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Both of these men took advantage of racial prejudice to get what they wanted. What the man on the left wanted was heroic.
I’m scrambling from one busy week — Council meetings, Anaheim Districting Committee meeting, CATER Climate Change fundraiser — to the next. (Another Districting meeting comes up next Wednesday, and there is much to do to prepare.) So, this is going to be an abbreviated Weekend Open Thread, with some good news and some bad news.
The good news regards Malyk Bonnet (the one in the photo above without the combover.) Unless you’ve seen the story (and I really don’t know how prevalent it has become in the corporate media, aside from the NBC story that appeared after the event), you’ve almost surely never heard his name. But what he did will make you cheer.
As described in this story, on August 1 Malyk Bonnet was in a bus station in Montreal when he saw a man yelling abusively at the woman accompanying him. The man then asked him to give them bus fare for a trip to Laval, a town about 25 miles away. Bonnet may have looked like an easy mark, or at least someone who would not get in the way of what the man wanted to do.
Bonnet felt uneasy about what was happening. But instead of declining, he decided to get more involved. He helped the man and woman with their fares and told them he was also traveling to Laval (which was not the case).
“My plan was to keep them in a public place where he wouldn’t hurt her,” Bonnet told Dateline NBC. “I decided to be friendly with the man and have him think I was his friend. I played my game and he seemed to trust me.”
After arriving in Laval, Bonnet suggested they grab a bite to eat. At the restaurant, he gave the pair $50 for food and excused himself to use the restroom. Finally having the opportunity, he called the police and told them “someone had been kidnapped.” Officers arrived minutes later.
Bonnet’s suspicions turned out to be more than justified:
“We were looking for a 29-year-old woman who was kidnapped by her former boyfriend earlier that day,” Laval police Lt. Daniel Guérin told CBC News. “We believed that man was very dangerous.”
It’s unfortunate that in the U.S. Bonnet would have had to think twice about calling the cops in such a situation — because you never know what might happen.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of articles about Donald Trump for you to consider:
A piece from Salon about Trump’s “authoritarian rage.”
A piece from Rolling Stone about Trump’s responding to a the beating of a Latino homeless man by two white Boston youth, who later justified the act by invoking Trumps position on “illegal immigrants,” by explaining that while he didn’t agree with what they did, his followers did tend to be “passionate.” (The title is “Donald Trump Just Stopped Being Funny.”)
Here’s a piece from the land of Political Science that gets tossed around a lot. I would not defend its complete accuracy, but it strikes me as being in the ballpark. It’s entitled “Early Warning Signs of Fascism.” They are:
- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
- Disdain For Human Rights
- Identification of Enemies as a unifying cause
- Supremacy of the military
- Rampant Sexism
- Controlled Mass Media
- Obsession With National Security
- Religion and Government Intertwined
- Corporate Power Protected
- Labor Power Suppressed
- Disdain For Intellectuals & and the Arts
- Obsession With Crime & Punishment
- Rampant Cronyism & Corruption
- Fraudulent Elections
People often conflate “fascism” with one of two things: “conservatism” and “Nazism.” It’s not conservatism. It shares some characteristics with conservatism, just as liberalism shares some characteristics with socialism (by which I don’t mean merely Bernie- Sanders-style Scandinavian socialism), but they are NOT the same thing — particularly in the extremity of the beliefs expressed.
It also isn’t Nazism. Nazism was an example of fascism — just as Mussolini’s government before and during World War II was an example of fascism (and was the system that actually used the term “fascism” to describe itself), but these were just two examples of a far wider phenomenon. Americans — other than neo-Nazis — don’t generally like to think that the term “fascism” can apply to anything home-grown because then we’d have to worry about it possibly applying to us. But this is a dispensation that we haven’t earned. I appreciate that we don’t want to “normalize” the term “fascism” as part of the normal territory of possible political differences, but I think that this works against our real interests. Yes, it makes sense for us to worry about legitimizing the name “fascism,” but I think that we have to be more worried about legitimizing the extreme behavior that constitutes fascism, regardless of whether we choose to call it by that name. Refusing to call it what it is, I’m afraid, makes it easier for it to be considered normal and acceptable — when it is neither.
So, let me ask you: based on what you see in the list, is Donald Trump a fascist? (Note: he’s not a Nazi. Re-read the paragraph above if you don’t yet get what that is a different question.) If you think that Trump is something less than a fascist, where does he fall short of it? What would he have to do to make you decide that the jackboot fits?
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that, or whatever else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of decency and decorum.
And to start the ball rolling: an overwhelmingly Caucasian school in New Zealand says goodbye to one of their beloved teachers, a Maori.
http://www.hefty.co/dawson-tamatea/
Aw, that makes me want to put up a song from one of my favorite old (1979) New Zealand bands, The Only Ones. The great female backing vocalist you hear in “Out There in the Night,” was Maori… I’ve lost her name by now…
Don’t forget all that time censoring, removing and trying to explain away those comments YOU don’t agree with.
Methinks there was NEVER an offensive Lou Correa comment but you wanted to raise suspicions.
Thats right out of the Pedroza/DanC./Red County playbook.
Good move.
Do you want to see the one about Correa? I won’t email it to you (pretending for a moment that that you’ve provided your actual email address), because I don’t think that it should be distributed — but I can print it out and give it to someone I trust to show to you. Of course, that person would have to know your identity, or at least where to meet you. Let me know.
P.S. I’m not calling you an “Anonymous Coward” here because I’m trying to be conciliatory, as you seem so upset.
That was the second similar offensive Lou Correa comment from I presume the same anonymous coward… but they were both so absolutely silly I almost printed them. They seemed like parody, which nobody would believe. I’d almost thought that MAD Magazine was doing a sendup of Lou Sheldon or Bob Dornan.
Okay. I won’t pass along anything about “Lou Correa.”
But, how could a man be
1. a “homosexual”
2. who has two female “mistresses”
3. that are ALSO “homosexual”?
GOTTA be satire.
No, the claim was not that the three (not two) women — whom he named but whom we won’t — were his “mistresses.”
I have less faith than you do that people would accept assertions about people’s sexual orientation as “parody.” But if they really want to toss it out there, let them put their real name on it, so that they can be the ones to get sued.
I was thinking of the first comment, where there were two, and unnamed, and “mistresses” BUT “homosexual.” You may not have seen that one, I probably just laughed and deleted it.
Damn things are multiplyin’!
Oh, and of course I wouldn’ta printed the one that NAMED OFF all of Lou’s supposed homosexual female aides.
That’s because you are a responsible citizen journalist!
Now let us never speak of this again.
Hey, someone posted their livestream from our event! We’ll have a more professional version out later on. Thanks to some Anonymous Coward on the Cunningblog for the link!
http://livestream.com/accounts/2406741/events/4284626
as to the kid in canada, what you postulate is both presumptive and prejudicial
as to trump. well, at least the trains ran on time
“Presumptive and prejudicial” to suggest an American black in that situation would have misgivings about calling American cops?
Tell that to millions of black Americans.
Forget Bruno. You were competing with LOU CORREA himself, Thursday night. The Lomeli’s hosted a small but active group of Lou supporters. The problem is/was the resl players there didn’t live in the district. The fundraiser was in Orange, outside the 47th. I believe that to be Mimi Country. Speaking of country….it would not surprise me to see Lou wrestle away support from Brandman supporter and EXTRON executive Andrew Edwards to host a REAL $$$ fundraiser at his Ranch Saloon (where steaks run $115!!!). Can anyone say Kelleye Huff concert!!!
I don’t think that Lou Correa’s high rollers were our target audience. Could be wrong.
I don’t know about “High Rollers” Lou’s event was very affordable, $50. Per couple, $25. For a student and a whopping $125. to be considefed a host. They fex a decent catered meal and Lou mingled with all. Except for the swa ky neighborhood in which it took place it was decidely accessable. Hence my comment of a bigger, more costly function being talked about. The presumption that Lou is anything other than a man of the people is a false tag he’ll to shake to beat a millionare lobbyist (Dunn) and a popularly backed young candidate (Brandman). Even the guys here insinuated that this was somehow a elite event.
Oh, then I suppose that my presumption that it would be mostly hospital administrators, doctors, police officials, and representatives of the prison guard’s union, and a small token delegation from Disney was mistaken.
Also folks moved simply by brown skin.
Yes. I would say that your presumption was wrong. Your tone leads me to believe you don’t like Lou. You are most probably a “Brandman boy”. Brown skin, white skin, yellow skin doesn’t really matter. Who LIVES in the district and has it’s best intrests in mind does. It most certainly does.
Here’s an idea: lets just vote for whose special intrest we like best!
A Brand-name boy?
This oughta be good.
I prefer Lou to Brandman, I will give you that.
It’s the 46th, not the 47th (the mostly preceding districts switched numbers in 2011), and most of Orange IS in the district.
Steaks do not cost $115 at The Ranch, although if you buy a bottle of wine, dinner for two a la carte can easily set you back two hundred bucks before the tip.
Yes, Edwards lives in OPA.
Damn. I can’t keep up with the gerrymandering! You are correct. Although certainly OPA and Villa Park where the $$$ are is not in the CD. That is Walters domain.
I was being silly comparing your event to Lou Correa’s of course, then again these days who can tell.
Maybe not the one you buy “Zenger” (I didn’t either). But in the words of Dexter, “Why the fuck would you bother going to the Ranch and NOT buy the Porterhouse?”. On our visit there, I passed. But I did do double duty on the Rioja!! The popcorn Ice Cream thing is as uniquie as I have tasted.
As for Edwards I think he swings right and his wife left.
Doesn’t matter it’s a lot of money for a working man (or non-working man) to pay! But it’s GODDAMNED GOOD.
Well, you got me there. I had to check. The Cowboy Ribeye is $115 – four and and a half pounds, total weight. And that is disgusting. 28 acres of rain forest all by itself.
Yep. The food there is outstanding every time.
And you don’t have to put my name in quotation marks. I’m a real person.
Nice to have Siguera and Cerince here, imagine two guys who will put their own names to knowledge and opinions they’re not ashamed of.
Puts us a few rungs above Matt and Dan’s blogs.
POST YESENIA’S VIDEO. Theres a real hero.
Can anyone explain to me why, according to our stats, several people are now reading this long-dead post?
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/01/am-i-behind-the-curve-is-it-ok-to-call-rohrabacher-gay/
Is it due to my defense of Jordan Brandman?