,
18 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Memory is so frail and fallible. And when memories are not reinforced with lived experience, they disappear. Just think of what we have forgotten, what memories have been lost... 1/18 #cdnpoli
My Mom used to tell me about when she was a girl in the 1920s and 1930s. Sometimes, sickness would spread through her Saskatchewan town. Then there would be empty desks at school, and new graves in the churchyard. This was before vaccinations were available. 2/18
My Mom had Whooping Cough (Pertussis) herself when she was a child. She told me how exhausting and awful it was. She was so sick for so long. Wracked with coughs, unable to catch a breath, panicking... It is a very cruel disease. 3/18
My Dad had scarlet fever. It's a variation of a strep infection, now almost unheard of because of vaccines. He had to lie in the dark for days and days because bright light can damage the eyes of anyone infected with the disease. 4/18
He was just a boy. He wanted to be up and out, doing kid stuff. Or even to amuse himself with reading. But he couldn't, because he had a serious disease that is totally preventable now.
My father-in-law had polio. He was bedridden a long time. 5/18
My father-in-law had polio. He was bedridden a long time. 5/18
He eventually recovered, although many did not. And now, in his 80s, he is stricken with post-polio syndrome that severely affects his mobility. There were no vaccines back then. There are now, so no kid now has to go through that. 6/18
We forget. Especially if we haven't lived through these traumas. We get complacent about stuff and we buy into the nonsense being promoted on social media and in the celebrity tabloids. 7/18
We lose sight of the fact that scientists, not supermodels or actors, have the best handle on how to prevent disease. Because they have devoted their lives to study and research. They have facts, not opinions. 8/18
Likewise, there are fewer and fewer among us who remember what it was like in the late 1930s and through the 1940s. There are fewer and fewer who have actually experienced a Nazi regime. 9/18
And so, just like how people are not vaccinating their children, thus exposing them and others to horrible preventable disease, people are viewing the new crop of Nazis in our midst as "not so bad", "just patriotic", "misunderstood"... 10/18
And that is incredibly dangerous. Canada, and many other countries, are facing an existential threat, without even knowing it. A Canadian Legion in Grande Prairie hosted a Soldiers of Odin recruitment event this past week. (.cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…) 11/18
CPC and UCP MPs/MLAs and candidates have posed with Soldiers of Odin, Ontario Proud, Yellow Vesters, Rebel Media personalities, and other "alt-right" (aka neo Nazis) and few seem to be batting an eye. Not our media, for sure. 12/18
Andrew Scheer, leader of the CPC, hired Hamish Marshall (co-founder of Rebel Media and colleague of Ezra Levant) as his campaign manager. Georganne Burke, founder of an anti-Islam group, is Scheer's campaign outreach chair. 13/18
You don't have to take my word for it. north99.org/2018/08/10/a-n… 14/18
Memory is so frail & fallible. We are failing to recognise Nazist tendencies in our midst. What do we need to see to believe this is the wrong path for our country? Do we need round ups of people based on who they are, colour of their skin, their religion, who they love? 16/18
Is that what it will take for people to see what is going on? Will they see even then? So much has been normalised. Racially motivated police brutality. An upsurge in hate crimes. A hardening of hearts towards those in need... 17/18
I wish we could inoculate ourselves against falling under the spell of rage and fear and bumper-sticker slogans. We don't have a vaccine for that. We need to use out minds and our hearts. We need to see what is unfair, wrong, cruel. And we need to stop that shit. 18/18
