Dr Liz Gordon: Inspiration or incitement
So the pipe bomber targeting Democrats in the US was a Trump fanatic wanting to destroy his enemies? This is not surprising except to certain Republicans, who were keen to pin it on the Democrats as a sort of reverse strategy to harm Trump by harming their own.
The ability to be inspired is another of those very human traits that I try and discuss in this blog from time to time. I am not against inspiration. People can be inspired to do all sorts of wonderful things – education, philanthropy, great personal or social feats.
I assume that when Jacinda opens a debate on kindness she is trying to inspire people to be kind. It is a great goal. I am a big believer in being kind as a way to improve one’s lives and the lives of others.
So looking at the reverse: When Donald Trump is railing against people of other colours, immigrants, Democrats, the media and anyone else in speech after speech, is he:
- Trying to shore up his own support among the people?
- Trying to persuade people that he is the best leader since Abe Lincoln?
- Inciting his supporters to action against the enemies?
- All of the above?
I think it must be all of those things, plus the fact that he simply runs off at the mouth a blitz of hate speech akin to Hitler’s rants in the 1930s. Whatever, the chain of responsibility between his hate speech and the hate actions of the pipe bomber is undeniable. While I agree with Trump that he is not criminally responsible for the pipe bombs, he is socially and politically culpable for them. Sort of a war crimes level of incitement.
Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research. Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).
After being bombarded for days by the msm about THE PIPE BOMBER (did any of these actually explode?) Thoughts turn to the amazingly bumbling evil russian spies leaving perfume bottles of deadly nerve agent lying around england. Great to see that the trillion dollar security services with their internet access to spy on the citizenry etc. were well ahead of the game, and nabbed the evil doer before he could send said bombs???
They (America) aren’t the only country deeply divided so is our own country and it doesn’t help that we have many foreigners allowed to come here for the wrong reasons ( cheap labour) Unlike our Maori people they aren’t being assimilated.