Word Fight

Last weekend on the ALFA Blog we had a discussion about the power of words, specifically as they relate to the extreme right-wing opinions of Sun columnist Michael Coren, and others of his ilk (the specific post is here). While there were some that dismissed the power of Mr. Coren’s words because they were based on ignorance and prejudice, I argued that his voice needs to be shouted back at because there are many dumb and hateful people who use his bigotry to fuel their own misguided beliefs.

This same reasoning is what led me to attack last weekend’s editorial by Dallas Hansen (my rebuttal is published with some amendments to the original--posted below--in today’s Free Press.) Whereas I will not accuse Mr. Hansen of being a right-wing extremist idiot on the level of Mr. Coren, he did, in his most recent editorial, make some very wrong-headed generalizations about a marginalized population.

Although I cannot claim to be an expert on the plight of the poor I do understand that their problems are not based primarily on laziness or the existence of welfare, and I could not stand by and let Mr. Hansen, a young and reasonably intelligent man like myself, be the only voice on the matter. He certainly is entitled to his opinion, but when he tries to convince the rest of Winnipeg, via the Free Press, he needs to be countered. His words had too much potential for damage in a city that already ignores its poor, lest it be to make bigoted remarks about them.

Currently the mayor is on a re-election campaign, and with no real brand-name competition he seems to be a lock. His much publicized solution to poverty and the crime it engenders is to increase the police presence on the streets of Winnipeg. This will mask the problem by incarcerating the under-privileged’s most obvious sub-group: the joy-riding car thieves and other petty criminals, but will do little to change the root causes.

Mayor Katz seems to be taking a page out of the book of Bush’s Republican re-election campaign whose unofficial slogan is: “Win ‘em over with Fear.” Like Bush Katz has no real interest in the poor, despite today’s publicity shot of him handing some coins to a panhandler. He is for big business and SUV driving soccer-moms; he represents, with no apologies, the suburban population of this city, the people who don’t come downtown because they fear muggings and vehicle break-ins. And in a sense that’s fine because the suburbs is where most of our population lives, but the truly sad thing is that Sam has no vision. He’s a respected business man with enough of a name that he is electable, and little more. Too bad for Winnipeg, especially those who could benefit from a more compassionate and dedicated mayor with some real ideas on how to improve this city for everyone's benefit, including the least among us.

**(The photo of Katz and Winnipeg citizen Danny Spence was taken by Mike Aporius and published in the Free Press)