To the Editor:
To the “nasty lady” who wrote the commentary, good for you.
Too many people have forgotten, or are too young, to remember what it was like when feminism first reared its ugly head. We take for granted those hard won rights today.
There was a time when women didn’t become police officers, work in sawmills, or run for public office. Those days I remember. I am not sure when it became a dirty word but a Rebel News reporter screamed like it was an insult when she was hit at a woman’s day march. What she doesn’t realize is that her right to be a total pain was won for her by feminists.
The freedom of the press is the most vital ingredient in the stew of our society. Donald Trump assaults the press’s right to accurately report the news constantly. As far as I can tell, it is not that they are lying, it is that they are not saying what he wants them to.
One of Trump’s first executive orders was to give the go ahead to the Keystone XL pipeLine. Mac Olsen wrote an article in Spotlight [Feb. 1 edition] about this. He kept repeating that Premier Rachel Notley was pleased with the development but would keep working on access to Canadian tidewater.
It was not obvious if Olsen approved of her attitude or not. He was quite content with the idea that Trump might do things that were not in Canada’s best interest, but was still pleased with the idea that ‘Conservatism’ was once again rearing its ugly head.
Well, Trump will do many things that are not in Canada’s best interests. He is very pleased to do things that are not in his own country’s best interests.
I read, a long time ago, that Trump didn’t understand why the US didn’t ‘take the oil’ when they were in one Middle East country. I went looking for the quote a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t find it.
But Trump is sometimes in advertently cooperative. In a visit to the CIA, he once again brought up that possibility. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t ‘kept the oil’. He suggested they might go back into that country and this time they would keep the oil.
Foolishness about how they would ‘keep the oil’ without staying there and placing armed guards [soldiers] everywhere throughout that country can be debated elsewhere. My alarmometer goes off though. These guys are spinning further and further out of control. So far Trump has offended Mexico, Australia, his own people and how many others is unknown. People can’t keep up. Notley is very wise to keep her options open.
This political era could be termed ‘A country of nasty old men’. Trump is 70, Bannon is 64, Putin is 63. It may be why they are familiar to me. I remember guys like them. Guys who were jerks, and were responsible for the social change they hated so much.
This new conservatism is a throwback to that time. God help us all!
Now don’t get me wrong, there were many wonderful men I remember well. Conservative politics in Canada sound like Communism when compared to our neighbours to the south. We have had Medicare since I was a little kid. The Americans have had it for a couple of years and the Republicans are determined to repeal it.
That may leave something like 30 million people without healthcare. Some expect up to 40,000 people to die annually of easily curable conditions.
I have wondered about paying for prescriptions, but never had to worry about paying to see a doctor. Before you get too up on Trump, stop and think of where these policies may go. Loss of overtime pay, even the minimum wage!
Can you imagine the planet-wide consequences if Rick Perry actually has his way and gets rid of the agency that controls the nuclear weapons, and the radioactive materials that come with?
There is one estimate that there are 15,000 nuclear weapons worldwide. The guess is that a few tens of these weapons could destroy all life on earth.
That is enough to destroy the world more than 300 times over. Big government is by far preferable to loose cannons.
Finally, the double standard I see coming, or is here. Rebel News sent me a blurb about the possibility that Margaret Trudeau might be the Madame X in a ‘steamy memoir’ that involved of all people Trump.
Oh, for…I saw this as a thinly veiled attempt to get at Trudeau the Younger. Give it up already. No one can expect him to be responsible for things that happened, if it is even her, when he was in diapers. But they drag this out as summarily as they buried Mrs. Trump’s ‘nude modeling with other women’. The modeling is not my business any more than what Trudeau the Mother might have done.
Bias is all these days, and we must be very alert to it. We cannot base our choices on uninformed choices. Trump probably is a fascist, it is not a term I use much, nor is communism. But every time I look at a paper I have a hard time believing what I see.
A ban on Muslims. Well, not his Muslims, the ones he has business ties to. Gag orders on government scientists. Approving projects he has money in. Insulting heads of state. Spending billions on a wall when most Mexicans are trying to get out of the States.
This is the upside so far. Trump has roused the opposition to an extent that no one else has for a very long time.
Eva Sartorius,
High Prairie