I was reading Rabble.ca on Thursday (I read it so you don’t have to) when I came across an interesting article by Krystalline Kraus. As my regular readers will already know, Krause is far from being a reliable journalist- often it seems she writes more lies than truth. My favourite example of her ineptitude was in 2011 when she published a story claiming the notorious con-artist Kevin Annett conducted an exorcism that created a tornado “which devastated central Rome and the Vatican“. Annett is a man who has caused great pain to Canada’s indigenous communities.
Knowing about Kraus’ history of telling outrageous lies, I tend not to believe a word she writes (you shouldn’t either). I must have still been waking up when I read the story, or my BS meter was faulty- because I believed it at first. But, after some research, I can confirm that this article is a continuation of her pattern of misleading stories…
Mount Douglas park is a place very near and dear to my heart. Cuddled between subdivisions of Saanich on one side, and Victoria on the other, it’s a hill that provides panoramic views (on one of those rare clear days) of much of lower Vancouver Island. There’s a road going up to the top with a place to park your car- when I was 16, and bought my first car (a 1968 Rover 2000), it’s the first place I made out with a girl in it.
Despite having provided beautiful memories for many residents of lower Vancouver Island- for some, Mount Douglas has a contemptuous name. Sir James Douglas was a colonial governor who led the development of treaties with several Vancouver Island indigenous nations. These treaties were collectively known as the Douglas Treaties.
On the evening of May 22nd, a group of a couple hundred activists attended a rally at Mount Douglas to ceremonially rename the park to what’s claimed to be it’s original name of PKOLS. During this rally they went as far as to put a (permanent looking) sign declaring the new name.
Reading Kraus’ article, one is led to believe that the naming is official. There’s no mention of the local government’s position on the name change, and she goes as far as to say “May 22, 2013, at 5 p.m., Mount Douglas will be known as PKOLS”. The problem is, like much of Kraus’ writing, this is simply not true. The reality is that no official decision has been made.
But why would Kraus lie? (Besides the fact she’s a Rabble writer, and a habitual liar of course) To understand her motivation for this article, we need look no further than the endorsement list for the group who are pushing for the name change- it’s a rogue’s gallery of some of Canada’s most racist, pro-violence, Marxist people and hate groups: (otherwise known as Kraus’ best friends)
Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign:
Aren’t we all sick and tired by now of the radicals making everything about Israel?
The Council of Canadians:
The CoC’s are the people who encouraged the anarchists to join in on the protests during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. To this day they’ve refused to make any apologies, or to denounce the damage they helped create- rather, members of the CoC’s continue to back these violent criminals.
Judy Rebick:
Rebick is the founder of Rabble- so, not surprise that Kraus is pushing her cause (it’s pretty much guaranteed). Rebick has an uncomfortably close relationship with violent anarchists including people like G20 ringleader Alex Hundert. She spoke-out against the G20 violence but not until it actually happened- despite the fact the entire community knew it was going to happen before.
No One Is Illegal:
NoII is one of the most racist, violence promoting, hateful groups in the country. Harsha Walia, their Vancouver leader, stood-up for the criminals who smashed up Vancouver during the Olympics saying “this movement is not about window breaking, and is about window breaking”. NoII’s Harjap Grewal is one of the sponsors of the Native Youth Movement- a group famous for it’s video singing “take back the land, kill the white man”. Both Walia & Grewal led the black block hoards during the Toronto G20 shortly before they began smashing up the city.
Victoria Forest Action Network:
FAN is led by Zoe Blunt, one of the most distasteful anarchists on Vancouver Island. Otherwise known as the scourge of Langford, Blunt has worked directly with eco-terrorist groups including Earth First! and the Deep Green Resistance. Blunt also has a habit of interfering peaceful protests screaming out hate speech.
Deep Green Resistance:
DGR’s figurehead is Derek Jensen, a man who promotes that environmentalists should run around bombing dams. Recently DGR got into a lot of trouble with the activist community promoting hate against transsexual people. Zoe Blunt is a close associate of the DGR, as is Macdonald Stainsby- a man connected to the violence during the 2010 Olympics.
Naomi Klein:
A close associate of Harsha Walia’s, Naomi Klein is a writer/activist who helped enable what became the Vancouver DTES protests against the Pidgin restaurant by attending Walia’s first protest against building the Sequel 138 development. When the leader of Toronto’s OCAP was charged for inciting a riot after his members threw Molotov cocktails at the police, Klein stood up for him.
Sierra Club & Greenpeace:
Both these organizations are funded by TIDES Canada, an organization closely related to many of the above mentioned people and organizations. Since this funding began, these organizations have become progressively more radical over the years. When the Canadian government expressed concerns about the growing violence in the country’s activist community (which is a growing problem) Greenpeace stood up and tried to bury a very real problem. The Sierra Club has employed some of Canada’s most dangerous activists.
Each of these people and organizations (and many of the others on the endorsement list) share the common bond of being revolutionaries. Their purpose for supporting the change of the mountain is a lot more about fixing the damage from where Canada broke indigenous treaties, and a lot more about inciting people to start a revolution. The symbolism of removing Sir James Douglas’ name is just one (of many) steps they’ve been taking to achieve this.
Rabble, and Kraus have published countless articles promoting indigenous revolution. They’ve also published many articles promoting the views of violent anarchists. There are some good reasons to rename parts of the land back to their indigenous roots, it can help build better relationships with their communities, and is good for the tourism industry for example. But, indigenous activists who partner with violent revolutionary organizations are deeply misguided- until they step away from these strange bedfellows, Mount Douglas’ name should stay as it is…
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The name change game started with ben isitt trying to change victoria to camosun. This mount pickles/douglas issue has been ongoing for a while and since then I’ve heard other names are under attack.
I’ll use the example of the proposed name change of “victoria day”.
It’s only a name, I am not spending money (tax dollars) to change the names of everything. The indigenous can call things what they want, at the end of the day I will not be honouring their suggestions as they are representative of useless waste.
These idiots have all sorts of issues to get us to spend money on things other than actually fixing problems, because they want to. They want us pissing money and resources away on unproductive crap so that things continue to unravel.
I’d also like to point out, how many of these organizations get nice tax perks and kickbacks from government? How many organize (or back) public events that proclaim “civil disobedience”, commit unlawful action, and have the local police ignore the crimes while pulling over other cars and warning protesters about bicycle helmets(for example)?
[…] Here's an interesting read on the renaming of Mt. Doug: http://www.genuinewitty.com/2013/05/…r-island-park/ […]