The Hungover Pundit

Thanking Kurt Phillips

In last week’s blog I mentioned that ID Canada, an “Identarian” (read: white nationalist) group claimed to have identified the author of the important anti-fascist blog Anti-Racist Canada. The extreme-right in Canada immediately began baying for “justice” against the alleged author, claiming that his unmasking was a “victory” and the start of a “purge of antifa”… and when fascist extremists openly start using words like purge, you can bet they’re riled up.

On Thursday, January 9^th, the person they’d identified as the author of the blog spoke up. It, he said, was true. His name is Kurt Phillips, and for more than a decade he’s been tracking neo-Nazis and hate groups and sharing that information with the public.

Response to the Fifth Estate Doc

So… New Year, new resolutions. Now that I’ve got my health issues under control(ish), my computer rebuilt and my phone replaced, it’s time to get the motor running and get back to the regular writing and publishing schedule that I’ve been intending these past few months. So here goes.

On Sunday, January 5^th, the CBC’s program The Fifth Estate ran a 23-minute documentary called Confronting Hate: How Antifa is Tracking the Extreme Right. In the documentary, CBC journalist Gillian Findlay interviews a number of antifascist activists, some anonymous, some not. It’s a pretty good look at what we do and despite some short-comings I think it’s worth the watch.

Hiatus

As astute readers of the blog are aware, I’ve not been posting for the past couple of weeks. Basically, I’m dealing with a serious health issue and that’s taking up most of my emotional energy and creativity.

I’m putting the blog on hiatus for the next couple of weeks or so while I sort things out.

I hope to be back at it by mid-December.

Pride 2019 Part 6 — Not The Way Forward

Last Friday CBC’s Samantha Craggs published a story about the Hamilton Police Service’s post-Pride analysis; apparently she’d gotten a copy of a document called “The Way Forward“, outlining the response to “concerns raised by members of the LGBTQ at a meeting in August.” Along with a great deal of pious insincerity about how “[The HPS] is committed to self-reflection — words matter” and how they “must consider the impact of its words, active listening and working towards restoring trust” the document proposes an “action plan” for the HPS to improve their relationship to the LGBTQ+ community in Hamilton, including several specific recommendations:

– The creation of an “online portal” to educate the general public about hate crimes.
– Implementing “more officer training.”
– Resurrecting the long-defunct LGBTQ+ advisory committee.
– Appointing a uniformed officer to be an “official liaison” with the LGBTQ+ community

The Absurdity of Hashtag-Wexit

On Monday, October 21st, millions of Canadians went to the polls, exercised their democratic franchise, and sent a message to Ottawa with a resounding “meh.” Voter turnout was slightly lower than in 2015 at 65.95% of total eligible voters and the result was a Liberal minority government. The Conservatives did worse than they expected, the Bloc Quebecois did better, and the NDP managed to stay relevant and energized despite not having all that good a night in objective terms.

It was, in many ways, an absolutely normal Canadian election.

In other ways, not so much. The presence of the extreme-right “People’s Party of Canada” under Maxime Bernier revealed a vein of populism, racism and outright xenophobia that runs right through the Canadian political landscape. The PPC quickly became popular with Canada’s white-supremacist/fascist/neo-Nazi subculture who saw in the rise of a populist party a way to get their ideas into the mainstream political discussion. Of course, these fascist chuds very quickly convinced themselves that the PPC was the vanguard of the long-awaited populist wave which would rise up and sweep all the filthy immigrants, godless faggots and ANTIFA terrorists into the sea.

Clearly, this was not what happened… mostly because the alt-right goofs continue to ignore the fact that bots can’t vote.