Today's News: About authoritarianism

Over the last several days, I have seen a number of tweets and comments about authoritarianism as people try to understand what happened with everything from Jan 6 Insurrection to the FluTruxKlan, and what's coming up. 

Here's a roundup - 

First, Lindsay Graham has said some remarkably stupid stuff over the years, but this one takes the cake:

81 million Americans weren’t afraid of him. https://t.co/PVihXS2ULV

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 17, 2022

pic.twitter.com/nBjV1g2dA5

— wheredkittygo (@wheredkittygo) June 18, 2022

This is the most pure, artless, guileless expression of the authoritarian personality I've ever seen. https://t.co/6J0Fv5dOyS

— David Roberts (@drvolts) June 17, 2022

🎯 pic.twitter.com/Hn2LMDKyuA

— Alex Max Leupp (@ALXinPDX) June 18, 2022

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." ~ Euripides

— quotebot (@quot3bot) June 20, 2022

When @jonkay wrote his book on conspiracies he told me something I never forgot: when someone who has gone over the edge hears an hard truth from someone they’d normally trust, instead of re-evaluating their own view, they assume their trusted person is now compromised. In on it.

— Matt Gurney (@mattgurney) June 19, 2022

Winslow is 💯 correct. "When they go low, we go high" has proven a sucker's game. Time to pull out all the stops and treat this like the war that it is. We're engaged in an Oxford debate under Queensberry rules, while the 🐢 and ilk have brought a nuclear arsenal to a gun fight. https://t.co/ssuazpZsUE

— Jackie Blue 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 🌻 (@MsFuddleDuddle) June 18, 2022

Moving on to our very own Canadian authoritarian wanna-be, I think Poilievre's war room has finally figured out what his message should be -- keep saying "freedom" over and over, whether it makes any sense or not:

"Narnia is cool and coolness is it's nationality." That's why I'm running to be King - to put you back in control of your life and make Narnia the coolest country in the wardrobe.

See how meaningless his words are? pic.twitter.com/kwjRMqdSgX

— Kyle Anderson (@DrKyle) June 20, 2022

And I finally figured out last night what Poilievre and the Conservatives mean when they talk about "freedom" and how they "want Canada to be free." 

They mean, free to be assholes. 

Free to cheat, abuse and disadvantage lesser Canadians - like women, indigenous people, immigrants, poor people, old people, and so forth -- without being prevented or constrained by laws, civil rights, union contracts, health and safety requirements, professional standards, ethical principles, and all the other Canadian social advancements of the last century which improve everyone's quality of life.

Yeah, the CPC wants us to be "free" to discriminate against anybody for any reason, "free" to cheat our employees, "free" to pay for our own health care, "free" to starve when we retire....

— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️‍🌈 (@CathieCanada) June 19, 2022

If you think media not taking Poilievre seriously is bad just wait till some of them start writing that he's "the right choice for Canada".

— Trish (@trishanmo) June 11, 2022

The FluTruxKlan also think that "freedom" means free to be assholes:

Idiots!

— Diane Reid 🇨🇦🌎☮️😷 (@dianemariereid) June 18, 2022

They always had a demand that the democratically elected government step down and be replaced by a committee of Facebook Uncles. They disabled the Coutts border crossing and the capital city of a G7 country for almost a month with this central demand for authoritarianism.

— Shannon Phillips (@SPhillipsAB) June 19, 2022

The only time the police started taking the situation seriously last time is when Ottawa residents took matters into their own hands and blocked Billing’s Bridge. They knew if they let it slide any further we would end up with actual civil unrest.

— Captain Canuck (@captaincanuck73) June 19, 2022

Some interesting comments reminding Canadian media that their demand for retroactive justification of the Emergencies Act doesn't acknowledge the destructive failure of police across the country.

Columnists who didn’t dare come near Ottawa during the occupation still trying to spin it as some sort of freedom rally. Let’s arrange trucks outside your homes blasting horns and fumes all night. Also,your backyard?: their toilet. This will make a great reality show.

— Greg MacEachern (@gmacofglebe) June 12, 2022

It is amazing that all these pundits questioning the EA almost completely fail to bring up the most obvious point, and it leaves me (and many others) to wonder why they so nonchalantly brush off the CPC's role in the entire fiasco like they didn't do a fucking thing wrong.

— Right Wing, Shoots Left 🏒🥅🌈 😷💉💉 (@HILITINGHOCKEY) June 20, 2022

Not a jurisdictional issue,a legal obligation written in the Act.If it s ok for govt to not demonstate how it met the treshold in this case,it will be easy for future govts to give themselves a licence to use it to force down inconvenient Indigenous ou climate-driven blockades. https://t.co/wCKISeHUcy

— chantal hébert (@ChantalHbert) June 19, 2022

And yes, the Act requires the enquiry.

We are not required to find it important in a case where the need for urgent federal action was self-evident.

There’s no shortage of Important Things to hammer this govt on.

— Sandy Garossino 🇨🇦🌻 (@Garossino) June 19, 2022

Chantal talk to our South Asian drivers who's work lives and safety on the job were upended by the FREEDUMB brigade's blockade of BC borders,streets and hwys
We had to change their schedules and routes,have security in place due to harassment,threats and vile racism on display

— Tracey 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 BIPOC🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ally #CovidIsntOver (@mustangmadd) June 19, 2022

The police forces with jurisdiction to end it ,either couldn't or wouldn't
The FEDS accomplished in days what certain Provs didn't in weeks
As a transportation business owner ,we will forever be grateful for brief use of EA
and don't give a rat's ass about endless opining

— Tracey 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 BIPOC🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ally #CovidIsntOver (@mustangmadd) June 19, 2022

On a different topic - though related I know - here's some recent Covid news: 

If we can't figure out how to heal Long Covid, we're fucked. 

The world has decided Covid is "over" when actually its not. 

And now everybody is just totally mystified about why so many things aren't working right -- the hospitals are a nightmare and the planes are late and the airports are a mess and the supply chains are screwed up and companies are greedily grabbing profits while they can and there aren't enough parts to build stuff and factories don't get cleaned the so food gets recalled and on and on. 

Its Covid, Jake:

It’s going to take ppl a while to adjust to the reality of climate change and Covid: we simply can’t get on a plane at the drop of the hat and expect everything to go smoothly. Those days are gone. There aren’t enough healthy workers to make that possible. https://t.co/0owNgab98o

— Dr. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) June 19, 2022

Unless we have turned the clock back to medieval medicine we can’t live with COVID for the same reason we couldn’t live with polio, tuberculosis, bubonic plague, malaria, cholera and smallpox - they kill, scar or disable too many people

— Craig Wallace (@CraigWtweets) June 18, 2022

Covid will not be tamed until we have treatments that eradicate its reservoirs of persistence in the body. Our experience with HIV and TB shows that this is very difficult and potentially impossible.

Avoiding infection is the only logical strategy right now.

— Denise Dewald, MD 🗽 (@denise_dewald) June 19, 2022

Here's a good thread on what many call the working theories of #LongCovid - it's a very complex disease & we're just at the beginning of our understanding of it - we have a long way to go yet.https://t.co/9DaD5zO2Qw

— Lynn (@RadicalSister15) June 20, 2022

And hey, here's a tweet that brings me full circle from my authoritarian introduction tonight:

I wear a mask everywhere. Never had anyone comment, but if they do my response will be: “I’m wearing a mask to avoid catching whatever it is that keeps you from minding your own business.”

— Ivriniel (@Ivriniel) June 19, 2022

Finally, on a lighter note:

Proof. 😂😂 https://t.co/cyuYJ78W8M

— deconstruction barista (@thepursuinglife) June 20, 2022