Justifying rape and baby beheading is irreconcilable with a version of the "left" that presents itself as secular, humane, compassionate, and committed to social justice.
Excellent and true. I'd only reinforce that there is a massive split on the left: A fight between the liberal left that continues to remain devoted to equality, due process, and free speech and the illiberal "woke" left of current DEI struggle sessions. This is seen not only in the fight over Israel and Hamas, but in the fight between liberal visible minorities and BLM intersectional race essentialists; also in the fight of normie left LGBs and transsexuals against the illiberal TQIA+ crowd and its illiberal attacks on women's and LGB rights, not to mention its proselytization in our schools.
The US has its Democratic Socialists of America, but in Canada this stuff has been peddled by the federal Liberals through government bureaucracies and the fringe groups to which it provides grants and from which it receives the reports it cites to create policy. That's why so many of us on the lifelong left are fleeing from the Liberals and NDP toward the Conservatives, no matter our very real reservations, as the best chance to save the liberal values we value.
Our media has also helped frame the naive DEI view of oppressor "white Settler" Israelis attacking innocent civilians. It talks of civilian areas bombed as opposed to munitions depots, rocket launchers, and army enclaves bombed: These are all military targets, but placed in civilian areas by Hamas against international law. And our media never reveals that the civilian death counts in Gaza come from Hamas agencies, even after that same media raced to print the blood libel of the Israel's "hospital bombing". And it still talks about Israeli occupation even though Israel withdrew from Gaza nearly two decades ago and build its wall to make suicide bombings more dificult.
I believe a major problem is that liberal human rights organizations won the major battles for civil rights battles for women and racial, sexual and other minorities decades ago, after which normie activists went home to live our lives. That vacuum has now been filled by extremists who have no interest in the "live and let live" philosophy that won us our rights and which is necessary for a functioning pluralistic society.
The Line has said it made a (perfectly understandable) choice to avoid dealing with the culture wars. But daily events are downstream of culture and what we're seeing play out today in so many areas, has been foreshadowed since at least 2016, with a big bump in 2020. The culture wars are definitely worth following closely. And it's important to constantly distinguish between the liberal liberals (now cowed, to their discredit, as you note) and the illiberal wokerati power players, just as it's important to distinguish between normie conservatives and conservative MAGAs ascendant in no small part as part of the building bashlash to wokery.
The Hamas attack has done to the DEI anti-Israel left what Lia Thomas did to TRA extremists.
Hear! Hear! I'm a lifelong NDP supporter, but not because I'm an ideologue. Historically, most of the policy directions that, in my opinion, have combined to make modern urban existence tolerable--universal public education, universal health care, unemployment insurance, old age security pensions, etc.--were leftist innovations. But one has to distinguish between loyalty to principles and loyalty to mere insignia. I would never vote for Singh, and between Trudeau and Poilievre the latter comes across not only as the more trustworthy and rational but, ironically, as the more liberal.
Concerning Canada's mainstream media, it's my professional opinion as a retired reference librarian that, in aggregate, they are not reliable information sources. But no one needs a graduate degree in Information Science to arrive at this judgment; the reasons why mainstream media's credibility is on life support are plain for all to see. When woke editors pretend perfectly sensible reservations about immigration policy can only be motivated by racism, or masquerade indefensible terrorist atrocity as a legitimate expression of political grievance, they simply insult the intelligence of everyone who knows better. And that's a far larger set than the would-be social engineers seem to realize.
Why would your very understandable disappointment in the NDP and Liberals lead you to assume that PP was some kind of more liberal leader? You should recognize him as a master of propaganda. His loyalties are to the Heritage Foundation doctrines not what's best for Canadians.
You've incorrectly (on the basis of what evidence?) assumed that I've assumed something I haven't. My dissatisfaction with the current incarnations of the NDP and Liberals plays no role in my assessment of Poilievre, which is instead based on his performance in lengthy podcast interviews. He is, for example, more of a free speech advocate and much less authoritarian than Trudeau, traditionally liberal virtues. (Despite inevitably having to play the political game he's also less evasive, though that's damning with faint praise in Trudeau's case.)
I have no objection to the Heritage Foundation. Society needs both liberal and conservative impulses, and though I've always voted left I wouldn't want to live in a permanent one-party leftist state any more than in a rightist one. That isn't democracy.
As for propaganda, can you think of a single conservative media outlet in the country that's more propagandistic than the Toronto Star? It's become unreadable. Even the book review section (which evinces zero interest in literature) and the business section are subordinated to the needs of the Star's social engineering project. Poilievre is in tough when it comes to competing with the Star and the CBC, which is one reason why internet podcasts are so important. The Poilievre that emerges when the man is allowed to speak for himself has little connection with MSM's caricatures of him.
It's my view that the only credible objections to propaganda are non-partisan: we should be no more anxious to consume propaganda that claims to speak for our political preferences than against them. If you find you're always slamming the excesses of one side, never the other, then your real concern isn't propaganda.
"As for propaganda, can you think of a single conservative media outlet in the country that's more propagandistic than the Toronto Star?" The Star has it's biases, for sure, but it's great literature compared to the Post Media offerings these days. The Star is more propagandistic than the various Sun papers? Really? If you can point me to one of PP's podcasts/interviews where you feel he's being sincere I would happily give it a go.
Frankly, in my professional opinion as a retired reference librarian who connected people with information (and dealt with information providers) for twenty-five years, none of our mainstream outlets qualify as reliable information sources. They're all to a greater or lesser degree ideologically captured; and as I suggested before, it's a matter of indifference to me whether the captors lean left or right (though as a matter of empirical fact the left has been in the ascendant since the first years of the twentieth century, prior to which authoritarian rightists were the problem).
You speak of bias, but you have to be wary of logical equivocation here. It's perfectly acceptable for information outlets to have, and editorially express, political opinions. Bias is something else entirely, and it sabotages impartial analysis and truth discovery. If you're convicted of a crime and can show that the judge was biased against you, that's a legitimate ground for overturning your conviction. There's a reason why legacy media's credibility is on life support these days: no one needs a graduate degree in Information Science to know when their intelligence is being insulted by would-be social engineers masquerading themselves as journalists. To the extent that the Star "has its biases," it's untrustworthy.
As for Poilievre, you're welcome not to like him; but if you want to avoid charges of bias yourself you should at least make some attempt to ground your dislike in a substantive knowledge of the man as a living, breathing individual, instead of a legacy media caricature. Try this:
Thanks for the link. I did my civic duty and watched it. Some interesting stuff but even more spin and BS.
I had to laugh when Poilievre described Justin as a raging egomaniac. And PP isn't? I also enjoyed him quoting Maya Angelou about how people will remember how you made them feel and attributed it to Rabbi Hillel. He's only off by 2,000 years. But I'm most concerned with his adoration of Milton Friedman. He's the trickle-down economics guy whose policies have caused the vast increase in inequality in our society. People like Poilievre treat him as a great prophet but even Friedman himself said "You don't want too much socialism - but you don't want too little either."
I actually like Jordan Peterson. His discussions with scientists are usually very interesting but his political interviews are of the fan-club variety. Politically, he is a fundamentalist conservative and believes that anything a conservative says must be true. He never takes PP to task on anything. I actually find it sad when Peterson twists himself into pretzels the times he tries to make excuses for Donald Trump when, as a top psychologist, he has to know that Trump is dangerous psychopath.
I would really like to see Poilievre sit down with a well-informed journalist or someone who knows enough to push back on his nonsense. PP will avoid that for as long as he can.
The other issue the left fails to understand is that the social programs of broad public agency, e.g., universal health care, employment insurance and public pensions (the latter dating back to Bismarck!) have all been thought of and implemented, so all the left has to offer is tinkering at the margins of these programs, or wandering into social justice issues that require deeper thinking to address than they are able to propose. Nothing says this better than raging against food price inflation and blaming it on greedy corporate executives, while not seeing that food inflation is a worldwide phenomenon, beyond the control of any one group (unless one is a conspiracy theorist.) So as the social democratic left is becoming less relevant, their advocates dream up social injustices based on academic faculty club theorizing. Hot tip: social sciences are not sciences, in that whatever theory they propose, all are non-refutable.
"I'd only reinforce that there is a massive split on the left: A fight between the liberal left that continues to remain devoted to equality, due process, and free speech and the illiberal 'woke' left of current DEI struggle sessions."
I spent half an hour trying to express a fraction of what Mr Stratton has so eloquently written in response to Ms Gerson's epistle. There are many of us politically homeless sorts out here but for me, Poilevre is a bridge too far. I'd rather not vote than hold my nose and plump for Harper's puppet.
"Daily events are downstream of culture" means that cultural shifts happen under the radar before we see them expressed in galvanizing events and then legislation. (I wish the phrase was original.)
TRA stands for radical "trans rights activists" who believe that intact, biological males belong in women's sports, change rooms and prisons if they say they're women, as opposed to the traditional left which believes that dysphoric individuals deserve social dignity and civil rights but are not literally the opposite sex.
DEI takes traditional left support for diversity, equality and inclusion and turns it into a rigid ideology of "oppressor and oppressed" defined by immutable characteristics of race and gender, etcetera. And it swaps equality for equity, which means that any difference in group performance is because of racism, trans/homophobia, ableism etcetera, without reference to any other factor like economics (which is the focus of the traditional left.
The shift in these two areas began in the 1990s but society only began paying attention post George Floyd in the case of DEI and Lia Thomas in the case of TRA extremists.
The options realistically available to us are also downstream of demography, an insight that became general when Boom Bust & Echo was first published (1996) and which is now all too familiar to millennials, gazing in envy at boomers' multi-million dollar houses.
"DEI takes traditional left support for diversity, equality and inclusion and turns it into a rigid ideology... [etc.]..."
What mystifies boomers is the transformation of the information commons into a kind of kindergarten, in which basic ideas like inclusion and tolerance that all sensible people would agree with are rammed down everybody's throat 24 hours a day as if they were revolutionary discoveries. This has led to the curious phenomenon of intelligent public figures like Bret Weinstein and Douglas Murray having to waste their time defending concepts (the crucial importance of freedom of speech and true diversity of thought, for example) that were clear to every high school student in the 1960s.
What are we to do with an information commons corrupted by would-be social engineers masquerading as journalists, who no longer inform us impartially and fairly about the culture wars but, by means of constant reality editing, attempt to win them for one side? The ideological capture of institutions has been tragic from every point of view, because you can't really converse with ideologues in the sense of embarking on a joint truth quest. Every 'conversation' for a committed ideologue is an exercise in moving along a single path, surmounting all obstacles, toward the destination he knows in advance he has to reach.
Since remedial input is regarded as just such an obstacle, criticizing ideological goals and methods simply stamps the critic as an enemy to be resisted and, ideally, silenced. There's diversity for you!
Thank you for this article. It is clear and well written. As a Jewish Canadian woman with family in Israel, these past weeks have been harrowing and one of the worst parts has been watching thugs stand a few feet away from our candlelit vigil for the hostages celebrating death and destruction. But you're right: the mask has slipped and we cannot un-see the real face.
YES! The queer pro-Hamas protests have been one of the most puzzling things to me - like - you're literally cheering for a group that will instantly kill you for existing if given the chance - have you thought this through? (For the record, I don't care what sexuality someone does or doesn't have - but I know the religious law (shariah? not sure how to spell it) is VERY clear on how even disobedient wives are treated or a woman who has been raped and lost her virginity before marriage. I know someone (a Canadian citizen local to me) whose now ex-husband attempted to carry out an honor killing of her and her son because she was too outspoken and politically opinionated. She came very close to death as a result of this attempt. Her ex-husband is of course protected and no longer in Canada. She lives in fear that someone may still try to kill her on behalf of her ex-husband, because in their religion, her ex-husband was SUPPOSED to kill her for being too vocal and opinionated.)
I hope that this cognitive dissonance that you described so very well leads to an increase in humanity. I know some Jewish friends with left-wing beliefs are feeling very confused and politically homeless right now. For my part, I've talked to my Jewish friends to tell them they have my support. I figure that's the best any of us can do right now is let our Jewish friends know that we support them.
The old adage that ‘there would be peace if the Palestinians laid down their arms, but if the Israelis laid down their arms there would be no Israel’ is based on reality. It is also closely linked to the question; ‘would you rather be a Jew in Gaza or a Palestinian in Israel?’
Brilliant column. It has been nothing less than disgusting to read about people braying this 'from the river to the sea..." bullshit, and not understanding that this means shoving any and all Jews into the Med. The Arabs have never - never - been interested in accommodating a Jewish state. Equally disgusting is the fact that, as Gerson points out, these clowns haven't bothered to read the Hamas charter.
Isn’t Toronto Metropolitan University formerly Ryerson ( a name change provoked by the interests of wokeism) a home for many of the extreme left? Perhaps a bit of selective defunding might be in order?
David, I agree but if we argue that the goose was irresponsible then the gander should not similarly act irresponsibly, no matter the provocation. Or delicious opportunity.
Great read, Jen! I seriously can't comprehend the disconnect of woke folks who think any form of censorship or violence is OK as long as it's for a cause they support. The hypocrisy is fucking depressing, to be frank and gives me pause when I consider some of these people are our next generation of leaders. Hopefully, common sense and compromise become the norm once more.
The language and motivation used by these terrorist and their supporters is the same as that being used to describe Canadians of European heritage and the ultimate goal is the same. Our elementary schools and universities are teaching our children and especially new Canadians to hate those that for the most part built this nation. It's in front of our faces and plain to see if you aren't blind. Canada will be torn apart because of it.
To quote the late great Israeli Prime Minister Golda Maier. there will be peace in the middle east when Islam loves its own children more than it hates Jews.
Whether one inclines more to the left or the right, politically, one should understand the world one lives in and know something of its history. How many non-Muslims who sympathize with Hamas realize that if they tried expressing their support by visiting Mecca, they wouldn't even be allowed in the city? There's diversity and inclusion for you, eighth-century style.
For people who think Palestine is a democratic country heres a reality check. Make no mistake Hamas controls the people of Palestine with brutality and fear. They can no more rise up than other countries ruled by dictators. Israel is surrounded by countries that want it annihilated. Should Hamas reach their goal the Palestinian people will still live under an oppressive brutal regime and will not be free. The women and gender diverse should take a good hard look at treatment of people like themselves in Islamic countries before supporting an Islamic state. Just because you have equal rights in Canada I don’t think that would apply if you were in Palestine.
P.S. Hamas, having perfectly foiled Israeli intelligence, could have taken several Israeli military bases and taken prisoners and hostages without committing any atrocities against civilians. That would have been a great moral victory and act of "resistance". Instead, they poured all of their political capital for an entire generation into this....
Just FYI. this when I asked Bing AI if there was any evidence of baby beheading during the Oct 7 attack:
Based on my web search results, there is no conclusive evidence that babies were beheaded during the Oct 7 attack by the Hamas. The claim was widely circulated by some Israeli officials, media outlets, and politicians, but it was not confirmed by the Israeli government or any independent sources. The Israeli Prime Minister's office posted some photos of babies who were allegedly killed and burned by the Hamas, but none of them showed any signs of decapitationhttps://news.yahoo.com/were-israeli-babies-beheaded-hamas-231800102.htmlhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/we-do-not-know-if-israeli-babies-were-beheaded-by-hamas-militants-in-kfar-aza/ar-AA1iIy8ihttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israeli-official-says-government-cannot-confirm-babies-were-beheaded-in-hamas-attack/ar-AA1i5JxW. The US President also mentioned the claim in a speech, but later clarified that he had not seen any proof of ithttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/we-do-not-know-if-israeli-babies-were-beheaded-by-hamas-militants-in-kfar-aza/ar-AA1iIy8i. Some journalists and Israeli army spokespersons claimed to have seen or obtained visual evidence of the beheadings, but they did not make it public or share it with other reporters or fact-checkershttps://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/12/40-israeli-babies-beheaded-by-hamas/https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.htmlhttps://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/what-we-know-about-three-widespread-israel-hamas-war-claims/. Therefore, the claim remains unverified and disputed, and should be treated with caution and skepticism. I hope this helps. blush
This issue is badly muddled ans we are going to address this in this week's Dispatch. But the short answer is that we have multiple sources confirming this. JG
I think one person conflated dead babies and beheaded bodies and off it goes. It's just too good not to use if you're a politician. The MSM can then repeat it as a "Quotation". That being said, I believe that the atrocities committed were plenty abhorrent without beheaded babies.
If I grant you with absolute certainty that there were zero beheaded babies are you ok with rest of hamas actions? Is that where you draw the line: mass murder at a music festival, ok, killing of entire families, check, rape, no problem, all examples of legitimate "resistance" right?
Bruce Horton. Agreed. There is no point agruing the verasity of beheading claims. There is plenty of video evidence of atocities to go around. I believe, though, that you take away from the argument if you report something that is unverifiable or in doubt. It is distracting if that becomes the focus of the debte. Better to stick with what you know for sure.
Israel's president has clarified that there was indeed baby's beheaded since that time. I also wouldn't be trusting AI to conglomerate news as there has been some very interesting articles put out about how AI tries to produce results that produce the person who is searching, as well as very clear instances of universal errors in the data that AI produces. (I would assume Bing AI is no better than chat GPT in this area.) I don't know much about the bing algorithm but I do know that chat GPT claims to only have access to the material it was trained on and not live access to the internet. (However - chat GPT appeared to have access in the transcript this was from - so I can't verify whether this is true or not.) I'm just not sure how quickly AI would pick up NEW content and there has been new content since the 12th, so I am questioning how up to date the bing AI is today versus reporters who can manually seek out sources.
no one is trusting AI or chatGPT to give accurate info, but it DOES aggregate acceptable viewpoints (which is why the no beheadings question has value - it shows societal trends)
the bulk of the anti-Israel talk I hear is based on a belief that they have a massive upper hand where power is concerned. To that I say: this was certainly true 20 years ago. But today? we are seeing a shift occur before our eyes. In another 20 years time, when the university students are running the institutions, and the most-shocked of us are no longer in positions of influence or power, that 'upper hand' will be gone. and if you think a movement will stop when it gets it's short term goal(s), you don't know history or our human nature
A few days ago, a lefty friend reacted to this quote from a SubStack I sent him:
“Many people woke up on October 7 sympathetic to parts of woke ideology and went to bed that evening questioning how they had signed on to a worldview that had nothing to say about the mass rape and murder of innocent people by terrorists.”
His comment:
"Like who? Show me one “woke” person who does not understand that wrong is wrong is wrong.
"Whatta load of horseshit."
I asked Bing: "Can you find the recording of a university prof celebrating the killing of people at the music concert in Israel on Oct 7 2023"
It could find nothing and returned this:
"I searched the web for a recording of a university professor celebrating the killing of people at the music concert in Israel on Oct 7 2023, but I could not find any such recording. I found some news articles and videos that reported on the horrific attack by Hamas militants on the Supernova festival near the Gaza-Israel border, where at least 260 young people were killed and many others were injured or taken hostage. I also found some statements and reactions from world leaders, celebrities, and human rights organizations that condemned the massacre and expressed solidarity with the victims and their families . However, I did not find any evidence of a university professor celebrating or supporting the attack. If such a recording exists, it would be very disturbing and unacceptable, as it would show a complete lack of empathy and respect for human life."
So, maybe it did not happen? Or is Bing being censored?
I have absolutely seen people celebrating the Hamas attack on my social media and in screenshots shared by US Jewish friends on social media. I also have seen some of these same leftwing friends expressing how alone they feel and that they no longer feel they fit in with leftwing beliefs. I most certainly do not for a minute believe that Bing is going to have up to date information - search algorithms are algorithms, not arbiters of truth.
Now - to be clear, me seeing people express it doesn't equate to millions feeling that way anymore than your friend expressing they don't feel that way equates to nobody feeling that way. Humans are complex and while we can only base our opinions on the information we view and the conversations we have, millions of people will have opinions that we never hear about, but which do influence us when it comes time for election.
Something that you could easily verify though, is the MPP in Ontario who was censured AND removed from the NDP cabinet for what she has said on social media and her decision to do what she wants rather than consulting with the NDP party. There are people who are cheering for Hamas, equating Hamas to freedom for Palestine and failing to understand that Hamas does not mean a free Palestine.
While Israel is engaging with them as a country, Hamas is explictily anti-Jew. And much of the rhetoric being promoted by pro-Palestine Muslims is also anti-Jew. I wonder how many Muslim Israeli's were murdered by Hamas versus Jewish Israelis during the invasion?
Terrorism is wrong - and Hamas has killed Palestineans to get into power the way they have. They don't represent Palestineans and this is a major piece that all these pro-Palestine protests are missing. If people really cared about Palestine and a two state solution, they would seek to root out Hamas - a terrorist organization, and imprison every member of it and then allow Palestineans to rebuild. BUT I haven't seen any of the pro-Palestine groups doing that. There is a complicit support of Hamas in the support being given to Palestine and an implied denial of Israel's right to exist as a nation.
It sounds like your search query wasn't particularly good. "university professor celebrating hamas attack" immediately popped up several articles about Cornell professor Russell Rickford.
People tend to ask "can I believe this?" if they encounter information that reinforces their intellectual priors. When it contradicts those priors, they tend to ask "MUST I believe this?" Lately, I've seen a lot of intellectual cowardice where people metaphorically stick their fingers in their ears to avoid the question altogether.
George Skinner: Interesting. I assume you used Google. Makes me wonder what is going on with Bing AI and, althought I have found it pretty good in other searches, maybe it is not so good with contraversial topics.
Well said. It's about time the pendulum swings the other way, before these vile leftist perspectives become even more outrageous, even more widespread, even more accepted.
Excellent and true. I'd only reinforce that there is a massive split on the left: A fight between the liberal left that continues to remain devoted to equality, due process, and free speech and the illiberal "woke" left of current DEI struggle sessions. This is seen not only in the fight over Israel and Hamas, but in the fight between liberal visible minorities and BLM intersectional race essentialists; also in the fight of normie left LGBs and transsexuals against the illiberal TQIA+ crowd and its illiberal attacks on women's and LGB rights, not to mention its proselytization in our schools.
The US has its Democratic Socialists of America, but in Canada this stuff has been peddled by the federal Liberals through government bureaucracies and the fringe groups to which it provides grants and from which it receives the reports it cites to create policy. That's why so many of us on the lifelong left are fleeing from the Liberals and NDP toward the Conservatives, no matter our very real reservations, as the best chance to save the liberal values we value.
Our media has also helped frame the naive DEI view of oppressor "white Settler" Israelis attacking innocent civilians. It talks of civilian areas bombed as opposed to munitions depots, rocket launchers, and army enclaves bombed: These are all military targets, but placed in civilian areas by Hamas against international law. And our media never reveals that the civilian death counts in Gaza come from Hamas agencies, even after that same media raced to print the blood libel of the Israel's "hospital bombing". And it still talks about Israeli occupation even though Israel withdrew from Gaza nearly two decades ago and build its wall to make suicide bombings more dificult.
I believe a major problem is that liberal human rights organizations won the major battles for civil rights battles for women and racial, sexual and other minorities decades ago, after which normie activists went home to live our lives. That vacuum has now been filled by extremists who have no interest in the "live and let live" philosophy that won us our rights and which is necessary for a functioning pluralistic society.
The Line has said it made a (perfectly understandable) choice to avoid dealing with the culture wars. But daily events are downstream of culture and what we're seeing play out today in so many areas, has been foreshadowed since at least 2016, with a big bump in 2020. The culture wars are definitely worth following closely. And it's important to constantly distinguish between the liberal liberals (now cowed, to their discredit, as you note) and the illiberal wokerati power players, just as it's important to distinguish between normie conservatives and conservative MAGAs ascendant in no small part as part of the building bashlash to wokery.
The Hamas attack has done to the DEI anti-Israel left what Lia Thomas did to TRA extremists.
Hear! Hear! I'm a lifelong NDP supporter, but not because I'm an ideologue. Historically, most of the policy directions that, in my opinion, have combined to make modern urban existence tolerable--universal public education, universal health care, unemployment insurance, old age security pensions, etc.--were leftist innovations. But one has to distinguish between loyalty to principles and loyalty to mere insignia. I would never vote for Singh, and between Trudeau and Poilievre the latter comes across not only as the more trustworthy and rational but, ironically, as the more liberal.
Concerning Canada's mainstream media, it's my professional opinion as a retired reference librarian that, in aggregate, they are not reliable information sources. But no one needs a graduate degree in Information Science to arrive at this judgment; the reasons why mainstream media's credibility is on life support are plain for all to see. When woke editors pretend perfectly sensible reservations about immigration policy can only be motivated by racism, or masquerade indefensible terrorist atrocity as a legitimate expression of political grievance, they simply insult the intelligence of everyone who knows better. And that's a far larger set than the would-be social engineers seem to realize.
Why would your very understandable disappointment in the NDP and Liberals lead you to assume that PP was some kind of more liberal leader? You should recognize him as a master of propaganda. His loyalties are to the Heritage Foundation doctrines not what's best for Canadians.
You've incorrectly (on the basis of what evidence?) assumed that I've assumed something I haven't. My dissatisfaction with the current incarnations of the NDP and Liberals plays no role in my assessment of Poilievre, which is instead based on his performance in lengthy podcast interviews. He is, for example, more of a free speech advocate and much less authoritarian than Trudeau, traditionally liberal virtues. (Despite inevitably having to play the political game he's also less evasive, though that's damning with faint praise in Trudeau's case.)
I have no objection to the Heritage Foundation. Society needs both liberal and conservative impulses, and though I've always voted left I wouldn't want to live in a permanent one-party leftist state any more than in a rightist one. That isn't democracy.
As for propaganda, can you think of a single conservative media outlet in the country that's more propagandistic than the Toronto Star? It's become unreadable. Even the book review section (which evinces zero interest in literature) and the business section are subordinated to the needs of the Star's social engineering project. Poilievre is in tough when it comes to competing with the Star and the CBC, which is one reason why internet podcasts are so important. The Poilievre that emerges when the man is allowed to speak for himself has little connection with MSM's caricatures of him.
It's my view that the only credible objections to propaganda are non-partisan: we should be no more anxious to consume propaganda that claims to speak for our political preferences than against them. If you find you're always slamming the excesses of one side, never the other, then your real concern isn't propaganda.
"As for propaganda, can you think of a single conservative media outlet in the country that's more propagandistic than the Toronto Star?" The Star has it's biases, for sure, but it's great literature compared to the Post Media offerings these days. The Star is more propagandistic than the various Sun papers? Really? If you can point me to one of PP's podcasts/interviews where you feel he's being sincere I would happily give it a go.
Regarding the Heritage Foundation, I don't know if you're up on "Project 2025" but these days they are waaay right of any "conservative" thinking. https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981
Frankly, in my professional opinion as a retired reference librarian who connected people with information (and dealt with information providers) for twenty-five years, none of our mainstream outlets qualify as reliable information sources. They're all to a greater or lesser degree ideologically captured; and as I suggested before, it's a matter of indifference to me whether the captors lean left or right (though as a matter of empirical fact the left has been in the ascendant since the first years of the twentieth century, prior to which authoritarian rightists were the problem).
You speak of bias, but you have to be wary of logical equivocation here. It's perfectly acceptable for information outlets to have, and editorially express, political opinions. Bias is something else entirely, and it sabotages impartial analysis and truth discovery. If you're convicted of a crime and can show that the judge was biased against you, that's a legitimate ground for overturning your conviction. There's a reason why legacy media's credibility is on life support these days: no one needs a graduate degree in Information Science to know when their intelligence is being insulted by would-be social engineers masquerading themselves as journalists. To the extent that the Star "has its biases," it's untrustworthy.
As for Poilievre, you're welcome not to like him; but if you want to avoid charges of bias yourself you should at least make some attempt to ground your dislike in a substantive knowledge of the man as a living, breathing individual, instead of a legacy media caricature. Try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51jWWcrFc0
Thanks for the link. I did my civic duty and watched it. Some interesting stuff but even more spin and BS.
I had to laugh when Poilievre described Justin as a raging egomaniac. And PP isn't? I also enjoyed him quoting Maya Angelou about how people will remember how you made them feel and attributed it to Rabbi Hillel. He's only off by 2,000 years. But I'm most concerned with his adoration of Milton Friedman. He's the trickle-down economics guy whose policies have caused the vast increase in inequality in our society. People like Poilievre treat him as a great prophet but even Friedman himself said "You don't want too much socialism - but you don't want too little either."
I actually like Jordan Peterson. His discussions with scientists are usually very interesting but his political interviews are of the fan-club variety. Politically, he is a fundamentalist conservative and believes that anything a conservative says must be true. He never takes PP to task on anything. I actually find it sad when Peterson twists himself into pretzels the times he tries to make excuses for Donald Trump when, as a top psychologist, he has to know that Trump is dangerous psychopath.
I would really like to see Poilievre sit down with a well-informed journalist or someone who knows enough to push back on his nonsense. PP will avoid that for as long as he can.
The other issue the left fails to understand is that the social programs of broad public agency, e.g., universal health care, employment insurance and public pensions (the latter dating back to Bismarck!) have all been thought of and implemented, so all the left has to offer is tinkering at the margins of these programs, or wandering into social justice issues that require deeper thinking to address than they are able to propose. Nothing says this better than raging against food price inflation and blaming it on greedy corporate executives, while not seeing that food inflation is a worldwide phenomenon, beyond the control of any one group (unless one is a conspiracy theorist.) So as the social democratic left is becoming less relevant, their advocates dream up social injustices based on academic faculty club theorizing. Hot tip: social sciences are not sciences, in that whatever theory they propose, all are non-refutable.
"I'd only reinforce that there is a massive split on the left: A fight between the liberal left that continues to remain devoted to equality, due process, and free speech and the illiberal 'woke' left of current DEI struggle sessions."
Noah Smith (an American liberal): "The American socialist worldview is just totally broken." https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-american-socialist-worldview-4aa
I spent half an hour trying to express a fraction of what Mr Stratton has so eloquently written in response to Ms Gerson's epistle. There are many of us politically homeless sorts out here but for me, Poilevre is a bridge too far. I'd rather not vote than hold my nose and plump for Harper's puppet.
"Daily events are downstream of culture" means that cultural shifts happen under the radar before we see them expressed in galvanizing events and then legislation. (I wish the phrase was original.)
TRA stands for radical "trans rights activists" who believe that intact, biological males belong in women's sports, change rooms and prisons if they say they're women, as opposed to the traditional left which believes that dysphoric individuals deserve social dignity and civil rights but are not literally the opposite sex.
DEI takes traditional left support for diversity, equality and inclusion and turns it into a rigid ideology of "oppressor and oppressed" defined by immutable characteristics of race and gender, etcetera. And it swaps equality for equity, which means that any difference in group performance is because of racism, trans/homophobia, ableism etcetera, without reference to any other factor like economics (which is the focus of the traditional left.
The shift in these two areas began in the 1990s but society only began paying attention post George Floyd in the case of DEI and Lia Thomas in the case of TRA extremists.
My conclusions are as stated in my comment.
"Daily events are downstream of culture..."
The options realistically available to us are also downstream of demography, an insight that became general when Boom Bust & Echo was first published (1996) and which is now all too familiar to millennials, gazing in envy at boomers' multi-million dollar houses.
"DEI takes traditional left support for diversity, equality and inclusion and turns it into a rigid ideology... [etc.]..."
What mystifies boomers is the transformation of the information commons into a kind of kindergarten, in which basic ideas like inclusion and tolerance that all sensible people would agree with are rammed down everybody's throat 24 hours a day as if they were revolutionary discoveries. This has led to the curious phenomenon of intelligent public figures like Bret Weinstein and Douglas Murray having to waste their time defending concepts (the crucial importance of freedom of speech and true diversity of thought, for example) that were clear to every high school student in the 1960s.
What are we to do with an information commons corrupted by would-be social engineers masquerading as journalists, who no longer inform us impartially and fairly about the culture wars but, by means of constant reality editing, attempt to win them for one side? The ideological capture of institutions has been tragic from every point of view, because you can't really converse with ideologues in the sense of embarking on a joint truth quest. Every 'conversation' for a committed ideologue is an exercise in moving along a single path, surmounting all obstacles, toward the destination he knows in advance he has to reach.
Since remedial input is regarded as just such an obstacle, criticizing ideological goals and methods simply stamps the critic as an enemy to be resisted and, ideally, silenced. There's diversity for you!
Thank you for this article. It is clear and well written. As a Jewish Canadian woman with family in Israel, these past weeks have been harrowing and one of the worst parts has been watching thugs stand a few feet away from our candlelit vigil for the hostages celebrating death and destruction. But you're right: the mask has slipped and we cannot un-see the real face.
YES! The queer pro-Hamas protests have been one of the most puzzling things to me - like - you're literally cheering for a group that will instantly kill you for existing if given the chance - have you thought this through? (For the record, I don't care what sexuality someone does or doesn't have - but I know the religious law (shariah? not sure how to spell it) is VERY clear on how even disobedient wives are treated or a woman who has been raped and lost her virginity before marriage. I know someone (a Canadian citizen local to me) whose now ex-husband attempted to carry out an honor killing of her and her son because she was too outspoken and politically opinionated. She came very close to death as a result of this attempt. Her ex-husband is of course protected and no longer in Canada. She lives in fear that someone may still try to kill her on behalf of her ex-husband, because in their religion, her ex-husband was SUPPOSED to kill her for being too vocal and opinionated.)
I hope that this cognitive dissonance that you described so very well leads to an increase in humanity. I know some Jewish friends with left-wing beliefs are feeling very confused and politically homeless right now. For my part, I've talked to my Jewish friends to tell them they have my support. I figure that's the best any of us can do right now is let our Jewish friends know that we support them.
It’s due to pet victim protection on the left. They can’t admit that the objects of their concern are anything but perfect.
https://madogiwazoku.substack.com/p/on-pet-victim-protection
The old adage that ‘there would be peace if the Palestinians laid down their arms, but if the Israelis laid down their arms there would be no Israel’ is based on reality. It is also closely linked to the question; ‘would you rather be a Jew in Gaza or a Palestinian in Israel?’
Brilliant column. It has been nothing less than disgusting to read about people braying this 'from the river to the sea..." bullshit, and not understanding that this means shoving any and all Jews into the Med. The Arabs have never - never - been interested in accommodating a Jewish state. Equally disgusting is the fact that, as Gerson points out, these clowns haven't bothered to read the Hamas charter.
Isn’t Toronto Metropolitan University formerly Ryerson ( a name change provoked by the interests of wokeism) a home for many of the extreme left? Perhaps a bit of selective defunding might be in order?
Just the fact it was renamed TMU tells you all you need to know about the critical thinking that goes on there.
Well, if cancel culture was good for the goose...
David, I agree but if we argue that the goose was irresponsible then the gander should not similarly act irresponsibly, no matter the provocation. Or delicious opportunity.
:) Great way to start my day. Thanks Ken!
Absofuckinglutely brilliant, Jen. Thank you.
Great read, Jen! I seriously can't comprehend the disconnect of woke folks who think any form of censorship or violence is OK as long as it's for a cause they support. The hypocrisy is fucking depressing, to be frank and gives me pause when I consider some of these people are our next generation of leaders. Hopefully, common sense and compromise become the norm once more.
The language and motivation used by these terrorist and their supporters is the same as that being used to describe Canadians of European heritage and the ultimate goal is the same. Our elementary schools and universities are teaching our children and especially new Canadians to hate those that for the most part built this nation. It's in front of our faces and plain to see if you aren't blind. Canada will be torn apart because of it.
Teaching ALL aspects of our history is not teaching children to hate the people previously given prominence in history books. It's called balance.
So True, but so sad. Excellent post Jen.
To quote the late great Israeli Prime Minister Golda Maier. there will be peace in the middle east when Islam loves its own children more than it hates Jews.
Whether one inclines more to the left or the right, politically, one should understand the world one lives in and know something of its history. How many non-Muslims who sympathize with Hamas realize that if they tried expressing their support by visiting Mecca, they wouldn't even be allowed in the city? There's diversity and inclusion for you, eighth-century style.
For people who think Palestine is a democratic country heres a reality check. Make no mistake Hamas controls the people of Palestine with brutality and fear. They can no more rise up than other countries ruled by dictators. Israel is surrounded by countries that want it annihilated. Should Hamas reach their goal the Palestinian people will still live under an oppressive brutal regime and will not be free. The women and gender diverse should take a good hard look at treatment of people like themselves in Islamic countries before supporting an Islamic state. Just because you have equal rights in Canada I don’t think that would apply if you were in Palestine.
P.S. Hamas, having perfectly foiled Israeli intelligence, could have taken several Israeli military bases and taken prisoners and hostages without committing any atrocities against civilians. That would have been a great moral victory and act of "resistance". Instead, they poured all of their political capital for an entire generation into this....
Just FYI. this when I asked Bing AI if there was any evidence of baby beheading during the Oct 7 attack:
Based on my web search results, there is no conclusive evidence that babies were beheaded during the Oct 7 attack by the Hamas. The claim was widely circulated by some Israeli officials, media outlets, and politicians, but it was not confirmed by the Israeli government or any independent sources. The Israeli Prime Minister's office posted some photos of babies who were allegedly killed and burned by the Hamas, but none of them showed any signs of decapitationhttps://news.yahoo.com/were-israeli-babies-beheaded-hamas-231800102.htmlhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/we-do-not-know-if-israeli-babies-were-beheaded-by-hamas-militants-in-kfar-aza/ar-AA1iIy8ihttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israeli-official-says-government-cannot-confirm-babies-were-beheaded-in-hamas-attack/ar-AA1i5JxW. The US President also mentioned the claim in a speech, but later clarified that he had not seen any proof of ithttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/we-do-not-know-if-israeli-babies-were-beheaded-by-hamas-militants-in-kfar-aza/ar-AA1iIy8i. Some journalists and Israeli army spokespersons claimed to have seen or obtained visual evidence of the beheadings, but they did not make it public or share it with other reporters or fact-checkershttps://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/12/40-israeli-babies-beheaded-by-hamas/https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.htmlhttps://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/what-we-know-about-three-widespread-israel-hamas-war-claims/. Therefore, the claim remains unverified and disputed, and should be treated with caution and skepticism. I hope this helps. blush
This issue is badly muddled ans we are going to address this in this week's Dispatch. But the short answer is that we have multiple sources confirming this. JG
Since I'm a subscriber, I look forward to the "multiple sources confirming" that the 40 beheaded babies bullshit story is actually not bullshit.
I'm sure this is bullshit too, but I'll wait for confirmation.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/24/freed-gaza-hostages-named-yocheved-lifshitz-nurit-cooper
I think one person conflated dead babies and beheaded bodies and off it goes. It's just too good not to use if you're a politician. The MSM can then repeat it as a "Quotation". That being said, I believe that the atrocities committed were plenty abhorrent without beheaded babies.
https://politicalwire.com/2023/10/23/worst-correction-ever/
I think there was no shortage of sickening events regardless.
dan mcco: Agree with everything you say.
If I grant you with absolute certainty that there were zero beheaded babies are you ok with rest of hamas actions? Is that where you draw the line: mass murder at a music festival, ok, killing of entire families, check, rape, no problem, all examples of legitimate "resistance" right?
Bruce Horton. Agreed. There is no point agruing the verasity of beheading claims. There is plenty of video evidence of atocities to go around. I believe, though, that you take away from the argument if you report something that is unverifiable or in doubt. It is distracting if that becomes the focus of the debte. Better to stick with what you know for sure.
True
Israel's president has clarified that there was indeed baby's beheaded since that time. I also wouldn't be trusting AI to conglomerate news as there has been some very interesting articles put out about how AI tries to produce results that produce the person who is searching, as well as very clear instances of universal errors in the data that AI produces. (I would assume Bing AI is no better than chat GPT in this area.) I don't know much about the bing algorithm but I do know that chat GPT claims to only have access to the material it was trained on and not live access to the internet. (However - chat GPT appeared to have access in the transcript this was from - so I can't verify whether this is true or not.) I'm just not sure how quickly AI would pick up NEW content and there has been new content since the 12th, so I am questioning how up to date the bing AI is today versus reporters who can manually seek out sources.
no one is trusting AI or chatGPT to give accurate info, but it DOES aggregate acceptable viewpoints (which is why the no beheadings question has value - it shows societal trends)
the bulk of the anti-Israel talk I hear is based on a belief that they have a massive upper hand where power is concerned. To that I say: this was certainly true 20 years ago. But today? we are seeing a shift occur before our eyes. In another 20 years time, when the university students are running the institutions, and the most-shocked of us are no longer in positions of influence or power, that 'upper hand' will be gone. and if you think a movement will stop when it gets it's short term goal(s), you don't know history or our human nature
, or the horror of nuclear weapons.
IceSkater40: FYI, my understanding is that Bing AL, unlike ChatGPT, is not "trained" but is some form of intelligent web search.
Don't cherry pick
Oof, careful, you're going to disrupt the narrative.
Gavin: Yeah, really.
A few days ago, a lefty friend reacted to this quote from a SubStack I sent him:
“Many people woke up on October 7 sympathetic to parts of woke ideology and went to bed that evening questioning how they had signed on to a worldview that had nothing to say about the mass rape and murder of innocent people by terrorists.”
His comment:
"Like who? Show me one “woke” person who does not understand that wrong is wrong is wrong.
"Whatta load of horseshit."
I asked Bing: "Can you find the recording of a university prof celebrating the killing of people at the music concert in Israel on Oct 7 2023"
It could find nothing and returned this:
"I searched the web for a recording of a university professor celebrating the killing of people at the music concert in Israel on Oct 7 2023, but I could not find any such recording. I found some news articles and videos that reported on the horrific attack by Hamas militants on the Supernova festival near the Gaza-Israel border, where at least 260 young people were killed and many others were injured or taken hostage. I also found some statements and reactions from world leaders, celebrities, and human rights organizations that condemned the massacre and expressed solidarity with the victims and their families . However, I did not find any evidence of a university professor celebrating or supporting the attack. If such a recording exists, it would be very disturbing and unacceptable, as it would show a complete lack of empathy and respect for human life."
So, maybe it did not happen? Or is Bing being censored?
I have absolutely seen people celebrating the Hamas attack on my social media and in screenshots shared by US Jewish friends on social media. I also have seen some of these same leftwing friends expressing how alone they feel and that they no longer feel they fit in with leftwing beliefs. I most certainly do not for a minute believe that Bing is going to have up to date information - search algorithms are algorithms, not arbiters of truth.
Now - to be clear, me seeing people express it doesn't equate to millions feeling that way anymore than your friend expressing they don't feel that way equates to nobody feeling that way. Humans are complex and while we can only base our opinions on the information we view and the conversations we have, millions of people will have opinions that we never hear about, but which do influence us when it comes time for election.
Something that you could easily verify though, is the MPP in Ontario who was censured AND removed from the NDP cabinet for what she has said on social media and her decision to do what she wants rather than consulting with the NDP party. There are people who are cheering for Hamas, equating Hamas to freedom for Palestine and failing to understand that Hamas does not mean a free Palestine.
While Israel is engaging with them as a country, Hamas is explictily anti-Jew. And much of the rhetoric being promoted by pro-Palestine Muslims is also anti-Jew. I wonder how many Muslim Israeli's were murdered by Hamas versus Jewish Israelis during the invasion?
Terrorism is wrong - and Hamas has killed Palestineans to get into power the way they have. They don't represent Palestineans and this is a major piece that all these pro-Palestine protests are missing. If people really cared about Palestine and a two state solution, they would seek to root out Hamas - a terrorist organization, and imprison every member of it and then allow Palestineans to rebuild. BUT I haven't seen any of the pro-Palestine groups doing that. There is a complicit support of Hamas in the support being given to Palestine and an implied denial of Israel's right to exist as a nation.
It sounds like your search query wasn't particularly good. "university professor celebrating hamas attack" immediately popped up several articles about Cornell professor Russell Rickford.
People tend to ask "can I believe this?" if they encounter information that reinforces their intellectual priors. When it contradicts those priors, they tend to ask "MUST I believe this?" Lately, I've seen a lot of intellectual cowardice where people metaphorically stick their fingers in their ears to avoid the question altogether.
George Skinner: Interesting. I assume you used Google. Makes me wonder what is going on with Bing AI and, althought I have found it pretty good in other searches, maybe it is not so good with contraversial topics.
Nope, I used Bing because the comment referenced Bing.
Well said. It's about time the pendulum swings the other way, before these vile leftist perspectives become even more outrageous, even more widespread, even more accepted.