Re: “The Lame Duck, the Liar and the Buffoon”, (Citizen, Feb. 1)
Robin Dutton’s letter made a number of points that beg to be addressed. The first, that Mr. Trump was elected by a large majority, is quite incorrect. Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million votes, and his margin of victory in the electoral college was one of the smallest in recent memory.
Secondly, many, many people were as critical of Mrs. Clinton as of Mr. Trump. For a substantial body of the U.S. electorate, neither candidate was seen as desirable, and this led to the low voter turnout; almost as many eligible voters did not cast a vote as voted for Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton combined.
Thirdly, there has long been an active anti-war, anti-military industrial complex movement, but that movement receives little or no notice in the mainstream press. [The movement] is often embedded in and closely tied to the movements to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, to assist refugees, and so on. Is that movement as active or visible as I would like? No, but it does exist. One website that has long waged an information campaign that aims to stop, or at least reduce, the U.S. military industrial complex is www.tom dispatch.com, whose readership may be as low as it is because it is depressing reading.
We in Canada should not be too smug or critical of our neighbours to the south on this point as we are equally culpable of ignoring our country’s participation in the global arms trade. According to the Globe and Mail, Canada is now the second largest exporter of arms to the Middle East, a fact that I am far from proud of. We may not have troops on the ground or in the air, but the weapons and ammunition we sell is being used to kill people every day.
I want to acknowledge that the letter ends with an admission that the writer does not admire Mr. Trump’s aims or behaviour. On this we are in agreement.
Mark Hazell
Duncan
