The crossroads of our time: How propaganda is influencing our media and politics.

Last week on Wednesday, eyes around the world were peeled and glued to their TV and phone screens over the high profile murder of American right wing influencer Charlie Kirk. While in Utah doing an event, Charlie Kirk was shoot from roughly 200 yards while speaking and being recorded. This event has been on my mind longer than I would wish for it to be for a host of reasons, reason of which I am about to express.

First, lets start of with saying the obvious. Political violence is wrong and should not condoned or encouraged. I wish to live in an environment where murder is universally condemned and only in the act of self defense in a life or death situation should taking a life not result in serious legal repercussion's. It is this very strong belief of mine that has me both condemn Kirks murder while also not jumping on board the endless and at times, seemingly performative mourning bandwagon that many of our politicians, media and larger than life personalities, where the reactions are bordering on hysteria.

In addition to being anti-murder, I, and we in general, must keep on pushing for a pro-truth atmosphere where emotions come second to the facts and evidence. Keeping to the facts, we can call out Kirks murder while not sanitizing his legacy. The US media has tried very hard to make the extrapolation that the shooter must have been a left wing person , a trans person or both. Even as all the evidence points to none of the being the case, that has not stopped certain people (cough cough Fox news and others) from trying to push the narrative, narratives that frankly border on genocidal speak. These snake oil sales people were claiming it was a trans person, that the casings had pro trans slogans and when all of that was proven untrue they moved the goalpost by saying the shooters roommate was trans, even though reports claim the shooter lived with his parent and the ''trans'' person they are talking about has not been confirmed as being trans and is cooperating with authorities, in other words no matter the truth the forces of evil have a narrative and they will not abandon it.

In addition to the capitulating media, politicians from around the world have also been fairly disappointing in their response. From liberal to further down the left of the spectrum the lack of calling Kirks legacy as it was has been difficult to digest. Prime Minister Mark Carney, Premier Wab Kinew and too many elected officials jumped in to condemn the killing (that is good) while not highlighting how Kirk actively fought to make the world a worse place by advocating against gay people, thinking women should be subservient to their husbands, calling for and defending political violence. While Carney and Kinew may not know every thing Kirk said, did and advocated for it must still be called out as they too are, perhaps unintentionally , helping to sanitize a negative force. This is a disservice to the truth and to the marginalized people Kirk sought to hurt.

Kirk was someone to relished in political division and making claims not only lacking in truth, but making claims that were straight up lies. In the middle of his conversation while being shot, Kirk was fanning the flames of transphobia by claiming that trans people cause ''too many'' of the mass shootings, even when documented statistics show that is not the case. Kirk also down played school shootings that have been all to frequent in American schools in addition to laughing and grimacing over former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, being attacked by a man with far right views with a hammer and even toying with his followers to help bail the attacker out. The current US regime leader, Donald Trump, took time to address the nation of the USA last Wednesday to praise Kirk, ignore the other school shooting that took place at the same time in the neighboring state of Colorado and promise to crackdown on the ''left'', or as we call it his political opposition even though the shooter was not known and at large.

We must band together, call our MP's, engage and be in solidarirty.

*minor edit

Ashley D