Re: [OT] Pro-Palestinians in Toronto CELEBRATE Iranian bombs falling on Israel

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 16:17:44 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

Warren Kinsella, a self-admitted long-time Liberal shill, seems to
have finally had his fill of multi-culturalism in this article
written in response to a demonstration in Toronto today that was
interrupted to announce that Iranian bombs and missiles were landing
on Israel. The crowd responded with *CHEERS*. (Video included in the
article.) 

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/kinsella-is-this-at-long-last-the-result-of-multiculturalism

 

He's exactly right about the history: multiculturalism was pitched
for many years as a good thing and any opponents were demonized as
racists. Look where that's gotten us! 

 

The American melting pot concept wasn't a government program.

That's an interesting thing to say. I've never heard it stated that
way but it's important to say it to make clear that the melting pot
idea was an expectation of many Americans but not something mandated by
the federal or state governments.

Many
immigrants were both trying not to stand out and they were highly
motivated to integrate into society because they were forced out of
their shithole countries in Europe. They were fleeing persecution and
war after war after war. If you were on losing side, society had
essentially collapsed. On the winning side, you were going to be
forced to fight a war you didn't support in a country you didn't want
to go to.

But there are plenty of prominent examples in America contrary to the
"melting pot" concept. Certain Protestants throughout the 19th century
and much of the 20th century accused Catholics -- especially Irish
ethnics and immigrants -- of being Papists and therefore disloyal.

I've always assumed Papist and Catholic were exact synonyms, i.e. all
Catholics were Papists and all Papists were Catholics. Is that *not*
true?

It's an insult, accusing Catholics of being disloyal, having a higher
allegiance to the Church and its head of state the Pope than to their
own country. Have you ever heard a Catholic describe himself that way?

This was absurd given that the Irish had always been here in large
numbers since the colonial period. To counter that, municipal
government patronage was organized "tribally" before civil service
laws. The new administration fired everybody hired by the previous
administration to put in his own clan.

Tammany Hall and its equivalents in other cities.

That and certain very public
celebrations in America, like parades for Saint Patrick's Day, are
about drinking (as if the Irish needed another excuse) and honoring
the clan. It's not exactly celebrating a tradition in the old world
as they don't have four major parades like Chicago. Columbus Day, as
a federal government and state government public holiday (but not in
the private sector) is to honor Italian ethnics. I don't believe
Columbus leaving for the New World is celebrated in Spain (there's no
reason to celebrate it in Italy which didn't have colonies in the
Americas).

Italy itself wasn't unified into its modern form until the 1860s; prior
to that, there were a variety of Italian states.

Right. Columbus was from Genoa and as far as I know, when he set sail
isn't celebrated there with a national holiday.

(Much the same was the
case with Germany which only took on its modern form at the end of the
Franco-Prussian War in 1871.)

Lied der Deutschen (Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles), the national
anthem, was originally expressing a desire for a free German people to
unify in a free republic in a liberal society. They were calling the
remaining princes and others opposed to unification selfish, putting
their own interest above society. Of course, the way Germany united --
under a strong man after yet another war -- wasn't what they had in mind,

It was a nice sentiment before it was perverted, and you can't go wrong
setting your national anthem to the music of Haydn rather than a
drinking song.

The melting pot idea obviously didn't hold sway in other ways, of
course. America took in many Jews and they didn't all convert to
Christianity to fit it.

But that would have been un-American. We may have had cultural assimilation
to a greater or lesser extent, not religious assimilation. Which
Protestantism anyway? There are lots of choices, and some are very
different from each other.

No national church and no king are two of the greatest gifts our
Founding Fathers gave us.

Whatever concerns they must have had about
persecution - and they were persecuted every other place they ever
lived so surely must have expected more of the same in America - they
still felt they could practice their religion here.

It was nothing like Europe.
 

. . .

Kinsella mentions another important moment in recent Canadian history
when he mentions the Air India bombing in 1985. Sikh separatists in BC
blew up an Air Canada flight to India containing almost entirely people
from India in their rage over Indira Gandhi's crushing of the Golden
Temple of Amritsar, as led by a Sikh firebrand seeking an independent
Sikh homeland. I believe there are still tensions between Sikhs and
Hindus over this horrific act and it remains a source of tension
between Canada and India given that Modi deplores the idea of an
independent Sikh state and Trudeau is careful to defend the right of
Sikhs to aspire to a homeland.

He does? That worked out just great in Yugoslavia. He should keep his
mouth shut.

. . .