Citizen Hate Speech
Margaret Kopala is a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, a CanWest newspaper. According to her byline: Margaret Kopala's column on western perspectives appears every other week.
And by western perspectives, Dear Reader, I assume the Ottawa Citizen means "Old white Alberta Reform Party bigotry that a decent newspaper would never, in a million years, publish".
Of course, where IS a decent newspaper in Canada these days, you might rightly ask.
Anyway, I've got a sample column here of Ms Kopala's. It's the sort of tripe that shows up regularly in the Ottawa Citizen, and has since the Conrad Black Neo-Con Revolution bought what is now known as the CanWest chain of newspapers. Indeed, there was a brief hiatus of Big "L" Liberalickism when Izzy Asper bought the chain from Conrad Black - but even before he was dead his sons had taken the Citizen from bad to worse, encumbering the newspaper with a "western perspective" editorial stance that turned off pretty well everybody I know here in Ottawa.
Well, ALMOST everybody I know. My co-worker enjoys reading the Ottawa Citizen. Here is a rundown of his vital statistics. As always, Ladies, the line up forms to the right:
"Dirk" is a Rightwing War on Terror supporter who believes Feminists have ruined Western society; the Islamic Menace is real and must be crushed by any means necessary; the Government of Canada (except the current New Conservative one) is evil; the Free Market and unregulated Capitalism is good; everything privately owned is good, everything publicly owned is bad; a Chistian God rules the afterlife and Mother Nature rules the Earth; white Christian men are responsible for all that is right in the world and everybody else is to blame for all that is wrong in it.
Now, understand, Dear Reader, I am in no way exaggerating my co-worker's views. (He is also the website manager of Sooey's and Sooey Says, so I'm hardly in a position to make up scurrilous lies about him, either.) The above is also an accurate reflection of the editorial views of the Ottawa Citizen - which is why my co-worker enjoys reading it so much.
Those views are also the reason why I was more than happy to cancel my subscription to it a few years ago, something that had never occurred to me to do previously (I had subscribed to the local newspaper everywhere I had lived since I was old enough to do it). But one day, here in Ottawa, I woke up to a Sunday newspaper featuring both David Warren and Rondi Adamson on the same editorial page, essentially spouting hate speech against me (not personally, just everything I believe in) and that was it. I phoned the circulation department and said, "Cancel my subscription, please." The person at the other end inquired, "May I ask why?" So, I said, "No reason."
That's right. "No reason". The Ottawa Citizen was now my enemy and I didn't want to give it a head's up as to why.
Since then I've had the occasional column from the Citizen referred to me by my co-worker. It's usually to do with the War on Terror (it's failing because of lefties like me, or it's succeeding because of rightwingers like him) or Feminism (bad, badder, baddest) with the odd reference to brain size studies (racism and sexism are good, according to studies paid for by racist and sexist organizations), health studies (private healthcare is way better than public healthcare, according to polls conducted by lobbyists for private healthcare clinics or Dr. Brian Day, CMA head and private clinic owner/operator) and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc - no smoking laws result in weakened immune systems, seatbelt laws discriminate against libertarian drivers, helmet laws have destroyed childhood (not traffic, of course - traffic weeds out the weak), and Feminists are to blame for the preceding and all other ills in society.
So, having given you a brief rundown of the sort of 50s-era bigotry that passes for political commentary in the Ottawa Citizen editorial pages, here is Ms Kopala's column for your amusement. My only preface would be to say that, after reading it, I realized Feminism needs to take it up a notch. No more competing with boys and trying out for boys' teams and playing catch-up to boys in sports. Nothing less than a Wide Wide World Of Girls' Sports will do and Feminists need to get the ball and the bank and lots and lots and lots of overdue surplus Government funds rolling.
What it means to grow up big and strong depends on your perspective. Margaret Kopala's is western, apparently. And by western, I guess, the Ottawa Citizen means bigoted.
