This is certainly a wake up call.
On Friday, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a British-based think tank, released the findings in a 46-page report titled An Online Environmental Scan of Right-Wing Extremism in Canada.
“We identified 6,660 right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts,” the study says. The Canadian activity reaches an audience of millions of people, it said, and includes a network of 6,352 Twitter accounts, 130 public Facebook pages and groups, and 32 YouTube channels.
Researchers say they tried to track the internet presence of five far-right-extremist subgroups: White supremacists; ethnonationalists; anti-Muslim groups; militia groups; and misogynistic actors dubbed the “manosphere.”
The researchers also found that “the most common pattern of activity for more-active Canadian RWE [right-wing extremist] users on Twitter is “anti-Muslim conversation.”
Unambiguous neo-Nazi messages can be found on fringe sites, such as 4chan, where administrators don’t police what people post. “We found that Canadians are highly active on forums associated with white supremacy, representing the third largest nationality using 4chan’s politically incorrect board after the U.S. and U.K.” the study says.More on this from Vice.com.
Maybe our prime minister might come to his senses and disband his CSIS/RCMP pipeline Stasi and put those personnel to dealing with a real threat to Canada.
Absolutely. But as with the BQ coming from obviously racist Quebec getting away with harumphing at Singh and expecting an apology (what for?), and the federal government allowing kenney to run around like a reborn Il Duce corporate/state neofascist, there's nobody serious at the top going after racists. They hope it'll all blow over like the way the First Nations have been foisted off for centuries, just with opposing actors. With militarized RCMP threatening seven Wetsuweten elders as if the very foundations of the country were being undermined, and billions for petroleum majors, the feds serve their masters. A few thugs wandering around keeping the population on edge suits their purposes just fine. Remove their uniforms and some of the police would probably join the racists. They sure act like it on duty, some of them.
ReplyDeleteBM
Jesus wept. How in the fuck does a functioning human being exist at such a level of stupidity and delusion as these idiots?
ReplyDeleteYou're 10X more likely to die of Covid-19 if you live in the USA, UK, or Brazil, than Germany, S. Korea [other countries not run by right-wing shit-for-brains].
It's just staggering. Sure self-identified "conservatives" have bigger amygdala, and therefore are more fearful. Sure, being less-intelligent can make you confused and angry. But just imagine the nightmare of being trapped in a bubble that makes you view the world the way these monsters do, 24-7.
What? Cops acting against other cops?! Aren't you being a little optimistic, Mound?
ReplyDeleteIn my day-to-day chats with the constabulary outside various courtrooms, I've noticed a considerable overlap between the groups RWE and police. In addition, I've noticed quite a few officers who I'll call RWE curious or sympathizers. Of course, not all police are wingnuts, and some are quite decent, but the thin blue line requires the decent ones to ignore or cover up the conduct of the bad ones. We have yet to solve the age-old problem of quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
So I'd be quite happy if the PM simply disbanded the RCMP entirely and set up a new national police with robust civilian oversight. In the meantime, a minimal show of good faith requires that he keep his promise to roll back Harper's expansion of security service powers - another promise not kept and flushed down the memory hole by our corporate media.
Cap
Certainly, this news should snap some Canadians out of their complacence, Mound. Turns out we are not as progressive as we like to think, eh?
ReplyDeleteWith the global retreat of liberal democracy, RWE, right wing extremism, has really come into its own. Its adherents seem to be the young and, I expect, the more poorly educated. Ever since Morneau took the stage to announce that Canadians had to resign themselves to a working life of "job churn," i.e. membership in the Precariat, it seemed almost inevitable that this would fuel some sort of reaction.
ReplyDeleteWhat can we do to curb this? How do we push back? What awaits society if we don't? Is RWE something that will fade away it we don't push back? I come up empty on answers.