It's an ethical organization that allocates a percentage of its gross revenues to philanthropic causes. As an ethical organization it can distinguish between oppressive states like Iran and a liberal democracy fighting for its survival against fundamentalist enemies bent on its destruction. Some of these fundamentalists are North American Marxists, who have been trying to push for the economic destruction of Israel through lies and disinformation.
The fanatics who want to boycott Israel have been trying, and failing, to get Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC) to be part of their bigoted plan. The membership of MEC has, at every opportunity, rejected their proposal and now, the Israel-haters have someone who goes by the name of Dru Oja Jay running for the board. I'd suggest you look at his picture. O.J. looks like he's been French-kissing light sockets.
To vote in the MEC Board elections, you must have been a member prior to January 5th of this year. Voters are permitted three selections.
The "BUYcott Israel" campaign to counter those who want to destroy the Middle East's only liberal democracy has suggested you pick from those candidates who clearly oppose anti-Semitism and the boycott of Israel. They are Bill Gibson, Morrie Schneiderman, Shauna Sylvestre and Jonathan Gallo.
If you were a MEC member before Jan. 5, 2011, you can vote at this link.
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| Here's a snap from Dru's campaign facebook page thanking "comrade" Amy Miller for posting on anti-Israel site rabble.ca where she wrote that he would push for a boycott of Israel |
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| And some support from fanatical anti-Israel weirdo David "steaming" Heap |
25 comments:
The friendly loons at rabble are gung ho for this nutbar.
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/environmental-justice/dru-oja-jay-mec-board
That's where I first heard about this, Sanwin! Don't you love rabble.ca? It's like an early warning system about psychotic radicals.
This cretin is sponsored/endorsed by Tadamon too, which fronts for Hezbollah. What a knucklehead!
I voted tonight and sent an email to a lot of my friends with the names of those who were against the boycott and the loser that was for it. Hopefully they'll vote!!
Excellent! Hopefully this will spread.
Did you guys actually read my position? It says that a) companies that benefit from war and occupation, no matter where they are based, should not be considered ethical suppliers, and b) that there should be an informed debate about the reasons for and against a boycott of Israel.
But you attack... my hair?!
That's the logical equivalent of sticking your tongue out at someone. Wanna dig a little deeper?
Thank you so much for posting this! I am so tired of all the psychotic, fundamentalist rhetoric about oppression and ecology. I mean, really, who do those Commies think they're kidding? They might as well just openly murder babies again! His hair is pretty awesome though, gotta say.
Thanks again for your vigilance! Freedom is never free! Vote!
I think we should elect Netanyahu for the MEC board. Then he can destroy all the Arab terrorists that work for the organization, and purify it like he's so valiantly attempting to do with Israel. Who's with me!?
he is not an Israel hater. he is an apartheid hater. apartheid is a bad thing. we should all be hating the differential treatment of people based on race. he is pretty much saying that MEC tries to have an ethical sourcing policy, but it is actively supporting a military that is active in wars and occupations that are justified on racist policies--policies that hate Arabs and Palestinians. So, I think i will vote for him. he seems like he cares about humanity.
Dude, I don't think you or your zonked-out looking friend actually understand either the meaning of apartheid or the actual situation in Israel and the occupied territories.
If you think it's based on race, you're completely uninformed about the causes, which would make you pretty typical for the Israel-haters.
And yeah, it's a blog Dru, people stick their tongues out (metaphorically) in these things.
As to your position on war, this is a very complex issue that has been covered over and over and clearly your motive in wanting to introduce it at MEC is to advocate for a boycott.
Once there is a firm commitment for peace from the Palestinian leadership, which has never occurred, then a negotiated settlement is possible. In Gaza, you have a leadership whose founding charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and in the West Bank, you have a leadership that says one set of things in English, while inciting violence and naming soccer stadiums after suicide bombers in Arabic.
You do realize this issue has been debated more than once at MEC General Meetings before, don't you?
(And I've covered the issue extensively in this blog)
If you think that you have some special insight into an unresolved 64 year old international dispute is going to be effectively covered in a Mountain Equipment Co-op meeting, you must be on some pretty good 'shrooms.
You basically can choose between supporting a liberal democracy fighting for its survival or you can choose a side antithetical to democracy who are pretending to be rights-advocates.
I'm supporting the liberal democracy and I voted for the board candidates who feel the same way.
I trust "Iggy" is someone from rabble.ca trying to be ironic
I'd kiss that light socket!
Richard: You realize how many logical leaps you're making to get from my position to "Israel hater," right?
As for my hair, we can agree to disagree. :>
Gee, Dru,
it might have something to do with your buddy on rabble.ca saying, "I believe in Dru's ability to push MEC to stop purchasing products from war profiteer's (sic) and to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign that 171 Palestinian civil society groups called on to end the occupation" and the endorsement of you by the anti-Israel group Tadamon and their saying, "what is especially important to Tadamon! is Dru’s goal to build on ongoing efforts to convince members of the Co-op to vote to prohibit the sale of products made in Israel at MEC stores in Canada." (http://www.tadamon.ca/post/8575)
Some leap, huh?
As for your hair, I will admit a wee bit of a double standard. There are days my hair looks like I've just walked through a hurricane. The difference being, I know better than to post pictures of myself looking like that attached to items designed to garner support for me.
But don't worry; just between you and me, Shaggy was always my favorite character on Scooby Doo (next to Scooby, of course).
It’s not so hard to appreciate why people might be angry at Israeli foreign policy. Violation of 27 UN Security Council rulings, tragic killings of peace activists, political assassinations. Sure, it’s war. But the Nuremburg trials gave birth to the International Criminal Court which sets limits on what states can do in the pursuance of war. Israel won’t acknowledge the ICC, despite the ICC’s heritage and necessary function in trying to curtail the worst of what sovereign states are capable of. I’m not even for the boycott, but there is a kind of stupidity at work in the comments here (that’s YOU Richard) that strike this observer as … irritating. Get your ‘chara’ together, boys.
The US isn't a member of the ICC either. The politicization of bodies like that and the UN has made them frequent tools of unsavoury agendas. And the self-parody of any organization that has Libya and Cuba on its Human Rights Commission speaks for itself.
As for Israel's Defense policy (I think that's what you actually meant, anonymous at 1:30, unless you have some specific objection to their foreign policy too), I'm not suggesting it's immaculate. No country's is.
But the efforts of some to attribute false labels to that country based on a deceptive Marxist motivation to eliminate what they see as an "imperialist, colonialist Western outpost in the Middle east" is as transparent as it is disingenuous and intellectually vacuous.
And as deeply wounded as I am by being called "stupid" by an anonymous dingbat who feels the need to voice an opinion here, I take solace in knowing I'm performing a public service. I'm sure your psychiatrist will be pleased at the new line of discussion you'll be able to elucidate thanks to the catalyst of my good works in this blog
First, Israel is a liberal democracy only under a 19th century definition of the term, when it was an accepted convention that some people are inherently worth less than others. Israel has first and second class citizens with differential access to land and public services (infrastructure, waste disposal, etc.) which is reminiscent of segregation-era US or, you know, the A-word. Liberal democracy nowadays implies equal rights for all, which is definitely not the case in Israel.
Second, you say Israel is fighting for survival, I say it's fighting for expansion like any other settler colony before it (US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc.) and will not rest until it fulfils its own version of Manifest Destiny. Tomatos and tomatos, you know.
Third, in terms of "a firm commitment to peace", the Israeli government has also failed to make one in 64 years of conflict. I would even argue that the Palestinian leadership has made far more concessions for peace than the Israeli leadership in those 64 years. We can debate who's done more for peace, but it's crystal clear that neither side has made some Ghandi-esque commitment to non-violence that you seem to expect of the Palestinians.
Fourth,the fact that the US has not joined the ICC is only indicative of its double-standards, not of the ICC's faults. The US has never hesitated to use kangaroo courts as a tool of its foreign (think of the ICTY's role in the Yugoslav wars) but will play the victim-of-international-imperialism card when it comes to an international court that can try US citizens. So saying that the ICC is a kangaroo court just because the US is not a member is a non-argument... i would add that it's a bit delusional too. Don't get me wrong, the ICC has its faults, and I'm not really keen on it either, but my opinion on the ICC is not based on the fact that the US doesn't like it.
Fourth, the only thing I will agree with on this blog is your account of Dru's hair. There's just no arguing with that, is there?
I don't quite expect the Palestinians to go all Ghandi, Georges, but on the other hand taking decades just to recogize Israel's "right to exist" is hardly a major concession. Imagine you're in a negotiation with someone and they say if you do this, that and the other, then we will magnanimously recognize your right to exist? You'd probably tell them to go f- themselves.
And as far as that goes, on the Gaza side, they don't even go that far and they still don't recognize Israel's right to exist.
There's room for difference of opinion on this, but in my view demonizing and singling out Israel for engaging in defensive measures that are no worse and in most cases better than those employed by any other democracy in time of military conflict is hypocritical at best. At worst, the implications are bigoted.
I DON'T think Dru is a bigot. I do think he doesn't have a handle on the issue.
I also don't believe this is about "debate" at MEC. The debate is constant and ongoing. This discussion is a form of debate. What he seems to want is a boycott. He has every right to campaign on that and propose it, just as those who disagree have every right to campaign against that and him. But I wish he'd be more honest about that.
"I don't quite expect the Palestinians to go all Ghandi, Georges, but on the other hand taking decades just to recogize Israel's "right to exist" is hardly a major concession."
Actually, it is. Why in the world would anyone recognise the right to exist of a state that's been built on land stolen from you? Void of historical context, Israel's demand for the right to exist is outright ludicrous: "Hey, can you please move, give us your land, and give up your dreams of ever getting it back and until you do this we will consider you as being belligerent and unwilling to make peace." Of course, once you add historical context and realpolitik, it gets more complicated and eventually some self-designated collaborator "leadership" has made that concession.
Looking at it in another way that is perhaps more palpable to you, liberal political scientists always claim that a democratic government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. This legitimacy has to be earned and can be lost if the government doesn't listen to its people. In short, no government therefore has an undeniable "right to exist"; it has to earn it. The state of Israel is currently governing the entire area between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river without the consent of about 40% of the population in that area. Given that fact, I would say that yeah, getting some puppet leader of those 40% to semi-consent to your rule is a pretty big achievement.
"in my view demonizing and singling out Israel for engaging in defensive measures...is hypocritical at best."
first, myself and all the Israeli Apartheid Week organisers whom I know personally (and I am not one of them actually) do not single out Israel for condemnation as you claim. They will routinely condemn the US, the PLO, the Libyan government, etc. etc. when these regimes commit injustices. When real anti-semitism surfaces, they will be the first to denounce it, believe me.
Second, calling what Israel does a "defensive measure" is a strecth of the imagination. Israel is "defending" territory that it conquered and settled in 1948. It's like a burglar arguing self-defence when he shot the man whose house he was burgling. In my view, Israel is the aggressor and therefore cannot claim self-defence when it is attacked by a resistance. By your logic, the dispossession of first nations in North America were also an act of self-defense commited by a liberal democracy (which at the time, just like Israel today, though to a lesser extent, only granted liberal democratic rights to a certain segment of the population on its territory).
You will say that the historical context, particularly the immesurable suffering inflicted on Jews by the Holocaust, changes things entirely. Of course context changes things. Given what happened throughout 2000 years of persecution, palestinians should have been more accomodating to jews befre 1948. What I mean to say is that they had no obligation to share their land with anyone, but dammit it would have been the nice thing to do. However, when the European based leadership of the zionist movement at the time saw this reticence from the palestinians, it used guns and the tacit support of the British Empire and the UN, to just take what it wanted. As a state commiting injustice, Israel has a no right to exist. Jews living in palestine have, as human beings, every right to exist. There is a huge huge difference.
Yeah, it's just Israel your friends at the bigot-fest are trying to eliminate.
I don't respect your opinion, but at least I respect that unlike most of them, you have the honesty to admit what you really think.
and every time their loving compassionate neighbors decide to invade them, they just turn around and win the battle, gaining more land to subsequently bargain for peace.
They are just SO FRUSTRATING!!
Anyone using 'Israel-hater' in a title is obviously brainwashed beyond rational thinking.
Israhell is a terrorist state, the Zionists control the USA and through their lies they started two wars and a million Iraqi deaths. A lot of the evidence of 9/11 leads directly to American Bush Admin Zionists and Israeli helpers.
Get real you brainwashed Israel-ites, it is you who are the terrorist supporters
Thanks for one of the best examples of unintentional irony I've seen in a while.
Dru, your comments are so very typical. C'mon, address the issue! Are you for or against Israel? Like Richard suggests, just be honest.
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