Again this morning The Mud Report's inbox was bristling with emails and comments concerning a few recent posts about controversial Canadian/US cross border issues. Today's were mostly about the 'Milk Piranhas' piece from yesterday. A couple were sane and rational but most were hate-filled and certainly unpublishable [in case you're a reader wondering why your comment didn't appear].
'The Nose Hill Gentleman' piece a few days ago [which also drew a few hate filled comments and emails] speaks to the fact that Canadians and Americans are different, and they are. But i should have added that there's lottsa similarities too. One is hatred. Others include violent fantasies, prejudice, fear, ignorance and nationalist jingoism. Both these articles drew comments/emails from American and Canadians that were equally scary.
But none of the pieces The Mud Report has ever published have generated anywhere near the number of hate filled [or the well spoken/intelligent] responses that the series on the Canada vs. US soccer match at the London Olympics did, or anywhere near the number of readers for that matter either.
The comments and emails that come into a political commentary blog like this can be very interesting. There are good and bad people everywhere, including the blogosphere. In response to one email received today i'll answer that The Mud Report won't print comments that threaten or consul violence, that demean any body's private life especially including their sexual preferences or that are nothing but prejudicial hate filled rants. It'd be nice to be able to say there's as many interesting intelligent comments/emails as ugly hate filled ones...it'd be nice but...
Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal. - the Buddha