Showing posts with label Goldy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goldy. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Diagolon and Trolling: How To Minimize Platforming the Far-Right and Instead Provide Context

Over the years there has been a lot of discussion about the danger of platforming right wing extremists. It's an issue that I've wrestled with for years myself here on the blog and also on Twitter. On the one hand I've always believed that it was important to share information about could amount to a significant danger to the community; the best disinfectant is sunlight after all. 

But as I tried to expose those individuals and groups who could cause real harm, I also tried to do so in a way that didn't give them any sort of power. A lot of these individuals and groups WANT others to talk about them because uncritical examination allows the noxious beliefs to spread more widely.

In order to try to avoid that I generally employ two primary strategies. The first is mockery. The bigots and hate groups I covered have all been so very self-serious. Using humour as a means of disarming and showing how utterly ridiculous that they are while at the same time showing the public why we should also be concerned often took the wind out of their sails, so to speak.

Also, I'm naturally snarky so there's that too.

The second thing I do which I think is far more important is to try as best I can to provide the critical context for the stories I shared (hence why I was and continue to be verbose as hell) and to avoid telling the narrative that THEY want shared.

So with that, let's engage go through that process by discussing the critical context behind this still I took from a video posted by Derek Harrison of the Plaid Army/Diagolon on his Telegram page:

Shane Marshall and Pierre Poilievre

This photo shows Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre shaking hands with Shane Marshall. If the name "Shane Marshall" is familiar at all, it is likely because of an incident that occurred during the 2021 federal election where Marshall threw pebbles at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

Earlier this month, Marshall pleaded guilty to common assault (he had originally been charged with assault with a weapon). The video taken of him shaking hands with Poilievre occurred prior to Marshall's trial where he pled guilty on the first day.

Marshall is also a figure who has been covered by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network for his ties to the overtly racist Canada First and the accelerationist Diagolon:
Marshall was among those who attended the occupation in Ottawa in February 2022 where he was both photographed with then Canada First leader Tyler Russell (who now lives in the United States and runs with Nick Fuentes) and Diagolon de facto leader Jeremy MacKenzie:

Marshall and Tyler Russell left; Russell and Nick Fuentes right


Marshall and Russell with Jeremy MacKenzie during
the "Freedom Convoy" occupation of Ottawa, 2022

Marshall was also briefly detained in Ottawa during the occupation.

So when one looks at this photo of Shane Marshall and Pierre Poilievre, one's first instinct might be to suggest this is proof that Poilievre is courting far right extremists. Without any other context and, given Mr. Poilievre's own dog whistles since becoming leader, that might be a reasonable conclusion... EXCEPT that the context here is critical to understanding what we are actually seeing.

I found the video from which the still is taken on Derek Harrison's Telegram page. Harrison is someone who has been profiled here on the blog a number of times -- I first came across Harrison when he was volunteering for white nationalist Faith Goldy's mayoral campaign -- and he is, I guess, a sort of founding father of the Plaid Army and Diagolon. Harrison's antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and anti-immigrant rhetoric is well know to people who study this ecosystem.

Harrison and other Dags attended Marshall's trial in support. Suffice to say that it doesn't seem that any of them are especially contrite:

Shane has all the charisma of a soggy phonebook from 1992.

Marshall and Derek Harrison flanked by two unknown Dags.


The context of the video still with Marshall, a former PPC riding president who was working on Chelsea Hillier's campaign and an associate of Diagolon (many of whose members are supporters of the PPC and Bernier), and Pierre Poilievre who is the leader of a rival conservative political party is very important however:

Pictured from left to right: Derek Harrison, Maxine Bernier, Chelsea Hillier, and Tyler Russell

MacKenzie, Bernier, Harrison

Diagolon in general and in this case Harrison specifically loathe the Conservative Party, claiming that the CPC and the Liberals are simply two sides of the same corrupt, globalist, coin:

Sunday, January 08, 2023

Bolsonaro Supporters Storm Government Buildings: Some Reaction from Canadian Far-Right

This past Friday was the second anniversary of the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. but supporters of former president Donald Trump. By this point we know the story. Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat and in fact claimed he was the victim of election fraud perpetrated by his political enemies. Never mind that two of the four states he claimed were stolen were wholly governed by his Republican allies and despite information that has come to light that he himself didn't believe the election was stolen, Trump's "Big Lie" resulted in a concerted effort by his proxies and supporters to overturn the election which culminated in an actual insurrection.

That Trump denied the election shouldn't be a surprise since he also claimed fraud when he lost to Ted Cruz in the 2016 Iowa Caucuses:




Trump's Canadian supporters also pushed the narrative and were fully onboard when "the patriots" stormed the Capitol:







On January 8, 2023, a very similar scenario played out in Brazil and supporters of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro who lost the presidency in a runoff with Lula da Silva stormed Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace: Like Trump, Bolsonaro had also claimed that an election loss would be the result of election fraud. And like Trump Bolsonaro's claims were amplified by the same forces who were instrumental in the lead up to and actions during January 6. Steve Bannon in fact commented set the ground work for what happened in Brazil back in November: Today, Bannon referred to the Brazilian insurrectionists as "freedom fighters":
Bolsonaro  himself eventually released a statement on Twitter where he both appears to criticize the actions of his supporters while also taking a swipe at the new president:




At the end of January and well into February 2022, Canada had it's own antigovernmental event in Ottawa on Parliament Hill as those who were ostensibly opposed to mask mandates and vaccinations occupied the city of Ottawa for nearly a month. Thankfully the events of those weeks were not on par with what happened in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 or Brasilia on January 8, 2023, but that wasn't necessarily due to a lack of desire, at least for some people such as Diagolon's Derek Harrison:


So it shouldn't be a surprise when people like Diagolon's Alex Vriend (Ferryman's Toll) celebrate today's events in the Brazilian capital:

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Canadian Proud Boys Embrace "Fashy" Image, Message, and Ideology; POTUS Emboldens American Proud Boys During Debate

As the United States barrel towards an election which may very well decide the future of the democratic experiment in that country, extremists such as the Proud Boys (among others) have ramped up the violence in both rhetoric and action with Portland being one of the key flash points:

While Canada has not yet seen the level of violence associated with their erstwhile American counterparts, the Canadian Proud Boys, after being more or less moribund for a couple of years but for a couple of chapters in Ontario, appears to be growing and spoiling for a fight. 

In Calgary on August 27, Proud Boys showed up to counter-protest a BLM/Defund the Police rally at City Hall:


A member discussed the reason for their presence on Reddit later that week as well as the rationale for carrying an American "Back the Blue" flag:


Based on the Alberta Proud Boy website, it seems that they have difficulty distinguishing the differences between our country and our southern neighbours:


August 27 was the first time, at least to our knowledge, that the Proud Boys had made a public appearance in the province aside from some very brief instances in 2017 and 2018 and those instances were mostly of outsiders. Since this first public appearance they have been busy. On September 22, members left a banner on the pedestrian overpass, eastbound Glenmore by the golf course. Earlier flyers attributed to the Proud Boys were found in Edmonton:


Finally it appears that some people, either members of or affiliated with the Proud Boys, were in attendance at the Red Deer counter-protest on September 20 as evidenced from their Telegram chat which will be referenced frequently through the rest of this article:


The group has also been active in other locations including in Winnipeg where a chapter had existed but which had been for all intents and purposes kicked out of town as well as a number of communities in Ontario:

Winnipeg, MB

Far left: Wayne Skorodenski.

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

Keeane Bexte From Rebel Media Targeting Edmonton Community Activist for Helping a Family

Recently, we heard about more antics of the Rebel Media terrorizing everyday Albertans they don't like (seems to usually be a person of colour or science supporters). Rebel Media, a far right outlet pretending to be the news, has been pushing out conspiracy theories and skewed "news" stories for a few years now centred around immigration (mostly about Muslims), taxes and anyone to the left of Mussolini. Their past entertainers like Lauren Southern, Faith Goldy and Gavin McInnes have all developed their own careers in performative assholery:

https://twitter.com/VestsCanada/status/1200730964839686145?s=20

Keean Bexte, who cosplays as a reporter for the Rebel Media has targeted a historian and local activist out of Edmonton named Bashir Mohamed. Bexte referred to Mohamed as an "unhinged Muslim refugee", described him as thuggish and accused him of pushing Bexte off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic.

If you watch the footage, you can see that Bexte never actually moved, lost his footing or anything to suggest a push. I guess when you're someone like Bexte, having someone stand next to you is a push.  This is important to note as it seems to be Bexte's brand of hyperbolic melodrama. An example of Bexte doing this is to describe Mohamed attending a meeting as crashing it, we'll elaborate further and how Bexte is creating space for violence against Mohamed.



Bexte didn't show the video clips where Mohamed interrupted Bexte's interviews to inform the interviewee that the person they were talking to was working at a white supremacist online store. 
Bexte has a hilariously long winded resume of gotchas and is someone we've covered on ARC before.

To give some back story on this - Mohamed has been helping a family and issues around discrimination at school by staff. A child named Emmel wore a durag to school, he was asked to take it off and that the durag was gang affiliated. The family reached out after the mom, Una Momolu was banned from the school during a meeting.  Momolu was banned due to a report of aggressive behaviour, except that the Edmonton Journal reports that Momolu had been recording audio of the meeting and the audio tells a different story, as does Emmel.

You can watch a video summarizing the incident here:


Mohamed, who has amassed a decent sized following has been helping the family by lending his voice in the community around these issues. Bexte, as mentioned before about his brand, said that Mohamed CRASHED the meeting, here's the video of that meeting that you can see for yourself and how he CRASHED it (he didn't, he sat in his chair, put his fist in the chair 10 minutes in and held up a petition).


So let's recap. A family has a son made to take off his durag by the school, when his mother comes to advocate for her son, she is accused of aggression. The police are involved and the mother is banned from the school for a year. Mohamed helps the family, canvasses the community and attends meetings. Our local "Rhodesian noob" Bexte then turned this story into a hit piece.

Bexte posted a twisted version of this story to Twitter and YouTube and the comments are alarming.


https://twitter.com/BashirMohamed/status/1200977631136468992?s=20
You can find tweets here

Bashir Mohamed is now monitoring the comments where these videos have been posted across social media . These comments are full of threats fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment and outright racism. All of these are memes we've seen before about diversity and Trudeau. It's never going to stop is it?

Sunday, November 24, 2019

November 2019 Bits and Bites: Defamation Suits, Vanderweide, CNP, and Endangering Lives

Our research into Canadian members of Iron March based on the leaked forum information is ongoing. Suffice it to say we've been finding some especially interesting individuals who will be profiled here on the blog in time. However November has been an especially eventful month so I thought I'd do a quick write-up on some of the smaller bits of far-right news that we haven't discussed (this will not be a comprehensive overview and we plan on an article on the events at York University as well)

Perhaps one of the more significant stories is the defamation suit filed by Richard Warman and Evan Balgord of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network against Barbara Kay, Jonathan Kay, and Faith Goldy:


This isn't the first time that Jonathan Kay has been a subject in a Warman defamation suit. And based on what I've seen over the years prior to and during my time writing on the ARC blog, Mr. Warman doesn't file these kinds of suits unless he knows he has an especially strong case.

The responses from mama and baby Kay have been somewhat muted thus far:



Surprisingly, Faith Goldy has been absolutely silent on this matter so far which given her character might be a bit surprising.

Rather than commenting on being the subject of a defamation suit, Goldy has been promoting her latest project, a series for the white nationalist VDare:


Real life Avengers, eh?

Yeah, when I think Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Vincent James Foxx, I definitely think Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. /sarc

As a bit of background, there's a small group of white nationalists who don't think the current Republican Party (they who put children in cages, btw), is far-right enough and they are attempting to move it even further to the right. Goldy's new series appears to be an effort on their behalf. She's also promoting the characters she's planning on profiling on her Telegram channel and including comments that are becoming more overtly anti-semitic:






For those unfamiliar with these individuals might I draw your attention to the following links?

Nick Fuentes:
So yeah.... talk about the company one keeps.

Goldy did get a bit salty as to why she was focusing her efforts on the United States when challenged:


Goldy certainly has her admirers in Canada though including one Chris Vanderweide whom our members have gotten to know quite well since this past summer when he achieved fame (which has absolutely gone to his head) for using a helmet as a weapon and sucker punching a person counter-protesting anti-LGBTQ fanatics:


So yeah, I sort of trolled him on Twitter. I find that one learns a lot of interesting things when engaged in an online discussion with a person who thinks himself brilliant but who in fact might have the intellectual capacity of a protozoa.

For example, here he suggests that he is no longer living with his surety as was a requirement for his release:


And here he is claiming that the charges against him were dropped:


Well, for someone who likes to accuse people of being liars online, Chris doesn't have an especially firm grasp of the truth himself:
Now if he isn't living with his surety that would mean he is violating the terms of his release, however as he lied about the charges being dropped it calls into question his surety claim. Also, he's not especially consistent in maintaining his lie about charges being dropped:


Chris also has a rather toxic understanding of what it mean to be "a man":




As I mentioned later on this thread, people who are truly strong don't need to brag about their strength or try to convince others they are strong. That simply comes across as desperate, sad, and very weak.

In the meantime, Chris continued to give his lawyer a headache:



I should also briefly mention the other person in this thread appears to have participated in the Toronto Pegida rally that culminated in an assault at the Eaton's Centre. I don't think he's helping Chris' cause much:





Moving on to the Canadian Nationalist Party, it appears party founder, leader, and suspect in violent assault of two women in Regina that resulted in their transport to a hospital Travis Patron has soured on electoral politics:


I mean, it couldn't possibly be because he and the two other CNP candidates finished with less than 1% and last place in the three riddings they were contesting, right?

Given that we learned on the CNP form that Patron had claimed to have purchased property in a rural location in anticipation for a societal break-down, this other bit of information should also be unsurprising:


Interesting. A two of the people posting replies include an individual using the leader of the American Nazi Party George Lincoln Rockwell and Dara Graham known on this blog as "Nazi Mom."

Again, the company one keeps.

Turning now to the inevitability of the far-right eating itself, we see more infighting between Ronny Cameron and his supporters and Alex Van Hamme and his supporters:




Ronny can't stop himself from the airing of grievances:




In the meantime Ron Banerjee has decided to push the narrative that Ronny is an "antifa" plant because of course Banerjee would do that. However Canadian Combat Coalition vice-president Roger Rowen thinks Banerjee is full of it:




Joey Deluca of the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam also jumped into the fray again:




Back on Ronny's profile he continues the beefing:





This comment though was interesting:


Dan Dubois, president of the Canadian Combat Coalition, is certainly takes a very different view of Cameron than does Rog Rowen, the vice-president of the CCC.

Trouble in paradise perhaps?

Finally, and more seriously, we see that our detractors are making lists and not checking them at all:


The speculation concerning the creator of this list didn't remain speculation for long:


Now while we can certainly laugh at how ridiculous these people are, it does become far more serious when they start erroneously identifying people on the list:


But here's the kicker. They are editing the screen shots of the young woman so that she appears to be their target:

And because this has been shared extensively, there are a lot of unhinged people who have it including this guy:


Finally our friends and fellow ARC members Yellow Vests Canada Exposed provides us with yet another example of the dangers of the far-right. I offer this thread without comment: