The last decade has witnessed the wholesale gutting of progressive Social movements in Canada. Strong, inclusive movements have been eviscerated and rendered impotent by the draconian ideologies that crept out of hyper privileged academics like Judith Butler and Peggy McIntosh. These ideologies have their base in neo-marxist conflict theory disciplines. Their aim is to disrupt the society and create conditions wherein even us uneducated proles will have to rise up and smash the legendary “system”.

The Edmonton Antifa greet Saturdays protest

The new crusaders are the students that have been indoctrinated in this ideology in our university faculties, where to question it in any way is heresy. Even a cursory glance at the rhetoric emanating from Identity Politics and any reading of the base texts will tell you this.

This dark ideology has splintered social movements into ever smaller “intersections of oppression.” It has fatally disrupted organizing and diluted any message to the point of irrelevance. We now teeter closer to nuclear annihilation than we have in my lifetime. A gangster and a reality star preen themselves and provoke each other astride massive hair trigger nuclear arsenals. We don’t even have a peace movement.

The Antifa In Québec City in 2016 beating random senior citizens

Wealth inequity has continued to grow exponentially. Those with economic power are demonstrably above the law. Decisions for our governance are made openly in corporate board rooms. Meanwhile our “woke” government imposes carbon taxes on average people while handing trillion dollar energy companies tax-breaks. While chiding and proposing to charge us for our craven fossil fuel dependence our governemnt buys a 4.5 billion dollar pipeline to no where. But we are told oppression is really being doled out by the heterosexual white boy pumping gas at the Petro-Can, that privileged fuck. Thousands are walking away from social movements and progressive politics as they become disillusioned by rhetoric that celebrates selective racism and advocates hatred and violence toward anyone who may mildly disagree. Who actually benefits from all of this, not you and I.

The arrival of the French initiated Yellow Jacket Movement is an opportunity to retake progressive politics from the hordes of Gender Studies degree-holding youth, and their “woke” allies that have dominated the Canadian left by force for half a decade now. Some of the ideas emanating from the French Yellow Jacket movement are brilliant. Direct electronic referendum on important national issues, a call for immigration reform with a simultaneous call for France to end colonial exploitation and foreign military intervention and arms sales. A call for immediately exiting NATO, the outlawing of lobbyists and GMO foods, reduction of big Pharmas’ influence in medical care, access to affordable housing and a host of other demands that go to the heart of actual progressive issues.

The MSM in Canada is already hard at work trying to portray this as a right wing movement. Most of demos this weekend were headlined as simply anti-immigration protests. The message here is far broader and deeper than uncontrolled immigration. It is protesting the fundamental break between the goverment and the governed. This lack of voice in one’s own governance, turned the Yellow Vest Movement from a rural French carbon tax protest into a worldwide phenomenon. What is being voiced on the ground in these demos in Canada is not a simple reflex against immigration. It is the idea that whatever government we put in power we are ruled by the same elites. These elites are defined by economic class and its concurrent political power, not by any other metric. To have any wide appeal the movement needs to learn to communicate this fundamental truth to a public rendered apathetic by the culture wars. On this more than anything rests the near term viability of this movement in Canada. These are actual fundamental progressive beliefs.

Red Deer

It is in the interest of the identity politics warriors and their academic clergy who have ruled left wing politics with an iron fist to amplify this portrayal. At all costs progressives must not be given a chance to voice their anger in any forum but one tightly controlled and directed by their ideology. Because if that happens, if Canadians see that they can voice their opinion without bowing to the increasingly racist and misogynistic demands of this dogma, it will soon be relegated to the dustbin of bad ideas and they will loose their unearned power to direct everything from public discourse to the education of our children.

In order for this to happen progressives need to make themselves felt in this movement. Doing this will necessitate acting in concert with people who’s totality of ideas or worldview we may not agree with. We may massively and fundamentally disagree. We will have to re-learn how to use dialogue and moral persuasion again instead of mass social media shaming and pejorative labeling. We must work to find common cause with our fellow citizens not look for what divides us. We need to see each individual as unique, not the product of and valued only by, their perceived group “oppression intersection” score. We need to return to a place where every unique individual is valued intrinsically and compassion is not guided by some set of imposed, rigidly enforced doctrines.

People are scared and angry and some of the rhetoric coming out of the Yellow Jacket Movement has a Jingoistic flavor. It would be a huge mistake for progressives to label the movement alt-right and vilify it. We need to get involved at the grassroots level. One of the fundamentals of the movement is grassroots democracy. It resembles the early Occupy Movement in its leaderless, consensus-based structure. We can affect and soften the dialogue, we can show people that there is a path to a tolerant society that works to the advantage of the vast majority of its citizens is achievable. Not only can it happen without the need for draconian censorship and the constant gaze of the Woke Inquisition regulating the very words we speak and attitudes we hold. This is indeed one of the major obstacles preventing it. We can, and I think we must use this as a place to reform actual social movements that focus on the well being of all our fellow citizens not the select few. We can reopen a dialogue about who really exercises “privilege” in our society and why. To do that we will have to meet those we disagree with with empathy and an open spirit. We will have to reject the ideological fallacies we have been forced to adhere to and look for whatever common cause we have. And work together to try and find a voice that includes everyone equally according to their individual effort and character, not the narrow slot selected by an increasingly intellectually inbred academic elite.

Identity politics have only ever benefited those who actually rule our society. Its prophets are academics with six figure salaries. Its foot soldiers are the children of the middle class who used access to education to attain useless degrees and view any need to work or struggle in life as oppression. We need to remember these young people grew up with 9/11, “wars on terror”, and financial collapses that ruined the lives of millions yet saw no one even prosecuted. Their hunger for change is real and laudable. It was hijacked by self-interested players who dazzled them with academic sounding answers and created an environment where to even mildly question would lead to censure. Like most victims of ideological conditioning they become violent and abusive when their worldview is questioned. We must have the patience to explain the mistake in believing that division is strength.That racism leads to tolerance. These are lies foisted on them by an intellectual class who’s interests actually align with those who hold power. These are our fellow citizens not our enemies, no matter how repellent the beliefs they have are, they came from fear and a desperate desire for something better.

Let us join together in the streets with our fellow citizens who actually share our interests. Let us regain the awesome force we posses when we work together across communities. Let us stand together to take control of societies from the few and ensure the future for our children. To do this we must re learn compromise and conciliation for it is in these rather than the iron imposition of doctrines that all human progress has been achieved.

William Ray