I was approached by an irate politician the other day who said to me, “You know you can defame someone without mentioning their name.” To which I replied, “It’s not defamation if it’s true.” The response was, “You’d better be careful.” To which I replied, “You had best be careful too.” The unsatisfied politician turned away and told me to “Go to Hell.”

This all took place in the waiting area outside of the official chambers and rather than return to continue my regular reporting, I chose to sit outside and do some research on defamation. I was right. In the Province of Ontario and across most of the civilized literate world, if you say something about someone that is true, it is NOT defamation. If you say something about someone that is false, but does not damage their character or reputation, it is NOT defamation.

The main difference between defamation and libel is that the former is in speech and the latter is in print. Since my stories were in print, the politician concerned already had it wrong. Beyond which, it is beneficial to have character and a good reputation in order to make libel and defamation claims credible.

Here’s an example. Let’s say a politician has been repeatedly found guilty of violating their political Code of Conduct by the local Integrity Commissioner. The factual reporting of this may, and should, cause damage to that politician’s reputation. However, it is NOT libel. Nor would it be defamation to discuss these factual charges by the Integrity Commissioner in a public forum. The truth shall set you free.

Further, if one reported that this same politician engaged in tantric meditation during phases of the full moon, while not true, if not damaging to the person’s reputation is not considered libel, or defamation if spoken. That’s the law.

Now, a smear is something else indeed, usually associated with the less factual and more viral human condition called “rumour mania.”  Rumour mania takes place when misinformation begins to be circulated by word of mouth or social media, gets repeated and amplified, and takes on the aura of “truthful hyperbole”, or “fake news” as it is known in the Trump era.

When misinformation gets circulated as truth and drives the madding crowd into a “burn the witch” frenzy, it can cause untold harm and damage not only to personal reputations, but to the social fabric of community itself. If a person in a position of responsibility gives out that misinformation, intentionally or accidentally, they are duty bound to correct their error and apologize. Unfortunately, in this day of Facebook posts and reposts, the damage is already out there and morphing into a monster in cyberspace.

And with daily examples of this to the south of our national border, where the leader of a country can lie and sue until he wins, we have to go to higher ground for inspiration on how to lead, and speak and write.

I need to find higher ground after that  assault on my journalistic integrity, so today I’m planting garlic at the Albion Hills Community Farm. Tomorrow I have an interview with Professor Art Weis who is taking me on a tour of the Koffler Scientific Reserve in King, an environmental legacy donated in 1995 by business innovator and philanthropist Murray Koffler. This University of Toronto scientific reserve is home to Professor Weis’s studies of natural ecosystems evolutionary responses to climate change. Koffler recently passed away and this interview will be to honour his devotion to scientific research and education.

The nice thing about science is its veracity. As famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote recently: “To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of shit.”

Now ain’t that the truth.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

When Bannon and Trump began their rise to power, I thought that it was a bit of a bad joke. After all, what intelligent nation could fall for the alt-right fake news spewing from Breitbart and the ravings of a delusional megalomaniac who wanted to be King.

I was so wrong. It turns out there were enough disenfranchised, and/or ignorant, and/or unemployed, and/or alt-right white Americans and a dysfunctional Electoral College to elect a President who is now starring in the best rated comedy/drama/tragedy show on cable television. As one late night pundit observed, this is the first time in history we don’t have to write anything to get a laugh – we just show the video and play the audio and print out the tweets.

It would be laughable except for one thing. The white nationalist, white supremacist, alt-right agenda of this sad new truly White House is not Union but Secession. The enablers of this agenda included at one time or another Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sebastian Gorka, Alex Jones, Dan Scaravino, Julie Kirchner, and of course Donald  Trump Jr. and Sr.

Milo Yiannopoulos from Breitbart News didn’t last long into Trump’s presidency, his extremism being too difficult to ignore. But Bannon, the true architect of Breitbart’s alt-right agenda continued to contaminate the national agenda until the horror in Charlottesville, Virginia revealed his true intentions: the revival and ascendency of white political supremacy – in other words, a new Civil War.

The mob of well-organized Nazis, KKK clansmen, and alt-right ideologues that marched to defend the glorification of defeated Confederate icons were not marching to support the United States of America. They were marching to advance white nationalism. The White House support for that cause was clarified by the president’s attempt to bring moral equivalency to the Nazis and those opposing the Nazis. Remember World War 2 when the Allies were the good guys?

When it became obvious that the tide of public opinion and political support from business and industry were turning, Steve Bannon was fired as a Trump advisor. Now a wiser man might have bowed out quietly to give thoughtful time to his next moves. But an unchained Bannon proved to be a megalomaniac equal to the president: he declared he was free to use his weapons (fake news hate speech from Breitbart), declared “the Trump presidency over” (actually that is going to take Impeachment and prosecution, or resignation), and promised to “crush the opposition”.  Make America Hate Again.

Now at this point it is hard to tell if Breitbart News, which I have renamed Reichbarf News, is going to attack just the Trump White House, or all those moderates who seek to protect the United States of America, and/or try to incite another secessionist civil war to promote white political supremacy. Or maybe, just maybe, it may just disappear in an ever decreasing spiral of negativity chasing its own hateful tail.

Never forget, the purpose of the secessionists of the Civil War was to preserve slavery, promote the independence of States over Union, and ensure political liberty for whites. When a Confederate statue stands, it celebrates those goals. When a Confederate statue is removed and stored in a history museum, it celebrates freedom, social justice, and political equality for all.

Be very, very careful America. The secessionists are alive and well, and more dangerous than ever now that they are wounded.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

p.s. Breitbart roughly translated from the German means: to spread fake news

Once upon a time in the twentieth century, we had Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, and Tojo. It was not a great quintet for world peace.

Now, upon our time in the twenty-first century, we have al-Assad, Erdogan, Putin, Ayatollah Khomenei, and Jinping. This bad boy band of dictatorial supreme leaders could be the perfect storm for world chaos once again. Fuel for this fire comes with the rise of far right-wing extremism from France’s Marine Le Pen to the Netherlands Geert Wilders and all across Europe as the golden mean collapses. Fortunately, both Wilders and Le Pen lost the war.

Meanwhile, we have the two megalomaniac, narcissistic man-boys, Donald and Kim, taunting each other with nuclear annihilation. “Oh, yeah! My mother of all bombs is bigger than your mother of all bombs!” This mature level of diplomatic conversation, tweeted in the early morning hours across the Pacific, can only be fanning the winds of the perfect storm.

To add to this chaos theory of world political physics, stir in every extremist alt-right group in the U.S.A. broadcasting their terrorist propaganda from websites like 4chan, 8chan, Alternative Right, and Breitbart and you have the Sailer Strategy for dumbing down the American public and winning elections for the Freedom Caucus fanatics.

The solution?

First, in democracies, stop electing far right-wing governments and ignorant twits as leaders, and change the U.S. second amendment to read “the right to bare arms” ….

Secondly, turn off the black mirrors, remember the breaking news is usually not, stop reading reports from sloppy journalists, get a comfort pet, take long walks in wild places, and hang out with wise people.

Thirdly, learn how to grow food, care for animals, fish and hunt. As hockey legend Eddie Shack used to say, “You never know when they’re going to do it to you.”

Fourthly, love your family, love your partner, love yourself, love Earth and Fire and Wind and Water.

Fifthly, when the perfect storm is coming we had better know how to build the perfect shelter, and protect and feed the inhabitants.

And lastly, learned from the writings of my wellness mentor, legendary Samurai swordmaster, Miyamoto Musashi, (forgive my translation):

“Practice your skills every day, a thousand days.

Perfect practice, until the execution of your skills is like breathing.

Then you will be at the centre. Peace, love, and crush your enemies quickly.”

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

Donald Trump’s view of Andrew Jackson: “He had a big heart.”

Quote taken from Salena Zito’s interview with the President on Monday, May 1, 2017. The full transcript of that interview is an addendum at the end of this article.

***

Our North American native peoples, however, had a different view of the seventh President of the United States of America. From the February, 20, 2017 issue of Indian Country Today:

A brief essay on why Andrew Jackson is one of the worst ten Presidents in United States history.

by Gale Courey Toensing • February 20, 2017

Andrew Jackson: A man nicknamed “Indian killer” and “Sharp Knife” surely deserves the top spot on a list of worst U.S. Presidents. Andrew Jackson “was a forceful proponent of Indian removal,” according to PBS. Others have a less genteel way of describing the seventh president of the United States.

“Andrew Jackson was a wealthy slave owner and infamous Indian killer, gaining the nickname ‘Sharp Knife’ from the Cherokee,” writes Amargi on the website Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory & Practice. “He was also the founder of the Democratic Party, demonstrating that genocide against indigenous people is a nonpartisan issue. His first effort at Indian fighting was waging a war against the Creeks. President Jefferson had appointed him to appropriate Creek and Cherokee lands. In his brutal military campaigns against Indians, Andrew Jackson recommended that troops systematically kill Indian women and children after massacres in order to complete the extermination. The Creeks lost 23 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama, paving the way for cotton plantation slavery. His frontier warfare and subsequent ‘negotiations’ opened up much of the southeast U.S. to settler colonialism.”

Andrew Jackson was not only a genocidal maniac against the Indigenous Peoples of the southwest, he was also racist against African peoples and a scofflaw who “violated nearly every standard of justice,” according to historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown. As a major general in 1818, Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida chasing fugitive slaves who had escaped with the intent of returning them to their “owners,” and sparked the First Seminole War. During the conflict, Jackson captured two British men, Alexander George Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, who were living among the Seminoles. The Seminoles had resisted Jackson’s invasion of their land. One of the men had written about his support for the Seminoles’ land and treaty rights in letters found on a boat. Andrew Jackson used the “evidence” to accuse the men of “inciting” the Seminoles to “savage warfare” against the U.S. He convened a “special court martial” tribunal then had the men executed. “His actions were a study in flagrant disobedience, gross inequality and premeditated ruthlessness… he swept through Florida, crushed the Indians, executed Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and violated nearly every standard of justice,” Wyatt-Brown wrote.

In 1830, a year after he became president, Jackson signed a law that he had proposed – the Indian Removal Act – which legalized ethnic cleansing. Within seven years 46,000 indigenous people were removed from their homelands east of the Mississippi. Their removal gave 25 million acres of land “to white settlement and to slavery,” according to PBS. The area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations. In the Trail of Tears alone, 4,000 Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.

***

Addendum: Salena Zito’s interview with President Donald Trump was aired Monday, May 1, 2017 on Sirius XM radio:

TRUMP: They said my campaign is most like, my campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson with his campaign. And I said, “When was Andrew Jackson?” It was 1828. That’s a long time ago. That’s Andrew Jackson. And he had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately it continues.

ZITO: His wife died.

TRUMP: His wife died. They destroyed his wife and she died. And, you know, he was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, you know, he visited her grave every day. I visited her grave actually, because I was in Tennessee.

ZITO: Oh, that’s right, you were in Tennessee.

TRUMP: And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. Well, they love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee.

ZITO: Yeah, he’s a fascinating —

TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, and he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, “There’s no reason for this.” People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why?

ZITO: Yeah —

TRUMP: People don’t ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

***

Hmmm … Why?

I wonder. As I also wonder about these revisionist historical observations from Mr. Trump at the outset of his remarks at a campaign stop in Buffalo on April 18, 2016:

“I wrote this out, and it’s very close to my heart because I was down there and I watched our police and our firemen down at 711, down at the World Trade Center right after it came down. And I saw the greatest people I’ve ever seen in action.”

Hold the presses! He may have watched the police and firemen on 911, not to be confused with the 711 convenience store, but if so he watched it unfold on television. He was neither “down there” … he was ensconced in Trump Tower, nor did he bother to correct his 7ll gaff.

At a later Columbus, Ohio rally in November 2016, Trump said he watched the towers fall from his New York City apartment. “Many people jumped and I witnessed it, I watched that. I have a view — a view in my apartment that was specifically aimed at the World Trade Center,” Trump said. “And I watched those people jump and I watched the second plane hit … I saw the second plane hit the building and I said, ‘Wow that’s unbelievable.'”

If indeed Mr. Trump saw this event unfolding from his lofty perch in Trump Tower, he must truly have the eyes of the Eagle-in-Chief he imagines himself to be. Trump Tower is fully four miles away from the site of the former World Trade Centre.

He could, however, have watched it unfolding in real time from one of his black mirrors, confusing something he is watching on television with actually being present at the event. It could explain his continuing confusion with thinking that viewing something on his really big screen is the same as experiencing it in reality.

True, he did seem to understand that Jackson came from an earlier era, but couldn’t seem to reconcile the fact that Old Hickory. who was “really angry about what was happening in regard to the Civil War”, had in the ground for sixteen years before the Civil War began. Hard to be angry when you’re decomposing.

Hard to be President when you’re not all there.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon