An Online Environmental Scan of Right-Wing Extremism in Canada Interim Report
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Understanding Stephen Harper
HARPER Edited by Teresa Healy www.policyalternatives.ca Photo: Hanson/THE Tom CANADIAN PRESS Understanding Stephen Harper The long view Steve Patten CANAdIANs Need to understand the political and ideological tem- perament of politicians like Stephen Harper — men and women who aspire to political leadership. While we can gain important insights by reviewing the Harper gov- ernment’s policies and record since the 2006 election, it is also essential that we step back and take a longer view, considering Stephen Harper’s two decades of political involvement prior to winning the country’s highest political office. What does Harper’s long record of engagement in conservative politics tell us about his political character? This chapter is organized around a series of questions about Stephen Harper’s political and ideological character. Is he really, as his support- ers claim, “the smartest guy in the room”? To what extent is he a con- servative ideologue versus being a political pragmatist? What type of conservatism does he embrace? What does the company he keeps tell us about his political character? I will argue that Stephen Harper is an economic conservative whose early political motivations were deeply ideological. While his keen sense of strategic pragmatism has allowed him to make peace with both conservative populism and the tradition- alism of social conservatism, he continues to marginalize red toryism within the Canadian conservative family. He surrounds himself with Governance 25 like-minded conservatives and retains a long-held desire to transform Canada in his conservative image. The smartest guy in the room, or the most strategic? When Stephen Harper first came to the attention of political observers, it was as one of the leading “thinkers” behind the fledgling Reform Party of Canada. -
Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy
The 'Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy Dr. Valerie Scatamburlo-D'Annibale University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada Abstract This article explores how Donald Trump capitalized on the right's decades-long, carefully choreographed and well-financed campaign against political correctness in relation to the broader strategy of 'cultural conservatism.' It provides an historical overview of various iterations of this campaign, discusses the mainstream media's complicity in promulgating conservative talking points about higher education at the height of the 1990s 'culture wars,' examines the reconfigured anti- PC/pro-free speech crusade of recent years, its contemporary currency in the Trump era and the implications for academia and educational policy. Keywords: political correctness, culture wars, free speech, cultural conservatism, critical pedagogy Introduction More than two years after Donald Trump's ascendancy to the White House, post-mortems of the 2016 American election continue to explore the factors that propelled him to office. Some have pointed to the spread of right-wing populism in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis that culminated in Brexit in Europe and Trump's victory (Kagarlitsky, 2017; Tufts & Thomas, 2017) while Fuchs (2018) lays bare the deleterious role of social media in facilitating the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and elsewhere. Other 69 | P a g e The 'Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy explanations refer to deep-rooted misogyny that worked against Hillary Clinton (Wilz, 2016), a backlash against Barack Obama, sedimented racism and the demonization of diversity as a public good (Major, Blodorn and Blascovich, 2016; Shafer, 2017). -
COVID-19: How Hateful Extremists Are Exploiting the Pandemic
COVID-19 How hateful extremists are exploiting the pandemic July 2020 Contents 3 Introduction 5 Summary 6 Findings and recommendations 7 Beliefs and attitudes 12 Behaviours and activities 14 Harms 16 Conclusion and recommendations Commission for Countering Extremism Introduction that COVID-19 is punishment on China for their treatment of Uighurs Muslims.3 Other conspiracy theories suggest the virus is part of a Jewish plot4 or that 5G is to blame.5 The latter has led to attacks on 5G masts and telecoms engineers.6 We are seeing many of these same narratives reoccur across a wide range of different ideologies. Fake news about minority communities has circulated on social media in an attempt to whip up hatred. These include false claims that mosques have remained open during 7 Since the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. Evidence has also shown that pandemic, the Commission for Countering ‘Far Right politicians and news agencies [...] Extremism has heard increasing reports of capitalis[ed] on the virus to push forward their 8 extremists exploiting the crisis to sow division anti-immigrant and populist message’. Content and undermine the social fabric of our country. such as this normalises Far Right attitudes and helps to reinforce intolerant and hateful views We have heard reports of British Far Right towards ethnic, racial or religious communities. activists and Neo-Nazi groups promoting anti-minority narratives by encouraging users Practitioners have told us how some Islamist to deliberately infect groups, including Jewish activists may be exploiting legitimate concerns communities1 and of Islamists propagating regarding securitisation to deliberately drive a anti-democratic and anti-Western narratives, wedge between communities and the British 9 claiming that COVID-19 is divine punishment state. -
Extremists on the Left and Right Use Angry, Negative Language
PSPXXX10.1177/0146167218809705Personality and Social Psychology BulletinFrimer et al. 809705research-article2018 Empirical Research Paper Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Extremists on the Left and Right 1 –16 © 2018 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc Use Angry, Negative Language Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218809705 10.1177/0146167218809705 journals.sagepub.com/home/pspb Jeremy A. Frimer1 , Mark J. Brandt2 , Zachary Melton3, and Matt Motyl3 Abstract We propose that political extremists use more negative language than moderates. Previous research found that conservatives report feeling happier than liberals and yet liberals “display greater happiness” in their language than do conservatives. However, some of the previous studies relied on questionable measures of political orientation and affective language, and no studies have examined whether political orientation and affective language are nonlinearly related. Revisiting the same contexts (Twitter, U.S. Congress), and adding three new ones (political organizations, news media, crowdsourced Americans), we found that the language of liberal and conservative extremists was more negative and angry in its emotional tone than that of moderates. Contrary to previous research, we found that liberal extremists’ language was more negative than that of conservative extremists. Additional analyses supported the explanation that extremists feel threatened by the activities of political rivals, and their angry, negative language represents efforts to communicate as much to others. Keywords language, anger, extremism, liberals and conservatives, threat, happiness Received February 27, 2018; revision accepted October 1, 2018 For too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: extremists—on both the political left and right—use more Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; negative language than moderates. -
Pepe the Frog
PEPE THE FROG: A Case Study of the Internet Meme and its Potential Subversive Power to Challenge Cultural Hegemonies by BEN PETTIS A THESIS Presented to the School of Journalism and Communication and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts Spring 2018 An Abstract of the Thesis of Ben Pettis for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the School of Journalism and Communication to be taken Spring 2018 Title: Pepe the Frog: A Case Study of the Internet Meme and Its Potential Subversive Power to Challenge Cultural Hegemonies Approved: _______________________________________ Dr. Peter Alilunas This thesis examines Internet memes, a unique medium that has the capability to easily and seamlessly transfer ideologies between groups. It argues that these media can potentially enable subcultures to challenge, and possibly overthrow, hegemonic power structures that maintain the dominance of a mainstream culture. I trace the meme from its creation by Matt Furie in 2005 to its appearance in the 2016 US Presidential Election and examine how its meaning has changed throughout its history. I define the difference between a meme instance and the meme as a whole, and conclude that the meaning of the overall meme is formed by the sum of its numerous meme instances. This structure is unique to the medium of Internet memes and is what enables subcultures to use them to easily transfer ideologies in order to challenge the hegemony of dominant cultures. Dick Hebdige provides a model by which a dominant culture can reclaim the images and symbols used by a subculture through the process of commodification. -
Identity & In-Group Critique in James Mason's Siege
A Paler Shade of White: Identity & In-group Critique in James Mason’s Siege J.M. Berger RESOLVE NETWORK | April 2021 Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism Series https://doi.org/10.37805/remve2021.1 The views expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the RESOLVE Network, the U.S. Institute of Peace, or any entity of the U.S. government. CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 2 HISTORY AND CONTEXT ...................................................................................... 4 METHODOLOGY: LINKAGEBASED ANALYSIS ............................................... 6 OVERVIEW OF CONTENT ..................................................................................... 7 INGROUP CRISIS: A PALER SHADE OF WHITE .............................................13 INGROUPS IN CRISIS ........................................................................................20 THE OUTGROUP IN THE INGROUP ...............................................................23 CONCLUSION: INSIGHTS & RECOMMENDATIONS .....................................25 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................28 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Discussions of extremist ideologies naturally focus on how in-groups criticize and attack out-groups. But -
Extracting Inter-Community Conflicts in Reddit
Extracting Inter-community Conflicts in Reddit Srayan Datta Eytan Adar University of Michigan University of Michigan [email protected] [email protected] Abstract Anti-social behaviors in social media can happen both at user and community levels. While a great deal of attention is on the individual as an ‘aggressor,’ the banning of entire Reddit subcommunities (i.e., subreddits) demonstrates that this is a multi-layer concern. Existing research on inter-community conflict has largely focused on specific subcommunities or ideological opponents. However, antago- nistic behaviors may be more pervasive and integrate into the broader network. In this work, we study the landscape of conflicts among subreddits by deriving higher-level (community) behaviors from the way individuals are sanctioned and rewarded. By constructing a conflict network, we characterize different patterns in subreddit-to-subreddit conflicts as well as communities of ‘co-targeted’ sub- reddits. By analyzing the dynamics of these interactions, we also observe that the conflict focus shifts over time. keywords: Inter-group conflict, Reddit, social network analysis, conflict network 1 Introduction Anti-social behavior in social media is not solely an individual process. Communities can, and do, antagonize other groups with anti-social behaviors. Similarly, both individuals and communities can be sanctioned in reaction to this behavior. On Reddit, for example, individuals can be banned or otherwise be sanctioned (e.g., have their posts down-voted). Likewise, entire subreddits can also be sanctioned when multiple individuals use the community as a platform for generating conflict, in violation of general Reddit norms. Critically, the form of anti-social behavior at the community level can be quite varied. -
What Is Gab? a Bastion of Free Speech Or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?
What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber? Savvas Zannettou Barry Bradlyn Emiliano De Cristofaro Cyprus University of Technology Princeton Center for Theoretical Science University College London [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Haewoon Kwak Michael Sirivianos Gianluca Stringhini Qatar Computing Research Institute Cyprus University of Technology University College London & Hamad Bin Khalifa University [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Jeremy Blackburn University of Alabama at Birmingham [email protected] ABSTRACT ACM Reference Format: Over the past few years, a number of new “fringe” communities, Savvas Zannettou, Barry Bradlyn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Haewoon Kwak, like 4chan or certain subreddits, have gained traction on the Web Michael Sirivianos, Gianluca Stringhini, and Jeremy Blackburn. 2018. What is Gab? A Bastion of Free Speech or an Alt-Right Echo Chamber?. In WWW at a rapid pace. However, more often than not, little is known about ’18 Companion: The 2018 Web Conference Companion, April 23–27, 2018, Lyon, how they evolve or what kind of activities they attract, despite France. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3184558. recent research has shown that they influence how false informa- 3191531 tion reaches mainstream communities. This motivates the need to monitor these communities and analyze their impact on the Web’s information ecosystem. 1 INTRODUCTION In August 2016, a new social network called Gab was created The Web’s information ecosystem is composed of multiple com- as an alternative to Twitter. -
Link to Today's Pdf Package
TRANSCENDENCE “Every Place at Once,” by Crystal Abidin “Remote Control,” by Linda Besner “Seeing Stars,” by Alex Ronan “Advanced Search,” by Franceska Rouzard As a kid bored on a car ride or a teen stoned in afternoon class I imagined zones of psychic communion, immaterial common rooms where everyone I knew lived a second life. These spaces are now mundane, although, if anything, the internet proves that mundanity is an illusion and that everything is shot through with magic, or whatever you want to call it. Online doesn’t feel new at all. It feels like the home version of a concept that used to be esoteric. Online is a layer of reality, a dimension of life. It doesn’t solve or replace any great mysteries, but it turns them under the light. If the spark of an individual is the part of you that decides, your self will outlast you online, as an artifact, or a program. You can leave it there. —Alexandra Molotkow TRANSCENDENCE EVERYEVERY PLACEPLACE ATAT ONCEONCE Where do the dead go when tangible, singing onscreen. by CRYSTAL ABIDIN There she is, my sister, in two places at once. they die? No one in the congregation seems to flinch. As neatly as they filed into the pews, am sitting at a memorial service in a church everyone stands up and sings along tutti. But snug in the east end of Singapore. The master it doesn’t take long for the white-lit screens of Iof ceremony goes up to the pulpit. He tells us smartphones to emerge from the sea of heads. -
Facebook and Violent Extremism Awareness Brief
Facebook and Violent Extremism Understanding Facebook legitimate reasons, violent extremists, gangs, and terrorist groups also have a significant With more than 1 billion users, Facebook is presence and following on Facebook.1 The one of the most popular social networking following identifies the ways domestic and sites. After users create a personal profile or international extremists of all persuasions use organization page and add photos, contact Facebook to promote violence: information, and additional information, they can search for people with similar interests, Recruitment create networks of “friends,” communicate by sending private messages or posting Facebook provides violent extremists with a comments on another user’s wall, “like” pages vast recruiting ground. In the United States of organizations and join “groups” with other alone, 67 percent of all Internet users have a users who share similar interests, and post and Facebook profile, and the percentages are even share content created on Facebook or linked to higher for youth and young adults. Moreover, another website. Facebook is one of the top three websites visited by people under the age of 18.2 How Extremists Use Facebook Extremists take advantage of the fact that parents and law enforcement often are not Although individuals and organizations aware of the dangers that could be present worldwide use Facebook for a variety of when a young person spends large amounts AWARENESS BRIEF 2 AWARENESS BRIEF of time on Facebook. Extremist individuals bring propaganda to a wider audience and and organizations use this viewing potential to serve as a gateway to other extremist websites create lines of communication, enabling them where more radical content is available. -
La Nouvelle Droite, Ses Pompes Et Ses Œuvres D’Europe Action (1963) À La NRH (2002)
La Nouvelle Droite, ses pompes et ses œuvres D’Europe Action (1963) à la NRH (2002) par Geoffroy Daubuis Après avoir bénéficié d’une forte publicité dans les années 1978- 1985, la mouvance néopaïenne dite « Nouvelle Droite » peut sembler aujourd’hui passée de mode. En réalité, son influence perdure, tant dans les milieux universitaires que dans les milieux nationalistes. Depuis une dizaine d’années, c’est principalement par les publica- tions d’histoire que la Nouvelle Droite atteint le grand public. Geoffroy Daubuis présente ici un historique de cette mouvance, en trois de ses aspects : I. La revue Europe Action, qui est à l’origine de la Nouvelle Droite. II. Le GRECE, qui en est le noyau dur depuis 1968. III. La NRH (Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire) qui assure depuis 2002 une diffusion « douce » de ses idées. Le Sel de la terre. — I — A l’origine de la Nouvelle Droite : Europe Action A GÉNÉRATION SPONTANÉE n’existe pas plus dans l’ordre intellec- tuel que dans l’ordre physique, et l’on pourrait remonter fort loin pour L établir la généalogie de la Nouvelle Droite. Peut-être faudrait-il revenir à Celse et Porphyre, les polémistes païens de l’Antiquité, dont les attaques anti- chrétiennes préfigurent toutes celles qui viendront par la suite 1. Nous nous contenterons ici de remonter à la fondation d’Europe Action, en 1962-1963, dont les meneurs (Dominique Venner, Alain de Benoist 2, Jean Mabire, 1 — Sur Celse et Porphyre, voir le maître-ouvrage de Pierre DE LABRIOLLE, La Réaction païenne, étude sur la polémique antichrétienne du Ier au VIe siècle, Paris, Cerf, 2005. -
Origines Et Métamorphoses De La Nouvelle Droite Pierre-André Taguieff
Vingtième Siècle, revue d'histoire Origines et métamorphoses de la nouvelle droite Pierre-André Taguieff Abstract Origins and metamorphoses of the French New Right, Pierre-André Taguieff. The French New Right, which grew in the 1970s and the 1980s, seems to have become an empty shell today. But the itinerary of its best theortician, Alain de Benoist, shows that this movement was able to bring up, early and continuously, the issues of roots and identity that are haunting Europe today. Citer ce document / Cite this document : Taguieff Pierre-André. Origines et métamorphoses de la nouvelle droite. In: Vingtième Siècle, revue d'histoire, n°40, octobre- décembre 1993. pp. 3-22; http://www.persee.fr/doc/xxs_0294-1759_1993_num_40_1_3005 Document généré le 05/05/2016 ENTRETIENS ORIGINES ET METAMORPHOSES DE LA NOUVELLE DROITE Pierre-André Taguieff Cinq ans après la publication de s'avère aussi vague que trompeuse. En l'article(n° d'Anne-Marie Duranton-Crabol France, elle a été utilisée, dans le langage 17, janvier-mars 1988), Vingtième médiatique, à partir de 1978, pour siècle a voulu revenir sur le phénomène désigner le GRECE (Groupement de recherche de la Nouvelle Droite, dont on aurait et d'études pour la civilisation tort de minimiser l'importance dans européenne), puis, par extension, pour l'évolution actuelle du paysage référer, dès 1979, à l'ensemble formé par le intellectuel et politique de la France. Nous GRECE et le Club de l'Horloge. On remercions Pierre-André Taguieff d'avoir bien pouvait alors situer la production voulu répondre à nos questions. intellectuelle de ces deux «clubs (ou sociétés) de pensée» à l'intersection des droites parlementaires UDF/RPR et des Vingtième siècle: Que recouvre exactement le terme de Nouvelle Droite? mouvements situés à l'extrême droite.