Beer and loathing in the twilight of Western civilization

Spent the last few days consuming the weekend papers, celebrating Canada's birthday, and driving six hundred kilometres to attend a wedding.

First things first. Canada's birthday. This is, all things considered, a pretty cool country to be a part of. I'm an immigrant, and even though I'm male and white and European, it wasn't always an easy gig blending in. There were play pals at Elora Public School who could not let me play at their place because I was German.

After all, in those days we still had guys with no legs sitting on mechanic's creepers outside the Iroquois Hotel. Yup, it was the Germans who made their legs go away..

That hatred is understandable when you're sixty; not so much when you're six.

But I survived, and I might add that I survived without sensitivity counselling and all that other fashionable politically correct bullshit that hogs the airwaves today.

Back in the day, it was suck it up and ride it out.

Or die.

Now it's let's see who we can sue for the latest assault on your dignity. And damned near everything can be construed as an assault on your dignity these days. Even though nobody anywhere at anytime has ever insulted you about anything, you could very well be the victim of "micro-aggression."

We all knew instinctively that when "micro-aggression" was invented, the pendulum had swung too far.

The weekend papers were of course trumpeting the 149th birthday of our nation, and also bemoaning the triumph of something called "populism." Apparently that is where your lesser educated and therefore stupid white folks embrace the siren song of a Trump or a Brexit campaign. Yup, those stupid white folks are a problem alright...

No, it couldn't possibly be the education system that has manifestly short-changed them, it couldn't be the "free trade" agreements that have off-shored their jobs... they're just really stupid, and, of course, racist to the core. This so-called working class, which has destroyed itself with its addictions to indolence and video games and beer, now wants to engage the democratic process by shaking off it's beer-induced stupor to vote for Trump, vote for Brexit, vote for... change?

What the fuck is wrong with those people?

One thing I never could figure out was how all this working class discontent was in any way "racist." When I worked at Budd Automotive in Kitchener a vast swath of the union brothers were black. Same at Frankel Steel. When NAFTA took our jobs away, it wasn't just white working class jobs. It was ALL working class jobs.

Period.

But the mainstream media fucks who only ever meet the "working class" when they stop off at Timmies on the drive to work wouldn't know anything about that, would they?

Then there was that wedding. It was a classic Italian deal, but judging from the abundance of Audi and BMW and Mercedes vehicles in the parking lot you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The Italians know how to put on a wedding, that's for sure!

And they know who makes the best cars.

The German victory over Italy at the Euro Cup hung over the festivities like a wet blanket.

But all of us were immigrants not that long ago.