{"id":17814,"date":"2017-07-13T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T15:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17814"},"modified":"2017-07-13T11:56:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T15:56:08","slug":"politics-as-usual-stop-the-inanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-stop-the-inanity\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Stop the Inanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well it has been an interesting few weeks on the world political stage.
\nThe G20, the failing Health Bill \u2013 Trumpcare \u2013 in the US, uprising in Venezuela, the tentative defeat of ISIS in Mosul. And then there is North Korea. There has been the terrifying nuclear weapons test by the North Koreans, a test of an apparently fully functioning ICBM with the potential to strike mainland USA.
\nAgain, as with other announcements from the North Koreans about their nuclear weaponry, it is not immediately clear whether it is in fact true. However, all signs point to it being true this time. There is a real bomb attached to a real missile that can really hit North America.
\nThat\u2019s terrifying. Arguably the world\u2019s most unstable leader now has weapons of mass destruction \u2013 weapons that could hit North America \u2013 at his stubby, twitchy fingertips. Whatever petty, manufactured grievance he may have with the US can now be acted upon with deadly force. The implications for us here in Canada cannot be understated.
\nIt\u2019s not clear whether they could launch a bomb tomorrow, as many experts have noted that their capabilities are at least five years away, but they are that much closer to being able to do so.
\nThe world has reacted with a range of responses all varying on a theme of condemnation. Canada \u201cdenounces\u201d the test. The UN Security Council \u201ccondemns\u201d the missile test. Following the July 4, successful test of an ICBM with a range of potentially 8000 km \u2013 according to the Japanese \u2013 an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was held to discuss what action if any could be taken immediately to address these dangerous launches.
\nIn response, the US and South Korea decided to demonstrate a show of force by conducting massive military \u201cexercises.\u201d China and Russia condemned the North Koreans for the test and the Americans for the \u201cprovocative\u201d exercises.
\nAnd Trump? Well, he tweeted about it of course. It was has been described as a \u201cmocking\u201d tweet, Trump asked if Kim had \u201cnothing better to do\u2026\u201d
\nHmmm. Well that sounds like a strong diplomatic response to a global crisis. Not sure provoking a clearly unhinged leader, who has ready access to nuclear weapons no less, is a smart move but no one has said that Trump\u2019s global political \u201cstrategies\u201d (if there are any), are smart.
\nBut enough of the snark.
\nMy point, in this somewhat rambling mid-summer column, is that there are more important things going on than the antics of Trump (or Trudeau\u2019s \u201csock\u201d diplomacy) that some journalists choose to focus on. Yes, Trump has been tweeting away like a madman on journalists\u2019 supposedly bleeding facelifts. And \u201cBeautiful health plans.\u201d And fake news. And it is appalling.
\nBut it isn\u2019t worthy of the extensive coverage it has generated. What is worthy of coverage? What is happening to the people of Venezuela? What concrete actions are world leaders taking to mitigate the threat posed by North Korea\u2019s nuclear sabre rattling? Given the raging wild fires in BC and California, what is the US and Canada doing to address the severe weather implications of climate change?
\nI am weary of the inane leading every newscast and newspaper headline. I think it\u2019s time we recognize that we should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Well it has been an interesting few weeks on the world political stage. The G20, the failing Health Bill \u2013 Trumpcare \u2013 in the US, uprising in Venezuela, the tentative defeat of ISIS in Mosul. And then there is North Korea. There has been the terrifying nuclear weapons test by the North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Dk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-03 04:38:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}