This is the stupidity of America … there is a good percentage of the country that think this image is a good thing and everyone should aspire to.

*We didn’t get the Bell Riots … yet!

There isn’t a single cabal responsible for choosing Trump.

I agree but the point I was trying to make is that there are extremist groups out there (and yes, they are sometimes reasonable business people or wealthy political backers) that often act in such a way to allow people like Trump to come into power either through their support or by simply not acting in way to stop anyone.

There will always be those people in power who are willing to allow certain things, events or people to just happen even if they know it will be terrible for others or run the risk of destroying or corroding democratic norms if it means it will serve their ends in the long run. The benefit of not overtly supporting terrible events or people up front is that you can plausibly deny ever being part of anything if it all falls apart. Either way, those with wealth and power maintain their control by either openly supporting things or just merely standing aside to allow things to happen even though they have the power to stop it.

Those with wealth and privilege win in any situation … if fascists or authoritarians gain control, they can step in line as friends who had shown some support … if authoritarians lose, they can step in anyway and say that they never supported anyone.

When you look at this way, you realize that those who are beholden to wealth, power and control only have an allegiance to one thing … maintaining their power and control at all costs … even if it means supporting those they disagree with or those they know will destroy morals and ethics.

My favorite example of this is the idea of money and finance.

There are trillions and trillions of dollars worth of imaginary wealth everywhere. None of it can be backed by actual product or material … it all exists because we all collectively believe that it exists.

It’s our modern day religion and we all believe in it and worship it daily … All Hail Money!

Wow … that was beautiful … and I love Redbone … I’ve never seen this. It’s what happens when our social circles and ability to pass along content between one another becomes smaller and smaller.

That was a fun watch and like everything I ever see, read and watch these days that has Indigenous content, I had to carefully look into who made, produced and created this and it looks legit and everyone participated in good faith to make it and the Indigenous community love it.

Not only was it fun to watch, it was uplifting too. This is the thing that many non-Native people miss about Native people, we are often portrayed as serious, sour looking people who wave our hands in the air and give off some kind of magical ancient power of some kind. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve known many traditional Elders in my life and they are all as silly, funny and take themselves as unseriously as anyone in these little communities of ours. They offer wisdom and knowledge but in a way where they don’t take a moral high ground over anyone. It’s a perspective where we are all standing on the same ground and no one is higher than anyone else … including the one who is speaking. Because in the end, we are all born of the ground and return to it in the end and that fact is what makes us all the same, no matter what we would like to believe or disbelieve.

That really made my day. Chi-meegwetch doodem … it means ‘thanks very much, my friend’ … kitchi-neenaskoomeetin … ‘I give my praises to you’ … and also ‘keeteesee’ … it means ‘your belly button’ (it’s a childish thing to say to a friend to have a bit of fun with them) … lol

This is the classic argument or debate I have about political figures like this in history.

They don’t appear out of a vacuum of their own will … they are not just some all powerful persuasive figure that just pushes people to do what they want. Maybe that could have happened in the distant past but not in our modern world.

Political leaders today get to their position because others with power allow them. Money is poured into them, money to promote, to advertise, to market, to manage, to manipulate … in short, the political figure of Turnip came to be because it was allowed by those with power. It didn’t have anything to do with his ability to promote, stall or politically manoeuvre around.

He came to be because he was allowed to take the lead and those with power wanted him there and kept him there.

As an Indigenous Canadian, I’m used to losing … I’ve spent my life literally losing much of the time. I was born losing.

That never meant that I would give up fighting or trying.

Mom and dad were born in terribly hard lives yet they worked like crazy to give me and my siblings everything and give us a chance.

One of my favorite hockey mentors when I was growing up was my older cousin. He was about ten years older and he had an obvious disability and spinal deformation. But when he was younger he was still able to play hockey. Everyone dismissed him but in every game, he never gave up and played every moment as hard and as much as he could, which was a lot and it surprised everyone. I saw him and I learned to play like him … just never give up even if you’re obviously losing.

Then I’ve spent my whole life fighting and trying because that is what I was taught.

Never, ever give up.

Your explanation is a continuation of the fallacy … (please don’t take this the wrong way as a personal attack against you)

Your explanation starts off by accepting that someone like Trump is a legitimate political leader. The Democrats presented legitimate candidates, who did some minor faux pas and were ridiculed for it or the Democratic leader or politician was accused of wrong doing and then hounded for it relentlessly.

Trump was the anomaly, he said and did things that any previous politician would have been ridiculed and blasted by the public media of all sides … but for whatever reason, everyone allowed him to stay in the limelight and never called him on his deranged antics … everyone enabled his behaviour … for years.

Someone like Trump doesn’t come out of thin air or through the force of their own will … if that were the case, we’d have people like him everywhere. People like him come to power because other powerful people allow him to get that position … and then a population is conditioned to allow him to stay in the public eye through constant marketing and promotion.

“I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.”

• George Carlin.

Cults are built on the power of belief and the more people who believe in a movement the more powerful it becomes.

If ten thousand cult worshipers claimed their leader walked on water, how would you go about convincing them otherwise, even if you had proof.

Look at Islam or Christianity or Judaism, they influence the world but they’re all only built on the power of belief.

And you can equate religions and cults because the only difference between the two is time.

The more important question is why the media and the political establishment and the public have allowed … for years … an obviously sociopathic, unintelligent, unsympathetic, unethical, immoral, convicted and openly supportive or suggestive fascist to lead and have a prominent role in their national politics.

This is like asking why there’s a fire in the kitchen after you’ve left the stove on high for the past 20 hours.

The problem is not that there is a person like Trump, the problem is a country that allowed it to happen.

This won’t become a major headline until people start starving and rioting … until then, it’s just interesting.

She’s going to blame it on Dr. Crusher.

Loved Halloween and drive ins when I was a kid.

I was up in Timmins one year with my family and we spent Halloween collecting candy and then everyone packed into a van to go to the local drive in. We stayed up watching cheesy horror films with Vincent Price and all the oldies back to back until about three in the morning. I don’t remember much because I fell asleep after falling off a sugar high about half an hour into the first movie and then slept the rest of the time. Nothing like waking in a daze to big giant images of Vincent Price on a big giant screen in the middle of the northern wilderness.

My jaw dropped … off my face … and onto the flooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaa

It was partly to save myself … we got rained on for Halloween this year so we had half as many kids come to the door. I had stocked up on a ton of candy and I wanted to get rid of it as much as possible. I really didn’t want to get stuck with several boxes of chocolates and chips at the end of the night. You should have seen the two teens that I decided were going to be the last ones I served for the night at 8:50pm … I had about a hundred little chocolate bars and about eight bags of little chips … I told them they were the last two I would serve for the night and I gave them everything. They were tall kids about maybe 14 or 15 and I could see myself in them. I thought, if I were them, I would have been very happy to meet an adult like me on Halloween night. Felt great to give all that stuff to them. Their eyes were wide and amazed as I filled their bags. They’ll enjoy it more than me.

Had some teenagers come to the door at the end of the night with really lame costumes, with cheap capes and a bit of face make up. I don’t think they cared what they were dressing up us and they were going through the motions of collecting candy.

From my own experience as a kid on Halloween, I’m pretty sure they had been to a few houses where people weren’t nice to them.

I made them laugh and asked them if they were having fun … then gave them several handfuls of chocolates, candies and a bunch of chips. They were surprised and said mine was the best house they’d been to. Told them they were great and to have fun. Waved them off and saw them running down the street.

It’s great to be a kid … but it also feels good to make kids feel great too.

Not even The Invisible Man?

This will be the template of what is to come for all of us all over the world.

Climate caused catastrophes and instead of working together, having patience with government, trying to figure out solutions, working cooperatively … we’ll all protest, fight, get angry with one another and make the situation worse for one another.

We won’t be working together to deal with the problem or admitting to one another that we are causing the climate catastrophes or doing anything significant to lessen the effects or even change our behaviour … we’ll just protest our governments for not having magical instant solutions to impossible problems.

None … but if I had had a relative or friend tell me a story that someone had buried something there 50 years ago, I would have taken the time to dig it up while I was tearing down walls or breaking concrete.

Who says this isn’t just one giant inflatable bouncy station?

The Chinese are not stupid and know that other nations would be taking satellite photos, so one of the possible explanations is the Chinese just trolling everyone with a satellite camera.