Despite making a (rather poor) career out of offering (also rather poor) observations on life politic, I am not exactly the most politically motivated individual.
Indeed, much of my political underpinning comes from comedy. When I was a kid, I used to listen to Royal Canadian Air Farce. When the then-current leader of the NDP came on the program and delivered the line the show had made famous: “Hi! I’m Ed Broadbent!” (The implication being nobody in the House of Commons knew who he was because the NDP only had 30 elected members), I decided he was now my favourite politician because he was willing to make fun of himself.
Since then, I’ve mostly looked at politics and politicians through this lens of comedy, not because politics isn’t serious, but because you need to not take even serious matters too seriously.
When I was a teenager, I was a big fan of the Rhino Party. The Rhino Party was a Marxist-Lennonist movement, being fans of both Groucho Marx and John Lennon. Their platform stood two feet high and was made of wood. Some notable election promises made by the party or members of the party (who were completely free to make up whatever they wanted) included:
- repealing the law of gravity;
- providing higher education by building taller schools;
- making the Trans-Canada Highway one way only; and,
- changing Canada’s currency to bubble gum, so it could be inflated or deflated at will.
I always planned on voting for the Rhino Party, but when I was finally old enough to vote, there were no candidates in the ridings I lived in, and then the party died in 1993.
In 2006, the party returned, but it didn’t have the same joie de vivre. Possibly it was because I had grown up. Possibly it was because the party hadn’t.
In the last few weeks, though, I’ve had this strange feeling in my chest that I’m pretty sure is anxiety. That’s something that hasn’t happened to me before. Historically, I’ve laughed at the stupid things stupid politicians have done, but the level of stupidity has climbed to hitherto unexplored heights. Or depths, depending on which direction you measure stupidity.
Take for instance, exhibit 4232: Trump’s threats on Greenland. Part of his reasoning that Greenland should be taken over by the Americans is that Russia has designs on Greenland and he doesn’t want Russia to be neighbours with the states, apparently not realizing that, at its closest, Russia is only about 3 km from the US now. Greenland, on the other hand, is 4,869 km from the closest point in the US. Russia, for their part, denies any interest in the island.
Trump also argues that China wants to take over Greenland. China, which borders a completely different ocean than Greenland, is 7,794 km away. If you were to bore a tunnel through the centre of the earth, it would be about the same distance. Like Russia, China has expressed no desire for Greenland.
Trump, on the other hand, has. Indeed, as I was working on this paper, it was discovered he wrote a letter to the prime minister of Norway (Norway, not Denmark, of which Greenland is a self-governing territory of.)
He writes: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight Wars…I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace….”[sic]
So, because an independent, non-political organization in a country unrelated to the country that is in charge of the place he wants to take over can’t recognize his commitment to peace, he may go to war…. His commitment to peace is admirable.
He continues: “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago.”
Never mind that Americans claim a right of ownership to the southern part of North America because a boat landed there 400 years ago, (though they broke ties with the country that sent the boats), despite objections raised by the local inhabitants.
There are written documents, dating back to 1916, when Robert Lansing, the undersigned Secretary of State for the USA, declared in writing that “the Government of the United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.” In return, the Americans got a bunch of islands in the West Indies, including one now known colloquially as Epstein Island.
I’m trying to laugh at the whole thing, to find the humour in it, but then I see videos of American citizens getting shot by other American citizens. People getting beat up and tear gassed. People getting detained, arrested and deported to foreign jails, and that feeling of anxiety returns.
When writing about things that divide, including politics, my message has always been to remember the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” If you want people to treat you with respect, then treat them with respect.
I fear that the opposite is about to take place: that instead of treating others as you want to be treated, the people who are being mistreated are going to start treating others the way they ARE being treated.
One of my favourite musicians penned this line: “We hold this truth to be as dear to life as bread/People think better when they don’t have a gun at their head.”
He was writing about right wing regimes such as Pinochet, as well as left-wing governments in Eastern Europe, arguing that authoritarian and totalitarian states—where ever they fall on the political spectrum—are bad and that we—as fellow humans—should be standing up for the ones being downtrodden, even if we disagree with them politically.
It’s Martin Luther King day as I write this, so I’ll end with a quote of his: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Lord, lead us not onto the path that leads to perishing….
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
