Saturday, December 08, 2007

The Good Guys Fight Back

Two somewhat cheering stories came our way today. We note first that the Vancouver Sun is suing some hate mongers who put out a phony four-page version of the paper, using the Sun's fonts, graphics, and newsprint in a disgusting and mindlessly Judeophobic slander of Israel and of the Sun's primary owner, Israel Asper and family, implying that their support for Israel's existence as a Jewish state has led to the Sun's editorial stand (and the paper's advertisers) being somehow implicated in great moral crimes against the Palestinians. It's sad to see that at least one of the honchos in the "Palestine Media Collective" is actually a Jew, a hard-core leftist of the fallen generation Dag calls the death hippies:
The owner of The Vancouver Sun has launched a lawsuit against a pro-Palestinian activist and a local printing company over the publication of a fake edition of the daily newspaper.

A writ of summons filed by CanWest Mediaworks Publications alleges that long-time left-wing activist Mordecai Briemberg, other unidentified activists and Horizon Publications conspired to produce and distribute a phoney edition of The Vancouver Sun on June 7, 2007.

The defendants distributed about 12,000 copies of the fake newspaper in Vancouver, Victoria and at the University of B.C.

"We take this matter very seriously. We did say that we would follow up, and I believe our customers expect us to," Vancouver Sun publisher Kevin Bent said about the suit.

The CanWest writ also alleges the defendants published the content of the fake newspaper on various websites.

The suit said the defendants were "motivated by hostility to the principal shareholders of the plaintiff and by a desire to undermine, or hurt, the business of the plaintiff and its principal shareholders."

The plaintiff's writ, submitted by lawyer David Church, said Briemberg and six other unidentified people are involved in anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian media activities.

The writ alleges that the defendants "harbour antagonistic views towards the plaintiff, its principal shareholders and the reporting and editorial opinions expressed in the plaintiff's publications, including in The Vancouver Sun."

The writ also names Horizon general manager Garth Leddy as a defendant. Leddy declined to comment when reached Friday.

Defendant Briemberg has been a longtime critic of the Israeli policies in the Middle East. Briemberg was among some left-wing instructors fired in 1969 by Simon Fraser University.

The plaintiff is claiming punitive, aggravated damages and aggravated costs. CanWest is also seeking an injunction, prohibiting the defendants from creating any fake newspapers or publications with the plaintiff's trademarks.
Covenant Zone had the opportunity to remove copies of this hate hoax from the free newspaper racks outside the Vancouver Public Library. It was clear that a lot of money and effort went into this attack on Jewish people. It's great to see the Aspers fighting for decency by suing these self-righteous true believers in the purity of their leftist intellects.
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We also received word today from ice about a story we covered ten days ago. The University of Florida vice-president who sent students an email suggesting their right to free speech was secondary to their obligation to recognize the pieties of the global intifida-leftist academic alliance, seems to be backing away from her previous, ethically-confused stance. Ice sends us the text of the latest effort of Patricia Telles-Irvin:
To: All UF students

From: Patricia Telles-Irvin, Vice President for Student Affairs

Subject: My e-mail last week

There has been much discussion about an e-mail I sent Nov. 26 regarding the posters advertising the movie "Obsession."

Since that time, some important dialogue has been exchanged between members of the student groups involved. But over the last week, there has been some misunderstanding on the university's position on certain points. Please allow me to clarify.

* The university supports the rights of students to freely express themselves on any issue.

* The university condemns terrorists acts and those who perpetrate them, regardless of who they are. And we clearly recognize there are people who use Islam to support violence.

* The university has no intention of taking disciplinary action against anyone involved in creating or distributing the posters. That was never a consideration.

* The university has heard allegations that the posters were removed by people who opposed their message. Efforts by the University Police Department and Student Affairs to confirm this or identify offenders were unsuccessful. Removal of posters from proper venues is prohibited by the university's policies and will not be tolerated.

The original intent of my e-mail was to foster greater understanding and communication among groups. As we all surely know, free speech is a cherished right not only in this country but also on this campus. We should always feel comfortable expressing our diverse opinions.
It seems that there are free-thinking students out there who don't take victimary moral blackmail without talking back. Since all the good arguments and real thinking are today on the post-victimary side, I'm sure we will be seeing more of this kind of fancy footwork from the frequently lost and nihilistic professoriate in future.

13 comments:

VinceP1974 said...

Did you know the Attorney General of FL wrote to the university about this?

truepeers said...

Nope, good for him.

Dag said...

I saw that, Vince. To be honest, I was shocked to see the Florida A.G. involve himself in something I though would be outside his field of interest; but not so, thankfully. I assumed he's stay away from the issue because it might scare him, the thought of voters looming angrily. I do recall though many years ago a girl I was dating saying she was going to Dade U. because she wanted an education rather than to hang out with protesters.

I should have hung on to that one, I think.

And speaking of plain speaking and clear thought, I looked at the numerous comments at the Gay Patriot blog you pointed out. It's great to see many people who just won't roll over and take any old crap that comes just because it comes. Your point that one of those Leftist fools, Chase, I think, is a Democrat first and gay second reminds me of Norman Mailer, The Naked an the Dead, in which two men converse, the first claiming he's an atheist; the second responding: "When they come for you they won't ask what kind of Jew you are."

Stay alive first, argue about it later.

Best, Dag.

Anonymous said...

Since when is an argument against Israeli policies an "attack on Jewish people"? Is Noam Chomsky an anti-semite? Phylis Bennis? Gush Shalom? Jews for a Just Peace? It is precisely because you have all your emotions and religions tied up into the idea of statehood that there will always be violence in Israel. How many Christians have been marginalised by Israel? Hypocrites.

Dag said...

"Is Noam Chomsky an anti-semite? Phylis Bennis? Gush Shalom? Jews for a Just Peace?"

The word, genius, is "dhimmi."

Anonymous said...

No, Dag, the word is not simply dhimmi.

Sean, first of all the "attack on Jewish people" is what I allege this phony edition of the Sun that I have in front of me does. If you want a copy I can send you one. It is not a question of a general criticism of Israeli policies, which could be legitimate, as you suggest. What we are talking about here is a completely unbalanced demonization of Jews for supporting Israel.

Now as for "antisemitism", what is it? Is it just some generic form of racism applied to the Jews. No, antisemitism is a form or racism specific to the question of how people react to Israel's position as the first nation, the discoverer of monotheism and refuser of the later monotheisms, a symbol of Western success in the Middle East, a sign of military and commercial power vis a vis its neighbors. To hate the Jews for being relatively successful, to imply that this success is part of some immoral conspiracy, is antisemitism. Anti-Americanism and antisemitism thus have a lot in common, and they are both quite different from, say, anti-Polish sentiment.

Chomsky, a many who not only questions how many died in the "holocaust", but who goes about claiming that all signs of Western success are signs of immoral victimization is, quite arguably, an antisemite.

Dag said...

Anti-Semitism is not generic racism according to anything I understand as racism; but then, racism isn't what most people think they think it is. Anti-Semitism is something unique in the mind and experience of Humanity.

But I insist that the self-hating, anti-Semite, anti-American Jews are dhimmis. I insist so because there has to be a reason for it, a depth to it that comes from something more than growing up in the 60s and thinking of Left radical politics as a good career move for a young academic. There is a 1400 year old identity of collective dhimmitude to root out of ones mind, most likely not even dreaming it could be there. I don't mean racial unconsciousness or memory but the ideas passed down from mother to child, from uncle to boy, from person in childhood who spoke a word that resonated and stuck for no reason we could grasp if we tried. It's only obvious when one returns to ones ancestral home and sees family customs played out as daily living. I argue at least for now that dhimmitude being the condition of most Jews in some sense or other is passed down to Chomsky and that type without him knowing it. Dhimmi Jews survived, sort of. It was a livable compromise. It worked. And now there is Chomsky.

Anonymous said...

You may be right, Dag, if "dhimmi" can apply to Jews in the Christian West, those often fearful of being criticized for being "too pushy"; yet "pushiness", or being at ease in the marketplace, arguing value, arguing with an unfigurable God, is also something some Jews can embrace, at certain times. Why didn't Chomsky become a Hollywood producer?

Dag said...

This lot of comments is all over the place. I hope to pick away at the idea of racism and anti-Semitism as different, as pretty much unrelated. Not here.

Survival in the ghettos wasn't technically in a state of dhimmitude, there being no "Pact of Omar" to legitimize the second-class status at best of Jews. Then again, there was no official policy in Christianity of the duty to enslave and debase and, if one wished, to kill Jews. Yes,there was terrible Christian led anti-Semitism, but to my knowledge, which is fairly good on the subject, there was no Christian doctrine of dhimmitude. Still, for the sake of convenience, if not to push Sean to crack a book and find out just what the hell the word means, dhimmitude is the effect of Jews in European ghettos. I wasn't satisfied with it for a long time, but no one in the Jewish communities I approached could come up with a European term to match it or better it. Dhimmitude itself is a recent term coined by our own Bat Ye'or in the 70s from the root dhimmi or zimmi. Perhaps some scholar will in tame coin a European equivalent. Till then, I promote the word dhimmitude for the conditon of Jews in the state we know as dhimmitude, and those who support it and wish to impose in on Jews and Christians in support of Muslim supremacists as dhimmis.

To finish, I did consider the term "capo" to describe Chomsky and his like in the Jewish community; but it is too sickening, and it's not exact, maybe not close. They are evil people, but they have a ay to go to be capos. I'm sure they have the ability to do so but they haven't yet to my knowledge done so openly enough for me to make that leap.

To finally finish, it is wonderful to see the good guys fighting back, both in Florida and here in Canada in the court system, for what i's worth, to get some kind of judgment on the anti-Semite creeps who produced the rag we had the privilege of trashing. I wonder, and will have a chance to find out, who paid for the paper in question. Then we can really begin to fight back.

Anonymous said...

Oh come on, stop playing semantics. Dhimmitude? Give me a break. We all know, that as a common term, anti-semitism refers to anti-Jewish sentiment. But you're right, I don't have a copy of the fake paper and I just assumed it was a general critique of Israel, as it was written by a Jew.

Dag said...

"Playing semantics," Sean, is what many of us refer to as thinking things through logically and sequentially based on facts and reliable information so we can come to a valid and perhaps fruitful conclusion that sheds new sense on an old problem.

Or, as I'm so fond of saying when I read your comments: "Uh, duh."

Dag said...

Sean, for what it's worth, I appreciate that you acknowledged here that you hadn't read the copy in question. That in itself is something positive. For what my opinion is worth....

Anonymous said...

^that's because, unlike idealogues, I'm not sure I'm right. As far as semantic equaling logic, that's a load of shit. You can't just make up words like dhimmitude to obfuscate the facts. The only point I care to make at this point is that criticim of Israel's illegal occupation does not equal hatred of Jews. I don't know why it was necessary to fight through all the word games just to say that banal phrase, but there you go.