A discussion about genocide at the Munk Centre

On October 14, a panel convened at the Munk School of Global Affairs, under the auspices of the Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership Project, to discuss genocide in the modern world. I had intended to write about what was discussed there sooner, but my own foray into local politics kept me too busy to get to it until now. As it happens, that delay may have been fortuitous and added to the relevance of this post, since a panelist that night,  Jonathan Kay, has since been thrust into the spotlight for two very different reasons. One of them is the announcement a couple of days ago that he would be taking over as Editor-in-Chief of Walrus Magazine, a staple among Toronto's lefty, middlebrow readers;  a move that was bold, unexpected, and will undoubtedly raise the quality of that publication.

Additionally, some reflected glare from the spotlight thrust on Jian Ghomeshi, in the wake of revelations of his reported proclivity to violently assault women as a form of sexual foreplay, has also been thrust on Jonathan, who was a regular panelist on Ghomeshi's CBC radio show Q. As Editor for Comment and a columnist at the National Post, Jonathan has been commenting, quite rationally, on trying to separate Ghomeshi, the accomplished and charismatic radio personality, from Ghomeshi the (allegedly) vicious, narcissistic sexual deviate. Though many people have been infuriated at what they perceive as any attempt to mitigate outrage against a person who committed terrible acts towards women, Jonathan's is a valid argument. In the way that one can despise the personal beliefs and ideologies of Richard Wagner, yet still admire the music he created, separating the artist from the art requires intellectual examination and the courage to discuss honestly held beliefs in the tumultuous climate of the hysterical media whirlwind of the Ghomeshi scandal.

It's always a pleasure to hear Jonathan speak at an event such as the Munk Centre panel. Unfettered by the word number limitations of a newspaper column or the need to speak in talking points on radio or TV, one gets to hear from him detailed, insightful, intelligent, and often very humorous perspectives on contemporary and historical developments that have and are shaping our world.

The word I most frequently use in my descriptions of Jonathan is "reasonable." While that might be something that should seem a requisite quality for someone in the media or in a position of public influence, the unfortunate reality is that there are far too few media personalities who could be described that way. The fact that I have friends on the left who think Jonathan is a doctrinaire "right-winger," and very conservative friends who are convinced Jonathan has sunk into the quicksand of leftist dogma is actually, as far as I'm concerned, indicative of a balanced intellect who isn't married to any political or ideological position. It suggests he views issues, case-by-case, on their merits. Which isn't to say I always agree with Jonathan's positions, but I always expect they'll be sane and well-considered.

Now back to the Wallenberg Project panel about genocide.

In 1985, Raoul Wallenberg, who vanished under suspicious circumstances in Soviet-controlled Budapest at the end of the Second War and at that point was presumed to be dead, was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of Canada.

Wallenberg received that honor for his courageous accomplishment of saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi death camps, and another honor bestowed on his name is The Raoul Wallenberg Leadership Project. That effort is an initiative of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

Aside from Jonathan, the other panelists for the discussion were the eminent Liberal MP for Mount Royal and former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Irwin Cotler, and Global Brief Magazine's Editor-in-Chief, Irwin Studin.

It's an obvious tragedy that ongoing discussions about genocide are necessary when the world should have learned the lessons of Holocaust and of the depths to which man can sink, and the unspeakable consequences of what can happen if the world fails to take action to prevent an onslaught of targeted mass murder. Yet genocides have occurred since 1945 in places like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Rwanda, and a genocide is still going on in Darfur.

Despite these atrocities, one of the points that emerged from the discussion is that while the incidences of genocides seems not to have abated, the magnitude of those crimes, compared with earlier times has, thanks to international awareness of them. We live in times where news is not confined to print journalists from relatively few newspapers. Now multiple cable all-news channels, and the Internet, social media, and smart phones can instantly draw attention to crimes such as ISIS' murderous campaign against Yazidis and pressure a relatively quick response. Whereas half a century ago, such monstrosities, competing with other domestic and international events, might have have only been a half column buried deep in the pages of The New York Times.

Which is not to say that genocide is a matter that need not concern us in today's world. One of the issues that ate up most of the panel's Q & A time came from an audience member's (ok, it was me) question about the degree of commitment that western countries have towards combating genocide when it becomes difficult for them. Jonathan during his talk recalled how the murders and mutilation of ten Belgian peacekeepers during the Rwandan genocide led to that country withdrawing all its forces, reducing the UN Peacekeepers' effectiveness and leaving Tutsi victims that much more vulnerable. I reminded the panelists of a similar occurrence the year before that, when following the killing and mutilation of American soldiers in Mogadishu, Bill Clinton withdrew US forces that has been in place to ensure that famine-stricken civilians were not easy prey for Somalia's warlords.

In reality, we have to understand that combating genocides are a combination of factors, including  altruism, a moral duty, and the not unreasonable expectation that global powers are more likely to be motivated to act when there is an element of self-interest.

Considering the night was dedicated to the memory of Raoul Wallenberg, it was quite natural that questions arose about contemporary anti-Semitism and the desire among some to commit another genocide of Jews. A general consensus among the panel was that the existence of the State of Israel has made such an outcome a near impossibility. Despite that country being surrounded by enemies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and its master Iran and Hamas , who openly advocate for eliminating Jews, the Jewish State's military prowess and determination for survival, plus its existence as an ultimate sanctuary, are all factors that will confound the aspirations of those who want a second Holocaust.

Tragically, it is from within western societies, often on university campuses, that supporters of genocidal maniacs such as Hezbollah, hiding behind the lie of wanting "social justice," are doing their utmost to enable the would-be perpetrators of another Holocaust. Which makes exposing and standing up to such people all the more important today. Our failure to do so would be a betrayal of the lessons of history and of Raoul Wallenberg's courage which ultimately cost him his life.

More public masturbation by the Toronto Star over Rob Ford

CBC radio's Q had a panel with three of Toronto's media personalities, including Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank gloating about the Rob Ford video.

More interesting is the obsessive hate and sanctimony that has him in in a ridiculous denial of the obvious vendetta his paper has had against Ford for the last 3 years.

My buddy Jon Kay makes some good points on the panel, but I would add to an important observation he made. Jon says, in essence, that there is a crisis in conservative thought reflected in the election of Rob Ford and his like in a single-minded focus on low taxes and reducing government spending.

There is a lot more to it than just that.

Ford is also a reaction to the paternalistic, sanctimonious social engineering foisted by incompetent politicians on a public outraged by a lack of their ability to simply provide competent management.

We have an incompetent provincial government that has wasted, and for all intents and purposes stolen billions in public funds, while imposing radical nanny-state social policies.

Ford has not wasted any public funds and is someone who is genuinely concerned with the wishes of his constituents, in contrast to wanting to impose a "vision" on them.

Yet The Star is, as it has been, primarily concerned with the superficiality of image. Which is why as a media source, they still have little credibility and as Kay astutely notes, Ford may indeed get reelected.

You can watch and hear the panel below:

Hey Look! After Sun Media and bloggers have been doing it for 2 months, the mainstream media finally gets around to telling the truth about fanatics Greyson & Loubani

Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail:

John Greyson and Tarek Loubani have been portrayed as innocents abroad, humanitarian do-gooders who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This picture is inaccurate and incomplete. The two are hard-core anti-Israel activists who’ve been mixed up in Middle East politics for years. They should have known what they were getting into.

When they were arrested, the two were on their way to deliver medical equipment to a hospital in Hamas-controlled Gaza. The whole world knew that the situation in Egypt was highly volatile. The government was determined to shut down the Muslim Brotherhood (an ally of Hamas) and unlikely to look kindly on a couple of foreigners who decided to film a bloody crackdown.

Jon Kay in the National Post:

Egyptian military authorities have been co-operating with Israel in controlling the flow of weapons and militants to and from Gaza for years. But till now, Western pro-Palestinian activists generally have preferred to play down this fact. The case against Israel works best when it is presented as a simple morality play about indigenous Arabs battling neo-colonialist Jews. And so the fact that many Arab leaders in the region (including not only those in Egypt, but also Lebanon and Jordan) share Israel’s fear of Palestinian militancy is seen as an embarrassment to the conceit of anti-Zionist solidarity. 

(to be fair to John and the NP, they did do a couple of articles touching on the radical fanaticism of Greyson and Loubani before.)

I think Jon's article is overly optimistic in its assessment that the Greyson/Loubani saga will refocus the Canadian radical left away from its anti-Israel depravity onto real human rights crises, but he does make some very valid observations about the other facets of this episode. 

Sun News, as its viewers are aware, has been providing the complete story on Greyson and Loubani from the start:

Jonathan Kay: How 9/11 killed Canadians’ appetite for human-rights speech codes

...Even before 9/11, the notion that neo-Nazism and KKK-style racism was still a real and lingering threat to Canada’s social fabric was beginning to wear very thin. But Section 13 and its provincial equivalents remained on the books anyway. Canadian society, then as now, felt vaguely guilty about the (very real) mistreatment historically doled out to Jews, blacks, aboriginals and immigrants. And though many Canadians rolled their eyes at the manner by which human-rights commissions were expanding the definition of “discrimination,” most bien-pensant types still saw eliminating racism as a more important project than protecting free speech.

All of this changed on October 20, 2006, the publication date of Mark Steyn’s famousMaclean’s magazine essay “The future belongs to Islam” (adapted from his book,America Alone. Its theme was that an enfeebled West was under demographic siege from Muslim immigrant populations bristling with militant attitudes and unassimilated young men. Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress launched complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and its provincial equivalents in B.C. and Ontario. Around the same time, the (now defunct) Western Standard magazine, published by current Sun News talking head Ezra Levant, printed the infamousJyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, which elicited a separate set of human rights complaints from Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. The backlash against these two (unsuccessful) human-rights prosecutions ultimately is what led to the elimination of Section 13 of the Human Rights Act.

Read the whole article at THE NATIONAL POST

The Conspiratorial World of Alice Walker

...some of Walker’s recent musings about world-domination plots still serve to disqualify her from the mainstream marketplace of ideas. Indeed, they are stunningly offensive.

Earlier this year, Walker wrote a post on her personal blog entitled “Human Race Get Off Your Knees: I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Students of conspiracy theories will recognize “Human Race Get Off Your Knees” as the title of a 2010 book by British paranoiac David Icke, a one-time professional soccer player who has spent the last two decades promoting the idea that planet earth is secretly controlled by giant inter-dimensional lizards who have taken human form (Queen Elizabeth and Bob Hope being two examples he has supplied), and operate terrestrially through a Dan Brown-esque secret society called “the Babylonian Brotherhood,” whose offshoots include the CIA and Mossad.

More on the Ford pandemonium

Gawker editor John Cook is jonesing for his crack dealer..apparently they haven`t been able to reach the lowlife blackmailer lately...  

UPDATE: If the video does surface, your tax dollars will have paid for part of it

Plus this is a good read: Jonathan Kay on why

Rob Ford will never ever, ever give the Toronto Star the pleasure of his resignation

A very good piece, though I think Jon misses one point. It`s not just keeping taxes down that makes Ford so appealing to his base, but his overall respect for and interest in his constituents, of which making sure taxes are spent appropriately is a critical, but not the sole part.

Beyond that, as another blogger put it:

`Blind love doesn't guide his supporters, disgust with his opposition does`

Jonathan Kay: On Canadian campuses, it’s open season on Christian social conservatism

Say what you want about the financially beleaguered Sun News and its signature firebrand, Ezra Levant. But sometimes, he and his colleagues do manage to get things exactly right. 

On Wednesday, Mr. Levant interviewed Arun Smith, the 7^th year “human rights and sexuality” major who took it upon himself to tear down a “free speech” installation set up at Carleton University by a group called Carleton Students for Liberty, because he was offended by socially conservative jottings on the wall that expressed support for traditional marriage, and opposition to abortion. Even putting aside Mr. Smith’s appalling act of vandalism, Mr. Levant noted, the very notion that university students feel they need a “free speech zone” is telling. “We have a free speech zone in Canada,” Mr. Levant declared. “It’s called ‘Canada.’”

 Read the rest of Jonathan Kay's column at the National Post

Jonathan Kay discussing Sandy Hook conspiracy theories on CNN with Anderson Cooper

United Church of Canada leaders team up with 9-11 conspiracy nuts to demonize Israel

As their numbers plummet while the average age of its membership is in the Senior Citizen category, the United Church of Canada is finding some very strange bedfellows in its desperate struggle for relevance.

Unable to find it in a revitalization of religious belief, it has somewhat foolishly turned to finding common cause with radical political movements. In what could be mistaken for an ecclesiastic pantomime of a G20 protest, environmental extremists, anti-Israel fanatics, Omar Khadr aficionados, and  immigration reform opponents have all been courted by the current United Church leadership. The result was not new adherents so much as alienating a large number of the rank-and file and continuing the exodus away from the Church's thinning pews.

One of the most controversial and potentially self-destructive moves the United Church has made has been to engage in yet another foray into the quagmire of the Israeli-Arab dispute, with a decidedly anti-Israel bias. Ironically while striving to demonstrate how "progressive" it is, the United Church's embrace of radical leftist ideology has returned it to the ancient, anti-Semitic roots of early Christian theology. The United Church's Working Group on Israel Palestine, whose report recommends a boycott of Israeli settlement goods, heavily draws upon the so-called Palestine Kairos document. That treatise denies a special relationship between Israel and the Jewish people, places all the blame on Israel for its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, and refers to "the Israeli occupation" as "an evil and a sin that must be resisted and removed."  The document, which says of Israelis,  "they must liberate themselves from the evil that is in them and the injustice they have imposed on others," is considered by many to be inherently anti-Semitic.

Among the most insidious aspects of the new leftist Jew-hate is its tactic of trotting out ridiculous Jewish anti-Zionist fanatics and displaying them like comical banners at the front of an April Fool's parade. In that vein, the United Church's of Canada's Comox-Nanaimo Presbytery's declaration that they "work with Jewish organizations such as Independent Jewish Voices, which are committed to seeing Justice for the people of Palestine" is less offensive than if Shutzstaffel leader Heinrich Himmler had said "we are working with our Jewish labor camp kapos, who are committed to seeing justice for the Aryan people," but we are only talking about degrees.

Independent Jewish Voices is headed by a 9-11 conspiracy theorist named Diana Ralph. After 12 years hard work of being on Disability Leave from her position of Associate Professor of Social Work at Carleton University, Ms Ralph, who seemed to get around a lot for someone on disability leave, retired from that institution in 2011. With all that additional extra free time, she can now devote herself exclusively to eradicating Jewish national self-determination.

As one might expect, Ms Ralph is not the only 9-11 conspiracy theorist in the organization she co-founded. Her co-Chair and fellow Independent Jewish Voices founder Sid Shiniad shares her views and the organization of fringe radicals is liberally peppered with adherents to a movement that proposes the attack by Muslim terrorists on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was actually the work of "neo-cons and Zionists."

Independent Jewish Voices are, as the National Post's Jonathan Kay observed:

an extremist group whose leaders support a total economic boycott of Israel, defend the UN's original anti-Semitic Durban conference, support the destruction of the Jewish character of Israel through the influx of millions of Palestinians, spread conspiracy theories about the "Israeli lobby," promote the blood libel that Israel deliberately targeted "children playing on roofs" during the Gaza conflict, and cheered on the illegal occupation of the Israeli consulate in Toronto..

If the United Church's leaders think they can shield themselves from being perceived as anti-Semitic by playing footsie with a small group of fringe Jews whose actions and statements could easily be interpreted to suggest serious, unresolved psychiatric issues, they will find themselves sorely mistaken.

Yet in the ranks of the United Church there are still voices of sanity and reason. Reverend Andrew Love of Grace St. Andrew's United Church in Arnprior has launched a campaign to counter the noxious agenda of the denomination's leadership. He says that "there remains an undercurrent of anti-Semitism" in the church. Love has warned that if the recommendations of the Working Group on Israel/Palestine's report are adopted, the United Church, rather than advancing the cause of peace, will destroy its relationship with the Jewish community and render itself irrelevant to playing any role in helping resolve the Israel/Palestine question.

That's an insightful assessment that towers above anything the United Church's leaders have offered on the issue to date. Whether it is one that the Church's leaders heed at its General Council next week will decide less about the future of the mideast than it will about a United Church that is in danger of loosing its bearings.

The Dilemma of Mark Steyn

Government intrusion into our most basic rights was the meat and potatoes of the buffet of opinions, oratory, evangelizing and musical theatre presented by Mark Steyn and friends last night at his Steynamite show at the Toronto Convention Centre.

Readers of the National Post know that its columnist and editor Jonathan Kay is witty and insightful, but his introduction of Steyn was a reminder of his comedic gifts. And comedy was the medium through which the clarion call for defense of free speech was delivered throughout the two hours of the event. That indeed was Kay's explanation for Steyn's ability to convey his blunt, controversial and necessarily insensitive messages to the public - that rare ability to make people laugh while hearing about matters both serious and disturbing.

Sun TV's Krista Ericson and Michael Coren added to the levity with their interpretive dance gestures spoofing Ericson's infamous contentious interview with Canadian performance artist Margie Gillis prior to Steyn taking the stage.

The large hall was filled to near capacity with Steyn fans and they got everything they came for and more. Steyn, a native born Torontonian (like Omar Khadr, as he pointed out) had the audience simultaneously outraged and guffawing at local, national and international government abuses of individual rights through so-called Human Rights mechanisms. He spoke of the kangaroo courts that subjected hapless citizens to years of turmoil and exorbitant legal costs over frivolous cases. One of the most egregious examples he gave was of the St. Catherine's health club owner who was brought before the Ontario Human Rights Commission because he wouldn't let a pre-op transsexual woman, meaning he/she still had a penis, use the woman's changing room. Even more outrageous was the case of an Ontario Bar owner who was brought before a the Human Rights Commission for not allowing a customer to smoke medical marijuana in the bar, while at the same time being told by the Liquor Licensing Board that he would lose his license if he did allow it.

Steyn's scatter-gun attacks on censors, social engineers, totalitarians and hypocrites inside the government and out hit an array of targets including "Hatefinder General" Richard Warman, Muslim wife beaters, Sharia law proponents, and those who practice genital mutilation along with their stupid western enablers. Among the additional victims of Steyn's ire were the Immigration form required for travelers entering the United States, the ridiculous gang of hypocritical misfits called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and plenty of others.

The essential point of Steyn's sermon, delivered both as a lecture and in song parodies, was that by trying to make society more "civil" through restriction of free speech and free thought and the loss of individual property rights, the medicine is 1000 times worse than the disease.

The message he delivers, particularly in the ironic and thought-provoking way he presents it,  is one that is critical for the generation coming of age in Canada and the west to hear.

And that's where the dilemma of Mark Steyn lies. There's a great moment in the TV cartoon series Family Guy where Peter Griffin shows up at a party riding an elephant and says to his wife, "Hey look, Lois, here are the two symbols of the Republican party, an elephant and an overweight, middle-aged white guy who's afraid of change."

Looking around at the audience at Steynamite, I didn't see any elephants. But it was also clear that Steyn and his cohorts spent an evening preaching to the converted. The people most in need of the message weren't there to hear it.

Another dilemma that Steyn presents is the way that some of  his admirers interpret him. One of his core messages is that while racism is bad, but depriving people of their ability to express any thought, even a deplorable one, goes against the fundamental principles of individual liberty which provide the bedrock of western civilization. Unfortunately, a few too many of Steyn's audience seem to be under the impression that being needlessly racist is somehow striking a blow for free expression.

One of the most important points of the night came up during the brief question and answer session at the end. A woman asked what people can do in their daily lives to protect the freedoms that are government is consistently eroding. The answer that Steyn and Michael Coren provided was an interesting one. They noted that even if governments change, social engineers in our civil service and education bureaucracies are so deeply immersed that acting to reform them is extremely difficult. Deprivation of liberty is something that has become embedded in our culture, and so we have to act to change culture so that popular attitudes and eventually laws will follow.

That presents a massive challenge. But with great talents like Steyn and others tackling it, this challenge may yet be overcome.

A fascinating talk in Toronto tonight with Tarek Fatah, Michael Coren, Carole MacNeil and Jonathan Kay

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center presents Media Perspectives on the Middle East

at the Sandford Fleming Building, Room 1105

10 King's College Road at the U of Toronto's St. George Campus

See Michael Coren, Tarek Fatah, Carole MacNeil and Jonathan Kay live!

Media Perceptions of the Middle East is a free event at the University of Toronto on Thursday, March 5th from 7 to 9 pm.

It's a live panel discussion with Jonathan Kay, Carole MacNeil, Tarek Fatah and Michael Coren.

Ron Paul hearts the John Birch Society

I hate commies as much as the next guy, but anyone who thinks water fluoridation is part of a communist plot is a bit too overboard for me.



The following is from Jonathan Kay's blog:

On the New York Times web site, James Kirchick has a very good piece about Ron Paul’s penchant for conspiracy theories. Here is part of it:

In a 1990 C-Span appearance, taped between Congressional stints, Paul was asked by a caller to comment on the “treasonous, Marxist, alcoholic dictators that pull the strings in our country.” Rather than roll his eyes, Paul responded,“there’s pretty good evidence that those who are involved in the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations usually end up in positions of power. And I believe this is true.”
Paul then went on to stress the negligible differences between various “Rockefeller Trilateralists.” The notion that these three specific groups — the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller family — run the world has been at the center of far-right conspiracy theorizing for a long time, promoted especially by the extremist John Birch Society, whose 50^th anniversary gala dinner Paul keynoted in 2008.

Read the rest at Among the Truthers

Ron Paul giving the keynote address at the John Birch Society's 50th anniversary celebration:

Jonathan Kay Among the Truthers

The National Post's Jonathan Kay has a new book out called Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. It's an intriguing examination of the conspiracy theory movement in the USA, with a particular focus on the 9-11 conspiracy aficionados.

From the Wall Street Journal review:

A survey in February recorded that 51% of GOP primary voters believed Mr. Obama to be a non-native son. In a victory for common sense, support for the position plummeted with the recent release of Mr. Obama's long-form birth certificate.   

Liberals should avoid crowing too loudly, though, since they have their own share of nutters. In 2007, pollster John Zogby asked Democratic voters about the terrorist attacks of 9/11; 42% of respondents said that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney either allowed the attacks to happen or deliberately caused the attacks to happen, presumably for political gain or to reap a financial windfall by waging a war for oil in the Middle East. 

To Jonathan Kay, Birthers and Truthers are flipsides of the same coin. "Like an earthquake, 9/11 produced a great fissure through the heart of America's political center," he writes in "Among the Truthers." "It is not just politics that separates these two camps, but the very manner by which they answer fundamental questions about the world."

Kay has created this blog for the book that has updates about the latest Conspiracy Theories http://amongthetruthers.com/

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate

View more documents from White House

Why is rabble.ca obsessed with The National Post's Jonathan Kay being "obsessed" with lesbians?

Our favorite online Marxists today ask the question, Why is Jonathan Kay Obsessed With Lesbians?

On the surface, it seems a rather dimwitted question to which the answer is rather obvious. Kay is a reporter and he is reporting about subjects who frequently, almost incessantly, self-identify as lesbians. In fact, one of the things neither Kay (nor I until now) reported about last night's evening of hate that rabble references, was Jenny Peto's bizarre claim that criticism of her looney tunes, academically inept anti-Jew/anti-Israel screed was based on "homophobia."

One would think the amateur sociologists at rabble, who seem to conform to the official OISE doctrine of collective guilt for "privileged classes", should be asking the question: why is western society obsessed with lesbians? 
 
After all, in every heterosexual porno film, there seems to be at least one lesbian scene, but never a guy-on-guy scene.

Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard about porno, having (ahem) never seen one myself..cough..cough..

Jonathan Kay: The Jenny Peto scandal shows that it’s time to clean house at OISE

Read the rest at The National Post

"Peto is a small fish. The bigger problem here is OISE — the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, AKA UToronto’s teacher’s college — itself. For years, I’ve been hearing tales of political correctness gone amok at OISE, including radical anti-Israeli events. But it took the Peto case to really get me probing around to see what else is going on at OISE."

UPDATE: here's an interesting blog post describing why the Peto thesis isn't really a thesis.

9-11 Conspiracy Crackpot compares questions about public funding for his marginal theories to Salman Rushdie's death sentence

Blogger Blazing Cat Fur alerted us to the latest nuttiness from the always-crazy Canadian Charger.

Jonathan Kay over at The National Post wrote a column about a grant to a British graduate student,  Joshua Blakeney, to pursue his crackpot 9-11 conspiracy theories. Blakeney is also a sometime correspondent for Mohamed Elmasry's Canadian Charger, as shown in a post from this blog back in August. (Check out the video in the link where Blakeney says that Michael Moore, of all people, is complicit in the 9-11 cover up!)

Kay wrote that:

the University of Lethbridge has awarded Blakeney a $7,714 Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship to pursue his research. (The scholarship is listed as being funded through the “ongoing financial commitment of the Province of Alberta.”) ..  

In other words, the University of Lethbridge — and, through the province of Alberta’s funding arrangements, the taxpayers of Alberta — are paying a British graduate student $7,714 to pursue his conspiracy theory that the 9/11 attacks were staged by Washington.   

Does anyone else see a problem with that?

Well, Mohamed "Elmo" Elmasry's Charger not only doesn't see a problem with that, but is outraged; outraged to the point of grammatical and syntax errors, that Kay would challenge the academic freedom of having tax dollars subsidize theories put forward by people whose sanity could be questioned.

My favorite bit from the editorial in Elmo's Charger is the following, where he quotes Blakeney's thesis supervisor, University of Lethbridge Professor Anthony Hall, about Kay:

It seems to me that The National Post and Maclean’s are essentially trying to put a fatwa on higher level university studies on 9/11. Such a fatwa would clear aside empirically-based research so Jonathan can engage in his own spinning of public mythology posing as the psychoanthropologist who has penetrated the deepest cultural mores of the... ta daaaa... the conspiracy theorists. How pathetic!”   

Dr. Hall said the website advertising the book lauds Mr. Kay's success in “infiltrating” the “Truthers”, language Dr. Halls said is probably an accurate characterization of “Mr. Kay's mode of doing journalistic business as an agent of espionage and counterintelligence for those above him in the chain of command. He and the promoters at Maclean's of a privatized higher education system for Canada are good embodiments of the unfolding operations of the privatized terror economy.”

You know you have a credible, highly regarded academic when he uses phrases like "ta daaaa" in his interviews. But that's not nearly as fascinating as Hall's allegation that Kay is "doing journalistic business as an agent of espionage and counterintelligence for those above him in the chain of command."

This is what I'm having trouble understanding: Hall seems to be mocking Kay for characterizing him and his fellow travellers as 'conspiracy theorists'. And then in his next sentence, he alleges a conspiracy involving Jonathan Kay.

The extent to which a person making those remarks is completely unhinged is something people will have to determine for themselves.

But to give you another indication of the lack of intellectual rigour, or just plain lack of intelligence on the part of these people, Blakeney is quoted as saying, "Where are the Salman Rushdie defenders now? Or do such individuals only like free speech if it criticizes Islam rather than helps exculpate framed Muslims who probably didn’t plan or execute 9/11?"

Let's put this in terms that perhaps, just perhaps, Mr. Blakeney and Elmasry might be able to understand.

No one is denying Blakeney his right to speak his theories or to publish them. What is being questioned is whether crackpot theories should receive public funding. That is significantly different than Salman Rushdie being threatened with death for having written a satirical allegory about the founder of Islam.

In my opinion, only a person with a profound lack of intelligence and/or insight would seriously make that comparison.

And what is truly ironic is that the Canadian Charger's pretend defense of free speech is coming from someone who is so closely tied to attempts to repress free speech through the Canadian Human Rights Commission's notorious thought crimes provisions.
 
Of course, if it isn't yet apparent, irony is completely lost on the people at The Canadian Charger.

Laugh of the day: The wing-nuts at rabble.ca demand the re-hiring of Rick Salutin at The Globe and Mail

It was interesting to learn yesterday that Rick Salutin had been canned from his gig at the Globe and Mail.

Actually, from what I understand, Salutin technically was never on staff at the Globe, but was a freelancer whose column was placed weekly in that paper.

It's understandable why the Globe would want rid of him. His columns were tedious and repetitive.

Jonathan Kay nailed it well two years ago when he wrote:

After 17 years as a Globe columnist, one suspects, Salutin apparently has gotten to the stage where he simply throws a bunch of buzz phrases in the air — imperialism, Guantanamo, oil, Omar Khadr, "honest broker" — and lets his readers write their own column.

Throw "right-wing" and "neo-con" in the mix, along with the propensity to presume to understand the hidden, un-evidenced, conspiratorial motives of everyone in the political spectrum to the right of Leon Trotsky, and that pretty much covers everything I've ever read from Salutin.



But the news of Salutin's dismissal doesn't sit well with the radical socialists at the online propaganda bureau that Judy Rebick built, rabble.ca

In a piece by Murray Dobbin demanding the re-instatement of Salutin at the Globe, we get some hilarious histrionics:

There are also not many touchstones for progressive Canadians still intact -- things that give us some comfort that the world hasn't completely fallen apart, at least not yet. Every time I hear the theme music to As it Happens, I get that feeling -- or when I go to the doctor and don't have to pay and he doesn't get a bonus for denying me service.

Rick's column was like that. He may well be the best in the country. Each time I saw that column in the Globe -- a hard-line neo-liberal paper in most ways -- it allowed me to believe progressive voices were still part of the mainstream debate -- a place at the table that we might be able to expand.

This invites the question of how many of rabble.ca's devotees of Karl Marx have a subscription to "a hard-line neo-liberal paper,"  but that is a minor point.

It must be frustrating for over-the-hill Marxists mired in the outdated radicalism of the 1960's to be getting the message, over and over, that they're no longer relevant.

It appears to be like the death of a loved one for Dobbin, because he's going through all five stages of grief in his one article:

Denial: Not many columnists in this country have achieved icon status but Rick Salutin is one of them.

Anger: I've always wondered about that popular slogan -- Speak truth to power. We've been doing that for years and they don't give a shit 

Bargaining: We should demand the Globe reinstate Rick Salutin. Some of us are still speaking.

Depression: I can just imagine the suits at the Globe having a brief conversation about Rick's column: "By the way, why are still publishing Rick Salutin?" Long silence. "Rick who?" I wonder if any of these guys ever even read him.

Acceptance: For the suits, the deal was signed long ago -- it's just taking a while to implement it down to the last remaining article.

I am of course having a bit of fun here and slightly altering some of the context and order of the statements. But I am not exaggerating the verbal conniption fit.

Goodbye Rick. I'll miss your columns too, because I used to get a laugh out of them. But evidently, someone came to the realization that I and the handful of rabbleoids with a subscription to The Globe were the few people left reading them.

UPDATE: The email I hated to send

As much as I welcome the idea that Salutin's tiresome paranoia will have fewer venues, as a matter of principle, I felt compelled to send the following email to the Globe and Mail's Editor-in-Chief:

Dear Mister Stackhouse

I am aware that there are some orchestrated campaigns going on at rabble.ca and with a few of their affiliated bloggers to try to get you to re-instate Rick Salutin.

These people probably very rarely buy a copy of The Globe and Mail.

Personally, I found his columns tiresome, predictable and repetitive. As that previous sentence suggests, I have a very different political outlook than Salutin. I should add that other than on the basis of rumour and scant non-mainstream media reports, I know nothing about your decision, so I apologize and want to clarify that this communication is on that basis.

The people orchestrating the “keep Salutin” campaign are mainly politically motivated and see him as one of the advocates for their point of view. A point of view that I believe to be distorted and outdated, and based on his biases rather than fact.

But I would not want to advocate that a person be removed based on his political views. If removing Salutin was a sound business decision, then you should stick with it. If his columns were uninteresting because of their predictability and inane repetition of themes while introducing misplaced ideological prejudices, then stick with it.

But if he was a valuable contribution to The Globe and Mail and was removed because he offended someone, then, much as I loathe to do so, I would advocate in the strongest terms that he be re-hired.

Yours,

All I can say is I hope they got rid of the boring socialist old goat because he was a boring socialist old goat that no one read anymore and not for any other reason.

UPDATE 2: Murray Dobbin is encouraging people to send a letter to the editor  (letters@globeandmail.ca)
at the Globe in support of Salutin. I just sent this, which I'm pretty sure is what Dobbin had in mind:
 

Dear Editor

I found the writing of Rick Salutin to be that of a tiresome, outdated polemicist mired in the politics of 1960’s radicalism. I stopped reading his columns with any regularity quite some time ago, as one could predict their entire substance from the headline.

If that was the reason the Globe and Mail got rid of him, then I commend your decision.

However, if he is a popular columnist who was fired merely for being politically objectionable, then I would ask you to reconsider that decision. That way, I could still check his writing out from time to time in The Globe to mock the irrelevance of the self-described “progressive” movement.

UPDATE 3: The Globe made a great call. Salutin is being replaced by Irshad Manji, who is a big favorite at Eye on a Crazy Planet. Great move, Globe and Mail!