And so Kevin McCarthy shows us what a human jellyfish looks like, deciding to "unilaterally" announce an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden after caving in to the likes of MAGAmaniac Matt Gaetz making comically threatening gestures on the House floor after it became clear that there wasn’t enough votes to support it. It doesn't matter that Jim Jordan and his ilk have already wasted a year pursuing evidence-free hearings of wrongdoing.
This is the Republican Party, at least on the House side where they
“represent” small-minded people while behind their backs they are really doing what their corporate
sponsors are telling them to do if they want their money, because power, or the facade of "power," is the only thing that motivates them.
It's the same old story: Democrats are doers, Republicans are destructive do-nothings
who spend all their time mischaracterizing the good that Democrats are doing to
insure some kind of future for this country--that is when they are not enabling the rich
like so many Prince Prosperos watching the divisive chaos they created from the "safety" of their castles on the
hills. It can only be hoped that the plague they unleashed reaches them eventually.
But what about Canada? We hardly ever hear anything going off the rails there; in fact, it is mostly non-Canadians who think there is a “problem.”
I’ve been putting off for awhile something I want to talk about concerning what one right-wing journalist named Steve Edginton, of the right-wing British newspaper The Telegraph, calls in his video report “Canada’s Woke Nightmare: A Warning To The West,” and this is as good a time as any to talk about it. What you say? You didn’t know about our neighbor to the north is in “chaos” because of all those “woke” and “promiscuous” laws passed by the liberal government under Justin Trudeau?
Right off the bat the narrator takes you into “the jungle”:
Canada was a very stable middle class country with reliable institutions; to say that's gone is to say almost nothing Canada under Justin Trudeau. The former British colony has sought to position itself as the global bastion of progressive politics, but has become a totalitarian state as his cultural revolution shows no sign of abating.
Edginton goes on
I went to Canada to find out how ordinary Canadians are dealing with Trudeau's radical reforms, the sexualization has become militarized from the promotion of gender ideology…the legalization of drugs, overdoses are up, violent crime is up—it's a jungle. Radical new suicide laws; you think that they want you dead.
What exactly is an “ordinary” Canadian anyways? I mean the one who has voted to keep the “liberals” in power for the past decade? Well, Edginton apparently can’t find those people even in “liberal” Vancouver, British Columbia. But does find some people who think “our leader Trudeau, I don't think I've ever heard him say a true word, all this nonsense about compassion is the manipulations of snakes pulling in the useful idiots who perhaps are genuinely compassionate and that's Canada.” The person who said this actually represents a minority position, as polls in Canada show. Edginton goes on
So we're here on Vancouver's downtown east side where the situation whether it's open drug use or violent crime just continues to get worse and every possession of hard drugs including heroin cocaine and Fentanyl has been legalized in the city to find out the impact of these new laws. I met up with Aaron Gunn…
…the same Gunn, it should be pointed out, who has been widely criticized in Canada as a far-right extremist and racist, who tells us in his "unbiased" opinion that there is…
…the incredible increases in homelessness, kind of just general societal chaos and the explosion of open drug use here in the streets of Vancouver and really on the streets of every major Canadian city. What's going on in Vancouver then we've seen the street order explode we've seen open drug use explode overdose deaths are up more than one thousand percent in the past 10 years here in British Columbia The Province where Vancouver is we saw more than 2,000 British Columbians died last year from overdoses alone every day in Vancouver four people are randomly attacked.
Edginton finds two gay men, one who prides himself in calling himself “queer,” while the other, more “conservative” one, is offended by such open displays. Is he afraid that in this “woke” country “People are afraid of losing their jobs if they speak out against the new laws” as Edginton
...went to find out more about the consequences of questioning gender ideology in Canada. I met up with Amy Hamm a nurse based in British Columbia…I'm fighting to maintain my nursing license...the two members of the public complained to my regulatory body, incensed by my involvement in putting up an I Love J.K. Rowling billboard. this billboard got a lot of attention in Vancouver that has a huge population of very hyper woke kind of Lefty people and that triggered an investigation...I don't think Canadians are necessarily polite maybe it's more passive aggressive could be the right word…I think as a country it's almost as if Canadians have chosen to do that. That's what cancel culture feels like here.
Now, the billboard being referred to caused immediate controversy and was covered over with hours it was displayed. Rowling—who already attracted “controversy” by supporting Johnny Depp—has made comments that suggest she thinks transgender identity hurts “real” women and girls, such as in sports. We can be honest about it, can’t we? She is probably correct, but being “right” isn’t the point; the question is do people have the “right” to wish to be whatever they want to be?
They do (I mean, do I even have a "say" in it?), but people who disagree with that have a “right” to make that known as well without being “silenced” or “cancelled.” If they still can’t take the “heat,” then that is their problem; people who have the courage of their convictions are more “admirable” than those fanatics trying to silence them.
Multiculturalism is also a “key pillar” of Trudeau’s “vision” of Canada’s future, we are told. That includes welcoming immigrants from India, some of whom only seem to accept that “vision” if it benefits them and allows them to express their own prejudices against other immigrant groups. So Edginton finds an Indian immigrant woman with fake blonde hair…
…complaining about multiculturalism and alleged transgenderism in the schools, which elicited a “fierce backlash” from people who either brought with them their own racist social mores (East Asians) or from a society “ordered” by a discriminatory system based on “caste” distinctions (South Asians). The woman says
I came from India in 1974…there was racism, people not happy that other colors are coming so they were throwing eggs and calling them names many things were happening…After 1980 it started improving (but) now so many taxes they are increasing it looks like that 50 50. 50 government is taking from us and we have only 50.
She goes on to say that she loves “multiculturalism”—but only that of her "kind": “Bringing from every country and not seeing what their back records are, so many criminals can come too and crime gonna go very high so there should be some standard to bring people.” Stereotyping people from what countries, huh? Do we need to guess? What a hypocrite—she is acting just like the racists who supposedly were throwing eggs and calling names at her all those years ago.
It was at that point where the last shred of credibility of all of this evaporated for me; the woman's son chimed in about gender identity issues being jammed down people's throats, although I was not willing to take his word about just how much. This “report” was simply another right-wing hit piece, excepting some points about the tyranny of “woke” culture. Edginton goes on to talk about the assisted suicide law which puts fewer roadblocks in the terminally ill’s or those permanently in pain their “right to die.”
But instead of talking to someone who has made that decision on their
own volition, he finds a paralyzed former military service member who is complaining
about Canada’s public health service and how the need to cut costs has lengthened
the time she needs to wait to receive a new motorized wheelchair. Her life is so “challenging”
now, it is if “they” want her to just “die.” This is the best Edginton could
do?
So what’s the “truth”? Is Vancouver a safe place to visit and not simply a far-right commentator’s worst nightmare or the typical if-it-bleeds-it-leads media impression, asks a travelers' website called Bounce, as of this year?
Vancouver is the most populated city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and one of the most beautiful. It is surrounded by clear blue waters and soaring mountain peaks, and these picture-perfect landscapes are unlike any other. It is also a hub for arts and culture and has a fantastic quality of living.
Some people don't think to check for travel advisories or restrictions when planning a trip, but in reality, that should be your first step. Currently, there are no dangers of vacationing in Canada and it is a great country to travel to. In fact, it is the 10th safest country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. That being said, you should always consult your own government's advice before you visit any city, including Vancouver.
How safe is Vancouver really? No city is truly crime-free, and minor crimes can still happen in Vancouver. Overall the city has a very low crime rate, does not have a risk of natural disasters and there is almost no chance of any serious crimes happening. As a tourist, you'll only have to watch out for pickpockets, but scams or other major crimes are not a threat. It is normal for major cities to have crime but Vancouver is actually very safe.
In other words, you only see the “bad” if you are looking for it. That is not to say there isn’t any “bad”—every large city or country and has some of that, even right-wing dictatorships like Florida and Russia.
Last year The New York Times commented that Canada’s assisted suicide law had the “least” amount of safeguards than any other country, which was criticized by some. However, the Times noted that
Although the Canadian law was hotly debated in 2016 when it was originally enacted, it has won broad public acceptance since then, with polls showing strong support. Through December of 2021, 31,664 Canadians have received assisted deaths. Of those, 224 who died last year were not terminally ill, taking advantage of last year’s amendment.
British Columbia’s “experiment” in decriminalizing hard drug possession under 2.5 grams has of course come under heavy criticism by the right and blamed for a rise in crime rates. It is still illegal to sell hard drugs, however; The New York Times noted the incongruity of this policy in an op-ed about Oregon’s similar law:
Here, too, defenders of the system point to funding shortfalls, especially for treatment. But the sticky fact that proponents of decriminalization rarely confront is that addicts are not merely sick people trying to get well, like cancer sufferers in need of chemotherapy. They are people who often will do just about anything to get high, however irrational, self-destructive or, in some cases, criminal their behavior becomes. Addiction may be a disease, but it’s also a lifestyle — one that decriminalization does a lot to facilitate. It’s easier to get high wherever and however you want when the cops are powerless to stop you.
Another issue concerning “wokeness” in Canada is about half-empty bookshelves in school libraries…
…with many old, mostly unread books
removed. I noted a CBC story that showed images of books being discarded—mainly by or about
women in an apparent effort to gaslight and “heighten” the “outrage” about this.
One of the books appeared to be from the Seventies and falling apart at the seams, and its subject matter female musical artists of the time. Now I’m all for Seventies music, but
kids today hate that music assuming
that they actually even ever heard any of it, and would probably roll their
eyes if you told them the Seventies was the best decade for popular music; presumably now it was just taking up "space."
The point would have been better made if classic novels and historical works were being shown the refuse pile, for it would have made the point better that today’s youth have little understanding of “culture” other than what the “woke” and “anti-woke” folks tell them it is.
As mentioned, polls in Canada suggests that people there are for the most part blasé about what the right-wing media calls “chaos” and “crisis.” The CBC notes that
But grappling with the pejorative use of the word "woke" at this point could be like trying to box a shadow. Because whatever it originally meant, woke has become a way to say something without saying anything. According to new survey data from Pollara, 57 per cent of Canadians claim to have at least a general idea of what woke means. But less than 27 per cent of all Canadians say they could explain the term to someone else (Pollara deliberately did not offer a definition to survey respondents when it conducted the poll). And it stands to reason that, even in that group, there are different definitions in use.
This suggests that, especially in the U.S., wokeness and "cancel culture" is driven by a small but fanatical minority of people for whom the meaning is "clear." In a another recent survey by Spark Advocacy,
Most (56%) say there are some challenges, but they don’t feel Canada is broken. Most of the 35% who think Canada is broken, don’t seem ready to blame the Trudeau Liberals. Some blame global issues, some blame the right. When you boil it all down, only 14% of Canadian voters believe the country is broken and the Canadian left is to blame. Only a small majority of Conservative voters (58%) think Canada is broken, and only half of them blame the left.
What that means, it appears, is that despite the efforts of a few far-right fanatics in Canada like Gunn and Pierre Poilievre, hyper-partisanship hasn’t taken in Canada as it has in the U.S. The Trudeau government has taken some popularity poll hits, and has been criticized not for its “wokeness” but for not taking more decisive action on the affordable housing “crisis,” although it claims it has “heard” the people and are taking action to remedy it.
It seems that the “anger” about “wokeness” is coming mostly from people with extreme-right or "foreign" viewpoints, and by outsiders seeking out only the people who are “dissatisfied” and are natural complainers. Again, that’s not to say “wokeness” can’t be annoying as hell, but in Canada it is simply not THE issue that culture warriors in this country think it is.
No one on the right in Canada is running on abolishing the public health care system or other social programs that the Indian woman is complaining about paying taxes for, no one is talking “culture war” nonsense—in fact the “conservatives” in Canada are actually taking the lead on the housing problem, which is quite different than the concerns of the far-right (let alone the right generally) in this country. For all the phony complaints about homelessness, most right-wingers believe the gutter is where they “deserve” to be anyways.
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