Thanks for reading Judy Haiven’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Subscribed |
The top news story is the immediate cancelling of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show by the US network ABC for what he said –about Kirk’s alleged murderer. Kimmel said,
“The Maga gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Kimmel’s suggestion that the Utah born and raised alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk had not been “indoctrinated with leftist ideology” but a fellow-traveller of US president Trump and his fascist minions did not sit well with Trump. About the media, Trump just announced
“They give me only bad publicity [and] press. I mean, they’re getting a licence. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.”
Kimmel’s toppling is also the first item of news on almost every Canadian radio, TV and newspaper. That is compounded by the story of the other late night talk show host Stephen Colbert, whose show was cancelled earlier in the summer because he criticized Trump.
Terrible –all the liberals cry – Trump is shutting down free speech. It’s the end of the First Amendment rights, they yell. Yet, in Canada, where our free speech rights are less well-defined, we have no reason to feel complacent.
(Above: Our Mountie in Ottawa; Tyler Robinson, alleged killer of Kirk (Reuters); Charlie Kirk (white tshirt) throws MAGA hats into crowd (Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)
In Canada
Two years ago, almost exactly, Yaroslav Hunka, aged 98, was recognized by every member of Canada’s House of Commons as they stood to give him not one but two standing ovations. Hunka is a 98-year-old veteran of the 14thWaffen Grenadier Division (14th Waffen SS). The 14th Waffen Grenadiers (also known as the SS Galicia Division) was a Nazi German military formation composed of more than 80,000 mainly Ukrainian military volunteers from the area of Galicia. That means Mr Hunka was a Nazi, or a Nazi sympathizer—yet Canada’s House of Commons thought it was fine to honour him. Hunka had even boasted that 1941-45 had been “the happiest years of his life”. What an embarrassment when the truth came out.
How could Canadian politicians and political leaders, the majority with professional backgrounds, master’s degrees and PhDs, so easily have a lapse in memory about World War II and care little that we honoured a Nazi –albeit 78 years after the war.
 |
Two years later, what have our parliamentarians learned? Not much—though it is a new Parliament with 117 brand new MPs. Just two days ago Conservative and Liberal MPs showed unanimous support for backbench Tory MP Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge AB) who rose in the House of Commons to eulogize Charlie Kirk “an advocate for faith, family and freedom”.
The majority of our MPs* gave a standing ovation to Thomas’ tribute to Charlie Kirk – a 31 year old, right-wing ideologue, founder and leader of the most prominent and arguably pernicious Christian right youth ministry Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Kirk was killed by a 22 year old assassin that the powers that be claim was a left-wing agitator—not a right wing ideologue. Kirk was a big MAGA-supporter, and a personal friend of Trump. In 2021, Kirk earned over $407,000 from his charity, TPUSA. His personal networth is estimated to be $12 million.
Here are some of Kirk’s recent statements:
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually,” he said. “I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage.”
While debating a college student, Kirk said of Black people “They were actually better [off] in the 1940s. It was bad. It was evil. But what happened? Something changed. They committed less crimes.”
In July 2023, he attacked four prominent Black women — Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — asserting they benefitted from affirmative action because they “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously” and that they “had to go steal a white person’s slot to be taken somewhat seriously”.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”
“Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America”.
“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”
Why did Canadian parliamentarians give a tribute, a standing ovation, to this US pro-fascist? Was it to curry favour with Trump? To duck away from Trump’s hitting us with huge trade tariffs? Was it to ignore the fact that Trump’s trade penalties have cost us 41,000 jobs in July and 66,000 in August?
 |
Was it to ingratiate ourselves with the vicious bullies south of the border like Trump and VP Vance who are working to rout the left. As Vance said,
“this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet.”
Meanwhile a few news sources are skeptical of the motivation, the politics and the ability of the 22-year-old man arrested to have actually murdered Kirk. And why.
Here in Canada, Poilievre and his Tories are pushing hard to pass more anti-crime laws, spend more money on the military and defense, put more people in jail, and pushing against immigration. Prime Minister Carney is walking a couple of teetering steps to the left.
* none of the seven NDP MPs rose for the ovation
Cartoon at the top credit to Steve Nease, Cagle.com
Share this:
Related
Why we have to monitor decisions made by the NS Human Rights Commission’s Boards of InquiryOctober 3, 2023In "Art"
“Can’t Buy My Silence” – why NDAs are bad for the public interestDecember 9, 2021In "Art"
Never Miss an Opportunity for Racial ProfilingDecember 1, 2022In "Arrests"
Thanks for reading Judy Haiven’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
| ||||
No comments:
Post a Comment