I’ve written a lot about Rabble.ca the past few months. They came on my radar after (twice) publishing slanderous lies about me. Both times they took-down the attacks, but they refused to publish retractions. We’ve seen Rabble.ca publish a lot of bullshit since I’ve started following them, like Ethan “80,000” Cox misrepresenting the amount of people at a Quebec student march or Krystalline Kraus desperately trying to label the G20 vandals as ‘political prisoners’.
Rabble is often a laugh a minute- and, this week was no exception. Their article Trolls and the spaces created by trolling is a laugh riot. How could such a serious story become a laugh riot- well, this is Rabble of course, and they are often prone to making wild exaggerations. This story’s exaggerations are, as usual, embarrassingly shameless. But, hey, that’s why we love Rabble, isn’t it?
Why was this article so darned funny? Well, it mostly comes down to this one paragraph. There’s a lot to digest here- so, let me break it down into two parts. First, there’s a statement that there’s no lefty equivalent of the extreme online hatred that comes from the Right:
“The extreme hatred spewed from the Right online (and I keep referring to “the Right” because I simply cannot think of anything equivalent that comes from the “left”) normalizes and entrenches extreme discourse.”
If this isn’t the most outrageous example of someone drinking too much Rabble flavoured Kool-Aid, I don’t know what is. I mean, really, is she freaking kidding me? And, don’t they have editors at Rabble? Or, are reality checks not part of the editorial policy? (I acknowledge that last one is a silly question, lol)
I can tell you from experience that the Left can be every bit as mean-spirited, crass, and dishonest as people on the right. If you want to find real-life examples, Rabble is probably the best place to look. I’ve spoken with eight other people who’ve been attacked by Rabble- there’s a long history of it there.
The writer later goes-on to ask a simple, yet provocative, statement:
What’s the equivalent to someone responding to something I post with “You’re a stupid cnut [sic]”?
I’ll get to the answer for that question in a moment. First, let me share a Rabble.ca podcast about your’s truly. It’s by Dan Kellar- one of incarcerated G20 criminal Alex Hundert’s comrades at the violent anarchist group called AW@L. I’d never heard of Kellar before this show came out- it’s the perfect example of that ‘extreme hatred’ that Rabble’s Nora Loreto says doesn’t have an equivalent on the left:
Wow, did you catch all of that? According to Rabble, I’m a racist, misogynist, who “continually uses threats from his imposing stature”. Anyone who knows me giggles when they listen Rabble/Kellar’s crap here. And, the whole reason this show was made about me was because I was insistent on keeping Occupy Vancouver non-violent- the only time I took advantage of my ‘imposing stature’ at Occupy was to help carry boxes of vegetables into the food tent.
Now, let’s go back to Loreto’s statement about “stupid cnut” statements. What’s their equivalent in the radical old-left? What do they do that’s equally distasteful and damaging? Can you take a guess?
How about when radicals misuse labels like “misogynist”, “racist”, or whatever other “ist’s” they can come up with? We’ve seen this happen time & time again with Rabble and their peers. From their perspective, it’s quite a powerful weapon- after all, nobody likes to be associated with someone who has an “ism” problem. All it takes is a union-style ‘whisper campaign’ to get things started and it snowballs on its own.
The problem is, as I’ve explained in previous articles, the radical’s use of “ism” smears is having a tragic, yet totally expected, consequence. We all know what it is, our mom’s taught us when they read us Aesop’s fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Each time Rabble, or one of their associates, makes a false claim about an “ism”, they soften the blow of the accusation. It has happened so often now, that people who do this have started to do some real damage.
Also notice in the recording that Kellar uses Rabble.ca, and CKMS radio (an organization funded by the University of Waterloo Federation of Students) to promote a slanderous website that Alex Hundert made about me. There is an important connection here- let me use some pictures to illustrate:
Notice how all of the birds look alike? Well, there’s a reason for that, they were drawn by Alex Hundert- a man who has received a lot of support from Judy Rebick. In case you didn’t know, Rebick is credited with being the founder and publisher of Rabble.ca.
I first communicated with Judy Rebick back in January. I’d seen that she had spoken against the violence during the G20, so naively thought she was a potential ally in stopping violence at Occupy. The next time was after Krystalline Kraus started lying about me to people at Occupy Toronto.
Unfortunately, Rebick didn’t respond or take any action to help with this problem. Things got worse a couple weeks later when Alex Hundert physically prevented me from going to an Occupy Toronto meeting. During this meeting Khrystaline Krause made a false allegation that I’d written sexually harassing things about her- despite the fact I’d never once communicated with her before. She also lied about my calling her boss at Rabble (I didn’t).
Here’s an interesting fact about Dan Kellar. He was charged with Criminal Defamation in 2011 for an incident related to the G20 where he published information on undercover police officers when there was an existing publication ban.
According to an article Rabble published this week written by incarcerated G20 vandal Mandy Hiscocks, Kellar should be going to court for his defamation hearing soon. Yet despite these charges, Rabble publishes Kellar’s defamation of me six months later.
The question has to be asked- was this simply gross mismanagement by the people in charge of Rabble, or was this an intentional attack on me by them? Does it really matter which one it is though? Either way, Rabble has been involved with much of slander and online trolling about me.
The damage that has been done to my reputation is hard to calculate really. First, it makes it very hard for me to get work- Alex Hundert’s website is still high on the search results when you Google my name. The radio show is still published on AW@L’s website. The original attack website against me (which Rabble had posted on their website in the past) is still up.
So, when Rabble’s Loreto states that people on the left could never troll anyone as intensely than someone who writes “stupid cnut”, she’s really taking the piss. The left can, and have, shown themselves to have the most vicious, lying, trolls I’ve seen. I know, because I’ve been Rabble’s victim….
Let me leave you with one last example of lefty trolling- it happened to me last week when Rachael Goodine of ACORN Canada sent me this ugly message:
It came to me out of nowhere- the last time I’d communicated with Goodine was months ago, after she took a similar shot at me (and told some big lies while she was at it.) It’s a really messed-up logic when someone trolls people throwing accusations of the same. Even more telling about Goodine’s character is that she has blocked me on Twitter so that I can’t respond.
Typical. But, of course, lefty trolls don’t exist- do they? Oh, you still don’t believe me? Well, let’s ask Justin Trudeau:
Oy vey…
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Yeah, I can’t help but wonder how Loreto would classify THIS particular individual:
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i41/Patrick_Ross/Screenshot2012-03-13at54137PM.png
And that’s just naming one. But really, I read as far into her bio as “musician” and figured out right away there wasn’t going to be anything worthwhile contained in her article. Rabble doesn’t just lack editors… it also lacks standards.
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Yep, looks like trolling. Just another unicorn sighting though, lefty trolling doesn’t exist…
I have witnessed some of the nastiest attack comments I’ve ever read on many of these far left/anarchist group pages and forums. Being called a stupid cnut is light weight in comparison to what I’ve read recently posted on an O.T. event page. The man in question was from Media Co Op. He felt it was perfectly fine to utter a gruesome death threat to a woman after he reposted the O.V. link in a further attempt to spread the lies. Challenging these extremist’s can have ugly consequences. I have also been a target for their extreme viewpoints on various Occupy Toronto pages on Facebook.
Funny enough it was on one of those pages that I first saw the name Greg Renouf. I read the Vancouver smear letter and was so incensed by O.V.’s swarm tactic’s that I immediately challenged their lack of evidence. I was stunned that a movement that claimed to be all inclusive could so blatantly and with such concerted malice attempt to destroy any person’s character with nothing more than hear say. That put me right in the line of fire. I was viciously attacked for questioning their condemnations of you. I had not the slightest idea of who you were at the time but I was compelled to dig deeper. It didn’t take long to recognize why they had decided to wage war on you and that made me all the more determined to stand my ground. Sacred cow’s indeed! .I’ve learned a hell of a lot about the dirty tactic’s of the far left through all this and In my opinion they can be just as sleazy as the far right. Character assassination, delphi techniques, smear campaigns…zealotry of any kind is never pretty. Since I’ve always considered myself left of center in my politic’s I’m horrified at the thought that I could be mistakenly be lumped in with this gang of bullies. The truth will out.
It is just eh typical double standard we have seen time and time again. When they “troll” it is “For the greater good” and is, in their opinion, not trolling. There needs to be a new actitistocrat dictionary to help people understand:
Misogynist or racist = anyone who speaks out against me
Democracy = you must agree with my views
Undemocratic = You did not vote for the person issue I voted for
Charter of Right = I have the right to do whatever I want. You should not be allowed to arrest me for anything.
The Charter of Right actually stops people from doing whatever they want… you can do what you want as long as it doesn’t violate other people’s rights around you. If they have been violating the rights of other people they have been in conflict with under the rules of the Charter of Rights they have shot themselves in the foot… Also I am not sure of one CAN violate the Charter for the greater good. Governments etc do it, but I think when that is done it is the beginning of a slippery slope which can lead to tyranny… when rights are legislated and amended to the point of not protecting anyone from the harm they were originally meant to. I think when we harm individuals for the greater good we become willing to sacrifice, and that number were are willing to sacrifice grows because we’ve already convinced ourselves that a little bit of harm is ok… so a little bit more becomes ok, until we become the tyrants! It seems to be happening more and more these days.
So when anyone claims they are within their rights, they may be… but if by examination it turns out they by their actions were violating other rights under the Charter then call them out on it. In fact, you CAN be arrested, charged and convicted for violating another person’s rights! If the court system would take the Charter seriously, sometimes they DO let people get away with violating it… If they say we should alter, amend, etc the Charter then deny them. The original Charter, (including both sexes, women weren’t originally included, not meaning to sound like a feminist I just don’t want to lose my equality) is a great document to go by.
Isn’t it sad I feel I have to explain myself one way or another sex-wise? That whole sexism thing with Occupy was crazy! I treat people as they treat me, but arguments over sexism where the woman’s rights people were actually sexist came up! That there is a violation and perhaps I should have called them out… but I am terrible at conflict, and tend to put my foot in my mouth as well as down my throat sometimes :(
Nowadays you can cry wolf all you want but the wolf will go and start a blog and show reasons why the person crying wolf is an insane child.
wow justin trudeau said that? One thing though… the liberals troll just as much as the ndp do. Heck the liberals here in BC want me to get an RFID card and have made it mandatory, I don’t think I’ll ever trust a liberal ever again. Which is funny because in the past I’ve done work with elections canada and helped out candidates, they were liberal, and then I woke up and figured out the backstabbing scumbags they are — fortunately I didn’t just bounce to pc or some other party because when I woke up to their crap I discovered it was in pretty much every party.
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Yep, all of the political parties are the same- it’s a sad state of affairs…
sad indeed, I’ve heard a few things about trudeau…. doesn’t his family also have ties in with powercorp?
[…] At 2:08, on the far-left side of the video, we can see Julian Ichim – he’s one of Toronto’s least savoury anarchists who recently participated in interrupting Remembrance day with a couple of Afghani radical women. Canada’s radical website rabble.ca promoted the two women after they did this. Judy Rebick was a founder of Rabble.ca- they’ve been known to publish outright slander. […]