Rights and Democracy: everybody's out of step but the Magnificent Seven [Updated]

The late President. The employees. Grant recipients. "Outsiders who willingly propagate convenient fantasies for their own ends."

Yet another op-ed from the Magnificent Seven. Do these people have any notion of how weak and self-serving their by-now stale protestations appear?

That's a rhetorical question.

Once again, the name of former President Rémy Beauregard is dragged through the mud:

Both before and after its compulsory submission of the review to government, the board's evaluation committee (the same three members whose resignation is being demanded) repeatedly offered to meet with the former president to discuss the evaluation. Regrettably, he rejected that option, rejected the review of his leadership, and launched an intensive campaign to overturn it.

It was his right to object, and to counter with his own report. But instead, he turned to his senior managers, and they in turn involved their subordinate staff to combat what the president claimed was a grievous wrong.

Charitably, this can be seen as a misjudgment arising from emotion, one that could have been rectified had outside actors with their own agendas not seized what they saw as a prime propaganda opportunity. [emphases added]

This is beyond foul. As I have noted before--and indeed, rather than repeat myself on every point, I direct readers' attention to that review of the Magnificent Seven's previous flim-flammery, tiresomely recycled in this new broadside--Beauregard was indeed willing to meet, but the evaluation committee couldn't seem to find a convenient time. In the event, Beauregard never did see his evaluation until he pried it from his tormentors' hands with an Access to Information request. And your tax dollars and mine were used to hire expensive legal help to (unsuccessfully) contest that request.

Nor did "outsider actors" with or without their own agendas even get involved in this mess until Beauregard was dead. Meanwhile the staff were being ethnically profiled by Magnificent Seven member Jacques Gauthier. They complained in an all-but-unanimous letter on January 11 that intimidation and harassment at work were the order of the day. It was at that point that people like myself started to notice this little agency in Montreal and the bizarre goings-on there.

But the disingenuousness continues, without let-up. "There is no credible evidence of any attempt to politically interfere" with the Board, quoth the Seven, but it was the very fact of their appointments in the first place that constituted what many observers consider to be interference. Nor should we be lulled by their oh-so-innocent claims that none of them "had any discernible partisan background," or that there was no "Israel issue" at Rights and Democracy.

As I commented earlier:

Middle East politics...have been foregrounded at ICHRDD for months. The new Board appointees include two active members of B'nai Brith (Braun and David Matas). Jacques Gauthier wrote a PhD thesis defending the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel. The Board also has a couple of Conservative Party trained seals (failed CPC candidate Brad Farquhar and Marco Navarro-Génie, who did his thesis work at the University of Calgary under Tom Flanagan), and a business-oriented Christian think-tanker, Michael Van Pelt.

And then, once again: "Accountability is the issue that should be the sole rallying point at Rights and Democracy."

Uh-huh. At the Board's meeting this week, the Seven, who have the votes, will be making by-law changes that will concentrate more power in the hands of the President, including unfettered contracting rights without tender. This might provide some retroactive justification, of course, for the recent rash of hirings at Rights and Democracy: private detectives, forensic auditors, outside communications people--even though R&D has a communications section--and a CEO. Four staff members considered all this to be outside established procedures, and brought it to the forensic auditors' attention. The four were promptly handed suspensions.

Feh.

The Magnificent Seven say they would welcome a public inquiry. Bring it on. And in the meantime, let the widow speak.

UPDATE: Conservative shill Senator Linda Frum weighs in--what a remarkable coincidence of timing. And Paul Wells responds.

Here is Linda, and her warmed-over talking points (emphases added):

Anyone who has ever served on a board knows that such inquiries on the part of a board chair and the audit and finance committee are necessary in order to fulfill the duty of “due diligence.” But to the managers of R and D—unaccustomed to any challenge to their authority and hostile to investigations into their pet projects—the board’s interest was deemed “harassment” and requests for “sensitive” information were rejected or stonewalled.

It would be interesting to have her evidence for this. She's only an "outsider with an agenda," after all. Why do I suspect that she's simply channeling Aurel Braun? It's worth pointing out--yet again--that virtually every member of the R&D staff, not solely management, signed a letter complaining of harassment and intimidation.

To this day, management refuses to co-operate fully with an audit being conducted by the respected firm of Deloitte & Touche. Instead, they have launched a self-righteous campaign of media sniping and obfuscation—aided by the disappearance of managerial laptops and computer records.

As noted earlier, four employees who did provide information to the auditors were promptly punished. And the suggestion that staff had anything to do with the theft of laptop computers and records is simply unconscionable.

The sudden death in January of Remy Beauregard has injected an element of sorrow to the situation, but it does not alter a public body’s duty to account for public money. By January 2010, even Beauregard finally came to the conclusion that giving money to Al Haq (and like organizations) was wrong and voted to repudiate it. But the staff he left behind remain resentful of the board’s scrutiny.

Not so. The money was long gone, the "repudiation" but a gesture. Beauregard voted with the majority because, I am reliably informed, he simply wanted peace.

The R and D staff’s anger at the board’s curiosity suggests that something has gone very wrong at R and D.

Or that anger might suggest that there's a serious problem with the Board. Is ethnic profiling a bona fide management technique?

On March 29, Gerard Latulippe, an experienced administrative law and labour lawyer with professional expertise in promoting democratic accountability in the third world (most recently in Haiti), will take over as Rights and Democracy’s new president.

What--no mention of his opposition to gay rights and his Islamophobia? Is he really a suitable President for an organization whose mandate is to promote human rights? What about a little "democratic accountability" right here at home?

He has the tough task of reforming an agency gone rogue long ago.

What utter rot. As has been pointed out almost from the start, R&D had been subject to annual audits and a five-year audit by Foreign Affairs--and passed with flying colours. Did Frum's informants fail to mention that?

Yes, some of the staff are complaining anonymously to the press. But the complaints do not prove them right. On the contrary, their complaints prove how very deep the problems go.

Oh, indeed they do, Linda, indeed they do.

So much for déjà vu all over again. Now Paul:

Elsewhere in today’s news, the Braun Seven majority on the board of Rights and Democracy has published another in their series of occasional op-eds wondering why the world is so mean to them. “We call upon Parliament to hold public hearings so that facts can replace fantasies, and we can move ahead,” they write.

Here’s a fact: after first confirming he would appear tomorrow before the foreign-affairs committee of Parliament, Braun has now sent word that he’s too busy to show up.

Well, read the whole article for yourselves. And pay careful attention to this:

A month ago they hired Deloitte to do an audit of the company’s books over a carefully-selected date span. “Results will be made public as soon as possible after the report is accepted by the board of directors,” Gauthier said in the press release sent out by a communications firm he hired without tender outside the target period of the Deloitte audit.

Excellent. Good. Fine. Great. The Deloitte audit was going to take three weeks. That was four weeks ago. When will Braun and Gauthier table the audit — along with the terms of reference and the details of the consulting contracts Gauthier has entered into, on Rights and Democracy’s behalf, since February?

Since nobody has anything to hide.

Ouch. That's gotta leave a mark.


[H/t Ti-Guy]

US health care bill passes

...and unhappy Teabaggers take their leave of Washington.

More Harper mind control

Nobel Prize nominee effectively barred from Canada:

The Canadian government issued a visa to a prominent peace activist and Palestinian MP too late for him to make the long trek in time for a three-city speaking tour about Middle East politics.

"It is clear I cannot make it," Mustafa Barghouti said from Ramallah on Friday after having learned that Canada would issue him a visa when it was already impossible for him to arrive in time to speak at two of three scheduled public events.

The physician, independent MP and former presidential candidate for the Palestinian Authority, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was scheduled to speak on Palestinian politics and peace in the Middle East while in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

His appearance at the University of Toronto Saturday had been sold out and Barghouti was scheduled to meet with senior members of the three opposition parties Monday.

Only one point of view is to be permitted in Canada under the Harper regime: Israel, right or wrong. Keep Canada pure and free of other ideas. Maybe we need a Canada Apartheid Week.

[H/t Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, via Filasteen]

Homophobes and racists gather in Washington

That would be the delightful proto-fascist, spitting and hissing "Tea Party" mob, showing up to protest a bill that would give poor Americans access to medical care. Nothing new there.

Needless to say, the Usual Suspects here at home are on-side. (Isn't that last commentary a keeper? Here's the Teabagger civility this conservative is lauding.)

UPDATE: More from reader Terrence Watson. As he says, it's a hard video to watch: Teabaggers mocking a man with Parkinson's disease.

[H/t Montreal Simon]

More on Watts: the buried lede

There is more to the plight of Peter Watts (a Canadian citizen who has just been found guilty of "obstruction" in Michigan for the crime of asking a US border thug a question) than immediately meets the eye.

As I noted in my earlier post, the Michigan prosecutor is seeking to extend the possible sentence he will receive. She is looking into having Watts declared an "habitual offender" on the basis of an alleged conviction in 1991. In Canada.

Today Watts enlarges a little on that:

There’s been a lot of recent murmling, both here and abroad, about my so-called “Criminal record”, my “previous Felony Conviction” in Canada, and my potential “habitual offender” status. I don’t want to go into too much detail because evidently — and contrary to my initial understanding — this is still an active issue. But I can state this much unequivocally: I do not have a criminal record in Canada. I have never been convicted of anything in Canada; those of you who want to find evidence to the contrary, knock yourselves out and good luck. These latest allegations have their roots in a 1991 incident so dick-ass that the official records themselves have long since been destroyed. It was invoked by the Prosecution very early in the proceedings (as an intimidation tactic, I suspect), probably due to an interjurisdictional misunderstanding (i.e., the same legal term has a different meaning in Canada than it does in the US). [emphasis added]

Take a good look at the bolded bit. Nearly two decades ago, Watts had a minor incident with the police that did not lead to a conviction, and the official records were destroyed.

How did a prosecutor in Port Huron, Michigan, learn about this, then?

I soon recalled another case, involving a friend of mine, Tom Juravich. This time it was a matter of an American citizen being denied entry into Canada. Twenty-six years earlier, Tom had been arrested for taking part in a non-violent sit-in. As in Watts' case, no criminal record ensued: charges, in fact, were dropped the day after his arrest. Once again, official records had been destroyed, which made it very difficult, in fact, for Tom to prove he had no criminal record. Finally, he obtained a document and entered the country:

This morning at 11:00 am (Friday,August 3) I entered the Canadian Border Services office at Cornwall and am delighted to report that I was allowed back into Canada and received my work permit to teach at Carleton University. I presented a court document indicating that all charges had been dropped against me (which turned out very difficult to obtain because my official court records were no longer available 26 years later).My file on both sides of the border now indicates I have been "rehabilitated" – from being innocent!

This is profoundly disturbing. Sundry small-time officials appear to have their mitts all over ancient arrest records of people in another country, defective records that carry no follow-up information.

As noted, Tom did get to teach at Carleton, after being "rehabilitated," a word that has a certain ring to it. Watts, however, is facing three years in jail for asking a goon who had just beaten him, "What's the problem?" His alleged "habitual offender" status is utterly bogus, but may net him another year in jail on top of the two he faced originally for "obstruction." Probably the podunk prosecutor didn't even know the outcome of the 1991 events--and likely she didn't care one way or the other.

But the wider questions are these: why are two governments sharing defective information with each other that poses a clear and present danger to innocent citizens? How much other unverified information, about you, about me, is sitting in shared databases at the moment, ready to be activated and used against us without warning by small-time officials with attitude? What recourse do ordinary folks have, other than getting expensive searches done on our own dime when we get into a jam?

Welcome to the wonderful world of deep integration. Be very afraid.

You go, PSA!

Progressive bloggers rawk!

(POGGE notes that he's calling it an album, so I hope my illustration is appropriate.)

UPDATE: A little sample for your listening pleasure:

Update on Peter Watts: American thuggery triumphant

I blogged about this before: science-fiction writer and Canadian citizen Peter Watts was brutally assaulted by US Home Security thugs last December as he was returning home to Canada. In time-honoured fashion, the thugs then charged Watts with assault on them.

Now a Michigan jury, obviously eager to show a Canuck who's boss, has found him guilty of "obstruction." Watts faces up to three years in an American prison--for asking a question.

He's awaiting sentence, and so he's talking nice. Apparently asking an officer "What's the problem?" when being ordered to the ground after a major beating was sufficient "obstruction" for the authorities, and for that wretched jury of his peers. Here is the prosecutor (this is best read in a Colonel Klinck accent):

"An officer gives you a command, you have to listen."

Here is an account of what happened:

The scuffle happened on Dec. 8 as Watts was returning to Toronto after helping a friend move to the U.S. He had driven to Nebraska with a friend to help a University of Toronto professor relocate.

As he crossed the Blue Water Bridge on his way to Sarnia, U.S. customs officers pulled him over. When two guards began rifled [sic] through his car, Watts got out and asked what they were doing.

During the melee, one of the guards said he felt like he was being choked by Watts, so he repeatedly elbowed the author, Kelly said.

Outside the car, the guards ordered Watts to the ground, but he stood motionless, asking what the problem was.

“After several commands, he was maced,” Kelly said.

Note the transitions here: he asked what the customs officers were doing, which caused a "melee," which led to being elbowed and maced. In fact, evidence at trial exposed serious inconsistencies in the officers' accounts--they lied, in other words--and they were conclusively shown to be the mindless thugs that they are.

From the victim himself:

What constitutes "failure to comply with a lawful command" is open to interpretation. The Prosecution cited several moments within the melee which she claimed constituted “resisting”, but by her own admission I wasn’t charged with any of those things. I was charged only with resisting Beaudry, the guard I’d "choked". My passenger of that day put the lie to that claim in short order, and the Prosecution wasn’t able to shake that. The Defense pointed out that I wasn’t charged with anything regarding anyone else, and the Prosecution had to concede that too. So what it came down to, ultimately, was those moments after I was repeatedly struck in the face by Beaudry (an event not in dispute, incidentally). After Beaudry had finished whaling on me in the car, and stepped outside, and ordered me out of the vehicle; after I’d complied with that, and was standing motionless beside the car, and Beaudry told me to get on the ground — I just stood there, saying “What is the problem?”, just before Beaudry maced me.

And that, said the Prosecutor in her final remarks — that, right there, was failure to comply. That was enough to convict.

Watts is way too kind when he suggests that the jury was working from a bad statute. I don't have to be. This was lockstep fascism in action, folks. And there's more coming.

Watts is to be sentenced on April 26. Unbelievably, the prosecutor is seeking an enhanced sentence:

Jurors returned the verdict about in St. Clair County Circuit Judge James Adair's courtroom. He will be sentenced April 26. Watts, 52, faces up to two or three years in prison. Senior Assistant Prosecutor Mary Kelly said officials are trying to determine if Watts' 1991 conviction for obstructing a police officer in Guelph, Ont., can be used to make him a habitual offender per Michigan's laws.

Habitual offenders face enhanced sentences in Michigan. If the 1991 conviction doesn't count, Watts faces up to two years in prison. If it does, he faces up to three years, Kelly said.

Here is the email address of the US Embassy in Canada. The Ambassador's name is David Jacobson, and the correct form of address is "Your Excellency."* You know what to do.

UPDATE: (March 21) More from Cory Doctorow. More from Peter Watts. Obedience to authority was the crux. As was the case here. And of course here.

__________________
*Whoops, my bad. "Your Excellency" for personal address; but "Excellency" as a salutation in a written communication.

Rights and Democracy: widow stonewalled by Cons

The Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade are none too happy that the widow of former Rights and Democracy President Rémy Beauregard wants to appear before the Committee. Here is her letter, in full:

Mr. Allison, President:
Members of the Committee:

I am writing to you to request to appear before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development with respect to the Rights & Democracy's hearing. I am presenting this request as the wife of Remy M. Beauregard, President of the organization until his sudden death which happened last January 8th.

The three dismissed managers, Marie-France Cloutier, Razmik Panossian and Charles Vallerand, as well as former board director Payam Akhavan, who resigned on last January 7th, have also requested to appear before the Committee, and I would like to be able to do so at the same time.

Considering the events I witnessed during the months preceding and following my husband's death, I think it is important that I can be heard, particularly to clear my husband's name in order to remove from the Privy Council Office all the documents regarding his evaluation that are still in his file.

The allegations and comments, particularly those on his evaluation, have contributed to strongly affect his health. Since March 2009, my husband was constantly exposed to a lot of pressure from certain board directors, who seemed to have doubt in his management ability, and who interfered within his functions as President and chief executive officer of the organization, which exceeds their role as board directors.

This hearing will finally give me the opportunity to express myself, in spite of my sorrow and grief, on a situation that has been lasting for months, and which has profoundly damaged the perception on the Canadian actions with respect to human rights and democracy, at the national and international levels.

I thank you in advance for your attention to my request, and I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Suzanne R. Trepanier

The Cons' response was to filibuster. What are they afraid of?

Meanwhile, embattled Rights and Democracy Board chair Aurel Braun has condescended to spend an hour with the Committee next Tuesday. Board member Jacques Gauthier, who served as interim President after Beauregard's death, has not yet confirmed. And on March 30, the frankly Islamophobic new President, Gérard Latulippe, will grace the Committee with his presence. I hope Committee members ask about his opposition to gay rights, as well, but don't expect those members to be Conservatives.

"Why are bloggers male?"

...asks Margaret Wente in today's Globe & Mail.

My first thought: Kate McMillan won't like that. My second thought: can we expect another post in her tiresome "Not Waiting for the Asteroid" series? If this keeps on, she might actually have a point.

Commenter "pipesdreams," in any case, has done all the heavy lifting necessary:

If the author had bothered to do any research at all, she would have seen that the statistics from popular blogging communities beg to differ. See: LiveJournal's gender divide http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml that shows 63% of women more likely to maintain a blog versus 37% of men.

But here's Wente, who sounds personally stung:

Perhaps you've noticed that most of the comments on these websites are not terribly sophisticated. They contain a large insult quotient, even when they come from people with advanced degrees.

Surely not.

And:

All you have to do is write "Margaret Wente is an idiot" and hit send. Instant gratification!

This time I managed to restrain myself. :)

Release the files

No, those files. Now.

Torturegate is over with

John Ibbitson: "The detainees issue is dead in the water."

On the positive side, all passengers were saved on the Titanic, and President Dewey kept the US out of the Korean War.

Push comes to shove

Shall Parliamentary supremacy be upheld?

Three appeals to the Speaker from Derek Lee (L), Jack Harris (NDP) and Claude Bachand (BQ). Should the Speaker rule that the continuing defiance of Parliament by the Conservatives is a breach of Parliamentary privilege, motions will be presented:

Turn over the unredacted Afghanistan documents, or be found in contempt of Parliament.

Updates to follow.

UPDATE: Deets from Kady O'Malley.

Five-dollar foot-longs

"It was just, let's see how many times we can say 'five dollar foot-long.' Let's mention it as many times as possible without making someone hurt us." --Jerry Cronin and Jamie Mambro of the ad agency MMB

Admit it. There's something about that mindwormy little jingle that attracts. Unlike most of those annoying little sound-squibs, this one seems to retain its freshness. Almost like a new-made Subway.

For me it's always been the harmony over the syllable "longs"--no musical expert, I figured it had to be a minor chord, and I was right:

"The chord structure does imply something dark," [the composer, Jimmy Harned] agreed, getting out his guitar to demonstrate over the phone. "On the word long, [the guitar part] goes down from a C to an A-flat," he said, strumming, "which is kind of a weird place. It's definitely not a poppy, happy place. It's more of a metaly place. But at the same time, the singing stays almost saccharine." (The vocals shift to form an F minor over the guitar's A-flat.)

And for your pleasure there's an extended synth-pop version available. Don't drop your sandwich!



Better than Stephen Harper on YouTube, but that's just me. Get down and boogie, or whatever the cool kids are saying now.

Wednesday home truths (or debatable propositions)

• Mike Duffy is no hypocrite. No one could ever accuse him of "critical thinking."
  
  
• Banning religious garments does not make a society "pluralist." The 0.01% of clients who request a female worker to take their photographs are not imposing undue hardship upon the Quebec Health Insurance Board.
  
  
• Refusing to fund family planning doesn't improve maternal health.
  
  
• Babble proves my point.

Discuss, if you have a mind to. :)

Leftovers

That would be the antic collection of Stalinists ruling the roost over at Babble. I guess my ears were burning. The fools are once again giving us progressives a bad name.

Intelligent right-wingers should take no comfort from this. Surely they must squirm uncontrollably when mudfish like Canadian Sentinel, Patrick Ross, Maria Nunes ("Dodo Can Spell") and other lackwits venture forth into the public arena sporting conservative colours. No surprise, then, that there are folks on the Left who make me writhe in similar pain.

The recent eruption at Babble concerned Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, a colourful character who supported a Progressive Conservative motion in the legislature denouncing Israel Apartheid Week. She came in for some slanging for that, and had a kind of meltdown on Facebook. Other Facebook groups sprang up, of those whom DiNovo had "defriended" over all this, but they mysteriously disappeared, one by one.

Needless to say, the bulk of the Babblers (and they do come in bulk) was highly critical of DiNovo. Hey, count me in. But readers will know that this kind of Stalinist claptrap isn't my style, nor to my taste:

I'm content to just see her dismissed with contempt wherever she shows her face - unless, and until, she does the right thing, recants, and asks forgiveness.

(Shades of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Pictured above, the staff of the Heilongjiang Daily merrily roasting Luo Zicheng, the leader of the committee work group of the provincial Communist Party, for allegedly following "the capitalist line" and "opposing the revolutionary mass movement." His dunce cap spells out his crimes against the people. It almost, but somehow not quite, makes me nostalgic.)

Now, one intrepid Babbler, calling himself "synthome," ventured an opposing opinion. He may not have been the most tactful individual, but tact is a rather rare commodity over there in any case: it's no doubt considered a sign of bourgeois weakness. His point, in any event, was that DiNovo had some impressive anti-poverty street cred, and shouldn't be thrown on the dustheap of history for her views on IAW--views which, to a large extent, he shared.

The results were entirely predictable. First came a torrent of abuse: then a "moderator" stepped in, and banned him for "pomposity." Here, let the outcast wretch speak for himself.

The poor man seems to have suffered the same even-handed treatment that I once received over at Babble (M-L), better known as EnMasse. I had ventured to defend Green leader Elizabeth May against bogus charges that she was "anti-choice." Same deal: I was exposed to a withering barrage of insults and denunciations, and when I told the most repulsive of my antagonists--the same self-styled "Unionist" who authored the quotation above--to go forth in fornicating fashion, it was only then a "moderator" stepped out from the shadows and proceeded to lecture me about politesse.

EnMasse didn't have to ban me. I banned myself forthwith.

This "Unionist," in fact, is quite the Grand Inquisitor. He subsequently criticized an EnMasse participant for daring to link to a post of mine, referring to me as a "creep" (an obscure political category he often employs), and "anti-choice," even suggesting that I was anti-Semitic--this time for my defence of a memorial in Berlin to the gay victims of Nazism. He effectively runs the show at Babble, quick to denounce all and sundry who do not adhere to his version of the General Line. The "moderators" step out of his way. Perhaps they're afraid of him. The regulars adore him.

In any case, I ventured over to "synthome"'s blogsite, Spurs, to commiserate. I also let him know that I didn't happen to agree with his defence of the Ontario NDP (re IAW). He said he'd be curious to "read my thoughts" about the latter, so I suggested for efficiency's sake that he search on "apartheid" at my place.

The Babblers were soon all over this. My brief response to "synthome"'s question, at his own site, was termed "self-promotion." Commissar "Unionist" agreed, and he went on to refer to me as an "individual using 20-syllable words," proving that he's innumerate as well as politically illiterate. I think he meant it as a criticism.

"Synthome" came back, thinly-disguised, to defend himself. A regular known as "Stargazer" quickly spotted him and duly denounced him as a "creep." But "Unionist" displayed a rare sense of humour:

I disagreed with synthome's banning at the time, and I still do, although obviously I understood the rationale. He should be allowed to post here, as long as he follows babble policy and desists from his personal attacks. I believe that if we reinstate his privileges and invite him to just post on questions of substance, he will respond in kind. He obviously has something to offer, but he can't spit it out while he's busy attacking me, babble, and "rabid Leftists" as he puts it.

I guess what I'm proposing is that we give him the opportunity to correct his ways. [emphasis laughingly added]

"Frustrated Mess" casts no further light on the arcane political meaning of "creep," which is obviously not considered to be one of those "personal attack" thingies. He or she prefers tautology to analysis:

Creep seems such an appropriate characterization for someone who would sign up to babble just to expose themselves as ... well, a creep.

And then we have that stock figure, the policeman's friend:

It takes a fair amount of contempt for an on-line community to repeatedly hack your way back into a discussion board that you have been explicitly banned from participating in. It's quite the precedent, too. I suppose you're okay with every other person who has been banned for violating the terms of use doing the same. After all, if you don't respect the authority of the moderators, why should they?

He would prefer, obviously, "just enough people for half a dialogue." And he's far from alone.

Something about Usenet-style boards seems to encourage this sort of thing. I don't think politics is the key issue, actually--it's something about the design of these sites in the first place, and the people they attract. Bread and Roses is one progressive board that, thankfully, seems to have escaped the trend: at the risk of being flip, I suggest that might have something to do with the woman's touch. But most of these sites soon become dominated by in-groupy regulars who behave like particularly surly customs and immigration officials and police their turf with all the zeal of the KGB.

Thank goodness the blogosphere isn't like that at all. :)

UPDATE: Follow the Babble thread. Do these folks ever use their indoor voices?

When Rahim and Helena were young

...before the world turned cold.

The Iacobucci memory hole

Reports are circulating that citizen Frank Iacobucci may take as long as a year and a half to issue his opinion about which unredacted Afghan detainee documents Parliament should be permitted to see. If that's the case, may as well burn the damned things.

Prominent Liberal bloggers are starting to sweat.

Has Harper pulled another magnificent rabbit out of the hat he talks through? Or is that just Michael Ignatieff with an empty Easter basket?

And will the NDP hold to its Friday deadline and bring up their own question of privilege if the Liberals fold?

No timeline has been imposed on Iacobucci, but the Liberals are already moving off the key issue--Parliamentary supremacy. Liberal Ralph Goodale is publicly speculating about how long Iacobucci will need. And an NDP spokesperson is talking about widening his mandate:

Megan Leslie, an NDP MP who participated in the same panel, said she agreed with Mr. Goodale. “Justice Iacobucci, brilliant legal mind. Let's use that brilliant legal mind for something bigger than this,” she said. “Let's look at the whole detainee question.”

Talk like this makes me nervous. Iacobucci's presence, it appears, has been tacitly accepted. That should not be. That must not be.

In all this flurry, whatever happened to Rob Walsh? Remember him? He's the Law Clerk of Parliament. It's his job to pronounce on matters like this. And he did. But he said what Harper didn't want to hear: the committee seized of the Afghan detainee issue has a right to access the unredacted documents.

So Iacobucci has essentially been brought in from the outside to offer a second opinion. He's looking more and more like a shill, witting or unwitting. But even there, confusion reigns. He hasn't yet been cleared to examine anything, and Harper and his Justice Minister are at odds about his mandate. More smoke. Black, billowing smoke.

Will the issue of the supremacy of Parliament--our MPs calling the shots, in other words, a little trifle called "responsible government"--be back-burnered under the glazed eyes of the opposition until well after the next election?

It's sure looking that way.

UPDATE: More from Kady O'Malley.

Suck it up

...or else.

Here's the story. And here's Free Dominatrix Connie Fournier:

So, it sounds like most people who actually knew him thought the shooter was a pretty normal guy.* However, someone decided he was a "racist", and he was suspended from his job and his reputation was ruined.

Then they wonder why the guy snapped and started shooting people!

Well, all I can say is that I'm surprised that more victims of the "racist" witch hunt haven't done similar things. [emphasis added]

Sweet. Get the message, you coloureds?

[H/t CC]
____________
*A "pretty normal guy" with a swastika tattoo, described by co-workers as a "white supremacist," who once stabbed a teenager to death over a spilled drink. [H/t Holly Stick]

[Editor's note: the photo is of the Fourniers receiving the "George Orwell Free Speech Award" in 2009. Previous honorees include Holocaust-deniers Ernst Zündel, Malcolm Ross, David Irving and James Keegstra.]

Mr. Iacobucci...

...your opinion isn't worth a pinch.

The terms of reference ask Iacobucci to determine whether the contents of the documents could pose a risk to Canada's international relations, national defence or national security, and to examine the question of whether the dangers in releasing them would be outweighed by the public interest.

Parliament decides these things--you know, the elected representatives of Canadians. Not, with respect, some ex-judge appointed by the Prime Minister. If Parliament had consulted you as an expert, that might have been different. But it had no say in the matter.

Hang in there, Derek Lee. Hang in there, NDP. This farce can't be permitted to continue.

It's a lot bigger than the Afghan detainee issue now. Parliamentary supremacy is at stake. Canadians don't need Iacobucci or any other Harper hireling telling Parliament how much democracy it will henceforward be permitted to have.

When he actually sat on the bench and had the power to make rulings, we might have politely suggested that Mr. Justice Iacobucci recuse himself. Now that he's just a citizen like us, how does "go away" sound?

That niqāb thing

Margaret Wente has a go at the two solitudes this morning--alleging a stark difference between French-language and English-language coverage of the Naima Ahmed affair. Wente likes her black-and-white, but in fact the National Post and the Globe and Mail were completely at odds over the matter.

A commentator in Le Devoir observes, in fact, that media opinion in the Rest Of Canada is about evenly split--and criticizes, in passing, the deliberately misleading use of the charged word "burka" by the Post (Ahmed wore no such thing).

I've written a fair bit on niqāb--more than I'd realized, actually--and didn't think I had much more to say when the Ahmed case came up. But a mild mea culpa, if I might. The received narrative is that Ahmed was a handful: disruptive and demanding in her French-language class. Blogger Balbulican thought this was ample reason for the instructor to take a stand, but that demanding she remove her niqāb was drawing the line in the wrong place.

On the face of it, no pun intended, I had to agree that her reported behaviour--demanding that students rearrange themselves, making presentations with her back to the class and so on--was reason enough to ask her to leave. As always, however, there turned out to be at least one more side to the story--hers.

"I'm just like any other person," Ms. Ahmed said in an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday, speaking in her native Arabic tongue. "The only difference is that I wear a veil over my face. It doesn't mean I'm wearing a veil over my mind."

---

Ms. Ahmed said the incident in which she is alleged to have turned her back on the men in the class was not prompted by her. She said a teacher asked her to give a presentation in front of the class - which contained only a couple of male students, of Bulgarian and Iranian origin - with her niqab removed, which she refused to do.

"[The teacher] said either you take off the niqab, or I'll make the two men face the wall," Ms. Ahmed said.

As a compromise, she raised her niqab but turned away from the edge of the U-shaped classroom seating arrangement, where the two men sat.

Ms. Ahmed said she had no issue taking off her veil when being photographed for her school ID by a female staff member, nor did she have any problem working in groups with the men or participating in other class projects.

"As long as I had the niqab on it made no difference to me," she said.

"If I didn't want to interact, I would have stayed at home."

Her niqāb, then, was not a side-issue wrongly seized upon by the instructor, but the issue. And one is struck, once again, how this matter of an individual woman's attire quickly escalated to the upper reaches of government: in this case to the Quebec Minister of Immigration, who ordered her expelled, and thence to the Premier, Jean Charest, who publicly defended her expulsion.

Ahmed soon signed up for another class, determined to learn French--speaking of willingness to assimilate. But she was soon hunted down by an official from the Immigration Ministry and turfed again, while in the act of writing an exam. She had reportedly been doing well in class, but left in tears, saying that she felt as though "the government is following her everywhere." One doesn't have to be of the tinfoil-hat persuasion to agree that she might well be right.

Immigration Minister Yolande James said: "Here our values are that we want to see your face." This is a value? But at least she didn't advance the original canard that language instruction requires an unobstructed facial view. Instead, James effectively handed down an edict--women in Quebec will have to abide by a dress code.

Well, that's nothing new, as we know. Women's bodies are or have been the property of the state in various more unsavoury jurisdictions, where burkas or niqāb or chadors are, this time, mandatory. What women wear or don't wear is clearly worthy of the most senior political scrutiny, and subject to edicts and fatwas, whether we're talking Taliban or Iran or England or the Quebec Ministry of Immigration. There's no full moral equivalence, obviously, but there is a remarkable similarity in one respect: the sheer presumption that officials have the right to decide "appropriate" clothing choices for women.

In Quebec, it's beyond question that this is political pandering to rising hérouxvillisme. The public cannot escape its share of the responsibility for creating the atmosphere that the politicians are breathing. The policing of women's dress, reinforced by opportunist politicians, is taken by far too many almost as a civic responsbility.

I worked for a sociology professor who spent weeks in downtown Ottawa wearing niqāb to get a sense of what it's like, and it wasn't pleasant. Enormous, exaggerated peer pressure can also be brought to bear to enforce dress codes for women, as a young student in Brazil found out not too long ago (although in this case the government came to her rescue, and she subsequently became a Carnival queen).

Of course we have the usual claims--and they are not completely unjustified--that such dress is demeaning to women, an imposition. It's a lot more complicated than that, but the crude response has merely been a counter-imposition, and one not necessarily motivated by concern for women's rights.

The notion of women's agency, in fact, has gotten lost in the ethno-political uproar. Have people not noticed that pharmacist Naima Ahmed, now taking her case to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, is the very opposite of an oppressed, silenced, obedient, submissive woman?

Perhaps--just perhaps--that's been the problem all along.