The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - April 04, 2024


Leftists complain that Calgarians dislike Mayor Jyoti Gondek


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

188.38202

Word count

2,029

Sentence count

131

Harmful content

Misogyny

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek was booed at a public event because she's a woman and of South Asian heritage. What does that have to do with anything? Is she a racist or sexist because she s a woman of colour?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.500 Increasingly, one of my favorite things about a left-wing politician becoming unpopular is all of the leftist commentators out there who will start to attack normal people for not liking the politician that they like.
00:00:13.800 It is a failure on your part for not appreciating them, and actually, it's fairly sexist and racist for you not to like this person.
00:00:21.820 And I think a great case study of this is Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek.
00:00:26.920 You probably saw her getting booed at a Flames game, but I want to mostly react to all of the commentary that's followed after that.
00:00:33.920 But first, I will still play the clip of her being booed because I greatly appreciate it.
00:00:38.720 There was some weird South Asian appreciation kind of ceremony happening at the Flames game.
00:00:43.100 I don't know why we have this. Are the South Asian people honoring great people?
00:00:47.360 Well, I don't know, so we're just honoring them because they're South Asian, which in my mind is actually a fairly racist thing to do.
00:00:53.880 You happen to look this way. We're going to honor you for it.
00:00:56.880 But here's the clip.
00:01:09.880 So supposedly this was very racist and sexist for the audience to have done,
00:01:17.360 despite there being other South Asian people being honored who walked up to no boos, both, you know, men and women of South Asian heritage,
00:01:27.460 and they only booed Mayor Gondek.
00:01:30.900 And yet you still have all these very left-wing commentators out there now attacking Calgarians
00:01:37.220 because they were voicing their disapproval at a mayor who never gives them an opportunity to actually listen to their concerns about her.
00:01:45.620 She's someone who insulates herself heavily.
00:01:49.540 Watch council meetings in Calgary.
00:01:51.680 Anyone who says something slightly negative about her or her policy immediately gets belittled.
00:01:57.140 Even when it's an expert giving very good faith, honest critiques of her housing policy,
00:02:02.920 she will belittle them.
00:02:04.200 She will take them out of context.
00:02:05.840 She will basically attack them for being rude to her supposedly because they're trying to get a word in edgewise while she slanders them. 1.00
00:02:12.500 She's just a fairly nasty person. 1.00
00:02:14.440 She got into office promising to freeze taxes and then two years in a row now has raised property taxes significantly.
00:02:22.600 She did that stupid climate emergency declaration for the city. 1.00
00:02:26.340 She has that stupid plastic bag ban and now 15 cents per paper bag you get at a fast food restaurant. 1.00
00:02:31.700 She's out to lunch when it comes to policy.
00:02:33.680 But if you voice concern at her at a public event, well, it's probably because you hate her because she's a woman and she's South Asian.
00:02:40.640 Which, again, that is the most sexist and racist thing I've ever heard in my life.
00:02:44.800 It doesn't matter that she's the first woman mayor of Calgary.
00:02:47.840 It's the fact she's a crappy mayor. 1.00
00:02:50.020 That's why people don't like her. 1.00
00:02:51.840 Do people think that conservatives didn't like Margaret Thatcher when she was the UK prime minister?
00:02:56.780 Oh, I can't believe there's a woman prime minister. 1.00
00:02:59.200 No, people liked her a lot because she was very good at her job. 1.00
00:03:03.080 People in Canada don't like Kim Campbell because she was a terrible prime minister and she's a frankly very nasty person. 1.00
00:03:10.020 That is what will make people boo you at a Flames game.
00:03:12.980 The idea that we're somehow like the Jim Crow south of the U.S. where we just don't like people for who they are is insane.
00:03:20.900 We don't like them for what they do, not who they are.
00:03:23.880 But you still get people like Ryan Jesperson putting tweets out like this.
00:03:27.720 He says, boo all you want, I guess, but it gives off a Bush of League vibe when boo birds chirp during a cultural celebration.
00:03:35.320 What cultural celebration?
00:03:36.800 The fact she's South Asian?
00:03:38.260 It's a stupid event.
00:03:39.500 Can I just say that?
00:03:40.300 I know that's going to offend a couple of people who probably don't even watch my channel, but who cares?
00:03:45.320 Why are we honoring people for being South Asian?
00:03:47.120 Let's honor people who did really good work.
00:03:49.520 And guess what?
00:03:50.060 If we honor people who do really good work for the community, there will be South Asian people in that group because naturally there are great people in every group.
00:03:58.980 And then he goes on to say, even more so, when Gondek's being recognized as Calgary's first ever female mayor,
00:04:04.240 while things going down in YYC, she has damned if she did, damned if she didn't participate.
00:04:10.620 No, she wouldn't have been.
00:04:11.880 I don't think any politician should participate in these stupid ego stroking events where you come up and you get honored for what you are and not who you are.
00:04:20.420 I don't want to be honored for being like, you know, of British, Scottish, Ukrainian origins. 1.00
00:04:25.880 Who cares?
00:04:26.560 That's so boring to me.
00:04:28.340 It's such a midway of doing like a political, like, you know, social engagement of just like meeting with people because of who they are or what they are, not who they are.
00:04:38.960 Anyways, but then we got this crazy headline from the Calgary Herald.
00:04:43.220 And this is mostly still very upset about the recall petition going around.
00:04:47.080 The Calgary Herald famously about a month ago put out a headline where they were saying it was anti-democratic for there to even be a recall petition going around.
00:04:54.780 But this headline reads, Ford, you know, the writer, sexism, racism still lurk in the shadows as Gondek faces recall petition.
00:05:03.080 No, it doesn't.
00:05:04.220 You're just histrionic.
00:05:05.820 You don't actually like democratic engagement.
00:05:08.620 And that's why you hate the petition.
00:05:10.460 If you like democratic engagement, you would take the petition in stride.
00:05:14.420 You would say, well, it's only gotten X amount of signatures.
00:05:17.000 And I think Gondek's agenda is still very popular.
00:05:19.440 They are so insecure.
00:05:20.500 The fact that anyone even has the capacity to challenge her means that there is like racism and bigotry afoot.
00:05:28.140 No, you're just an idiot.
00:05:30.280 I want to read a little bit of an excerpt from this article because it's absolutely wacky.
00:05:34.420 Whoever took this took a lot of silly pills the day they wrote it.
00:05:38.200 Here's a short excerpt in the subheader.
00:05:40.340 It says, I make this assumption about the underlying sexism waged against Gondek and hold this opinion for a simple reason.
00:05:46.960 Being there, done that, lived through outright sexism.
00:05:50.880 This is from a writer named Catherine Ford.
00:05:53.240 Maybe I'll even throw the article in the description below if you want your eyes to bleed.
00:05:57.140 But she starts this one off saying,
00:05:58.880 Gondek should no longer be an issue.
00:06:01.060 Not when so many women, albeit not enough, have shattered the glass ceiling. 0.96
00:06:05.980 But consider Calgary Mayor Jodi Gondek and the racism, sexism, and misogyny that has dogged her for years.
00:06:11.940 Now, under the guise of criticizing her style and leadership, some guy is endeavoring to gauge enough signatures on a petition to have her recalled, barring that, to at least force her to resign.
00:06:24.300 This nose owner, Landon Johnson, has until Thursday to submit 514,000 signatures to the verified by city clerk's offices.
00:06:32.580 That number represents 40% of Calgary's population, according to the 2019 census.
00:06:37.180 If Gondek, if Johnson is successful, it will take months and money, hours, by the way, to verify all the signatures.
00:06:45.880 Meanwhile, Gondek will continue to be harassed.
00:06:48.700 Like, I love how they're working in.
00:06:50.980 The fact that Gondek is being criticized in this petition with sexism.
00:06:55.780 This person, Catherine Ford, directly associates criticism of Gondek, the petition drive, with sexism and misogyny and racism.
00:07:04.720 It is insane.
00:07:05.380 And the idea, she says, it shouldn't even be that interesting that Gondek is a female politician in power because there's been so many that have shattered the glass ceiling. 0.80
00:07:14.120 Yes, we know.
00:07:15.900 It's not interesting at all that she's a woman. 1.00
00:07:18.240 It's interesting to people that she's bad at her job and they want to have a say about it. 1.00
00:07:22.700 That's why she's being booed, because she insulates herself from criticism. 0.99
00:07:26.420 So whenever there is a moment for the public to criticize her, they'll take it, even if typically people would usually hold off on a moment like that because, you know, let them engage in the unity building kind of event.
00:07:38.020 I don't even think the South Asian appreciation thing is unity building.
00:07:41.100 If anything, it's very divisive and it's very, in effect, racist because we are now honoring people for being South Asian, not for being doing good work.
00:07:48.860 Yes, they'll say it's because they're doing good work, but they honor Gondek at the same time because she happens to be a South Asian mayor.
00:07:54.640 And that's what cheapens the whole event is that we are just honoring people for being South Asian, despite the fact that they are deeply unpopular and have been very nasty to the constituents that they serve. 0.86
00:08:04.560 But the fact that Kathleen Ford immediately, it's not that she's found comments online that are actually sexist, it's that she thinks the act of the petition drive itself is sexist.
00:08:14.040 That is absurd, and it demonstrates the very anti-democratic attitude that so many people have on the list.
00:08:20.760 And this was not just a couple of cherry-picked things that I found where people are going after people for criticizing Gondek.
00:08:26.620 There was tons of articles.
00:08:27.960 There was ones from Global News, I believe other sort of leftist political rags.
00:08:32.800 Brian Jespersen did like two or three shows going after Calgarians for criticizing her.
00:08:37.380 These people will not leave this topic alone because they are so rabidly, like, you know, they're so rabidly, like, you know, elevated on the idea that anybody could dislike a politician that they appreciate.
00:08:50.800 It's cocktail party politics.
00:08:53.100 People who are mad that you don't like their friend because I go to cocktail parties with this person.
00:08:57.500 I hate it in leftist circles, and I hate it in conservative circles.
00:09:01.600 Frankly, in my riding, shameless plug, I'm Wyatt Claypool, and I'm running in the riding of Calgary Signal Hill.
00:09:07.200 It's on the west side of Calgary.
00:09:08.520 If you live over here, buy a membership, vote for me in the nomination.
00:09:11.680 You know, check out my website, WyattClaypool.com.
00:09:14.340 There are conservatives I'm running against who they can't even tell you what conservative positions they take.
00:09:20.020 They've basically just sat on the EDA a lot.
00:09:22.400 They've just gone to, like, you know, basically bar events for the conservatives.
00:09:25.560 They do nothing.
00:09:26.340 They do no work for the conservative party.
00:09:28.680 They, like, they do work, but it's, like, very generic.
00:09:31.120 Anybody could do it work.
00:09:32.480 And they don't actually take conservative positions.
00:09:35.080 And yet people like them.
00:09:36.460 People will vote for them because, you know, I see them at the bar events a lot.
00:09:41.780 That's actually how shallow some people are.
00:09:43.960 They go drinking with somebody.
00:09:45.420 So ergo, it's, like, deeply immoral for you not to like them.
00:09:49.520 That it's shallow politics, and we need to do away with that.
00:09:53.020 Anyways, that's it for me today.
00:09:54.880 I just quickly also want to plug the fact that I and the National Telegraph are being sued by a ridiculous billionaire developer.
00:10:01.580 He has no case against us.
00:10:02.920 In over two years, he has not actually submitted any evidence proving that we have defamed him.
00:10:07.440 He is just drawing this thing out trying to punish anybody who voices any negative opinion about him.
00:10:11.920 And the funny thing is the Globe and Mail wrote a very long investigative piece about him, which all of our reporting that barely mentioned him was based on.
00:10:19.800 But he knew he couldn't beat them in court.
00:10:21.480 So he's trying to punish us, even though our report mentioning the fact that he was donating to Aaron O'Toole came out more than a year and a half after that Globe and Mail report.
00:10:31.600 Anyway, so if you want to donate and help us with our more than $26,000 of costs for this case alone, if you can donate anything, it really helps us out and removes the burden of costs on us.
00:10:42.880 Anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.
00:10:45.740 Have a good one.