Trashed in Ottawa
Carrie Anne Stephenson surely commits Carrie Carrie in this feature interview with convoy associated political activist and owner of "White Trash Junk Removal", Clayton McAllister. Watch Carrie chat with Clayton about who's got the better voice, Kanye West or Morgan Freeman, why Nazi and confederate flags are shitty symbols no matter how cold it is and how, what the great reset and global elites don’t know, won't kill them.
OPINION:
(Please share your opinion by commenting at the bottom of this blog – thank you for your interest in the Newsload!)
I used to be Clayton McAllister.
Often good people use terms like white trash, in a joking way, not understanding the full context of the damage it causes. This is one of those times.
At the Newsload, we understand, if we don’t share these voices, they get siloed off into reinforcing echo chambers. We need to challenge each other and share alternate perspectives - on the right AND the left. Simply labeling people as ‘racist’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’ is arrogant, dismissive, and just makes our societal problems worse.
The Newsload is dedicated to reaching out, not reach arounds. That means giving voice to people like Clayton.
Fair minded arguments and alternate perspectives can change minds – it happened to me – but only if those arguments make sense and are delivered within an air of authenticity and respect. I hope that's what I'm doing in this blog.
Thank you Clayton for entrusting us with your story and views.
WHITE TRASH
Like the ‘n’ word people are free to use the language they want when they want - it’s a free country. But recognize, if you do, many will see you as racist and/or an asshole, for not caring about anything but your ‘right’ to say hurtful stuff. If that is the identity you want to embrace – then you do you.
I've realized that changing a word here and there is easy - a lot easier than not.
'White Trash' is racist in a couple ways – It serves the interests of those who want to denigrate and divide based on race. No one is trash – especially because of their race. Also, since the opposite of white is black, the insinuation is that ‘white trash’ brings white people ‘down to the level’ of black people. Clearly disparaging to black folks.
It is also classist in that trailer park folks, for instance, are not trash, they are poor and underserved by their communities/countries, often using drugs and alcohol as a means of coping with a world that has written them off and views them as ‘white trash’.
Divisions are, as usual, not racial at their root, but economic.
DIRECT REBUTTALS:
There is a difference between Kenya West and his misguided messaging around race and power and Morgan Freeman’s position regarding emphasis in messaging.
Even if Nazi and confederate flags were plants, as Clayton suggests (Note I have seen no evidence to support this and it logically makes no sense to me considering the clear, ideological leanings of some of those involved in the convoy.) why didn’t the leadership of the convoy uniformly condemn those flags AT THE TIME and the people who brought them? They did you say? I didn't see it. (It may have helped if mainstream media reporters weren’t purposely prevented from covering convoy leadership events. Like it or not millions of Canadians watch those channels, including myself.)
Saying that people who did egregious things were not part of the convoy, after the fact, doesn’t make them ‘not part of the convoy’. Convoy leadership did nothing to distance the convoy from these acts at the time. (Once again, it would have helped if mainstream media reporters weren’t purposely prevented from covering leadership events. Mistrust in mainstream media is a self fulfilling prophecy.)
It has always been the case that if you break the law, you can lose access to your bank accounts and livelihood. It’s called public order and rule of law. The rich know how to play the game. Us working class folks, not so much. Protesters may not have believed that it was right and fair to have been labelled and treated as criminals, but they were behaving like criminals when they refused to leave as ordered. They had been there three weeks and the citizens of Ottawa have rights too.
Global elites do control the world. The distinction is that they are all competing with one another, not conspiring. The hyper complexity of our world means everyone, including the elites, wake up every day, wondering what the fuck will happen next -- just like the rest of us. Control is an illusion, even at the highest levels. (Read more about my experience as a conspiracy theorist here.)
"We've been lied to our whole lives" was the scariest statement I heard in this interview. (I remember thinking this myself, years ago when I was terrified of what I had thought I had learned.) The question is, who has been lying to us our whole lives? This vast oversimplification of our world and country is dangerous. Sure, some politicians lie - some lie a lot -- but not all - and the implication they're all in lock step with each other is absurd. Democracy is messy - but it's a mostly transparent system that has won working class folks great rewards over the centuries. We've always relied on a free press to keep government honest. Unfortunately, those who are working to undermine democracy and steal power are actively convincing people that mainstream media, as a monolith, is corrupt and lying. Once again an absurd over simplification that is plainly impossible. (Read more about my experience as a conspiracy theorist here.)
I'm going to fight fire with fire here with this oversimplification -- Mainstream media is a collection of tens of thousands of individuals working to report facts. These facts must be checked and double checked, to assure veracity, before being broadcast. The media businesses that hire journalists build their reputations on the reliability of those facts.
If you're not seeing things on MSM you believe is true it's likely because:
There are fewer dollars too do proper research within the journalism business.
There are huge legal implications to running with a story before absolute certainty.
They are simply having a hard time verifying them as facts.
Like I said it's competitive. If a conspiracy theory COULD be proven TRUE - and it does happen now and again (look at Trump) - there is a gold rush on reporting it.
The real anti-democratic forces don’t want you to believe MSM because if you do you're harder to control. It's a story as old as democracy itself. Social media liars are turning it into a crisis.
CONCLUSION:
The opposite of fear is funny and where fear drives division, funny drives unity. Carrie isn’t perfect in this interview, but who the fuck is in these conversations? Judge all you want. She’s opening a dialogue that is FUCKING IMPORTANT, across ideological spectrums.
At the Newsload we classify this as leveraging Newsload SUPERPOWER #2
Superpower #2: Soft Cover - Newsload Editors create space where truth tellers can find cover within their ranks by laughing off mistakes. Meanwhile trolls are driven to mania through comedy. They are more terrified of being humiliated than anyone.
Eff political correctness. Comedy creates breathing room, between fair-minded people (ie. most of us), to talk about anything, make mistakes, learn and grow.
Respect and thanks for reading.
Follow me on Twitter @BKBakker