Mankato Free Press, Mankato, Oct. 19
White supremacy is unwelcome in Minnesota too
If you think white supremacy movements are just a problem in the South or in pockets of Michigan, Idaho and Oregon, think again.
The community of Murdock in west-central Minnesota is grappling with a decision about whether to grant a permit to a group that in 2018 made the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups.
Describing itself as a religion practicing pre-Christian European spirituality, the Asatru Folk Assembly bought an old church in the Swift County town and wants to turn it into a Midwest regional gathering hall. This is a group that would not want any Black members “because they’re not of northern European descent,” a member of the AFA’s board said at the Murdock City Council meeting last week. Clearly segregation is their norm, according to the AFA’s statement of ethics on its website: “We in Asatru support strong, healthy white family relationships. We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers to white children of their own. We believe that those activities and behaviors supportive of the white family should be encouraged while those activities and behaviors destructive of the white family are to be discouraged.”
This repugnant philosophy has no place in today’s society. There is a world of difference between celebrating different culture and history as you would in a German Club or Norwegian Club versus a group that holds itself as superior, not wanting to sully its purity by mixing with others who don’t have the same ancestry.
Our region could have ended up as this group’s Midwest home. Before setting its sights on Murdock, the Asatru Folk Assembly was rumored to be looking into buying an old church in New Ulm last year. Members of the group had organized get-togethers in the city, known for its German heritage, in past years. The group never responded to Free Press questions about its interest in establishing a church in the city. Luckily, the sale to the group did not go through.
And if many of the people in Murdock have any say, the AFA will not get its permit to gather in the church building, which is now zoned as residential. About 50 of the 275 residents came to the city meeting in opposition to the permit exactly as they should have.
The town should be proud of those who attended and stood up loudly against hate. Let’s hope the council listens to those residents who don’t want their community to become a place where being racist is deemed acceptable.
____
Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Oct. 20
Google and early snow have something in common
The phrase “pure as the driven snow” doesn’t account for the fact that each snowflake forms around a particle of detritus. The motto “don’t be evil” was once boasted by Google, but, oh, how we wish it had been claimed by snow.
Google now faces an antitrust suit, and gloppy frozen precipitation - many inches of it in some places - spread across Minnesota on Tuesday.
Regarding the snow: It’s beautiful. But it’s mid-October. Some people like winter. But it’s mid-October. Who really wants a party guest to arrive early?
As for Google, the germ of the idea behind the company was to create a search engine that simply produced, without fuss or exploitation, the most applicable result. And Google’s algorithms did. On Jan. 17, 2000, this very Editorial Board marveled at how swiftly the service had supplanted the old ways of gathering information “in a world that was no longer small.”
But that was then. Twenty years of e-commerce have ensued, and on Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department formally accused Google of using exclusive business contracts and agreements to maintain an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising.
Wicked? Sure. But illegal? It’ll take years of court battles before we know.
What’s clear for now is that a Google search, powerful though it may be, is not as clean and precise as it once was. It may not entirely be Google’s fault. On Tuesday, when an editorial writer sought to confirm that each snowflake really is dirty at the core, the search engine produced a flurry of results about the data platform company Snowflake (a recent IPO) and about the pejorative slang use of the word (a staple in the culture wars).
A link to an actual explanation of how snowflakes, the meteorological kind, form? Bottom of page three.
___
St. Cloud Times, St. Cloud, Oct. 16
Bonding bill is OK in the long run
We said they shouldn’t do it.
They went ahead and did it anyway.
We’re OK with that. Here’s why:
As the Minnesota Legislature, lobbyists and the executive branch began hammering out bonding proposals early this year, this Editorial Board called on lawmakers to stick to the basics: vital infrastructure, with a focus on outstate cities and towns.
We preemptively took the governor to task for proposing $5 million for a Litchfield community center, $15 million for a Plymouth aquatics center, even $12.15 million proposed to upgrade St. Cloud’s Municipal Athletic Complex and $4 million for a St. Joseph community center, all while leaving out a $10 million request to deal with Foley’s wastewater system and similar requests from other cities.
The governor’s plan earmarked about half of his proposal for recreation, entertainment and tourism projects, rather than basic infrastructure.
We disagreed. Stick to the basics, we said. First things first, we said, fund “needs” before “wants.” Because at heart, we’re fiscally centrist-to-conservative.
But the $1.9 billion bonding bill passed by the Minnesota House and Senate included a lot of money for “wants.” Millions are earmarked for the MAC upgrades and St. Joseph’s Jacob Wetterling Recreation Center, for instance.
Here’s why we support that result, despite our previous stance: Minnesota’s economy needs whatever projects it can get right now.
While this board is opposed, under normal circumstances, to viewing infrastructure bills as de facto job-creation bills, these are not normal circumstances. Minnesota’s economic position is drastically altered from its January state, when we first weighed in on the proposed spending.
Joblessness, uncertainty about the near- and middle-term economic outlook, travel restrictions, the decimation of dozens of industries - all unprecedented, to pile on the overused adjective.
The nation is reeling, and Minnesota along with it, from the economic effects of the global pandemic. As supplemental unemployment payments and direct aid to private businesses end, the full impact of the economic crisis is about to be seen.
So the sooner shovels can start moving dirt on the state’s bonding projects, the better.
Will those jobs help everyone who is in dire straits? Sadly, and of course, they will not. But they will put money in motion, flowing to companies that build things, then to workers who buy things, then to people who sell things. And so it goes around.
That’s a legitimate public interest when the alternative is having workers idled and money stagnating.
In fact, we believe a sanely functioning federal government would already be focused on jobs programs. Projects that help put people to work now and improve our lives after the pandemic through better infrastructure and meeting needs for tutors, training of frontline medical workers, etc., should be under discussion already in case this economic shock deepens into something even worse.
The bill also provides tax breaks for businesses to invest in new equipment, a GOP-backed idea that will also put money in motion – also a good step.
We commend the lawmakers who crossed party lines to get this bill passed, especially as the current political environment leaves little (no?) room for compromise without retaliation from the entrenched extremes of a divided electorate. When a significant portion of voters is primed to reject representatives who “give in to the enemy,” it takes real courage to make a decision for the greater good.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.