In an earlier post I covered some examples of how “Woke” had turned into a weapon that is destroying free speech and people.

John Kass

The latest example is John Kass. I’ve often referred to this long-time Chicago Tribune reporter because of his well-balanced and deeply informed views of that city and its politics. He is actually the reporter who took over from the legendary Mike Royko.

But back in late June he wrote an article for Jewish World Review, One wrong ‘like’ will get you canceled:

Michael Korenberg, the chairman of the University of British Columbia’s board of governors, was forced to resign. I don’t know his Canadian politics. But I do know his thought crime.

He was accused of having liked tweets by Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative who dares mock Black Lives Matter, and other tweets praising President Donald Trump and condemning the violent antifa movement. All Korenberg did was like them. He was denounced. He groveled. Then he was gone.

Kass had barely finished that column when he landed in exactly that sort of shit with a Trib story that covered the explosion of violent crime in Democrat-run cities across the USA.

Kimm Foxx

He ignored the Mayors and their machines and looked at the DA’s and other prosecutors who are releasing criminals on to the streets, starting with Cook County’s very own state’s attorney Kimberly Foxx – already mentioned in The Chicago Way and Chicago loses against BLM – and how people like her had got elected as DA’s, starting with Foxx’s massive $2 million election support from George Soros:

“These Democratic cities are also where left-wing billionaire George Soros has spent millions of dollars to help elect liberal social justice warriors as prosecutors. He remakes the justice system in urban America, flying under the radar.

Kass had just stepped into a no-go zone that the Far Left thought it had fenced off from criticism via mockery (“a conspiracy theory”). And it was his own group that jumped him. All nine members of the Chicago Tribune Guild executive council went after him with a letter to their Tribune colleagues, and mockery was no longer sufficient:

“The odious, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that billionaire George Soros is a puppet master controlling America’s big cities does not deserve a mainstream voice, especially at a time when hate crimes are rising…
We ask that the paper, and Kass separately, apologize for his indefensible invocation of the Soros tropes.”

Kass of course had not even mentioned that Soros was Jewish, nor did that have anything to do with the topic of Soros’s political strategies and objectives. It was basically the usual “Shut Up Racist Because Reasons“, that had already played out in the NYT. More importantly was the “odious” fact that reporters were behaving like political operatives – as indeed most of them are nowadays. As it turned out, Kass was well aware of how this bullshit game is played when he responded:

Soros’ influence on these races is undeniable and has been widely reported. But in that column, I did not mention Soros’ ethnicity or religion.

You’d think that before wildly accusing someone of fomenting bigoted conspiracy theories, journalists on the union’s executive board would at least take the time to Google the words “Soros,” “funding” and “local prosecutors.”…

I will not apologize for writing about Soros.

I will not bow to those who’ve wrongly defamed me.

I will continue writing my column.

The paper demoted him from his position as their “lead columnist”, but were so gutless that they tried to palm it off as part of an overall reorganisation.

I don’t think they fooled anybody. Especially not Slats Grobnik.