Friday, July 13, 2018

Thinking about Normalization


Last weekend on “To the Contrary” the guest was Amy Siskind who has authored a book and continues a website called “The List” or “The Weekly List”.  It is an attempt to document the weekly news stories (without editorializing) coming out of the USA and how these stories are normalizing authoritarianism and undermining the Americans’ freedoms.  Why should this be of concern to Canadians, indeed to those around the world?  In my opinion the influence of the USA is still so great that it affects everyone, even to their style of thinking.  Normalizing xenophobia, for instance, is an extremely slippery slope that cannot bear repeating. 

There is a wave of “populism” around the world that easily translates into racism. It is a worrying trend but unless people actually start analyzing, listening and asking the RIGHT questions even “good” people can be led down a wrong path.  I think back to the book “Every Man Dies Alone” and how the couple tried to fight back but their neighbours were too frightened by the Nazi regime to make a push to do what was right.  As I observed earlier this month, no action is still an action.  One must resist what you know in your heart is wrong.  All people deserve to live on this planet regardless of race, gender or sexuality.   Who is anyone to make an alternate decision?  Only a coward and a bully would make such a move.  Humanity ought to be better than that, and I believe most of us are.

Here is a link to The Weekly List -  https://theweeklylist.org/

“As people think in their hearts, so they are.”  King Solomon

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