Since our last review of Tamara Ward Johnson’s incipient political career, many significant things have happened. She’s lost an election – soundly – getting a measly 3.33% of the vote – pretty close to the statistical “margin of error”. In addition, her ERBL “friends” have increased by a full 20%, showing a deeper involvement with that hate group. And – significantly – she’s decided to take her one-trick-pony show into municipal politics. Apparently Thunder Bay hasn’t seen the last of Tamara – nor the last of her merry band of hateful out-of-towners.
Now Johnson is suddenly offering a reward on one of many of the dreary crimes that plague Thunder Bay; hoping to drop her race card again, and anteing up on her next adventure in political oblivion. And – unsurprisingly – the Chief of Police has had to go public with a request that people not fund vigilante action based on rumours and hear-say. You can see such a thing happening in Tombstone, in the 19th century, but is completely surrealistic to see something like this happening in a modern city in the 21st century.
Clearly too much money and too little thought have created a strange brew of political nihilism in Tamara Ward’s little group. Her advisers are clearly giving her terrible advice in strategy – and worse tactics; and it’s time to figure out why she’s going down such a disastrous road -though perhaps wasting more money in her next little lesson about the failure of racist politics will drive the lesson home to her: one can only hope. One can only hope that she’ll finally question her new-found alliance with ERBL, which has pretty much destroyed her political credibility for all time with her advertisement of an Indian Bounty.
The Police Chief’s answer:
It’s unfortunate that the Chronicle Journal has decided to publish yet more inflammatory and irresponsible trash from Tamara Ward Johnson; as the police have yet to get a formal complaint; and no one – least of all Johnson – have bothered to ask the family – and still-unknown victim – if they even want to pursue the matter. All these important aspects have been treated as minor details which have been unrelated by an hearsay account; and which TWJ has unfortunately overlooked in her greed for publicity – along with any scruples a moral person would have about jumping to rabid conclusions and inflaming passions based on her self-centered ambition and screaming need for an audience – at any cost.
In the meantime, she’s got people calling the police – with no file number to reference – and no name for the victim of an as-yet unreported crime.
It’s gotten really bad that the Chief of Police has to put out a request that people NOT put out rewards without some degree of consultation – as that action might compromise – and effectively destroy – any investigative work that is going on. The long and short of it: want to get a criminal off? Give his lawyer lots of good reasons to question any evidence. And that’s exactly what Tamara Ward Johnson has done with her foolish publicity stunt.
Why would someone do such a thing? The answer is easy: bad advice and a raucous cheering section of ideologues who don’t live in Thunder Bay, don’t care what happens in Thunder Bay, and have zero investment in Tamara Ward Johnson’s future.
Below, a continuation of our graph showing how ERBL has taken over Tamara’s “friends” list. ERBL has clearly collected followers from TWJ – as predicted – but it looks like ERBL followers – principally the more strident ones – are starting to drift away from the failed candidate; something with which other marginalized political wannabe’s like Dayleen Van Ryswyk can surely sympathize. In the meantime – as we’ll discover – ERBLites have taken full control of TWJ’s page: controlling the discourse, shouting down dissenters, monopolizing conversation to saturation levels.
Everybody who have been tracking TWJ’s divisive tactics was a little surprised at her immediate response to our July article. A public figure who made a great show of being unconcerned with the views – and feelings – of others had suddenly become quite fractious at the mere revelation that 50 ERBL fans had suddenly – and unaccountably – joined her provincial campaign. Even more surprisingly, those ERBL fans – far from hiding their heads – were blithely demonstrating their participation in an ongoing effort to bolster the appearance of strength on TWJ’s page, including the characteristic ERBL tactics of spinning up new Facebook pages to slander perceived opponents, locking down previously open public pages, and banning any dissenting voices from “public forums”.
And – true to form – John Podolaniuk, her own personal henchman, responded to the revelation like a scalded cat: threatening law suits (never filed); promising the imminent closure of this blog (never happened) and speculating wildly about a host of possibilities; but never – ever – answering the simple question about the suspicious activity of those ERBL followers. While mounting his campaign, he did – accidentally – reveal that he seems to be using false IDs – from Calgary – to accomplish his ends: yet another out-of-towner; yet another adept user of sock puppet IDs to accomplish his goal of dissimulation; standard operating practice for ERBL
As can be seen below, the response soon moved away from Tamara’s prim comments about the failings of slander – to slander – led by the leader of ERBL herself, and bolstered by her regular foot-soldiers in many months of social media militancy.
Tittler can literally go on for hours about her delusions of a Moriarty-like Wanda Probe: she’s never at her best unless creating “facts” off the top of her head; imagination fully streaming to fill the large vacuums in her knowledge of the world. Surprisingly, the recently un-hinged Mr. Podolaniuk soon joins Tittler in her slander; blithely unaware of the irony in his support for Tittler’s years long campaign of slander, bullying, threats, and stalking against Wanda Probe – whose only crime is a refusal to be bullied by Tittler; and an intelligence which allows her to best Tittler at every opportunity, including her clever mimicry of what an honest “End Race Based Laws” might look like.
Podolaniuk’s sudden, almost feral, anger at a fairly mild revelation of political skullduggery was something of a surprise: almost like he’d been caught at something.
Below, an example of John’s response – an almost Tittlerian display of his creative relationship with reality. In the course of a few days, he contacted this site; bombarded it with threatening messages using two separate IDs; and generally made a nuisance of himself. In an amazing display of a his lack of scruple, he also revealed information about a young kid – purportedly his son – and pretty much offered up that living, breathing young man as a subject for stalking.
His mistake was simple: not understanding that there are people in the world who wouldn’t think of stalking a young child – unlike his ally Michele Tittler; not to mention the fact that – fantastically – the kid he offered up for sacrifice just happened to be the family friend of one of our “Auntie” collaborators. Turns out Calgary is a fairly small town for those who know – and are respected – by a lot of people; including the only Podolaniuks in town.
Please note the almost total control of the thread by Michele Tittler, John Podolaniuk, and “Rusty Nails” – who is either Brian Webster’s duller kid brother, or Brian Webster with a couple of beers in him. Any suggestion of a principled response goes out the window as the principles return to their high-school game of denigration and derogation: like a out of control yearbook committee, they have no concept of how venal and bullying their conduct appears to others.
Tamara’s response above is rich: “As if I would write untruths or lies!”.
This – after completely flubbing a CBC interview in which a very competent reporter made sure her every mistaken conception and every area of ignorance was laid quite bare. The reason for her unfounded confidence – and her gaping ignorance – can be seen below: her long-standing relationship with ERBL; her regular participation in their hateful and oblivious discourse; and her inability to deal with reality outside that safe echo chamber.
When this last piece of Tamara’s past was screen-capped by a local citizen – and the obvious questions about Tamara’s racist sentiments were asked – John Podolaniuk put up the following defense:
This is J Pod doing what he does best when presented by hard question: deflection, deflection, deflection.
“What does this have to do with the municipal election?”:
TWJ is a candidate – and is supposed to be representing all the citizens, not a particular group of them.
“What does ERBL have to do with Thunder Bay?”:
Good question, John: why exactly are you – and almost 50 ERBL members – who do not even live in Thunder Bay – so interested in the politics there? Why are they spending so much time on TWJ’s page, on “Concerned Citizens of Thunder Bay”, and on the local media social media pages; often to the exclusion of actual citizens of Thunder Bay?
The answer is simple: they are monopolizing the conversation on Tamara’s page; and shifting the public discourse in Thunder Bay in a frighteningly divisive and racist direction. Check the conversation below, from TWJ’s page in July: ERBL shouting down and shutting down any views that don’t accord with theirs – and all out-of-towners:
There’s your punch-line. After a disappointing – in every respect – provincial campaign, Tamara Ward Johnson now wants to take her “racially charged” one-trick-pony show to municipal politics – supported by her 60 ERBL foot soldiers.
During the provincial election, we came upon a simple device: an “ERBL Bingo Card” which allows people to spot ERBLites when they start trying to take over public discussions. We’ve seen it in action; and seen the way the revelation of those ERBL links – and the out-of-town status of the speakers – served to discredit their statements and confound their attempts to influence people’s thinking in Thunder Bay. The effect was so strong on the ERBL keyboard warriors that several of them actually broke with Michele Tittler after Johnson’s resounding defeat, blaming Tittler for their public embarrassment; particularly Dayleen Van Ryswyck, who still hopes to somehow translate her two previous political disasters into a municipal career. Below, an updated version of the Bingo Card for the municipal election:
Watch below as an apparent open and democratic discussion is heavily mediated and controlled by multiple ERBL members who don’t live in Thunder Bay, and have a very particular ideological agenda to sell. All people highlighted in red are known ERBL supporters who magically appeared in Tamara’s friends list during the provincial election::
When citizens appear with pertinent questions and intelligent arguments, they are immediately shut down with a barrage of deflections by multiple ERBL partisans: any concept of democratic discussion and argument has disappeared from the page:
It’s gotten so bad that even long-term Tamara Ward Johnson supporters are starting to notice the problem. However, given the type of discourse; and the supporters’ unawareness of the motivations of the people monopolizing and guiding the conversation, the strange constant deflection towards native bashing becomes a mystery – and perhaps an expression of the popular mood.
It’s neither a mystery – nor an expression of the popular will: it’s the conscious strategy of an ambitious political wannabe – bolstered by a coterie of ideological fanatics – who have been working with her to present a false picture of her political support – and to mold the political discourse in Thunder Bay to her advantage.
It’s been quite clear in the hiatus between the provincial election and the municipal elections that the 50 ERBL members who originally migrated to TWJ’s page in the spring – now bolstered by more members – are working in a coordinated manner to influence political discourse in Thunder Bay – as has been the case across Western Canada at any time that issues relating to the First Nations arise. Tamara Ward Johnson’s twin campaigns have very much been a part of their strategy; and her closest supporters, John Podolaniuk and Brian Webster, are fully part of that strategy.
Let’s have a look at Tamara’s recent announcement that she’ll be publishing a reward in a recently described case of bullying and assault. Here’s the original description in a letter to the editor:
And here’s Tamara on the subject:
Interesting “inferences”. If the attack wasn’t “clearly motivated by hate and racism” – we have not heard from the media, the police, the victim, the family or the perpetrators on that account – we can assuredly “infer” that Tamara’s characterization of the event surely is “clearly motivated by hate and racism”.
So – in the absence of any information about a reported crime, Tamara has made up some “facts” about the events; reported the event to the world – without bothering to talk to the victim, his family, or even collecting a case number from the police – and is seeking to offer an reward for what may turn out to be an “unreported crime”.
And all because of her conviction that the perpetrators must be ‘not “white”‘ – and her conviction that they must therefore be native.
And why is this particular crime so special? And why does this particular crime – of all of them – arouse Tamara so much?
To quote Tamara: “You publicity seeking phoney!”
An ambitious and often foolish political wannabe, Tamara is looking for a soapbox to do her grandstanding from; and this is the one she has chosen: an “unreported crime” – before the facts come in. The “actual, physical, illegal acts” are still unknown for the most part, and perhaps under investigation. Nevertheless, undaunted by her complete lack of knowledge in the affair, Tamara Ward Johnson wades in: the better to inflame the feelings of her supporters.
Tamara Ward Johnson’s summing up:
Given TWJ’s “inferences”, it isn’t difficult to make “inferences” about the “certain element” she’s referring to; “the cancer” that she wants to “cut out of society.”
And as a councillor-at-large on the Thunder Bay City Council, no less!
Clearly delusional; and clearly ignorant of her powers – and the powers of Mayors and City Councils.
But her followers hear her; and know no better than to believe her. Here’s a follower’s reply to a previous example of grandstanding: on the previous day, on a report of a similar “unreported crime” from yesterday:
Why – it’s Michele Tittler’s old pal, ERBL stalwart and TWJ friend, Terry Innes! How amazing that a white supremacist from the oil patch would suddenly be interested in Thunder Bay politics!
Please notice how his language so closely matches the dehumanizing, revanchist language perpetrated by Tamara Ward Johnson: any differences, not differences in kind; but in degree. And – of course – this classic example of Innes’ violent solutions to everything was ignored by Tamara until someone screen-capped it and posted it back on her page – to her profound embarrassment.
Innes’ posting – and the screen-cap – were immediately deleted.
The person who did the screen-cap was immediately barred.
And Innes – unsurprisingly – remains a friend on Tamara Ward Johnson’s page:
After all, his “distinct and disproportionate proclivity to resort to extreme violence” is well know in white supremacist circles: to misquote Richard Nixon – he’s an asshole; but he’s THEIR asshole.
And this is how Tamara behaves when she hasn’t been given even the slightest amount of power. Cluelessness and an overwheening sense on entitlement make for a bad politician: a potential municipal nightmare of Fordian proportions! It’s time that she withdraw from the campaign – and save the voters of Thunder Bay the trouble of sending her – and her cowboy henchmen – packing.
auntiethis 