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 No, Donald Trump is not a new Hitler, but he has the character of tyrants throughout history: punitive, egotistical and self-aggrandizing. One thing that unites Trump and other historical malfeasants is their love of pastoral retreats as a relaxing break from their serious work of control and predation. Mar a lago fits the Berchtesgaden model of anti-social economic zones. The implications are for viewers to puzzle over. 

# posted by Taodhg @ 9:10 pm 0 comments

If current tensions with Canada's southern neighbor seem unprecedented they are not. A set of  memorial stones in a park on Portland Street in downtown Toronto mark the graves of Canadians killed in the War of 1812. The war was with the United States. Like most wars it was about economic supremacy between the U.S,A. and British North America, now Canada,and ts indigenous partners. Through the war Canada retained its alignment, as a European counterweight to American imperial expansion of the time. If  Northern North America collaboration ensued in the 20th century European/world  wars,cultural distance nonetheless remains deep and its flare-ups should serve to remind Canadians and the world of the core differences that separate these North American neighbours. They make Canada with our national public health care service and third party a more European and social economic culture. Though some may see Trumpian outbursts as a social media artifact a profound values differential is the root cause and American style social media are, like Trump himself, a symptom of deep and dangerously insecure  isolationist instinct  in our deeplyly interconnected socio-cultural times.

# posted by Taodhg @ 10:29 am 0 comments