My brother sent me a link today to a Niagara area news article. It’s about an NDP candidate who is apparently a Nazi. I didn’t understand why he sent me it. I mean, neither of us is too fond of the NDP, but my brother is not very political-humorly inclined, so I didn’t think he just wanted to chuckle with me about a Nazi NDP member.

Then he asks, “recognize the face/name?”. I look at the article blankly again for a few seconds, then–wait, WHAT. Anthony Marco was my grade nine English teacher. No way! Way! Last I’d heard, he’d left our high school and went to work at the school board. That kinda sucked, because he was one of few cool teachers there. In fact, just yesterday, I was talking to one of my housemates about a high school play I was in, and I described him as the “non-crazy” drama teacher.

Did I know Mr. Marco Anthony Marco well? Not really. He was a bit of a geek–showed us Monty Python, quoted Star Wars to us–so that made him pretty cool in my books. I was only in grade nine then, so I didn’t know much about the world; I couldn’t tell you what his political, religious, whatever leanings were. Maybe I’m a bit biased on this issue because I knew him, and thus am predisposed to want to take his side, but I decided to listen to the bit of the podcast in question, where he supposedly condoned Nazism.

And basically, what he said–in a podcast posted on his website a year ago–was that he doesn’t think we should burn books, even if they’re Nazi books. Some people believe in that stuff, and they’re allowed to believe what they want.

Umm… what. That is how people decided he was a Nazi? Because he believes in freedom of choice, even if the choice is not the same as *your* choice? Radical thinking! (We allow none of that in Canadian politics.)

This is why I don’t vote. Everything about politics is so childish.

I now know for sure that this blog would prevent me from ever getting into politics (not that I particularly want to, see above statement). Also, I am now a Nazi because I posted this entry. Also, they can now quote me as saying “I am now a Nazi” without any context. (And I am sure I have posted mean things about my brother, and my school, and about 13 year old girl crushes on 60 year old men in rock bands. Also, Keith Moon, who is kind of, um, dead. So I guess I’m a necrophiliac too. Oh yeah, and atheist, of course, but that’s actually true. Umm… yeah, pretty much everything I post here is incriminating.)

But then I thought for a second, hey, maybe I should vote for him, show my support! (Assuming I am in the right riding? I don’t know, I think this is Thorold or something. I don’t vote, remember? Except that one time I did, woooo Green Party… yeah…) Then I thought, eww, NDP. Then I thought, isn’t that exactly the other thing I hate about politics? That people vote for the party and not the person?

I can’t imagine why any party would want to have anything to do with a person who actually believes that Nazism is kind of like being a Catholic.
Bernie Farber

If this guy is being serious, politicians are stupider than I thought. Being a Nazi means you believe in something. Being a Catholic means you believe in something. You can’t see the parallels in that? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say being a Nazi is like being a member of the Liberal party. Yeah. That works.

I hope he only believes this because he’s old, and that’s just the way he was brought up. I hope people my age aren’t so intolerant of other people’s views.

And the media is being, well, the media. In the article my brother sent me, the actual link to the podcast was the last thing mentioned in the article. In fact, I can recall writing a news article in Mr. Marco’s class. Putting something at the end means it’s the least important. So they are implying the context of the actual quote that started the whole thing is the least important thing here?!

And now, everyone his scouring his podcasts for other potentially offensive quotes. He calls people from Ontario lazy and says the electoral system sucks. And um, someone has an issue with this statements? Someone thinks they are not true?! And another one about people bringing their “fucking kids to Vegas” (we’re all adults here, quote it like it was said, come on). I don’t know the context of this quote, since no one seems to want to report on that, so he may very well have a good point. I would assume he meant it’s like bringing fucking kids to the movie theatre. Um, yeah, that’s a dick move. You are going to disagree with that, too?

What a sad state of affairs.