Factual, obviously | The Press
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, which is why I rarely respond to reviews. And then, I believe that the chronicler-who-responds-to-every-criticism literary genre is boring for the reader.
When I seriously think about responding, it’s when the facts are twisted to better mislead me.
And even there…
Nine times out of ten, I end up moving on, without responding.
Just once, I’m going to respond today to a volley of tomatoes received after my column of June 23 on the manifesto of the Côte-des-Neiges killer.
Column title: ““Hypergamy” seen by a Marxist incel”1hypergamy being a portmanteau word chosen by the killer to denounce the fact that, in the classes he considers favored, everyone sleeps with everyone…
The word “incel” refers to “involuntary celibates,” misogynistic men who blame women for their own inability to find lovers.
They harass women online. Sometimes they kill women. It’s a hate movement.
And the “Marxist” in the title, well, it wasn’t the singer from 1989, Richard by his first name: I was referring to Karl Marx.
Which brings me to Alexandre Dumas2a voice widely followed and cited by the Quebec left on Facebook (38,000 subscribers): he threw tomatoes at me the morning this column was published.
I quote him: “It’s true, the shooter cites Karl Marx in his manifesto, he also cites Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Cicero, Hobbes and Spinoza. But I admit that a Platonic incel is less striking to the imagination than a “Marxist incel”…
In short, Mr. Dumas accuses me of having misquoted the manifesto.
I would like to point out first of all that Mr. Dumas is quite skimpy on details about the substance of the twisted thoughts of the Côte-des-Neiges killer, even though he often goes through long texts, with a lot of quotes to support his statements. But in the case that concerns us, he does not refer to it: one might think that he pressed “Send” without having read the said manifesto…
To explain how Marxism colors the vision of the madman from Côte-des-Neiges, I will be forgiven for falling into accounting, but that gives the score…
Karl Marx is cited 13 times by the misogynist from Alberta in his manifesto.
Plato: four times.
Herodotus: twice.
Cicero: three times.
Hobbes: twice.
Spinoza: once.
In short, just by volume, Marx is the thinker most often cited by our madman. To put him on the same footing as Plato is dishonest.
And if we add the eight references to Friedrich Engels, Marx’s traveling companion, the two creators of Communist Party Manifesto of 1848 come up 21 times in the killer thesis.
I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m reporting that the killer uses a Marxist analysis grid to explain why intimacy proletarians like him can’t find a lover: the bourgeoisie monopolize all quality women, according to him.
And if I had not mentioned the Marxist influence of his manifesto – in a context where The Press chose not to release the full story – I would have omitted important context for readers.
But Mr. Dumas, beacon of the digital left made in Québecnevertheless persists: “The shooter was not a Marxist. »
Let’s move away from my analysis, Mr. Dumas, and give the floor to a specialist in radicalization, Katherine Keneally, from the American research center Institute for Strategic Dialogue: “The manifesto presents a mixture of incel beliefs with Marxist ideology. Written in a more academic manner than we see in these kinds of manifestos, the author espouses anti-pornography views and describes men as an oppressed class exploited by both capitalism and women.3. »
I come back to accounting, for all those who felt offended that I simply reported the subject of a text that most of them had not read…
In the Communist Party ManifestoMarx postulates from the first words that History is nothing but class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
The words bourgeois and bourgeoisie appear 87 times in the Communist Party Manifesto signed Karl Marx.
In the Alberta Incel Manifesto? The words bourgeois and bourgeoisie come back… 139 times.
Marx refers to the proletariat or proletarians 39 times in the Communist Party Manifesto. The Alberta Marxist incel: 15 times.
Marx’s criticism is from the angle of class struggle, a word which recurs 44 times in the Communist Party Manifesto…
In the Alberta incel manifesto, how many times does class and classes come up, Mr. Dumas? 149 times…
Brief, I rest my case : the madman who killed a police officer, caused the death of one of our Jewish fellow citizens and seriously injured a police officer was that: a frustrated misogynist who justified his inability to relate to women with a mainly Marxist analysis grid.
It’s called a fact.
Speaking of facts, Alexandre Dumas is also the same guy who publicly accused without proof the leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon of having met the French fascist Éric Zemmour in Paris…
Journalists much more neutral, more honest and more connected than Mr. Dumas have attempted to verify this allegation, a clear case of the man who saw the man who saw the bear, who saw Louise, who spoke to the other Louise, who spoke again to the bear…
And they found nothing, nothing.
When I read Mr. Dumas’ explanation for swearing to us that the PQ leader had met Zemmour, I couldn’t help but widen my eyes: his “evidence” would never have convinced the editor-in-chief of a media outlet that publishes journalistic investigations to publish her salads. He would have made people laugh at him.
You will therefore forgive me, Mr. Dumas, for not taking lessons in rigor from someone who does not hesitate to twist the facts to make them fitter in his little ideological catechism, detestable fault of priests of the left and right: as I said to Mathieu Bock-Côté in 2024, that’s called cutting corners.
In the same vein
We did not know how many deaths the Albertan had caused while trying to target Pornhub in Côte-des-Neiges, as the tragedy was already being picked up by all kinds of communities, in the minutes following the news.
Example: I saw right-wing Quebecers infatuated with Alberta say that the media wanted to make us hate the beautiful Alberta model, so superior to Quebec communism… Eh, misery.
And many Jewish voices jumped to conclusions, within minutes of the news: it happened in an area of the city where there are many Jews, it can only be an anti-Semitic attack…
On this, superb text to read in The Gazette4 from Montreal rabbi Yisroel Bernath who delicately rings the bells to those in his community who immediately relayed the news of the attack, describing it as an anti-Semitic attack, even though we knew… nothing.
Nice reminder of caution not just for Jews, but for everyone.
1. Read the column ““Hypergamy” seen by a Marxist incel”
2. Check out Alexandre Dumas’ post on Facebook
3. Lisez l’article « Alleged Montreal shooter followed conspiracy theorists, wrote manifesto weeks before attack » de CBC (en anglais)
4. Lisez l’article d’opinion « As a rabbi in Montreal, the Jewish response to scary news cannot be ‘forward first, verify later’ » de The Gazette (in English)
