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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Explicit calls for political violence come from the radical left in Canada

Any mass murder in North America has ramifications beyond the transparent tragedy that accompanies the death of innocents in a society that is comparatively among the safest in the world.

In trying to make sense of the incomprehensible, there are some who will try to find a culprit beyond the obvious, sometimes without any rational basis. The atrocity perpetrated by demented killer Jared Loughner over the weekend in which six innocent people were murdered and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded has, what seems to be, an obvious explanation. The perpetrator, whose public pronouncements suggest an incoherent, unbalanced madman, was mentally ill and acted out out of psychosis.

But one of the tragedies in this case, that compounds the original one, is that there are no shortage of people who are happy to exploit these deaths for political and ideological motives.

Because the central victim in is a Democratic legislator whose district was identified by Sarah Palin as a "target" for  Republicans to take, Democrats and others on the left, both in the US and in Canada, have ebulliently grasped the opportunity to lay blame on the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate,the Republican party and "right wingers" in general for allegedly creating a climate filled with violent rhetoric that supposedly created these events.

Nothing could be more absurd.

From The Democratic Leadership Council website
Despite preposterous suggestions from people like Paul Krugman in The New York Times, there is no evidence whatsoever establishing that anything Sarah Palin, or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh said that played any role in Loughner's deranged violence. Sarah Palin may be a bit of a buffoon more famous for celebrity itself than for political adroitness, but her use of political rhetoric never called for violence of any kind and it falls within the scope of discourse that typifies much of American politics.

Responsible conservatives are as opposed to violence as much as responsible liberals. We live in a democratic society where change can be achieved through persuasion and elections.


Sane people are appalled by and reject the idea of initiating transition by terror.

But what may be shocking to some is that in Canada, explicit calls for violence to achieve political ends are coming from none other than the radical left.

Or perhaps not so shocking. The most recent acts of publicized political violence in Canada came from The Black Bloc during Toronto's G20 conference. It was radical leftists who rioted and caused millions of dollars in damage to make a political statement.

But it doesn't end there. Prominent Canadian leftist Judy Rebick founded a Marxist-leaning website called rabble.ca. It's now published by the spouse of the NDP's Deputy Leader, Libby Davies and is mainly funded by Canadian unions like CUPW and CUPE. That site's discussion forum recently hosted a thread entitled, "When is the time for violent revolution?" in which its contributors made comments like:

"I was wondering when it would be ok to overthrow a government, violently if need be."

"Perhaps the reason the ballot box isn't working is because the ballot box isn't the way to the solution."

"I think 9/11 was just a test run. The people failed with flying colours. And I think it's an example of what's in store for the future if fascists back themselves into another corner."

"How many more decades should we wait? It appears that Canadians arent catching on, so should we suffer in silence for 30 more years? maybe a generation or three? Dont the better people of our society have a responsibility to the stupid?"

and worse.

Beyond that,  CUPE, CUPW, Independent Jewish Voices (an anti-Israel group) and the NDP's Socialist Caucus were all endorsers of a recent rally where one of the speakers called for violent revolution in Canada.

At a Toronto rally in support of convicted American cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamar, one of the speakers was an organizer from the Communist newsletter BASICS. Following a rambling speech about conspiracies and praising violent revolutionaries, he said "we haven't had any threat of insurrection or any, you know, revolutionary uprisings in Canada quite for, for quite some time, right? But that that doesn't mean that operation is not still in play."

This suggests that the Canadian radical left is not only advocating violence, but planning it.

This type of organized insurrection against democracy is far more dangerous than a lone madman. Violence for political means is deplorable, and no ideology or political movement has a monopoly on it. But its strongest proponents these days are not the "right-wingers" and "neo-Cons" but their opponents.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

good points made here.

I also remember a few years ago a movie called "the assasination of a president" was released. I believe it dealt with the assasination of Bush, done in a docudrama style, I will admit to never seeing it, however I did read about it.

Kaffir_Kanuck said...

It’s a disease of the Left, that they perpetually need a victim to satisfy their agenda. Having been given one, they rally to a flag of their true colours.

Richard K said...

You have a point Kaf. The far left in this country shouldn't necessarily be considered benign. A lot of them think that they are so much smarter than anyone else and can't understand why their ideas haven't got any traction. They often idiotically attribute it to various conspiracies and feel that they have justification in seizing power to fulfil, as one of them put it, what they see as their "responsibility to the stupid" (i.e. anyone who disagrees with them).

MariaS said...

That rabble site is vomit inducing... I never ever visit that dump... but I guess some of us have to do the dirty work so as to keep an eye on the violently loonie hordes there. And, judging by their comments, these people are fuses just waiting to explode, and they only need each other to light their fuses.

It is a matter of great shame that a deputy leader of one of our 3 main political parties is connected to that dump yard. It should also be a matter of great concern to Jack Layton, leader of the NDP... unless he too agrees with the spouse of his deputy.

Anonymous said...

Seriously dude, this attempted political assassination, can only be connected the politics it came from.

Your assumptions, that because at Rabble.ca some commentators hold a Marxist tendency, they are automatically in the wrong and offensive, is pretty bad logic. Actually it's not logic at all, it's ideological presumptions.

The left and right at all times, talk of revolution, that is the nature of the working class and their struggle from oppression.

But facts remain, Fascism was created by right winged Capitalists tendencies.

Unfortunately for your right winged stance, most, if not all, reactionary movement in the USA comes for the right wing and it's media outlets.


While you right wingers want to own a gun and shot something, or in this case some one. Us left wingers want to plant a tree and save some hungry child.

Richard K said...

Thanks. That was about as coherent as I'd expect from someone who contributes to rabble.ca.

I think if you look at what describes itself as the "right" in America, you'd find the talk about 'revolution' is metaphorical and they mean an electoral, not violent revolution. No responsible mainstream leftist in the US or Canada approves of political violence either.

It's the unhinged, marginally coherent (if that) loons, many of whom frequent rabble.ca, who seem to think that because of their failure to make any political inroads through democratic means, that they can pursue any other option they like.

I'm not sure why you're on about fascism. That movement, as a serious political force, died the death it deserved with Franco in Spain.

Right now, the totalitarians in the world are the Marxists and a lot of the Islamic states.

If you want to save children and plant trees, good for you and you have my best wishes in those endeavours.

I didn't notice the Black Bloc doing either of those things in June.

Anonymous said...

You can slush off the talk from the right all you want but the facts remain. They propagate hatred at all times. Hate against immigrants, hate against minorities, hate against socialist, against communists, against Arabs. The list goes on.

If you want to compose a retort against what I write, at least us some facts to denounce me. Not some personal attack like "That was about as coherent as I'd expect from someone who contributes to rabble.ca".

You don't think the right wants the violent over throw of governments? What about the military invasions of foreign lands, such as Iraq and Afghanistan?

Fascism is not dead, it thrives in the USA as one can see on Fox News daily. What about the Tea Party movement?

What's wrong with the Black Bloc? Oh that's right, you give importance to a pain of glass. But I don't hear anything about you condemning the police for their anti-democratic tendencies that weekend. Or the fact that the Government shut down part of the largest City in Canada to host a party for some of the most violent government leaders on the planet.

Heres is your down fall in logic...

You said this; "In trying to make sense of the incomprehensible"

There is nothing "incomprehensible" about this attempted political assassination.

Actually it's completely comprehensible, and in fact, expected.

You take, one guy that has mental problems, put him in a society the demands personal responsibility, take away his economy opportunities, lambaste him with right winged reactionary commentary, add years and years of war propaganda. And what do you think is going to happen? Nothing? In a Country for 300 million people, in total economic decline and you can't comprehend that something like this would happen? Give your head a shake.

You see, you think the fight is between left and right. I don't. The fight is between two types of thinking,; reactionary and thoughtful thinking. Where do you stand?

Anonymous said...

Here is what a Marxist with a Trotsky tendency thinks about the whole affair. You judge.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/tucs-j11.shtml

Richard K said...

Yup, sounds exactly like someone who believes what they read at rabble. Your way of thinking is "thoughtful" and any other isn't. Uh..ok.

While you're doing some of your "thoughtful thinking" you might want to find out what actual fascism is, since you use the term so freely. Fox News may have its flaws, but if you think they're promoting fascism, you clearly don't have much of an understanding of that political ideology.

Oh, and by the way, The Communist Manifesto was on the Arizona psycho killer's list of favorite favorite reads. So much for your "lambaste him with right winged reactionary commentary" theory.

Richard K said...

Oh, and you've mischaracterized my notion of what I think the main ideological conflict in the world is. It's not between the "left" and the "right." In liberal democracies, the mainstream "left" and "right" are actually rather similar and have mainly superficial policy and ideological differences.

Right now the main conflict is the battle between liberalism as characterized by the political systems in countries like the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, Western Europe and some others versus extremist political ideologies which don't respect individual liberties and democracy.

Richard K said...

Yeah.

Your Troskyite wrote:

"It is indubitably true that there is a direct and immediate connection between the murderous rampage of the shooter, Jared L. Loughner, and the interminable stream of fascistic ravings from Republican Party politicians, corporate-funded “Tea Party” organizations, and television and talk-radio demagogues."

And he knows this how?

The little Leninist squirrels in his head told him so?

I guess this guy is where you get your understanding of the term "fascist" from. You might want to invest in a dictionary. Geez, even wikipedia would give you a clue if you looked it up.