Big Sister (?) is watching you, and ratting you out to the thought police

Dear gentle reader, fasten your seatbelt please for you are about to see a frightening invasion of privacy and persoanal space, perpetrated in the name of Righteous Wokeism, posted on a social medium called "StoopAntisemitism" by someone [named "Karen" perhaps? Ed.] who was flying on an American Airlines flight from Miami to JFK on Sunday. Ready?

And guess what, campers. Not only did this nosey busybody stick her phone over her [Yes, we're making an assumption. Ed.] fellow passenger's shoulder and take a picture of his cellphone, she reported him to the cabin crew! Since you may not be able to see from the photo above what caused her such offence, here's a closeup.

The man appeared to be exchanging messages with a colleague about a business deal. What he said that put a burr under the snoop's saddle was "I'll take care of the kike once and for all." "Kike" is a derogatory term -- a very old-fashioned one -- for a Jewish person.   

We do not know if the person was of the Jewish faith -- are there any Jews in Dade County? --  but we do know that she made enough of a fuss to cause the AA crew to report the "incident" to the FAA.

It was not immediately clear what the man meant by the phrase "take care of". Perhaps the person he referred to was elderly or infirm. Nor do we know whether the language amounted to anything beyond an offensive private message. There is also no suggestion that the passenger made a threat against anyone aboard the aircraft or that the alleged message was connected to the flight itself. 

The episode has sparked a debate online not only over the language allegedly used, but over whether a fellow passenger should have been reading, photographing or publicizing another person's private messages in the first place. 

Some commenters were appalled by the alleged anti-Semitic slur and argued that a message visible to strangers in the confines of an airplane cabin could hardly be considered completely private. Others said that no matter how offensive the words may have been, secretly capturing another person's private correspondence and exposing it publicly crossed a line. 

One person wrote, "A private person’s private communication is not fair game for public exposure simply because its contents are offensive. There is a fundamental difference between confronting public speech and policing private conversations. You should strongly consider deleting this."

Another critic similarly argued that the message, while offensive, was still part of a private exchange that had never been intended for the surrounding passengers. "This is ridiculous. Obviously he doesn't love Jews, but how many of you here have written PRIVATE texts to others referring to some groups of people with derogatory terms?"

A third comment reads, "This is not communist Russia (yet) where we spy on what people say in private. Antisemitism is real, but it's not doing us any favors to go after people and their private conversations."

Yet another person expressed disbelief that a passenger's phone screen had apparently become the subject of scrutiny from someone sitting nearby. "So now you can’t even text in public without some nut job recording your conversation??? How do they know exactly what this man was referring to??? Insane!"

"Insane" indeed! But this is what the Land of the Free has become in the Age of Woke. Watch your language eh!

Everybody knows that!

I had a dream last night. Not the MLK type of dream of a better world, but a dream of a dystopia -- a state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic -- not in the distant future but in the near future... if not tomorrow, then the day after.

But first, a thought about what everybody knows. "Common knowledge" is not confined to members of the human race(s). Creatures of the lesser orders have it too. For example, how do squirrels know when it's time to start gathering their nuts for the winter? How do elephants know where to go when they're about to die? They just know! But we humans don't call that "knowledge". We call it "instinct".

Whatever you call it -- instinct or knowledge or "race memory" -- it's hardwired into all God's critters, including us. How do primitive peoples know not to eat certain kinds of mushrooms? [Some more civilized types seem to have forgotten such things. Ed.]  Why are we suspicious of gypsies? What makes us rotate our tires, because it's the smart thing to do?

OK, that last one was a bit frivolous, but the fact is there are certain things which everyone (or nearly everyone) believes to be true, even when there's no scientific proof. This kind of "common knowledge" even has status in Anglo-American common law, where judges are allowed to admit certain facts without proof, because "everybody knows that."

Now, in the 21st century, humans are trying to collect and systematize common knowledge, and inculcate it in machines... computers... so that one day these machines will be just as smart as we are. 

Or smarter. Able to think for themselves. This is the concept we call "artificial intelligence". My problem with AI is a well-founded skepticism about who's programming the computers with what they consider "common knowledge". What's included? And what's being left out?

Take Wikipedia, for example. Ed. uses it a lot to "fact-check" me when I tell him "Everybody knows that!" Its content is supposedly user-generated, and allegedly user-edited. But there are people -- the California-based [Aha! Ed.] Wikipedia Foundation -- who ultimately decide what is a "fact" and what isn't. 

Check the articles related to American politics and the 2020 election and see if you can find any reference to allegations that the election was rigged and the presidency stolen from Donald Trump in the dead of night. Such allegations may be presented, but in such a fashion that an uninformed reader would think "Everybody knows these allegations are false."

There are certain things which are presented in Wikipedia and the lamestream media as "common knowledge" and therefore unassailable. Before the fall of Communism we used to see this all the time in "news" reports in Pravda (to name just one), which inevitably began "As is well known..." Then came the Lie of the Day.

Which brings me to my dream. In spite of the constant repetition of the liberal orthodoxy, there are some of us who believe other versions of well-known narratives -- "alternate facts", if you will -- and have opinions other than those deemed politically correct by the folks at Wikipedia or the controlled media.

In my dream, I was being pursued by agents of the state -- or should I say the One World -- who wanted me to contribute to the "common knowledge" my particular knowledge of certain events and people. Why? Not so that everyone would know, but so my "errors" could be corrected! 

My pursuers were certain as death and taxes that their version of the "truth" was correct. You could hear it in the way they talked. They spoke the language of political correctness, of "wokeness". (See "Babylon Bee's Guide to Wokeness", WWW 28/10/21.) One of my favourite examples is "racialized communities". I guess you can't say "coloured people" any more, but what in hell does "racialized communities" really mean? It means "non-white and therefore entitled to preferential treatment (and money!) for not being white."

If you think I'm kidding about that, check out President Brandon's American Rescue Plan, part of his $10.4 billion "stimulus package". According to WaPo (the US version of Pravda), about half of that taxpayer money has been earmarked for "disadvantaged farmers", of whom about a quarter are... wait for it... black. 

Only in America, you say? Not so. Check out Canada's Black Entrepreneur Startup Program, funded by the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canuckistan government's Business Development Corporation. All you need to get your nose in this trough is an idea for a business -- hair salon, recording studio, cannabis store -- but you have to be not just "racialized" but Black with a capital B. 

But programs like those are OK, y'see, because everybody knows black folks have been kept down by white colonialists ever since 1619. That's the only reason why the incidence of poverty, crime, single-parent families, welfare dependency etc is higher in black communities than in other "racialized communities", let alone the communities of "white privilege". Everybody knows that!

I went around the Horn there, but to get back to my dream, the purpose of my pursuers was not so much to find out what I knew and what I was thinking as to convince me that what I knew was wrong and that I should "get woke" and embrace the liberal orthodoxy, like everybody else. 

I woke up just before they started pulling out my fingernails, and am glad to say it was only a dream... so far. Consider the words attributed by playwright Robert Bolt to Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

Norfolk: Damn it, Thomas, look at those names.... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

More: And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

Everybody doesn't know everything. Just because almost "everybody knows" something doesn't make it so. Skepticism is a weapon! It deflects spin, propagnda, PR, BS, press agents, publicity seekers, hearsay, unnamed sources and anyone with a hidden agenda. Skepticism is a quality shared by truth-seekers, free thinkers, and realists... not everybody.

VIDEO: Hitler reacts to Canuck grad student thought crimes

Let me set this up for you. [Or you can go straight to the video. It's not hard to figure out what it's all about. Ed.] There's been quite a kerfuffle in the World's Most Diverse, Inclusive and (above all) Liberal Democracy (= the Great No-longer-white North) over a TV debate on the issues of "transgender pronouns" -- "ze", "zer", "zis" etc -- and compelled speech.

Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student in communications (!) at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo ON, showed a discussion group a video extract of a debate between Jordan Peterson, one of Canada’s most brilliant, courageous, and rigorous academics, and transgender advocate Nicholas Matte, both of whom are professors at the University of Toronto. For the heinous offence of presenting both sides of a current public controversy, Ms Shepherd was the subject of complaint, official harassment, and a disgustingly biased kangaroo court at which she was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was "inappropriate" to expose naïve university students to the utterances of people like Prof. Peterson -- racists, sexists, homophobes, fascists, the whole lot of them!

Indeed the actual words "racism", "white supremacist" and, yes, "Hitler" were used by Ms Shepherd's accusers to indicate the seriousness of her alleged transgression. You can see where we're going with this, EH. The antifa bullies managed to reduce Ms Shepherd to tears. Fortunately, she remained composed enough to keep recording the entire "hearing". After about a week, she released the tape to the media, which gave it wide and sympathetic play, and, somewhat surprisingly, took the side of Ms Shepherd... and free speech.

Conrad Black wrote in the National Post: "Once the rock was lifted on this process and the force of public opinion could be detected, the WLU leadership wobbled and crumpled in a familiar display of instant capitulation by university administrations at the first indication of headwinds. It appears to be the modus operandi of that university in particular to surrender at once to any adversity, but it is satisfying that the university at least caved in the right direction this time, to a justly aggrieved complainant and not to the totalitarian spirit of those who arraigned her."

One of the WLU disciplinarians, Prof. Nathan Rambukkana, issued a public apology to Ms Shepherd last Monday, and WLU President and Vice-Chancellor Deborah MacLatchy followed along with her own act of contrition a day later, telling the CBC that the university regrets how the meeting between Ms Shepherd and her professors was conducted. "The issue was how — the format of — the meeting [that] was held and the discussion that went on about a question that had happened in the tutorial," she said, adding that she was "shocked" [not "shocked, SHOCKED!"? Ed.] at how Ms Shepherd was treated.

Vice-Chancellor MacLatchy went on to say that WLU is... wait for it... putting together a task force to provide an updated statement on how it should handle a situation like this. It has also launched a third-party investigation. What does Ms Shepherd have to say about this? In an interview with CBC News last Wednesday, she said she's glad Prof. Rambukkana and Ms MacLatchy have apologized, but doesn't think they had any other option. Indeed. And now to the video.

"1984" -- Is it an anti-Trump polemic or what?

Walt had to wash his hair yesterday, so didn't attend "National Screening Day", celebrated by snowflakes across the USA, but also in Canada (of course), and Sweden (ditto). The brainchild of (((Dylan Skolnick))), co-director of the Cinema Arts Centre on Long Island (more of course), and (((Adam Birnbaum))), director of film programming at the Avon Theatre Film Center in Connecticut (more ditto), National Screaming Day was to have featured the simultaneously showing in 200 cinemas worldwide of George Orwell's dystopian classic, 1984. Why? To protest against President Donald Trump...of course.

In a crisis of angst following the US presidential election, Messrs (((Skolnick))) and (((Birnbaum))) began talking about organizing a film event to express how they felt about the new administration. Mr Skolnick told Al Jazeera [Isn't that the Arab news network? Jews working with Muslims? Huh? Ed.] that he realized 1984 would be "the perfect film to show given the current political climate in the US".

The trouble with that notion is that the prophesy of 1984 came true about a decade or two ahead of schedule. It has nothing to do with the present administration or the holder of the highest office in the land. Ed. has found the trailer for the movie. Click on the right arrow, beside "info", at the top right corner, to make the video fill the window. Running time 3 minutes.



1984 takes place in a world consumed by war and ubiquitous government surveillance. The unnamed state -- one of three great powers who are locked in a never-ending three-cornered war -- is under the control of "The Party", also unnamed. It doesn't matter whether it's Republican or Democrat, Communist of National Socialists. Independent thought, indeed individualism itself, is illegal. The "Thought Police" monitor every publication, every utterance, every action of the citizens. There is no privacy and no freedom. Political correctness is mandatory. Deviant thinkers and deviant thoughts will be punished...and eliminated.There is no privacy and no freedom.

"Big Brother is watching you" is the byword, summing up perfectly the subjugation of the individual to the state. And that's the real prophesy, not just for America but for Russia and China, and every nation in the so-called civilized world. If you don't believe it, try standing on a soapbox in your neighbourhood park (if your neighbourhood has one) and proclaiming your true feelings about race relations or the Muslim civil war or any subject you like, and see what happens.

Since it's too late to reclaim from the ubiquitous, iniquitous state our freedoms of action, speech or even thought, Walt presents, as a public service, five rules for survival in the state described in today's world (as foreseen in 1984).

1. Don't think.
2. If you think, don't speak.
3. If you think and speak, don't write.
4. If you think, speak and write, don't sign your name.
5. If you think, speak, write and sign your name...don't be surprised.

You're welcome...comrade!

Identity politics in the police state; "white privilege" in the university

Ed. here. Walt is north of the world's longest undefended (?) border to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. The queen in question is Queen Victoria, and even though she cannot visit Canada in person, she has sent her son, Prince Charles and his consort. Walt is hoping to get a royal autograph.

Meanwhile, it's my task -- just one of many -- to scan the Internet for items calculated to interest and enrage you, our dear followers. Today's edition of Canada's so-called National Post has two related columns, well worth reading, about racism and identity politics in the Great Not-so-white-anymore North.

"Why the Human Rights Commission is an early warning of Canada’s drift from free society to police state" contains some thoughts on political correctness and identity politics, penned by George Jonas, a Hungarian Jew who came to Canada as a refugee decades ago. Thoughts like this: "Identity politics play well in police states. We’re not there yet, not even in the vicinity. We’re just heading in that direction."

In "Check your bigotry" our old friend Rex Murphy -- we never miss his rants on CBC-TV's The National -- writes "Only in the very best universities would you ever be able to create a concept as stupid as 'white privilege'."

Here's a further quote: "...if there is one movement, that by its humourlessness, its obsessive mania and its blindness to its failings, chokes on its own goals, it is the so-called anti-racism movement. And you will find its most feverish exemplars in the very citadels of reason, the modern-day university campus. Nowhere in the West will one find such fundamentalist fury as in the frenzies of campus political correctness on the subject of race."

Stickers and stones may hurt someone's feelings

Caution! Some readers may find this sticker offensive!


If you want one of these stickers on your bumper, Walt advises you to run -- don't walk! -- down to the Android's Dungeon or other bricks-and-mortar retailer, because websites offering you the freedom to express your opinion are being shut down as fast as they open up.

The bumper sticker, which the usual gliberal suspects are already calling "racist", apparently originated with an outfit called Stumpy's Stickers. Their website has already attracted the wrath of the Thought Police; at the moment Walt is only seeing a 404 error.

Walt suggests you try this one but be prepared to wait awhile, as you may get "there seems to be a problem connecting to our database" at first. Perhaps they are swamped with orders!

Go ahead! Express yourself! And don't forget to tell `em Walt sent ya!

PS: If you think this bumper sticker is offensive, check Google Images for "Don't re-nig in 2012". This one is mild compared to some of the others! Makes Walt wish he had a bigger bumper.

Canuck Tories shelve internet spy 'n' snoop bill

Just checking the overnight news before I head out the door, and am delighted to read the report in this morning's Globe and Mail that "Call me Steve" Harper's government has put on hold legislation that would grant new powers to authorities to police the Internet. Let's hope that -- like when you call the government's "help line" -- it gets put on hold forever!

Time is Walt's enemy today, so I can only refer you to the newspaper article and posts in this space last week. But I do have time to say congratulations to all the Canadians who weren't fooled by the Tories' law and order bullshit, especially the part about protecting the world from pornographers.

A big debt of thanks is owed to all who posted comments in the social media and the lamestream media, and especially to those who took the time to e-mail or call Old Vic Toews and Rob "the Boy Wonder" Nicholson.

More anon.

Evangelical pastor booted off air for thought crime

The Canadian thought police strike again. The branch involved this time is the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), whose task is to rid the Canadian airwaves of anything that is not politically correct.

Off the air, thanks to the CBSC, is "Word TV", hosted by telepastor Charles McVety, which used to air on the self-styled Christian cable channel CTS. CSBC ruled that statements Rev. McVety made about homosexuals -- suggesting that perhaps they are less than perfectly normal and well-adjusted -- violated its broadcasting codes.

The CBSC said it had received complaints -- it didn't say from whom -- about how McVety's program portrayed issues "such as homosexuality, Islam, Haiti and euthanasia".

They charged that the program "had included discriminatory comments on the basis of sexual orientation, religion and mental disability". So CTS, faced with the prospect of losing its licence to print money, pulled "Word TV" off the air.

Said Rev. McVety, "They call me evil for expressing an opinion." In his opinion, "it is now a crime to speak against homosexuality." That seems to Walt not so much an opinion as a matter of fact.

Rev. McVety also referred to Toronto's Gay Pride Parade as advertising the city "as a sex tourism destination...with full opportunity for sex with hot boys." Gee, what would make him think that? Could the site of lovely young men (?) waving their, errr, hands from parade floats while clad only in posing pouches (or less) have informed Pastor McVety's comment?

Rev. McVety also blames gay rights groups for wanting to change Ontario's sex education curriculum. Conveniently ignoring the fact that the Ontario Minister of Education who promoted the new curriculum is a self-proclaimed lesbian, CBSC Chairthingy Ron Cohen said "To suggest that document is teaching kids to practice homosexuality? Absurd. Obviously absurd."

Mr. Cohen, who is not at risk of being made a Cardinal of the Church, seems to think that any opinion which he does not share is absurd. Rev. McVety disagrees. "We should not have Mr. Ron Cohen, a bureaucrat, tell me what my opinions can be and what my opinions can't be," McVety said.

A statement on the show's website referred to the CBSC as "thought police" that launched "a vicious attack against Word TV [even though] Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of speech, opinion, press and religion."

Apparently Rev. McVety hasn't learned that in Canada (as in China) freedom of speech, opinion, etc. only extends to those who agree with the secular liberal establishment.