In surveying my stack of anti-conservative hate literature, two articles published on consecutive days [Jan.18 and 19] in my local newspaper caught my eye. Both were written by academics, one recently retired.
The latter, Geoffrey Stevens, formerly a political science professor at the U. of Guelph, goes on at some length about the damage the Trump years may have done to America’s democracy. But while I would hardly dispute his characterization of the former President as “an unstable, erratic, lying, narcissistic demagogue,” I would suggest that description to be equally applicable to the newly elected Biden. Did the “scholarly” Stevens not bother to investigate Biden’s 1988 quest to become his party’s presidential candidate which was derailed by the multiple lies and plagiarisms of which he was found guilty? Is he not aware that the mainstream media of that era declared his political career to be over due to his obvious moral failings?
In discussing the various freedoms protected by Canada’s Charter of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, Stevens points out that there are of course “necessary limits” to such. “Freedom of assembly does not extend to a right to belong to a criminal organization, such as the Hells Angels.” His article makes it quite clear he is referring to right wing organizations such as the “neo-fascist Proud Boys” whom, he suggests, Trump has long been plying with “red meat.” The implication, of course, is that they are mere animals! But are not Antifa and B.L.M. both in their violent behavior and avowed principles, the very definition of “criminal organizations”? Is there any objective integrity whatsoever to this “scholarly” article?
As has become a cliche of the contemporary Left, Stevens goes on to revile the “disinformation” being propagated on social media, an information source which drives “progressives” crazy because it operates beyond their control. I would never be so foolish as to suggest that “social media” is not the tool of choice of a certain number of irrational loonies, but the “conservative” podcasts to which I subscribe are unequivocally more rational, more honest, than the mainstream pods of Leftist bias no doubt preferred by Stevens. Apparently the agents of “disinformation” which he so loathes do not include CNN whose executives were taped by Project Veritas celebrating their duplicity in contributing to the election of Joe Biden, reveling in the fact that they had refused to highlight the obviously corrupt relationship between Biden, his degenerate son and various foreign interests while fixating daily on every flaw they could discover on the eminently flawed Mr. Trump.
The article of Henry A. Giroux, a professor at Hamilton’s McMaster University, is even more loathsome than that of Prof. Stevens, lamenting the hatred stoked by the Trump administration while oozing hatred from every second sentence of its text. Quite aside from social media, we are told, “conservative” networks such as Fox are fountains of “disinformation, hate and bigotry.” But I have watched hundreds of videos of individuals such as Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson and found no traces of any of the above. Defending the integrity of America’s Southern border is not racist but simple common sense. Denouncing the murderous exploits of radical Islam is not xenophobic but simple common sense. Condemning the devastation wrought by the gangs of America’s Black inner city ghettos is not racist but simple common sense. A multitude of Black “conservatives” agree! But to the “scholarly” Giroux, clearly an ideologue rather than a rationalist, there is no room for discussion on these issues, anyone who disagrees with him automatically consigned to the lowest regions of hell.
Hence his depiction of the events of Jan. 6 as a “homicidal uprising,” “a murderous assault on the Capitol.” Clearly referring to police officer Brian Sicknick as one who had been beaten to death by Trump’s ignorant supporters, he must have been devastated by the subsequent revelation that Sicknick had in fact died of natural causes [a stroke]. Indeed the only individual to have perished on Jan. 6 as the result of an overt act of aggression was poor Ashley Babbitt, a former member of America’s military shot while unarmed as she attempted to climb through a window. Gee, is it possible that the “scholarly” Giroux’s use of terms such as “homicidal” and “murderous” were designed to deceive? Is it possible he himself is a hypocritical disseminator of “disinformation”?
Near the end of his article Giroux declares: “It is time to reclaim the utopian ideals unleashed by the history of civil rights struggles, the insights and radical struggles produced by the Black Lives Matter movement….” Is it possible this “scholar” does not know that “utopian ideals” are utterly incompatible with the real world, that their pursuit inevitably entails concentration camps and death squads? Is it possible he does not know that B.L.M. was founded on communist principles? Is it possible he does not realize he is a mindless ideologue? Is it possible that newspapers and T.V. stations willing to publish those such as he are in fact the most egregious perpetrators of misinformation in the Western world, simplistically accusing anyone who disagrees with them of their very own sins?