't be repeated here or elsewhere.
We may disagree, my Friend, but that's still allowed in Canada, and that's a pretty good thing.

[walkonby]

@Lynn49 ^^ you is very schmart lady! I like your points!
I wonder how some of these racist nutbars in the States would react if the real facts about their " heroes " were written on a plaque and attached below each statue? Something tells me they would react swiftly and poorly.

I love that we can discuss and disagree on some fronts while still respecting each others views. Refreshing ain't it?

[Lynn49]

Thank you, @walkonby , we certainly can debate without name-calling and bending to base instincts because we respect each other's opinions and you know I luv ya Babe!
Of course adding the bad to the good on those confederate plaques will never happen...can you imagine how fast those WM tiki-torches would come out?!

As for being friends with a person in the minority, our best friends, my late soul-sister, were Japanese and we saw first-hand the looks some people of a much older generation interacted with them, and it broke my heart that we could't share in attending a very popular movie years ago because it was about WWII. That really brought it home for us. But by God no one could have been more generous, more loving than them even though their parents were held in detention camps in BC: they lost all evidence of thier past....her Mom's linens, his Father's fishing boat confiscated...nothing of their old lives remained. They were sad, but not angry...they understood the hysteria of the time and they never would call for ripping down statues of war heroes. A far different story than tearing down staues, symbols of blatant hatred and racism.

So ... the past sucked for many people, many races, but we have to learn from it and work to make sure they never happen again. Unfortunately a lesson lost on so many confederate southerners.

Well that was a mouthful so early in the morning! ;-/

[anisa]

I think that people are simply frustrated.

You would think that in this day and time there wouldn't be large numbers of people still celebrating slavery.

It is ok to remove statues that commemorate selective actions of people who did some very bad things. I don't believe that is going overboard. Keep them in textbooks, expand the facts that are taught in schools, but there is no need to continue commemorating and celebrating people who did unjust and inhumane things in our history.

[Lynn49]

Unfortunately there will always be racists and bigots, @anisa . @walkonby and I expressed the same opinion: those statues should come down. Until those people stop having children and bringing them up with their own prejudices I doubt the problem will ever end. The US isn't about to take the measures Germany did after the war, not permitting the swaztika to be displayes...placing plaques at the doorways of Jewish people who were hauled off to concentration camps. Behavior like that displayed in the US wouldn't be tolerated there....but then they don't have trump as their president: as blatant a a racist as there is.

[anisa]

I wonder if the problem is more complicated than children simply being raised with the right/wrong ideals.

Wasn't one of the men in the tiki torch march essentially denounced by his family? They had raised him differently that the views he was expressing.

With the audacity of the racists and bigots today, we have to be extra 'vigilante' (for lack of a better word).

[Lynn49]

I wonder if the problem is more complicated than children simply being raised with the right/wrong ideals.

Wasn't one of the men in the tiki torch march essentially denounced by his family? They had raised him differently that the views he was expressing.

With the audacity of the racists and bigots today, we have to be extra 'vigilante' (for lack of a better word).

I was generalizing, @anisa , of course this issue tears some families apart, some people who feel their lot in life is crap have to find someone, something else to blame and their anger gets directed to "those" people, the ones who are different. It's the same dynamic that sparked hitler's rise to power......'our economy is crap, and it's "their" fault'.

Unfortunately, nothing much is new in the world.

[walkonby]

Scary isn't it @anisa ?

I mean that a couple could raise their children and equip them with a moral compass and lessons in decency, only to watch as they associate with certain friends, or visit terrible sites that spew false facts on the internet and suddenly they can change their entire viewpoint about other races.

Their own difficult personal experiences or challenging daily interactions with people will shape and impact them along the way which means they could become a " turn the other cheek " sort with a forgiveness switch built in, or they may continually feed their hurt and anger by searching for fault/blame in others.

I think most of those Tiki torch carriers have to be very sad hurt little people who never got over something.