America This Week, September 29, 2023: "The Tell-Tale Reich"

I'm feeling completely in touch with nature and my own cycles as a human being, so I can't imagine.

Does it need to be summarized for people, or do people know the outlines of what happened there? I guess it needs to be summarized. Walter, how would you frame what happened?

They gave him.

He wasn't quite the Ukrainian freedom fighter that they had cast him as he had opposed Russia. He was part of an, I guess you could call the SS an elite German force, Nazi force, it turns out they'd applauded a Nazi.

And then came the recriminations and the apologies, which were very strange and which we'll go into.

And we're going to hear some audio from Roda and then kind of the reaction.

His name is Yaroslav Honka.

And I was going to say, he's in the gallery, but I think you beat me to that.

Well, it's profound.

And yet, not only do they applaud without cease, they laugh at the next joke and so on. I mean, they are trained seals. I'm sorry there had to be people in that audience who knew something of the history of World War Two.

When I wrote about this, I tried not to spend a whole lot of time on Yaroslav Hunko because.

I do understand the motivations of Ukrainians who fought against the Soviets. I mean, there was a rock and a hard place element to that whole situation that is murky. The problem is that there's ample evidence of atrocities that were committed against Ukrainian population, against Jews. The alliance with the invading Nazis, for which they were very harshly punished by the way after the war by Stalin.

There was not particularly a lot of honorable conduct that went on in either direction during that time. But look, no matter what happens, you're wearing the uniform of an SS soldier. And that carries all the implications that it deserves. But just starting with the fact that they apparently were unaware of whose side these people were fighting on. It's like, stunning, just to begin with, isn't it?

Because war is messy and every day we make alliances with groups that have their own interests and so on, and so do our enemies. But war is two sides and we're talking about someone who fought against our side.

They'll applaud for anybody, if whoever it is, that gives the signal, gives the signal.

He's got a blog out there that's called Vesti Combatante, which is like a combatant's memories, or combatant's diaries or news. Where he describes his, you know, working for in the Galicia regiment of the Waffen-SS and working for Hitler's Army.

And this is not exactly a secret. So it comes out the next business day happens to be Yom Kippur. And there's a series of statements that are made, and the first one by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which is kind of his first draft. Apology is just amazing and I think we've got to hear this kind of impromptu statement which you can't classify as an apology.

I seem not to know who was fighting for.

There's no Russian element anywhere in this story. this entire thing is a Ukrainian story from start to finish, a Canadian story from start to finish. And yet the gall for him to invoke Russian disinformation. And this coming just a year after, or a year and change after. He stood up and blamed a Jewish member of parliament for standing with those who would waive swastikas at the trucker convoy.

And that was disinformation. Because when you actually looked at the so-called swastika waivers, it was all people who were holding flags that said things like, Fuck Trudeau and had pictures of swastikas. On the map of Canada, it was people who were calling Trudeau a Nazi. They weren't advancing national socialist ideals, they were using this kind of. In the way the playwright C.J. Hopkins, who's now in trouble in Germany, was doing it, he was using it as a way to criticize.

His implication that the Canadian truckers were Nazis was disinformation. And now he has the stones to come out and say, yes, this happened. It's embarrassing, but look out for Russian disinformation. That's like a 10 on the Huevos, the stone scale. It was mind-blowing.

And I take utter delight in his humiliation and that of his regime. Because they are in the forefront of wanting the rest of us to shut up, genuflect and so on. So, I mean, how can one not have schadenfreude in this case? If indeed, it was mere stupidity that caused this episode, of which I'm not completely convinced?

And she has extensive knowledge of this part of the world, and there's also some background. There's a family tie to Ukrainians. I think I believe her father was Ukrainian. She got her start working at a Ukrainian publication.

And it's just, and she was there in another episode. I guess we should probably play that one, too. Where a member of parliament actually asked for this episode to be stricken. From the record, you can see her in the background, Chrystia Freeland kind of nodding along.

And maybe while I dig that up, Walter, maybe if you could just offer your comments on your first impressions of Chrystia Freeland and what she might have contributed to this?

Who, I think, was in Poland and published some sort of Nazi propaganda paper, anti-semitic, and so on. And not that anyone should be held responsible for the sins of their ancestors. But it defies belief that she wouldn't have known in her fingertips who she was applauding. And, you know so. The question, though, is, are they Nazis or Bolsheviks? Because the Nazi thesis, and I'm being facetious and exaggerated here, is supported by who they applauded.

Their desire to erase the incident after it had happened from the record was quite bolshevik.

They've got all sides of totalitarian thinking covered here, from nationalism to Orwellian deletion of, you know, and Stalinist deletion of history. Right after it happened, I mean, what kind of a zoo is the Canadian House of Commons? That you can get up and ask that? Its most ridiculous, embarrassing moment be stricken from the record. And she sits there, nodding. Freeland sits there, nodding.

Excising things is different than you know, amnesia.

If these were not the people who are calling for the world to be, you know, expunged of Russian disinformation, then I might be wrong and wrong-think and wrong-think in every way. And taking away people's bank accounts, you know, and for, having, you know, done a civil protest in Ottawa. I might be willing to cut them breaks, but I am unwilling to cut them any.

As far as I'm concerned, the totalitarian, smug, insular, moronic nature of these regimes that want to police the rest of us. Their overconfidence, and even in a way, their mischievousness, I think, was shown in crystal form in this episode. And it must be absolutely put on the middle of the table as a centerpiece for why? They have neither the moral, intellectual or political authority to do what they're doing. In general, in terms of suppressing others, policing speech and attempting to rally us all to this group thing because them. Standing up and applauding as one for this completely transparent situation that should have been, for anyone with the least grasp of history. Incredibly troubling and visible at the first moment, is, to me, their exposure.

They've been exposed and I think they thought they could slip it by us, I mean, I think they thought-.

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And I have no doubt that, algorithmically, that this episode is going to end up being treated.

In the fashion of many other news stories that just don't get seen all that much.

But the most generous interpretation of this is they screwed up and then they resorted to ham-handed efforts to, you know, basically just overtly whitewash the situation again. The Soviet Union, the Soviets did this kind of stuff, but they had the shame or the cleverness, I guess, to kind of do it in stealth. You know, when you have Trotsky taken out of the picture of, you know, him, standing next to Stalin on the banks of the Moskva River. They didn't do that like on television, you know, it was just in the next edition of a textbook.

They, you know, it doesn't take stones to stand up and call for the, you know, striking of your most embarrassing episode from the record. It takes smugness and insularity and bubble mind to the max.

Usually you say, it's a Nazi and that doesn't work today, you'd like to go back to doing that, dude. They want to strike this from the record and then go back and put that Nazi label back in their quiver. And start using it. Of, you know, various people in Canada again, should they wish.

But that's the only problem. They removed one of their own weapons from their armory. And they want it back, and they think that they can call for having it back in public. Meanwhile, they take their mistake and somehow blame it, or its exploitation on the Russians. The Russians didn't have to say word one for this whole thing to go down.

You can't read any Russian newspapers.

Or Canadian home?

It also hurt Polish people, Roma people, 2SLGBTQi, plus people, disabled people, racialized people, and the many millions who were targeted by the Nazi genocide. Every year, there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors to share firsthand the horrors of what they experienced. And it is therefore incumbent upon us all to ensure that no one ever forgets what happened. I also want to reiterate how deeply sorry Canada is for the situation this put President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation in. It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicized by Russia and its supporters to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for.

Friday's joint session was about what Canada stands for, about our steadfast support of Ukraine's fight against Putin's brutality, lies and violence. It was a moment to celebrate and acknowledge the sacrifices of Ukrainians as they fight for their democracy, their freedom, their language and culture, and for peace. This is the side Canada was on in World War II, and this is the side we are on today.

I don't know, Walter, what do you think?

And he, he's gone now. I could see he really cared about that point, um, which was unbelievable. I mean, uh, but going back, Matt, to our our thesis that. It's incredible that they couldn't have known in some way what they were doing, what indeed were they doing?

Fascistic values, not, you know, uh uh, kind of neo-Nazi political theory, and I don't think that's a fanciful, uh thing to say. There's there are lots of reasons to think this that we're going to get into. Um, but if you move past the idea that they they that that it couldn't have been known, or that this had to have been just a mistake. What else are we really left with? Uh, with this episode? And I don't know, that's kind of what I get.

Um, and it, it. It follows the trajectory, trajectory of decades of propaganda since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That has kind of led us in the direction of, you know, America has to be a preeminent unipolar force in the world. Um, we have to reject our old school conceptions of democracy, of of diplomacy. Um, you know, that respect the territorial rights of other quote unquote great powers. We have to become, uh, militarily superior we have, uh. International law is highly conditional. We respect it when we need it, when we disrespect it when we don't. Um, in the case of the former Soviet Union.

And this this came out very strikingly in the writings of Christie Freeland. By the way, this was something that I spent years, uh, kind of arguing with a lot of these folks about. There was, uh, an awful lot of propaganda about how this new, rebuilding, chaotic country desperately needed, uh, you know, the contributions of this new group of, uh, capitalists who are being called oligarchs. At the time, um, they were often compared to the American robber barons, and and there was very often a reference to, the, uh, a messy transition to Western style capitalism. But it was always described as kind of a net plus. And we have some stuff that we can read about this. Um, but you combine that with the justifications that we we brought out during the war on terror period for emergency executive power.

That had an awful lot in common with, uh, some things that went on in the thirties. I don't know. I mean, we can get into all of it, but what are your? what are your thoughts, Walter?

But after the war, as anybody who has looked into things knows, uh, we exported, uh, kind of the scientific intelligentsia of Germany for use in our, uh, fight against Russia, and, uh, we no doubt exported the hatred of Russia. That those, um, those German scientists felt, having had their regime vanquished, really, uh, by Stalin's Soviet Union.

And now that we find ourselves in this heavily propagandized fight against the successor to the Soviet Union. Some of the feelings, some of, the, uh, history of that past conflict, which was, you know, led by Nazi Germany. With, you know, the predecessor regime is coming out. And and maybe they kind of want it to come out, maybe they want to air it. I mean, in the sense that that was the era of, besides the Cold War, uh, the most intense anti Russian feeling that's existed in this century. And and and birds of a feather flock together. And now that we're being asked once again to, sort of, you know, stand up against the Russian threat, tolerate censorship, tolerate, um, you know, vast military spending and even the prospect of a wider war.

I just think. More generally, Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth countries are used as a testing ground for creepy policy and social theory. However, blurring the lines around Nazism certainly cleans up the notion of state sponsored socialism and absolute loyalty to the state's ideas. And, you know, I, this is just an opinion off the cuff from someone, but that's how it seemed to him. What he means is is that there's a mimetic introduction of certain ideas that comes with this, and it can't be ignored.

Because, however, they may have foresworn what happened, it happened, and I've got to say the I. I did not think. The spectacle of people rising to their feet in spectacular applause and unified, uh, outcry of approval for a, uh, you know, fighter against the Soviet Union for the Germans was going to happen. I saw it. It's a bell that can't be unrung.

It looked like a Nazi rally, I mean, it, it, it wasn't. It wasn't the only uh uh instance, I guess, of of unified and moronic approval for someone that's ever happened in history. But it did remind me of some of the past ones.