2028...and no end in sight

OTTAWA (DawgNews) Twenty years after the election that many thought would topple Stephen Harper from power, Elections Canada has still not released the results, prompting an editorial in the Globe and Mail and street protests in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, led by members of the Green New Democrats.

In Montreal, as they have done every year since the election was held, mourners filed past the body of Stéphane Dion, now preserved in a glass case at Liberal headquarters under the motto Dans la mort comme dans la vie ("In death as in life").

In a terse press release, the Supreme Court of Canada announced that it would not hear a new appeal brought against Elections Canada by the Toronto-based Coalition for Electoral Fairness, on the basis of stare decisis. A previous case, two years after the election, was rejected. The court ruled at the time that Elections Canada was still investigating "electoral anomalies," and that their explanation for the delay was legally valid: "They have not strayed from the law." A member of Elections Canada, reached at his winter home in the Turks and Caicos islands, declined comment.

President Stephen Harper, presently reviewing Canadian troops in Baluchistan, was not expected to mark the occasion. A press agent stated, however, that he would "go on serving the people of Canada until this mess is sorted out."

World reaction was muted. In North Korea, Kim Bon-hwa, the country's "Glorious Leader," sent a telegram of congratulations to the President. In Zimbabwe, however, President Robert Mugabe, who celebrated his 104th birthday this past February, was openly critical of what he called Canada's "technological backwardness." "We finished our count in just a few weeks," he said. "Then we got Diebold machines. Problem solved."

Another call for Warman's execution...

...this time, courtesy of Ezra Levant.

Levant's blog is moderated. Comments do not appear without his approval.

(H/t mordechai15)

UPDATE: (later that same day)

The comment has now been removed. Why did it appear in the first place? Thank goodness for screenshots.

OFF TOPIC: (April 11) I shall take shameless advantage of Warren Kinsella's link from yesterday and a link from Daimnation this morning to acquaint readers with an exhaustive discussion of the technical questions involved in the infamous "Anne Cools" posting. Buckets of Gray has done yeoman work, and techies and laypersons alike should be interested in his series of posts on the matter. Given his evident level of expertise, Buckets might well end up at the libel trial as a witness for the plaintiff.

(H/t Somena Media)

UPPERDATE: (April 12) The prolix Ezra Levant strikes back. But, it must be said, his flabby blows are easily avoided. Obviously rattled, he accuses me of questioning his motives, something I explicitly did not do. I'm not in the mood to be charitable to this windbag, so I will state it plainly: that's a flat-out lie.

And he's playing the Kathy Shaidle game of publicly fussing about my so-called "anonymity," going so far as to suggest (tongue-in-cheek, possibly) that I am Dean Steacy or even Richard Warman. Nope. Anyone wanting to peer past my nom-de-plume who takes the full ten seconds required on Google will be rewarded.

Finally, on a more serious note, I should inform my readers that I made a statement to the police yesterday about the hysterical call for Warman's death by a Levant commenter. It's in their hands now, and the screenshot is evidence. I'm just reporting the news, in time-honoured fashion.

My point, in any event, was not that Warman is in serious danger, but that his assiduous work on behalf of human rights has attracted a lot of hatred. In this case a breach of the Criminal Code had likely been committed by a commenter, whose comment was then approved for publication by Levant. The latter is now pleading laziness. I see no reason not to take him at his word on that, at least.

The other shoe drops...

...and some of our favourite people are being sued for defamation by human rights lawyer and activist Richard Warman.

I have no use for SLAPP suits, and I'm pleased to see that Quebec is poised to pass legislation against them. But is this a SLAPP suit?

One of the sue-ees (I love the sound of that word, even if it doesn't exist) calls this an "attempt to silence conservative opinion." But the Statement of Claim doesn't refer to mere "opinion"--it refers to public statements that allege wrongdoing by Warman, but have not been backed up by proof. By the same token, it's almost commonplace in certain quarters of the blogosphere to accuse the Canadian Human Rights Commission of theft of communications. Has this been proven?

Should freedom of speech extend to accusing individuals and organizations of unethical, even criminal, conduct, without evidence?

Make yourselves comfortable. This could be quite a show.

Now, back to those damned assignments.

UPDATE: (April 9) Damian Penny has asked his colleagues in the legal profession for some expert commentary--check in from time to time. And Red Tory has gone, momentarily I hope, off the rails. I say let's head over to Canadian Cynic's for some popcorn.

Now, if only Dean Steacy would sue Mark Steyn for accusing him of criminal activity in the pages of Maclean's...

Light blogging for a while...

Term papers due next week.

"It's good to hate" [updated]

So says frequent far-right blog commenter "WL Mackenzie Redux." Normally the raving of a marginal blogospherian, encamped in an increasingly crowded cyber-bidonville just outside Blog City, wouldn't be worthy of notice. But in the course of defending Kate "Dirty bums, go infect yourselves with diseases and die" McMillan, he managed to sum up, in an economical four words, what's been bubbling merrily on the Right's front burner for some time. You don't have to be Faith Popcorn to observe that hate is trendy. It's the ultra-con in-thing. Hate is cool. It's good to hate.

Hate, it appears, is just busting out all over. There's Ezra "knock a blind guy" Levant, Marc "Hitler knew what he was talking about" Lemire* (the current rad-right poster child for free speech), Mark "Kids are fair game" Steyn, and of course the fellow who sets the benchmark for all time, Pastor Fred Phelps (although I sometimes find myself wondering if he hasn't been indulging all these years in a dark satirical send-up). We have this sort of racist drivel--a regular feature at her place these days--from the pint-sized Queen of Hate, Kathy Shaidle.

And now the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, and a Conservative MP, have been caught doing a little hate duet on a video that features "racist, sexist, homophobic comments." (Bravo, Con-boyz, way to score a bigot hat-trick.) Another frequently venomous commenter, John West, wandered over to Small Dead Animals to ask if this means Wall will change his mind about casting out Kate's now-infamous blog. Hey, why not? This party's barely getting started.

Hate is no longer just an emotion, but a lifestyle. As an emotion, it sucks: it's a corrosive so powerful that it inevitably destroys its own container. It doesn't make a normal person feel very nice. It's like crack cocaine--a quick, jagged buzz, and then a rocky down, making you crave another hit, and then another, and another. But for people incapable of empathy, much less love, that's all there is. So they band together to celebrate their hatred, creating a kind of noxious synergy. Whether the target is Jews, or Muslims, or Native people, or Blacks, or people with disabilities, or gays, or women who get out of line, or the poor, or immigrants, or folks who just aren't like them, you can count on a pretty good turnout these days, in the blogosphere, the media and the streets. Hatred, like misery, loves company.

I'm not claiming that we're free of this dreadful stuff in progressive ranks. We have lots to be angry about, and anger can slide almost effortlessly into hatred sometimes. I've seen it. But I like to think that most of us have the grace to be ashamed when we're called on it, and the integrity to be critical of ourselves and each other when it oozes forth.

Some of our blogging political opponents, though, seem to have mistaken it for a virtue. They elevate it to the level of political principle. And their commenters, drunk with it, cheer them on. But this isn't really about politics at all, and never has been. It's not about religion, either. It's not about "family values." It's just so good to hate. Kudos to one commenter, at least, with the reckless courage to admit it.


____________________________
*"Lest your mind automatically reject the words of Hitler out of some political reflexive habit, remember that he witnessed the decline and fall of another multi-cultural state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so he knows what he's taking [sic] about..."

UPDATE: (April 6)

Brad Wall has announced his intention to sue Canadian Press over a headline that it used in early coverage. (H/t Buckdog)

The headline on the first story, published on the wire before Wall or Lukiwski had apologized, stated: "Tape with Sask premier and Tory MP has racist, sexist, homophobic comments: NDP."

"The headline of the article states directly, or by innuendo, that Premier Wall was responsible for racist, sexist and homophobic comments appearing on a videotape," reads the notice of intent to sue under Saskatchewan's Libel and Slander Act.

I find several things odd about this, the most obvious one being that the headline makes no allegation at all, but merely quotes one. Why isn't he suing the NDP? And, on closer inspection, the headline simply reports the fact that such comments are contained on a "tape." It does not attribute any one of them to anyone specifically, any more than I did in this post. We now know that the Premier was dissing Roy Romanow by mimicking a Ukrainian accent, while Lukiwski was insulting gays and some unidentified charmer was making sexist remarks about former provincial Liberal leader Lynda Haverstock.

Let me note that I, too, was describing the video, and that description, widely noted in the media and the blogosphere, was accurate--other than, technically speaking, the reference to "racism," which turned out to be a crude display of ethnocentrism instead.

I cannot imagine Canadian Press losing this gratuitous deflective action on Wall's part. Meanwhile, though, if he wants to sue me, he can have at it. Will the speech warriors come to my aid? Will Kathy Shaidle throw ten bucks into my tip jar if I'm forced to set one up? Stay tuned.

UPPERDATE: (April 6)

Got my answer about the speech warriors, I guess. It seems the only speech worth defending is Nazi speech, if you take a look at this lot. Sue Canadian Press? That's just for starters. What about a class action suit against CTV for defaming Conservatives?

In fairness, though, in the comments thread here, Jay Currie and my libertarian friend Meaghan Walker-Williams are offering financial contributions au cas où, although they are firmly in the anti-CHRC camp. (Thank you too, JohnnyRingo.)

UPPESTDATE: (April 7)

It looks as though cooler heads have prevailed.

Sunday reading: Little Rock, remembered

Scrape around in the dross and you occasionally find something valuable. David Margolick's article in Vanity Fair about the subsequent lives of Elizabeth and Hazel is a simply wonderful piece of writing.

PS: Kathy gets it wrong; the two women are not friends. Maybe she should take a break from Muslim-slagging and read the article too.

Quintuple standards, and counting...

I don't have much more to say about the travails of David Ahenakew than I said back in 2005. But it's telling indeed, I think, that he continues to be subject to civil banishment while the conservative commentariat are already trying to downplay the hateful remarks of Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski.

Is there no statute of limitations on homophobia, Damian Penny asks?

Well, that's a very good question, and I, for one, haven't heard a good answer to it. I'm not even sure I have one myself. What I have noticed, however, is that different standards are being applied all over the place, and the time factor doesn't seem to have much to do with it.

In 2006, Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott, a passionate defender of the Saskatoon police implicated in the infamous "starlight tour" that killed Neil Stonechild, was caught in a lie: he falsely claimed that the police were simply dropping off local Indians at a "drinking shack." No apology was forthcoming. He remains an MP to this day, although, despite the strong backing of his boss Stephen Harper, he had to quit as Chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

That same year, while Ahenekew was in the news again because his hate-speech conviction had been reversed on appeal, a prominent Ottawa rabbi was awarded an honorary doctorate from my own alma mater, Carleton University. This was despite the fact that he was known to be a sitting member of the "scientific advisory committee" of a homophobic outfit in the US that promotes "reparative therapy" to "cure" gays of their homosexuality. It wasn't six years before, or seventeen, but at that very moment in time. Violating its own human rights policy, and to its shame, Carleton went ahead with its award. A local right-of-centre talk-show host expressed indignation that the good rabbi would be subject to unseemly protests. And Rabbi Bulka subsequently received a United Way "Community Builder" award.

Meanwhile, a comment by a CTV journalist about "knuckle-draggers" has attracted the ire of She Who Must Be Obeyed. Robert Fife has now officially joined the bigot community, by virtue of having attacked bigotry in a phrase. The same source that wants us to forget all about Lukiwski's hateful views, and urges addicts to share needles, infect themselves and die, would like us to rise up angrily when it is suggested that a homophobic Conservative is, well, somewhat less advanced on the evolutionary scale. Come on. This was merely hyperbolic, maybe a tad rhetorical, but now we have a whole new minority to protect. And here I thought the Right was against precisely this sort of proliferation. Is it perhaps the notion of evolution that offends?

Anyway, to sum up: Ahenakew will never be forgiven, as long as he lives, for his anti-Semitic remarks. Strong voices are raised to rehabilitate Lukiwski for his homophobic remarks. An MP who falsely used an anti-Native stereotype to defend police brutality against Native people in Saskatoon is still an MP, and has never apologized. A rabbi is given an honorary doctorate whilst serving as an advisor to homophobic quacks. And a senior CTV commentator is called a "bigot" for using a colourful word to describe a homophobe.

Double standards? That's for wussies. Try four or five, for starters. This is politics in Canada, folks, and we've got enough standards for everyone.

___________
ERRATUM: My original title was "Quadruple standards and counting," and it appears thus in the Progressive Bloggers blogroll. My apologies, but the count goes on.

Catching revisionist history in flight

Fascinating to watch the conservative mind at work. No, really. One can almost hear the scratching of quill pens as they beaver away making stuff up.

Apparently I've been "scolded" by Mark Steyn in Macleans this week. And, according to a commenter here, "I notice Dawg is even mentioned in a national magazine this week as being rather unreliabe [sic] in terms of facts, evidence, etc. Seems Dawg must hate that whole honesty ethos, to me."

Well, lessee, here. Why not go right to the source, as I am wont to do?

Here is Steyn:

The photograph in question was emailed to me by readers of Warren Kinsella, former hit man for Jean Chrétien, and Mr. Kinsella's friend, the blogger "Dr. Dawg," accompanied by messages on the lines of: "How do you feel about the company you and your fellow 'freespeechers' are keeping now, Steyn? The Ernst Zundel Road Show revival tour has a new member, eh?" Etc.

Actually, I had a good old laugh about it. The black fascist garb would be more menacing if it didn't have the cute little Maple Leaf blaze on the shoulder, which makes the uniforms look like costumes for some post-Anschluss dystopian rewrite of Rose-Marie played in summer stock at Totleigh Village Hall by Sir Roderick Spode's Black Shorts. But the same types who email me scoffing that Bush's so-called "war on terror" is just a racket to boost Halliburton's stock price and enable Dick Cheney to find out what library books Americans are reading are nevertheless convinced that there is a clear and present Nazi threat to the wee delicate Dominion that can only be prevented by dragging every two-bit Internet poster up before the thought-crime enforcers.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lemire is insistent that the swarthy fellow in the reflector shades standing behind Herr Zundel is not him. He claims he was 17 at the time and had never met the celebrated neo-Nazi. "Dr. Dawg" says he got the picture from the Nizkor website, which he describes as "impeccable." We sent off an email seeking clarification to Ken McVay, who runs Nizkor, and it seems he has now withdrawn the identification of the man in the picture as Marc Lemire. I regret the error.

Why, so do I. And I issued my correction on March 31. Two days before Steyn, but there you go.

Since then, Lemire has dropped by to say that he had informed Ken McVay of Nizkor years ago that the photo was fake. I challenged him to provide proof of any such thing. He hasn't been back. (Hey, Marc, I'll waive my new no-fascists rule just this once if you want to post proof of your claim.)

In the meantime, folks, have some popcorn and observe a minor bit of historical revisionism taking place right before your eyes.

Give peace a chance

Over at Daimnation a reasonably good discussion is taking place about Terry Glavin's latest philippic against the Canadian peace movement. I'll link the latter here, because people need to see for themselves just how one-sided and dishonest Glavin really is. It's not my intention, however, to respond directly to his pages of smears, distortions, Islamist-baiting and tendentious commentary. Instead, I'll confine myself to some of the points made by his supporters at Damian's place, which amount to a handy compendium of prevalent misunderstandings and myths about those of us who want peace--in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

Let me begin by describing my own standpoint, because I reject the notion of objectivity in these matters. I don't think one can simply be "for" peace. We have to take a fairly hard-headed view of current geopolitics and history and choose our positions, tactics and strategy based upon our own values and commitments. So, briefly, I think that the influence of the US imperial power around the world has not been historically benign, and is not so today. I believe that corporate globalism has not proven to be a boon, but generally a curse, to what is still called the "Third World." It is my view, although I am far from alone in this, that our First World overdevelopment is a direct cause of their underdevelopment. I also think that wars have material causes, and terrorism (I shall get back to that misleading term in a moment) has roots that go well beyond personal psychopathology or religious metaphysics.

I must also claim ignorance of the inner workings of the Canadian peace movement. In this matter I am a rank-and-filer, and can speak only from that vantage-point. I've been on peace marches since Canada decided to install Bomarc missiles in 1963, though, so I have been around the block a few times, literally and metaphorically.

Finally, I cannot separate my support of peace initiatives from my progressive social and political agenda. No such separation is possible or desirable. So in that sense the dark imaginings of some critics are probably spot on: the search for peace is not simply a moral, ahistorical one, and the peace movement--actually several movements--have politics.

For the most part, despite Glavin's own bizarre claim that the anti-war movement in Canada lacks a progressive core, the politics is standard progressive fare: anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-sexist and, well, anti-war. The peace movement itself is highly decentralized, unstructured, informal and ad hoc. It's also compulsively inclusive and pragmatic, and insists on the importance of dialogue. (Remember how "Taliban Jack" got his offensive moniker from the screechy Right? He proposed talking to the Taliban. Now, of course, everybody's doing it.)

Now, Glavin can never quite make up his mind whether it's the leadership of the peace movement that he doesn't like, or the rank and file. Maybe it's both. In any case, he never tires of telling untruths about actual demonstrations, although he's far from alone in that. For example, it's almost a meme now that demonstrators march "under" Hezbollah (or Hamas) flags. I've never quite grasped what marching "under" a flag means. One might just as well accuse Hezbollah supporters of marching "under" a United Church banner or a union one. All kinds of people and tendencies assemble as such marches, and when a country is being bombed to smithereens (I'm thinking Lebanon here), it's not surprising that opposition will come together from all quarters. So what?

As noted, I've been around for a while, and I can well remember the red-baiting of anti-war marches in the 'sixties. All that's changed is the Great Satan, so now it's Islamist-baiting instead. The most sinister constructions are placed upon every move the peace movement makes, or is alleged to have made. It's all being run out of Cairo--or Uzbekistan. Moscow gold has no doubt been replaced by petrodollars. I've seen this dreary movie before, and frankly it was better in black and white.

Well, enough introduction: let's deal with the specific criticisms that have surfaced over at Damian's. I quote to avoid charges of misrepresentation.

1) Organized feminism has clearly decided the plight of Muslim women is secondary to the glorious struggle against the neo-cons and murderous North American patriarchy.

One of the key strategies of the Right in debate is to accuse us of being soft on our own principles. If we aren't out there marching 24/7 and addressing every current cause, we're inconsistent, even hypocritical.

I addressed a classic case of that here--some conservative suddenly acquires a lively interest in gay rights, but only in Iran. Now, that's inconsistent.

I have asked the commenter here to provide evidence of the claim that "organized feminism" (a bit of an oxymoron, I think, like "organized labour," but I digress) is dismissive of Muslim women. I have a raft of evidence to the contrary, but I think I'll wait for his. No reverse onus here, thanks.

2) You said "but the peace movement is the usual diverse bunch, most of whom want, well, peace." I'll believe it when I see them protesting Iran, China, or any number of other regimes and wars around the world on a consistent basis rather than mostly showing up at the nearest US embassy or consulate. I'll believe it when I see self-described peace activists actually nod their heads in agreement with right-wingers when the right-wingers are describing terrible regimes like China, Iran, N. Korea instead of saying "yeah but the US..."

The pro-Tibet folks include a lot of faces I recognize. But I don't want to skirt the general issue raised.

Let's set the rhetoric aside for a moment. Protesters tend to resist their own governments and government policies. It's not as though Stephen Harper (and the US, in whose policies we are enmeshed) are supporting the Chinese, Iranian and North Korean regimes. They're opposed. So is almost everyone else around, in one way or another. What appears to be expected here, and somewhat disingenuously, is that when we protest a US-led war in Iraq that has claimed thousands of civilian lives (and which has tacit government support), or an ill-thought-out adventure in Afghanistan that has claimed several thousand more civilian lives in a never-ending war that cannot be "won," we must also pass out or otherwise display hundreds of pages of apologetics to explain that we aren't keen on the Chinese colonization of Tibet either, or the juchi idea, or Holocaust-denial, or hanging gays, or beheading journalists, or stoning women.

I thinks it's fair to say that when we march in Canada, it is generally to influence public opinion about official policies right here at home. So, no, you won't find us mobilizing against Kim Jong-il. Why should we? Everybody's already against him. Ditto with the excesses of fundamentalist Islam. Why waste our energy stating the obvious?

3) "The majority of the people at Montreal's protest were condemning Israeli attacks and defending Hezbollah rocket attacks, an attitude common to many of the anti-war protests in Montreal since the beginning of the conflict."

This is a quote from a media source that offers no evidence. But without sidetracking this discussion into a reprise of the Lebanon-Israel war, let me note that the destruction and casualties involved were grossly asymmetrical. Israel was not having its infrastructure flattened, and civilian deaths were a tiny fraction of those in Lebanon. I, for one, am a little tired of the bizarre argument that Israel was the injured party in that war.

Conservatives are always railing against us for alleged feeble "moral equivalence" arguments. Let's end this bit on a note of agreement, then: there was no "moral equivalence" here.

4) If these peace demonstrations are comprised of diverse groups with differing agendas, how do you know that they (as a whole) are a peace movement? As I pointed out earlier, if it was peace they had in common, we'd see a more diverse representation of the TARGETS for protest given world events. Instead, they seem to have a common agenda with a limited choice of targets.

I think this one has been asked and answered. The point about the peace "movement" is well-taken--it's not a cohesive whole. As for targets, while the reference is to geopolitical events, the real "targets" are government action/inaction/policies, and public opinion. As noted already, why protest against Kim Jong-il, for example? There's surely no one around who needs convincing, and no government policy that needs changing.

5) Dawg, you don't consider Galloway left of center because you can't wish away his blatantly pro-Islamist ideology, so the only option available to you is to change his team sweater. I recall you pulling the same stunt in a comment relating to ArtDecco, the flaming anti-Semite commenter at McClelland's blog.

As I grow a little older, I'm persuaded that, while our respective political positions do come in what Glavin calls "ideational packages," these are somewhat less bounded than we on all sides are often prepared to admit. One looks in vain for coherence, sometimes. I don't find George Galloway coherent or consistent. He's a one-man show, sometimes thundering against racism and homophobia, other times doing the same thing against choice on abortion, or rationalizing the deadly homophobia of the Iranian regime. Like Greg Palast, I'll choose my own comrades, Mike, and George isn't one of them.

Same goes for "ArtDecco." He's a mouldy, whiny anti-Semite who bids us read Kevin McDonald to get the "truth" about Jews. No comrade of mine.

6) " '....but the peace movement is the usual diverse bunch, most of whom want, well, peace.'

No they don't. They want the west's militaries confined to barracks. What happens as a consequence of that, they don't much care. How many "peace" rallies during the Rwanda butchery can you come up with for me, Dawg? Where were the "peace" activists who marched by the hundreds of thousands against the UN sanctioned 1991 Gulf War to toss Saddam out of Kuwait? Where were those who took to the streets to protest the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban? Why didn't these so-called peaceniks feel compelled to march in protest and demand western military intervention in Rwanda? I'll tell you why. They already had what they wanted. Western armies weren't in there fighting. Why would they ask for something that is so abhorrent to them?

The US didn't lift a finger to assist in Rwanda, and Bill Clinton in this respect was under no pressure from Mike's camp to intervene--indeed, Bob Dole was adamant at the time that the US should steer clear. So this is pretty rich. Here's a Left take on the matter. Where was Mike back then? And where is he now, as the Left calls for intervention and assistance in Darfur, where another genocide has been going on for quite a while? Have you joined in, Mike? Speak up, please, in the interests of consistency.

7) One doesn't have to believe that the "peace" movement's leadership is populated with closet Islamists, in order to see that the two have made common cause. As I've said many times before, radical Leftist ideologues and Islamist fundamentalists share common enemies. Both groups hate the United States, Israel, and aspects of western society, especially organized Christian religion and market Capitalism.

It's natural, then, for the "peace movement," populated as it is by hard Leftists, to not only refrain from criticizing the murderous, autocratic, misogynist, medieval Islamists, but to join with them in confronting their shared enemies. This is classic " The enemy of enemy is my friend," stuff.

The Left is here being criticized for allegedly having strange bedfellows, just as Glavin and others once denounced Maude Barlow by claiming that some ultra-Right wingnuts agreed with some of her anti-NAFTA stuff. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the Right is snuggling up with neo-Nazis in its campaign against human rights commissions. And my, aren't they sensitive when you point that out!

There is no Left "alliance" with "murderous, autocratic, misogynist, medieval Islamists." There is, and I'm quite prepared to concede this, a naive view on the fringe of the Left that any enemy of US imperial power is worthy of support--Mike's "enemy's enemy" and all that. But that's far from universally held. Check out the letter on p.4 here for a vigorous denunciation of that nonsense.

By the way, Mike, we don't "hate" the US or Israel, although we're strongly critical of the way both states behave. I personally don't like organized religion period. Nor capitalism. I plead guilty on that last charge.

8) In geopolitical matters, for us conservatives, radical Islam is the enemy, and the most dangerous threat to the well being of a large percentage of the world's population. For you and your comrades on the far Left, Dawg, you are provoked and angered in the extreme by the foreign policies of the United States and Israel. There simply isn't any rage left over for the monsters of al Qaeda.

Ah, that's better. "Provoked and angered" works better than "hate" for me. As for the monsters of al Qaeda, they wouldn't have arisen, and they wouldn't have anything to feed on, if not for millions of the wretched of the earth whose plight can be laid directly and indirectly at the door of the US and its Middle East beachhead, Israel. These terrorists didn't arise ex nihilo from some metaphysical rupture in history.

An aside: I don't shy away from using the word "terrorist/ism." "But the terms, of course, are always selectively applied. They don't get used when we refer to Iraq sanctions that killed more than a hundred thousand children ("It was worth it," chirped the then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright), or the invasions that have killed thousands upon thousands of Afghan and Iraqi civilians, or the millions of deaths in the Iraq-Iran conflict back when the US was backing Saddam Hussein, or the proto-Taliban mujahadin supported by the West against the Soviets.... If I were a brown person in any of those venues, I'd be plenty terrorized, if I were still alive.

9) The constant knee-jerk Israel-bashing is evident throughout the "peace" movement; same with the tolerance of and occasional bridge-building with those with very regressive social views, so is the transformation of third world reactionaries into heroes of national liberation.

This is a variant of the "anti-Semitic" card played by defenders of the state of Israel when we bring up such troubling events as the shooting of unarmed olive-harvesters in Nablus, the shelling of a kids' zoo in Ramallah, the collective punishments being visited upon Gaza, the wholesale destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, and the continued colonization of the West Bank by government-sanctioned settlers, who now guzzle 80% of the available water, while Palestinian farmers suffer a killing drought.

"Knee-jerk Israel-bashing?" What a pathetic rationalization of brutality!

But as for "bridge-building," I'm all for it. I'd rather jaw-jaw than waw-waw, as some undoubtedly leftist politician once said. Not that this isn't a perilous job--friends of mine went to Libya for a peace conference many moons ago, and discovered they were sharing their plane with, well, a gang of neo-Nazis. Whoops! (It would have been OK, I guess, if they'd been heading off to a free speech rally, but that's a debate for another day.) For now, I can only say that, if Karzai wants to sit down with the Taliban, that's fine with me. Dialogue is better than bombs, even if a lot of the former is of the ineffective, wishful thinking variety.

So, fellow peaceniks, let's plough on in our hopelessly muddled way and ignore the slanders of invaders, crusaders, keyboard warriors and fundamentalists of all stripes. Let's be wary and critical, and avoid weird, cultish excesses. By and large we're on the side of the angels. We want a better world. Don't you wish everybody did?

Up against the Wall...

Good grief, I can't leave my post for a minute before the fun starts. All the heavy lifting on the Premier-ditches- Small-Dead-Animals file has already been done, in the Saskatchewan legislature, the blogosphere, and the media.

But silence is complicity. And I'm having a Canadian Cynic moment.

Kate McMillan blows goats.

We now return to our regular civil, decorous, work-safe programming.

Sympathy for the devil

Oh. Yeah. It's after 12:00 p.m. Back to business. Sorry if I worried anyone or gave needless cause for celebration.

It seems that the Nazi-conservative alliance that I've been documenting for some while now is still bopping merrily along. This time, the target is Richard Warman--again. St. Ezra suggests that he be hounded at his new job, and is looking for volunteers. The Nazis, being somewhat cruder, just want him killed, and are looking for volunteers.

All in the name of free speech, of course.

H/ts.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Along with Matthew and Jason and Scott, I'm heading out the door to a place where the sun shines, the air is fresh, and the streets are clogged with snow.

It's been fun. I've enjoyed exchanging ideas, shots and insults with all of you. But blogging can take you away from the real things in life, the things that matter, the things that count. Whatever they are.

I'm bored with the warfare, tired of the bickering, fed up with the sheer million-miles-thick stupidity of it all. I've never really liked confrontation and controversy, and I've always done my best to avoid that sort of thing. All I've ever wanted is a little peace and quiet.

I been Kathy Shaidled, Holy Bibled.
I been Bobby Dylan'd, Kate McMillan'd.
I been Curried and Shlemazled till I'm blind.
I been Maher Arar'd, called a retard
Muslim, and a lefty blowhard.
That's the blogosphere, but never mind.

I been jeered and hectored, resurrected.
I been card sharper'd, Stephen Harper'd
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay.
And I caught my sparks from Old Man Marx,
And all my health won't get me wealth,
So I drink a quart of sake every day.

I knew a man, his brain so small,
He always blogs about nothin' at all.
He's not the same as you and me.
He's a Blogging Tory. He's so unhip that
When you say Dawg, he thinks you're talkin' about Deppity Dawg,
Whoever he was.
The man ain't got no culture,
He's like Osama,
Unbelievers must get stoned.
I been Jason Kenney'd, Damian Penny'd.
Omar Khadr, won't you please come home?

I been smothered, bothered, if'd and maybe'd,
Been Jerry Falwell'd, Pastor Hagee'd.
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.

Bye, all. It's been a slice.

Conservative blogs--military intervention needed?

A big hat-tip to Canadian Cynic for retrieving this nugget.

From a US military report co-authored by the infamous Dorothy Denning, promoter of the "Clipper chip," comes this proposal to infiltrate the blogosphere:

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence... to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

[Emphasis mine--DD]

A "significant educational burden?" Aw, come on. Lack of education has never stopped conservative blogs from being popular before. Indeed, education can be a serious stumbling-block when the aim is to inflame and mobilize the rubes. Why let analysis and ideas get in the way of a good hateful shriek?

So, bon courage, undercover milbloggers. Join the fray. No one will notice anything odd or untoward: you'll fit right in. Your challenge, though, is not to shoulder that "educational burden," but to shed it. Don't slow yourselves down. Who knows? Someday you might even win a Weblog Award.

Fitna of pique

Fitna, if I may be forgiven the pun, is all the rage on the starboard side of the blogosphere at the moment. No, I'm not about to put up a link to this miserable little propaganda effort, any more than I'd link to Der Ewige Jude. But I have seen it--twice--and I've been challenged by regular commenter Peter to say a few words about it, and so I shall.

Fitna is a film produced by the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Its thesis is simple, not to say simple-minded: recent frightful acts of Islamic terrorism are scripted and mandated in the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an. It's the religion, stupid. Tear out the pages of the book, he concludes, that promote terrorism.

Needless to say, the conservatives are having a field day with this one. And some Islamist nutcases have been making things easier for them, trying to threaten the film off the Internet. (Good luck with that one, fellas.)

Some holy books do have a certain tone to them in places, no mistake. But anyone can seize on a verse or two as an excuse for mayhem. It is not surprising that, in the charged and complex context of the Middle East today, there are strains of violent fanaticism that emphasize verses such as those quoted by Wilders, but not (for example) like these:

Say, 'O ye misbelievers! ² I do not serve what ye serve; ³ nor will ye serve what I serve; ⁴ nor will I serve what ye serve; ⁵ nor will ye serve what I serve. ⁶ Ye have your religion, and I have my religion!' (Sura 109, Qur'an)

But fundamentalism, of course, is not restricted to Muslims. One-quarter of Americans thought the Rapture was going to happen last year; a majority of them reject the theory of evolution. Luckily we do not live in a world in which American Christians are subject to the same misery that has been visited upon Middle Eastern Muslims, or else we might see people acting on such Biblical verses as these:

Psalms 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Leviticus 20:12-14 If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Matthew 10:34-36 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.

Psalms 58:10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

1 Samuel, chapter 15, verse 3: Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Hosea, chapter 13, verse 16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.

Numbers, chapter 31, verses 17-18: So now put every male child to death, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man. But all the female children who have had no sex relations with men, you may keep for yourselves.

Isaiah chapter 13, verse 16: Their young children will be broken up before their eyes; their goods will be taken away, and their wives made the property of others.

To blame terrorism on religion rather than on a series of circumstances in which religion becomes an alibi for violence is a grossly simplistic variant of root cause theory. Folks, the Qur'an is the wrong target. You're going to have to take a hard look at geopolitics today to unravel the causes of terrorism, and the appeal to religion is certainly a strand, if not the most significant one, in that sorry tale. But attacking the faith of hundreds of millions of people* because a relatively small handful of fanatics uses it as an excuse for atrocities is no more logical than attacking Christianity because of the excesses of Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps.

In fact, it's hateful and counterproductive. Wilders' attempt to portray Islam and its followers as a whole by the barbaric acts and mouthy fanatics shown in his film is hardly worth the trouble of refuting. But I do like to please my commenters. Follow-up comments, as always, are welcome.

____________________________
*UPDATE: (April 1) In fact, there are 1.3 billion Muslims today--one-fifth of the world's population.

"Nazi-schmazi!"

My, Kathy Shaidle and Jay Currie are oddly quick to side with a notorious neo-Nazi when he makes claims on the Internet. Erstwhile Heritage Front chief Marc Lemire is challenging the authenticity of a photograph that has appeared here as well as at many other sites, identifying him as the fellow standing to the left of Ernst Zündel, his former employer. I hope that his conservative buddies, reflexively jumping to his defence, are more critical about his Holocaust revisionism, but at this point I'm afraid to ask.

The source of the photo is the well-respected Nizkor site, dedicated to rebutting--with a mountain of facts and documents--the claims of Holocaust-deniers. It has been displayed there since at least 1999, without a hint of complaint from Lemire. We have only his word for the alleged date of the photograph, and for his claim that he did not know Zündel at the time. (There is an odd resemblance, one might note in passing, between the photo of Lemire as a teenager that he posted at his site, and the fellow to the right of Zündel.)

The alacrity with which conservatives and the, uh, far right link arms has been noted here before (in my "Sympathy for the Devil" series). Lemire worked for one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in recent history, he has lied about the Holocaust, he has quoted Adolf Hitler approvingly, he has been the leader of a neo-Nazi party, but hey! Don't call me a Nazi! Nazi-schmazi! I'm a free-speech martyr! And his conservative allies just lap it up.

Some folks have been "pwned" all right, Jay. Just have a look in the mirror to see one of them for yourself.

UPDATE: (March 31)

Jay Currie, inquiring about the photo, elicited this response from the legendary Ken McVay of Nizkor:

Lemire may be right, and I no longer identify the image as his because of his insistance that it isn't him.

I haven't seen Marc for 11 years, so cannot contest his assertion that it isn't him.

In that case, I can no longer insist that it is. Note to that effect at my earlier post, and, I hope, we can now all move on to better things.

Public justice and private bludgeons

It's probably almost time to wrap up the discussion of Human Rights Commissions at this point: the issue has been well canvassed, here in the comments and elsewhere, and the major arguments,both pro and con, have been articulately made.

But there is a loose end--a very big end, and very loose. And that is the question of the (mis)use of civil courts to crush the little guy's freedom of expression. Whether we are talking libel, slander, copyright or trademark, an ordinary person of relatively modest means simply cannot afford to defend him- or herself against individuals and corporations with deep pockets and vindictive attitudes.

Before getting into the substance of this, I need to note that some of the self-same people absolutely shocked, appalled and otherwise outraged by the benign wording of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act* are the first to defend the rights of the rich and powerful to hammer ordinary people into the ground for exercising their freedom of expression. Only Darcey Jerrom over at Dust My Broom has indicated any signs of alarm when St. Ezra of Free Expression uses the courts to persecute a small community newspaper and a former employee. (For information on the latter, Google "Dust My Broom" and "Merle Terlesky.) Other intrepid defenders of racists and neo-Nazis appear to be utterly disingenuous on this point: "It's not the same thing." "People who are sued can always get their costs back." Etc.

Of course we know that most people at the ass-end of such grossly unequal contests choose to settle and shut up from henceforward. A grovelling apology is extracted, money flows in its usual direction (from the poor to the rich), and natural order is restored. Conrad Black used to amuse himself in this manner quite a bit, major corporations like Daishowa have tried to shut down social activists, and now Canwest is going after a peacenik.

I have long suspected--and their untenable defence of the suppression of free expression when it's the wealthy who are doing it simply reinforces my suspicions--that the real agenda of the speech-warriors is to get rid of Human Rights Commissions altogether. The current controversies are just skirmishes in a wider war. In the great libertarian jungle, where the state is all but nonexistent and the strong are free to prey upon the weak, there is no place for a concept like "human rights," much less state institutions to mediate human rights complaints by citizens against other citizens. Why have that, when we have a crushingly expensive legal system that only the rich can afford? The real objection is that, with the establishment of Human Rights Commissions, those of modest resources can seek redress at comparatively little cost. They can fight back. For some, this is simply too much to bear.

The Human Rights Commission set-up, admittedly, is badly in need of tweaking. The respondent, who might end up considerably out of pocket, should be made whole if the complaint is dismissed. And, perhaps more important, the bar for accepting a complaint in the first place needs to be set relatively high, with a rigorous screening process to weed out trivial or unfounded complaints. (Oddly, though, when screening does take place--Shirleen McGovern's investigation into the validity of the complaint against Ezra Levant, for example, or Dean Steacy's initial investigation of complaints against Free Dominion--the worst possible construction is placed on it by the speech-warriors.) But this is a side-conversation. For the speechists, it's the baby and not the bathwater that needs to be tossed.

What, then, of defamation (libel and slander), copyright and trademarks? I am not arguing that any of these areas of law be abolished: but I am arguing for a much higher bar against prosecution, let alone conviction, and for a system that allows easier access to the average joe. Clearly we should not have an unfettered right to defame each other, or appropriate the intellectual work of others to reap their rightful rewards. But by the same token, the wealthy and powerful should not have the right to misuse the law to squelch dissent. And when they do, one might reasonably expect the speech-warriors to be offended, if you take what they say at face value. But reason has nothing to do with it, and we shouldn't be surprised when they do a neat 180° turn, for all of the reasons given above.

Space does not permit a thorough discussion of current slander and libel laws. Suffice it to say that, in the province of Ontario, one doesn't even have to prove damages to succeed in a defamation action. Suing people is far too easy, and defending against it, far too difficult. But let's take a closer look at copyright and trademark legislation.

In the case of Canwest's vengeful pursuit of a Jewish anti-Zionist, the law is clearly being misused. A trademark is established to protect a company's commercial interests. The pirating of the trademark by other commercial enterprises threatens those interests. The law was never intended to be used against parody or fair non-commercial use. But the latter exceptions do not exist in current copyright legislation. They should.

Bob Tarantino was kind enough to direct my attention to two articles by legal scholar Carys J. Craig on the copyright issue. (As I indicate below, there is some blurring of the boundaries between copyright per se and trademark rights, which are really a subset of the former.**) The first, "Putting the Community in Communication: Dissolving the Conflict between Freedom of Expression and Copyright" (University of Toronto Law Journal, v.56 [2006]) makes a strong case that copyright and freedom of expression stem from the same interests and the same mutual goals--the maximizing of social communication, interaction and participation.

She argues that court decisions against parody and fair use have been marred by a moralistic view of property as trumping all other concerns, including the right to freedom of expression as set out in Sn.2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The die was cast, she notes, with the 1996 decision of the Federal Court Trial Division in Michelin & Cie. v. CAW-Canada, since followed or cited in numerous other cases, even before the Supreme Court.

The defendants were attempting to organize the workers at Michelin plants in Nova Scotia, an uphill battle as usual, one that had already been the subject of government-Michelin complicity in the past. They produced some campaign literature showing the Michelin Man stomping a worker. Michelin countered with an action alleging infringement of copyrights and trademarks.

Almost needless to say, the court found in favour of Michelin, even ruling that the unauthorized use of the Michelin Man did not fall within the ambit of S.2 of the Charter. The author analyzes this decision in detail. The Court erased the differences between physical property and intellectual property. Yet, as she points out, these differences are profound. She makes the obvious point that subordinating freedom of expression to copyright law, a regulatory regime that according to the Supreme Court is neither tort law or property law, is tantamount to permitting state regulation to restrict freedom of expression in general. Any such restriction, she argues, should be subject to evaluation under Sn.1 of the Charter, not excluded from Charter scrutiny altogether.

But her key point, treated at greater length in an earlier paper, "Locke, Labour and Limiting Author's Right: A Warning against a Lockean Approach to Copyright Law" (Queen's Law Journal, v.28 [2002]), is that the concept of intellectual property itself is deeply flawed. The purpose of copyright, as noted, is to maximize public communication. Without allowing an author some protection, fewer intellectual works would be produced and circulated. The author argues, as mentioned earlier, that there is a common interest in copyright law and in constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression: both aim to enhance the public flow of ideas. When copyright is used simply to stifle new production, therefore, its own basis is undermined.

Copyright, she maintains, should not be confused with private property. It serves a social, not individual function. A vital aspect of communication is an audience--the right to freedom of expression doesn't mean much if that expression is not public. Copyright, then, intended to provide incentives for the circulation of ideas, cannot be reduced simply to an individual property right. Copyright is in the public interest; hence it resides in the public sphere.

There is no authorship ab initio; every author uses ideas, forms, language, etc. that are already in the public sphere. What is authorship? The more closely one tries to grasp the concept, the slipperier it becomes. But without delving further into that question, surely we can agree that the reinscription of a trademark or a copyrighted work within a new context, one that in no way jeopardizes the rewards accruing to the original copyright holder, should not be subject to legal suppression.

Yet at this point it is. "What is surprising...is the complacency with which courts today regard the silencing of critical speech through the tool of copyright and accept the chilling effects that naturally accompany it," Craig writes. It is hard to disagree. This area of the law should be a target for comprehensive reform for those with an interest in freedom of expression. But don't expect the speech-warriors to lead the charge--they're over there on the other side of the barricades, vigorously defending privilege and power against the ordinary citizen, and a spurious, exclusively private "ownership" of expression over the public interest.

_______________
*It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

**Actions with respect to alleged trademark infringement alone do not tend to succeed if the purpose is non-commercial (h/t here to truewest); copyright law, however, makes no such distinctions.

Benighted

I dunno. Sometimes even halfway-intelligent folks like Jay Currie simply lose their minds.

Look, I'm a bit of a cynic myself--gestures like Earth Hour do raise awareness, but in my opinion it will take some serious if not catastrophic environmental crises to wake people up to the point that anything serious is done. Why do I say that? Because even people with a few brains--Jay Currie, for example--are so blinded by ideology and prejudice that they think it's funny to try to sabotage a mild little effort like this. It's rather like deliberately scattering garbage when the neighbourhood is going on a clean-a-thon, or taking a dump in your local river when locals are lobbying for anti-pollution measures.

What, I sometimes wonder, would it really take to break through the layers of self-deception and obstinacy that make conservatives think it's cute to put high-wattage lamps on during Earth Hour? I'm not even sure about serious environmental crises, come to think of it. We're in one, after all, and the assorted hicks and rubes (with their smart-ass vanguard) are still snickering and guffawing. I can imagine this sorry handful of know-nothings in the days of the Great Flood, sitting around drinking beer, laughing at Noah and hiding the unicorns.

I guess all we can do is plow gamely on, as the science progresses, and the climatological equivalents of Peter Duesberg shriek against the increasingly obvious, and the yahoos turn up their lights and rev their motorcycles and engage in all kinds of nutty "dissent." That kind of blind reaction, as we know, never grows old.

I'm glad we beat smallpox into the ground, and I'm kind of hoping we do the same with global warming. I would like my great-grandkids to live to see the denialists archived in Wikipedia, their scribblings and foamings, their pseudo-science and conspirazoid thinking, preserved only there and in yellowing pamphlets and long-defunct blogsites, more grist for the mill of historians of anti-ideas and ideologically-driven fads. And for that alone, I'll make the token gesture tonight.

Don't hold your breath...

Here's a case to put the speech-warriors on their mettle.

Ezra? Mark? Mike? Deborah? Jay? Kate? Kathy? Connie? Terry? John of the unravelling onion?

Hello?...Hello?

*crickets*


(H/t Bread and Roses)

UPDATE: (March 28)

Mike Brock, at least, has risen to the challenge...sort of. He sees a difference--do you see a difference?

UPPERDATE: (March 28)

Jay Currie thinks there's a difference, too. The debate turns out not to be about freedom of speech at all, but about that holiest of conservative icons, privatization. CHRC, bad. It's the state. Canwest, and by extension, Conrad Black, Ezra Levant et al., just fine. It's private citizens and corporations. One of the latter goes after you, just mortgage everything you own to defend yourself. Hey, after a few years of paying lawyers you might even get some of your costs back. That's why most people settle, and take a smaller hit from the bully.

I can see a difference, come to think of it. Human Rights Commissions are set up to allow ordinary citizens the opportunity to fight against discrimination and hatred, through a tribunal process. The civil court system offers the rich and powerful the opportunity to hammer the little guy into the ground. Both fora, of course, are equally part of the state apparatus. Guess which one the conservatives defend? While alleging that they're in favour of freedom of speech?

The Human Rights Tribunal process needs some tweaking, no argument there. Successful respondents should be made whole. The bar should be higher for screening complaints at the intake stage. But our libel and slander laws are a disgrace, and our copyright laws too, and they all require a substantial overhaul. You won't get any support from the speech warriors for that, though, by the looks of it.

(And for a sorely-needed comedic interlude in the midst of all this serious talk, Kate McMillan shows up to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty. I nearly sneezed my beer through my ears.)