Back in September, Dr. Jon Schaff and Dr. Ken Blanchard opened a new season of their Spotlight on Northern TV show with a conversation with Aberdeen Mayor Mike Levsen.
Among the Mayor’s interesting comments:
- Northern State University boosts jobs and economic activity in Aberdeen, but even if our campus added zero jobs and dollars to the local economy, the educational and cultural benefits by themselves make Northern vital to our community.
- Mayor Levsen says fewer traffic controls are better: he says controlled intersections create more danger of drivers coming from one direction paying attention but drivers from another not, while at uncontrolled intersections, Mayor Levsen says everybody knows they need to watch for what’s coming.
- Mayor Levsen says some local businesses may find the new requirements of collecting other states’ sales taxes so complicated that they may quit selling items online.
- Mayor Levsen challenges residents to spike bottled water with Aberdeen tap water and see if anyone else in the house notices.
- Mayor Levsen says crime rates are down, and violent crime in Aberdeen virtually doesn’t exist. He says crime rates are generally cited by bigots in Aberdeen to “attack non-white people.” He says recent murders in Aberdeen have all happened between people who know each other.
- Mayor Levsen says the police chief will back him up on this: the immigrants who have come to town have had no discernible impact on our crime rates, and it “belies all common sense” to think that the people who have gotten through the rigorous background checks they must undergo to come to America would then jeopardize their immigration status by committing crimes.
- Mayor Levsen says opposing immigration is “not an unreasonable opinion,” but “telling lies and dealing with phony stereotypes is beyond the pale.” He says the anti-immigrant rally attenders are “dead-enders that are hopeless. They’re not rational people that you can argue with rationally. I mean… how rational is it for somebody to come to Aberdeen and tell us we’re in danger of Sharia law taking over city government? Hell, the Democrats can’t even take over state government. It is so irrational and so far off the wall that it’s hardly even worth anybody’s attention.”
- Mayor Levsen cites Minneapolis Fed chief Neal Kashkari’s observation that the only way Aberdeen and South Dakota get economic growth is either embrace immigration or subsidize fertility.
Two and a half months later, local bigot Pati Koeniguer writes to our local paper demanding that the Mayor apologize for… well… what? Telling the truth?
As usual, it’s hard to tell what logical argument Pati Koeniguer is making, but as Mayor Levsen, there’s just no reasoning with Aberdeen’s crazy bigots.
But at least Pati Koeniguer admits that she and her hate-rally cohort are “white bigots, liars, and dead-enders.”
I really worry about about the Somali Muslims living in Aberdeen. I would urge them to get the hell out of there as fast as possible because it’s known as one of the more racist places in the state.
While I agree with his overall point, it could be argued that he did err by putting the responsibility on women only.
Aberdeen Christians, learn from your local Presentations Sisters – embrace humanity and respect people from all walks of life.
The mayor of my second hometown is a rarefied breath of fresh air and common sense.
Would he consider being a senator or governor?
His sharia law comment made me spit out my coffee, “The Democrats can’t even take over state government.” LMFAO!
John, I’m not sure Mayor Levsen aspires to anything higher than keeping his twon in good shape… and calling out irrational dead-enders who want to tear this town down.
DaCola, the Mayor’s comment about Sharia and Democrats was perfect. When the local bigots fret over a Sharia takeover, they simply project their own theocratic impulses and their lack of faith in democracy.
In addition to being bigots, liars, and dead-enders, they are too stupid to recognize a sardonic comment when one is uttered.
“us white bigots, liars and dead enders!”
It’s not often one names herself so clearly as Ms. Koeniguer did. Gotta appreciate that.
So if little Al Nosestrap attended one of those hate rallies I guess that makes him one of those white bigots, liars and dead enders. Hmmm.
At the last newspaper I worked at full time, twice a week the editor would distribute problem letters to the editors to deal with as a help to the editorial page editor. They were letters that the paper would not publish, and the editors were either to help the writer put it in publishable form or explain why it would not be published. Wrong information was the most frequent problem, but the letter from Ms. Koeniguer fits a category that was particularly troublesome. It is so supremely stupid, and Ms. Koeniguer takes a sardonic comment about not selling birth control pills as serious. The reason such a letter would not be published is that it would expose the writer to ridicule and public disparagement, and there were legal and professional issues involved about exposing mentally incompetent people to intense derision, even if it was provoked by their own actions. If someone insisted upon expressing their befuddlement, we would relent as long as it wasn’t libelous or factually wrong.
But in the comment sections of blogs and news media, there is an abundance of responses just as stupid, but because they appear with pseudonyms, our derision has no target to deride and the writers are largely spared the reactions to their public communicative acts. And that is what sustains Trumpland.
Now, I’ll return to my snickering.
Yes, her letter needed that extra help for sure.
Debbo, I agree that Al Novstrup belongs to that group of white bigots, liars, and dead-enders. His support for those hate rallies and racial profiling and his statement that a terrorist is a person of mixed-race background demonstrate that he is a bigot. His peddling of the fake story that Dearborn, Michigan, is ruled by Sharia law is exactly the crazy lie that Mayor Levsen calls out in his remarks above.
You folks need to understand what Pati is actually saying. She is saying the same thing the majority of people have said that voted for Trump. The problem is none of you are listening. What all of you think of as racism, bigots and the other nasty names you call others is simply their frustration of watching a government, acting as our superiors, deciding who the “elite superiors” will bring into our communities with or without or approval. Many of those who immigrate here are fantastic people but when decisions are made without informing the people of what the “elite superiors” are doing to a community the people get upset. It is not racism or bigotry. It is lack of clear communication by the “elite superiors” who think they don’t need to inform the people in the communities.
I would suggest taking a close look at what is happening in France folks. . . It is the same issue.
OldSymbionesLiberationArmybrat thinks we need to be as goofy as he is and drumpf supporters are. I guess not.
OldSillyHootieCat, here’s a clew for you, the clewless, when whitey wingnut does stuff for his own benefit and to the detriment of POC- that is racism and Drumpf has it in spades, no pun intended.
Russian lovers voted for trump, they followed the interference of the Russian military with ease. The former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson says so and saw the reports clearly from day one.
“Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. elections, former Secretary of State and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said during a Thursday evening visit to Houston.
Making his first public appearance in nearly nine months, Tillerson spoke at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he participated in a conversation with CBS News veteran Bob Schieffer.
When asked if he believes that Russia interfered in the presidential elections, Tillerson replied “there’s no question” and that it was well-documented by intelligence agencies.
“What Russia wants to do is undermine our confidence and undermine the world’s confidence in us,” Tillerson said.
Describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “very calculating” and “very opportunistic” leader, Tillerson said Putin’s strategy is to undermine the U.S. influence around the globe.” https://www.chron.com/business/article/Rex-Tillerson-13448868.php
We now have a governor, her replacement in Washington, and two other Putin loving senators from South Dakota in Washington. We had Thune go to his new Motherland to embarrass even further with the kissing of Putin’s arse. On December 7, 1941 we had the day of “infamy”. Today, Robert Mueller will unleash the information on what this governor, her replacement and the two senators have tried to conceal, the attempted takeover of America by the Russian government’s military arm. Stunning, that the years of infamy are not so far apart, but have the same meaning. Resist.
In France, Facebook once again instigates civil unrest. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/france-paris-yellow-jackets-facebook
“But what’s happening right now in France isn’t happening in a vacuum. The Yellow Jackets movement — named for the protesters’ brightly colored safety vests — is a beast born almost entirely from Facebook. And it’s only getting more popular. Recent polls indicate the majority of France now supports the protesters. The Yellow Jackets communicate almost entirely on small, decentralized Facebook pages. They coordinate via memes and viral videos. Whatever gets shared the most becomes part of their platform.
Due to the way algorithm changes made earlier this year interacted with the fierce devotion in France to local and regional identity, the country is now facing some of the worst riots in many years — and in Paris, the worst in half a century.
This isn’t the first time real-life violence has followed a viral Facebook storm and it certainly won’t be the last. Much has already been written about the anti-Muslim Facebook riots in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and the WhatsApp lynchings in Brazil and India. Well, the same process is happening in Europe now, on a massive scale.” Reading further, you can see how it all works.
I told you to get off the alcohol, Old Snag. It’s not good to be in denial and it just makes you more paranoid and fearful of the world. If you can’t handle people that look different from you than maybe you should check yourself into an Old Soldier’s Home.
OS, the “elite superiors” you complain about are people you and your pals elected. Maybe you need to be a smarter voter.
Those POC don’t get into the USA without government approval and the Pootiepublican government is responsible. Same goes for individual states. They’re your “elite superiors.”
mike, jerry, jenny and debbo, this is what I love about you guys; 1) You have no sense of independence, 2) think government will fix all your problems, 3) you don’t take responsibility for your own life failures. You are just lemmings. . .
Please reread jerry’s post as, if your were to believe him, you all need to cancel your facebook accounts. . . freaking weird. . .
debbo’s is worth a second shot as well. I mean “second shot” in a metaphorical way not in a “second shot” at a woman coming from the Minnesota state Attorney general Debbo helped elect.
Weirdly enough, at times OldSarg actually makes a comment that helps us understand his thinking and the thinking, such as it is, of like minded folks. OldSarg speaks for those duped by Trump and his rich and powerful allies, even including South Dakota’s own Mike Rounds, who cleverly panders to OldSarg and his cohorts by co-sponsering a bill to fund and build a wall to keep powerless people from crossing the border.
OldSarg says that
This comment asserts that OldSarg and his cohorts are not really antagonistic or hateful toward any particular group based on race or national origin. But it does reveal that OldSarg and his cohorts feel powerless to fight back against people who they fear are their “elite superiors.”
OldSarg and his cohorts recognize their helplessness, their impotence, their inability to challenge actual power, and it frustrates them to no end. So they focus on exercising what little power they think they still retain to hurt people with even less power to resist. Their victims are those groups that are neither “superior elites” nor have any ability to resist their anger. By attacking and hurting the weakest and neediest among us, OldSarg and his cohorts fantasize recovering some of the power that they feel has been taken by those they fear as their “elite superiors.”
Men seeking to escape violence and economic suffering have no power. Women and children seeking to escape violence, sexual/child abuse, and poverty have no power. Teenagers seeking to escape forced gang conscription and violence have no power. People lacking the financial resources or educational ability to make their way through the bureacratic challenge of obtaining “papers” in a new, but foreign, country have no power.
Thus, such people make much easier targets for the frustration, fear, anger and hatred that OldSarg and his cohorts feel for the powerful “elite superiors” he describes in his comment. Alas, it is a lazy and harmful redirection of that anger and frustration, but it seems that this is all OldSarg and his cohorts think they have left to lift them from the despair of feeling powerless against the actual “elite superiors” they believe are ignoring them.
As well as unfortunate, the behavior of OldSarg and his cohorts is also rather ironic. Immigrants with little power have the potential to become natural allies with oppressed people against the powerful people that frustrate OldSarg. Indeed, perhaps that is why Trump and his partners in crime encourage the displaced aggression by OldSarg and his cohorts against powerless people, such as immigrants seeking only a better life here. Pitting the powerless against other powerless people seems an effective way of distracting groups of people from joining together to actually gain real power that might enable a meaningful challenge to any misuse of the power by the so-called “elite superiors.”
OldSarge, why do you think we have government? The whole point is that it is an embodiment of “We the people . . .” established and maintained TO FIX PROBLEMS we cannot fix as individuals. That is not a lack of independence, it is a view of social interdependence and the scale some solutions need.
I also do not see the right’s scapegoating immigrants as “independence.” Millionaires, banks, corporations all have benefitted from government interventions for their continued survival, why not have that benefit for all?
No man is an island.
Antisemitism is their speak for “elite superiors”. The Russian did not come up with your block quote on his own, when you google it, it takes you to the site where all of these crows go to roost. Why they have their feelings hurt comes from decades of seeking to blame someone for their inadequacies. Great post bearcreekbat.
The immigrants are the only ones these inadequate folks can look down on as they do on all folks of color.
Ok, I’ll change that if you promise not to be so wordy. I posted a 30 word statement and you gave back a 600 word interpretive essay. . . I’m trying to stay awake.
The France riots were caused by Macron passing higher taxes because of his unproven belief that man is causing climate change.
Can you imagine what would happen in the US if the US Government did?
OldSalmonellasickness actually believes only people that come to ports of entry are eligible to apply for asylum because Drumpf whispered in his ear.
I’m surprised there are some things about Lakota culture you don’t know, Lakota culture expurt.
btw there is a Lakota word for freedom.
OS, please feel free to skip my longer posts. I agree that I often spend many words attempting to make rational comments, rather than simply shooting from the hip.
Great comment BCB. Years ago, in my radical youth, we called that distraction “horizontal violence”, rather than vertical, where it rightly belongs.
I agree with you that attacking the weaker is a way to feel powerful, but of course it’s false. It is a motivator for the current rigid right, but several extensive studies are coming to the same conclusion. Most of Ole Baldy’s staunchest supporters really are racists and misogynists.
That doesn’t include everyone who voted for him in 2016, as many of them have come to rue their votes as we saw in last month’s blue tsunami. But those who still strongly support him are mostly in the racist/misogynist clan. Or Klan?
That’s a disappointing quarter of the population.
Facebook, direct cause of trump and of French riots.
jerry, are you in mike’s meds?
Just Mike and Ike’s, something Russian’s do not have. I hope you get your paytroll check today. With Robert Mueller ready to bring on the good stuff, you may be looking to Saudi Arabia for your checks soon.
Hey OldShootiegun, where’s the video of Ellison committing a heinous crime? Get it or shut up the false accusations.
Watch OldSniffingarmpits drop out of sight for awhile again.
“OldSniffingarmpits”?!?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nope, just blatant racism, ignorance and ethnocentrism. And it’s inexcusable
“ethnocentrism” Thanks RJ, that descriptive word was unknown to me, thanks.
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/12/trump-org-employees-alleged-obtain-false
Drumpf employees allegedly obtain fake documents to keep low pay immigrants working to make Drumpf money. Daddy has you covered until he doesn’t.
ps Drumpf applies for foreign workers at his whinery because no self respecting American would work for the real chance not to get paid.
Ole Baldy is usually guilty of whatever he attacks others for the most.