With Axworthy, Goldfarb and Marsden! I’m honoured to host. Tickets are going fast, here. It’ll be an amazing night!
“Warren Kinsella's book, ‘Fight the Right: A Manual for Surviving the Coming Conservative Apocalypse,’ is of vital importance for American conservatives and other right-leaning individuals to read, learn and understand.” - The Washington Times “One of the best books of the year.” - The Hill Times “Justin Trudeau’s speech followed Mr. Kinsella’s playbook on beating conservatives chapter and verse...[He followed] the central theme of the Kinsella narrative: “Take back values. That’s what progressives need to do.” - National Post “[Kinsella] is a master when it comes to spinning and political planning...” - George Stroumboulopoulos, CBC TV “Kinsella pulls no punches in Fight The Right...Fight the Right accomplishes what it sets out to do – provide readers with a glimpse into the kinds of strategies that have made Conservatives successful and lay out a credible roadmap for progressive forces to regain power.” - Elizabeth Thompson, iPolitics “[Kinsella] deserves credit for writing this book, period... he is absolutely on the money...[Fight The Right] is well worth picking up.” - Huffington Post “Run, don't walk, to get this amazing book.” - Mike Duncan, Classical 96 radio “Fight the Right is very interesting and - for conservatives - very provocative.” - Former Ontario Conservative leader John Tory “His new book is great! All of his books are great!” - Tommy Schnurmacher, CJAD “I absolutely recommend this book.” - Paul Wells, Maclean’s “Kinsella puts the Left on the right track with new book!” - Calgary Herald With Axworthy, Goldfarb and Marsden! I’m honoured to host. Tickets are going fast, here. It’ll be an amazing night!
They’re all connected. Seriously. So, there’s these two guys, profiled last week in the Washington Post: See that guy on the right, Brace Belden? He and his buddy are anarchists, fighting ISIS. Hollywood wants to make a big movie about them. And Brace? Brace is a punk rocker. Now, check this out, from five years ago in Maximum Rock’n’Roll, the premier punk rock mag: See that, bottom right corner? No less than ISIS-fighting anarchist punk Bruce Belden calls the Hot Nasties Invasion of the Tribbles EP the record of the week, and “great,” “pretty perfect,” “tasty (and tasteful),” “a great goddamn record,” and “everything I like about punk.” We were, Belden says, “dumb teenagers from nowhere writing pop hits” – which sounds about right. We were dumb teenagers (now we’re dumb adults). Anyway. All of the Nasties hope he is keeping safe over there, and we look forward to his return. We will play Invasion of the Tribbles – the Palma Violets’ favourite – when we finally meet up.
Get a load of this.
I would expect and hope that the Canadian government will protest this latest Trumpist xenophobic insanity. But I’m not holding my breath.
The Soldiers of Odin is a rapidly-growing far-Right anti-refugee, anti-immigrant racist organization now found across Canada. Experts call them a terror group. More on them here and here. The Jewish Defence League is a far-Right group that has itself been classified as extremist by the FBI for many years, and its parent organizations Kach and Kahane Chai are now officially terrorist organizations in Israel, Canada, the E.U. and the United States. More here and here. The JDL wasn’t always that way, as I write in Web of Hate, but it sure is now. And now the JDL stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Muslim and immigrant-hating Soldiers of Odin. An organization founded by an actual neo-Nazi. Here’s just one picture of a Canadian JDL guy with a Soldiers of Odin guy, in Toronto. Here is a video of them causing a mini-riot at Toronto City Hall. That the JDL and Soldiers of Odin are hanging out together may not be a big deal – it may even make sense. They both clearly hate Muslims and Muslim refugees. Hateful birds of a feather, etc. But what is significant is that the JDL and Soldiers of Odin are now scooting back and forth across international borders, despite the clear linkages to terrorism, and despite their clear willingness to commit crimes of violence. How is that possible? Why aren’t the authorities stopping them? What are the police doing about it? All good questions. But what isn’t in question is that the Jewish Defence League and Soldiers of Odin are now united, in their shared hatred of refugees, immigrants and Muslims. And that’s a problem for everyone.
So:
What’s it all mean? Well, here’s my linkless, bulleted take:
Carry on as you were. The universe is aligned, and Kevin O’Leary is still Kevin O’Douchebag.
Since I was a kid – since this day in 1972, in fact, when I started writing a daily journal – I have always taken note of April 4, and said to myself: “April 4. Dr. King.” Today, 49 years ago, Martin Luther King was murdered by a racist in Memphis. Dr. King was a giant of a man, the one who – as I write in Fight The Right – anticipated the message at the core of the Occupy movement, among other things. While his message continues to resonate across the decades, racial hatred continues unabated, too. It’s April 4, and so I give you some of his most remarkable speech. Surveying the racists who now crowd the public stage in the U.S., I don’t think we will see the likes of him again.
“Are you gay?” It was 1983 or so, and my Carleton journalism professor, Roger Bird, had asked me if I was gay. I was surprised. “Is that an issue?” I asked him. “If you are writing an investigative series about gay people in politics, I think it is,” Bird said, and he was probably right, as he was about most things. “Are you?” “No,” I said. I kind of laughed. “My parents thought I was, maybe.” “Okay,” Bird said. “Go write.” ** “Are you gay?” It was 1979 or so. My Dad wasn’t angry or anything. He was just looking at me, asking if I was gay. We were in the kitchen, and the fridge was humming. Otherwise, silence. I had written a number of pro-gay editorials in the school paper, my band had recorded a song that contained (funny) lyrics about gay sex, I went to gay bars occasionally with my punk pals, and most of my friends – at Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School, which would later produce PC Premier Alison Redford, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith, and indie star Feist, among others – were gay. They were all in the closet, more or less, but my parents knew (or suspected) I hung out with a pretty gay crowd. “Are you gay?” my Dad repeated. “Seriously?” I said. I wasn’t, but I was pissed off. “What if I am? Does it matter?” “It matters,” he said. I think he meant it matters in Seventies-era conservative Calgary, where homophobia was rampant, and gay-bashing not unheard of. “No it doesn’t,” I said, then left, angry. ** “Are you gay?” NDP MP Svend Robinson had clearly been expecting the question, which is why he had one of his assistants present for our interview, tape recorder whirring away on the table between us. I was just a Carleton journalism student, and I was known to be pretty gay-friendly, but Robinson still looked terrified. He was gay, I knew he was gay, he knew I knew. But he still looked like he was ready to bolt from his own Parliament Hill office at any minute. He gave a brilliant, passionate, thoughtful answer, but I don’t have my notes anymore. It was a great answer, one that sounded like it had been turned over in his head a million times, one that didn’t give anything away. But it didn’t deny anything either. I wrote my story – Roger Bird later gave me an “A” and said some nice things about my writing – but I left Robinson’s sexual orientation unanswered. It was his business. If he wanted to tell someone, that was up to him. On that day, for that assignment, it wasn’t going to be me. ** “Are you gay?” That’s the question k. d. lang asked Jason Kenney: “You’re gay aren’t you?” she tweeted at him. She asked it, last week, because Kenney had proposed outing Alberta kids. Some media folks had asked him about school gay-straight alliances, and he said to them that parents should be notified when a kid joins one. Which, of course, has the effect of outing them. Is the newly-selected Alberta PC leader gay? I don’t know. Many of us always assumed he was. None of us cared, either. It was his business. It was nobody else’s business. Over the years, I have known many politicians who are in the closet, going back to that long-ago encounter with Svend Robinson. I wish they didn’t feel like they had to be. But, again, it’s their business. It’s personal. Jason Kenney made the personal the political when he said what he said. It became important – as lang pithily observed – when Jason Kenney proposed one rule for gay kids, and an entirely different rule for guys like him. You know, like hypocrites do. I’m an Albertan, like Jason Kenney and k. d. lang. Growing up, I sometimes talked to my high school friends about why they were in the closet. They said they feared the reaction of their families, or friends, or a future employer. Or they feared simply getting the shit beaten out of them. In other words, they had their reasons. Jason Kenney may have his reasons, too. It’s his right. But Jason Kenney shouldn’t ever, ever use the law to take away the rights of kids, in Alberta or anywhere else. When he tries to do that? Well, that’s when people will start asking Jason Kenney if he is gay, too. Because a hypocrite is a hypocrite, gay or straight. ** Are you gay? If you are, it’s something to be proud about. If you are, I think it’s from God. If you are, it’s wonderful. If you are, it’s your business. Not hypocrites like Jason Kenney.
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