Do not ask for whom the buzzer gongs....

George Carlin said, "If you think the average guy is stupid, then realize that 50 percent are even stupider than he is."

We needn't be mathemagicians to figure out where Carlin belongs in that equation. I think the following pieces on the general knowledge of the general population of the Western world might shed some light on "the ignorant armies who crash at night," as the English poet-laureate Benedict Arnold once recited to Queen Victoria.

In the first part of this post we see Al-Reuters laughing at the plebes, and rightly so; but we must wonder why they laugh at the common ignorance of the common man, because, dear reader, Al-Reuters in the same day's edition refers to CAIR's Ahmed Rehab as an American civil rights activist. Now either you know or you don't know who is Ahmed Rehab and what is or isn't CAIR. If you are a supposedly serious journalist and you don't know of Rehab and CAIR, then my laughter isn't amused at all. But the following first installment is some fun, specially for those of us who are "semantic and anachronistic."

The dumbest ever quiz answers Thu Jan 31, 2008
By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Question: What was Gandhi's first name? Contestant's answer: Goosey Goosey.

Warning to all those know-alls who shout at the television screen when contestants offer dumb answers to blindingly obvious questions -- one day that could be you.

From regional radio shows to "Who Wants To be a Millionaire?" and "University Challenge," people make fools of themselves -- as internet site www.jumpingjacksbar.com found in collating some of the worst howlers.

Here are leading contenders for the "Dumb Down" gold medal:

Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22,1963?

Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then

Presenter: Which American actor is married to Nicole Kidman?

Contestant: Forrest Gump

Presenter: In which country is Mount Everest?

Contestant: Er, it's not in Scotland is it?

Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the

name of a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci

Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Presenter: In which European city was the first opera house

opened in 1637?

Contestant: Sydney

Presenter: How long did the Six-Day War between Egypt and

Israel last?

Contestant: (after long pause) Fourteen days

Presenter: Where did the D-Day landings take place?

Contestant: (after pause) Pearl Harbor?

Presenter: What is the currency in India

Contestant: Ramadan

Presenter: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which

jungle-swinging character clad only in a loin cloth did he

play?

Contestant: Jesus

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN3156204620080131

Behind door number two we have this marvelous prize of answers to common questions:

Quarter of Brits think Churchill was myth: poll

Sun Feb 3, 7:12 PM ET

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080204/od_afp/britainpeoplehistoryoffbeat

And now that we've all, or at least many of us, had a good laugh at the ignorant rabble, let's ask Mr. George Carlin how smart is the average smart person, say, oh, maybe a school teacher?

Charles Henry at Covenant Zone picks up that question in "Not-So-Great Britain"

A group of British educators refuse to forgive their predecessors for their bad choices. In order to punish their ancestors, they are going to take out their hatred on the next generation of young brits:

"Don't teach children patriotism"

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is "morally ambiguous", a leading educational body recommends.
...
Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
...
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
...
The institute - part of the University of London – asked nearly 300 pupils aged 13 to 14, and 47 teachers, in 20 London schools, how patriotism should be handled. About 94 per cent of teachers and 77 per cent of teenagers said that schools should give a balanced presentation of opposing views. Fewer than 10 per cent felt patriotism should be actively promoted.

More at:
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2008/02/not-so-great-britain-say-uk-teachers.html

Read 'em and weep.

Girl Gang Warfare in France

Two gangs of teenage girls arm themselves with iron bars, screwdrivers and steak knives in order to settle their differences at a bus station in Chelles, France.

Translated, with a heavy heart, by myself from Le Parisien, one sad story promising to get much uglier before it can get better:

After the face-off Monday evening between over twenty girls at the Chelles (Seine-et-Marne) bus station, "Julie" [not her real name], a 17-year old high school student, bears witness. She says that a new rumble is already scheduled.

"Usually, when I watch a fight, I don’t stay very long." Monday night, Julie decided to "watch it through to the end". The spectacle took place at 5:30 pm in a place ringed with trees at the bus station in Chelles (Seine-et-Marne).

Around twenty girls armed with screwdrivers, iron bars, bedboards and steak knives were meeting to settle scores. The girls of Meanx vs those of Noisiel: about forty supportors and spectators accompanied them.

At first glance, Julie recognized almost all the participants, students as she was at Chelles, in her vocational high school. "They arranged for the rendez-vous through through the intermediary of common acquaintances, who made the link", she explains. "This could be old friends from previous classes in another high school or another city."

Why this muscled meeting organized through text messaging? "There had been trouble between two girls and it degenerated", Julie says. For one of her friends, it was "a dirty look" that seems to have set everything off. Others say an emotional dispute between two adolescents from two competing territories. "Usually it’s the boys who mark their boundaries!", remarked a resident of Pierre-Collinet, where some of the Meaux fighters came from. "They wanted to do the same, because the group from Noisiel were looking for them for a while." Who provoked who? How does one view the other? The slightest "girl trouble" has become a pretext for a violence borrowed from the boys. "For the past year, there are more and more fights between girls", Julie observes. "We want to show our personality. Too many times the guys treat us like garbage: they have to learn that if someone speaks badly about us, we’ll react!"

A logic that led seven high school girls straight to police custody, Monday night. Warned by school staff of a possible rumble, police intervened right after the first blows. An eighth female adolescent was arrested yesterday. All were 15 or 16 years old…

"The struggle against this kind of armed gathering of youths ranks among our priorities", assures Rene Pech, the district attorney for Meaux. Today, a consultation meeting is to be organized at Chelles between the police, representatives of the court and the heads of the vocational high schools involved in the recent fight. A way to prevent the next one? Julie and her friend, in any event, don’t think so: "There will be a return match, for sure!", they laugh. "The girls of Noisiel and Meaux still want to fight. They’ll find each other again. And if it’s not tomorrow, it will be later."

A shorter account of similar violence at another school accompanies the article:

A fight had broken out yesterday in front of the Paul-Vaillan-Couturier college in Champigny (Val-de-Marne). A female college student who was fighting with another female adolescent was lightly wounded by the girl’s mother when she tried to intervene. In the scuffle, female friends of the young victim started in on the mother, who had to find refuge in the building until the police arrived.

When a society's young women stop being a source of faith in the future, and instead turn into part of the problem, where is there left to look for hope? "Cherchez La Femme", indeed...

"One is not born a woman, one becomes one."
___ Simone de Beauvoir

Not-So-Great Britain, Say UK Teachers

A group of British educators refuse to forgive their predecessors for their bad choices. In order to punish their ancestors, they are going to take out their hatred on the next generation of young brits:

"Don't teach children patriotism"

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is “morally ambiguous”, a leading educational body recommends.
...
Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
...
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
...
The institute - part of the University of London – asked nearly 300 pupils aged 13 to 14, and 47 teachers, in 20 London schools, how patriotism should be handled. About 94 per cent of teachers and 77 per cent of teenagers said that schools should give a balanced presentation of opposing views. Fewer than 10 per cent felt patriotism should be actively promoted.

Why such a dogmatic refusal to acknowledge the good as well as the bad? Why such stark dismissal of the repentance, of the atonement, of the change for the better that underscores so much of British history? Why don't they want to see the good along with the bad..?

Why the blind determination to leave the sins of the past unforgiven?

“Forgiveness” doesn’t mean we ignore a bad choice, or pretend that the bad choice doesn’t matter; to forgive is to act like something matters more. To never forgive is to live in the past, to freeze our life into a wax figure tableau representing a single moment, perpetuating the time we were sinned against. To forgive doesn’t mean living within an illusion, or being blind to the past… it means living for the future. What will get us beyond the moment of pain, of failure, of resentment? Forgiveness is fully seeing the sin, and reconciling to it.

If I am unwilling or unable to forgive others, is that merely an excuse to avoid facing judgment myself, being held to account for my own choices and decisions?

If a person doesn't believe that their country can become a better place, what might that say about their own beliefs about themselves? Is a person capable of improvement, or not? Are we really no different, at twenty, at thirty, at forty, than we were at the age of thirteen..? If an individual can learn from experience, why not a nation of individuals as well?

The teachers and I agree on one point: children should be taught that love requires clarity, honesty, and humility. Love is not about lying, Love is not blind, Love is the opposite: true, faithfully persistent commitment to seeing things as they really are. The hard part is that this involves seeing the unseen, seeing into the future, penetrating a cloud of doubts in order to affirm that we can learn from experience, that we can progress... we are not animals, we are Human.

The gurgling little baby in our arms can someday learn to give shape to his dreams, that he is capable of growing to see his own mistakes, in order to learn from them, maybe even some day appreciating the gift of free will that allows him to choose good as readily as evil..

...so that choosing good can be seen as the treasured blessing that it really is.

An example of Canadian freedom

Here's a story about a British Columbia school teacher, Chris Kempling, who risks losing his job because he has published, in various journals, critical comments on homosexual behaviour, and because he is a member of the Christian Heritage Party, a registered and legal political party in this country. The College of Teachers would rather protect us from hearing words critical of homosexuality than protect a professional's right to engage in public debate on basic questions of human nature and ethics. Because, you see, they already know what is right and wrong - they have seen the light hidden from Western culture for much of its history - and are freaked out by someone who thinks differently, someone with some small audience in marginal publications. Who do you want teaching your kids?

The teachers' College has, in effect, asked the courts "how can we continue to live among people who hold views critical of others, those others who today freely and openly do things for which people have been victimized in the past?" And the courts have been sympathetic to their cry. Because, it seems, we Canadians cannot be trusted to speak our minds, on our free time, without this freedom creating more victims, somewhere somehow. My ears hurt. Free speech must be sacrificed to the fear of (or is it a positive desire for?) more victims.

Not surprisingly, those who want to speak in public find it increasingly necessary to claim victimary status to justify their speaking position. Where can this mimetic cycle, fueled by a need for victims and victim status, end?

Compare and Contrast your "human rights"

Here's the Front Page, headline story, of today's Vancouver Sun print edition:

A Surrey pot grower's Charter rights were violated when police used a battering ram to break down his door and find more than 700 plants in his basement, a B.C. Supreme Court judge just ruled.

Police are unhappy with the ruling, and hope the Crown will appeal it.

Justice Catherine Bruce said even though marijuana production is a huge local problem, Surrey RCMP should have given more warning to Van Dung Cao after they knocked, called out "police" and entered by force a couple of minutes later.

Cao, who was acquitted of all charges Monday, argued that he was on his way to the front door to answer after hearing police call out back in March 2004. But before he could get there, he said the police bashed through a garage door, guns pointed at him and made the arrest.

Two of the officers involved in executing the search warrant testified at Cao's trial in December that they waited at least two minutes after announcing their presence before making their way to the other door and entering.

But Bruce said that even though Cao's house hosted a suspected marijuana-growing operation, there were "no exigent circumstances justifying a dynamic entry."

"I am satisfied the evidence should be excluded. Notwithstanding production of marijuana is a serious offence and the Crown will be unable to prove its case without the evidence secured by the entry to the residence, to admit the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute," Bruce said in her ruling, released Wednesday.

Now consider Ezra Levant who reviews the sections of the Alberta Human Rights Act that allow:

Shirlene McGovern, or any other human rights officer, can come into my office whenever she thinks it's reasonable, to "examine" it. No search warrant necessary. She can even come into my home, if she gets a court order -- but such a court order can be applied for and granted without notice to me. That's the kind of ambush usually reserved for getting warrants to break in on crack houses.

Again, without a warrant, she can take any documents I have, including on my computer.

Oh, and section 24(1)(c) allows for such search and seize orders to be granted not just against me but anyone else who refuses to answer questions put by investigators like Shirlene McGovern.

That's the power of these commissions -- before I'm even found "guilty".

Mackintosh says I was "invited to respond in person or in writing to the allegations." Indeed I was -- with search warrants to enter my property and take my computer if I refused Mackintosh's hospitality. I called these people fascist -- I think they meet the definition of that stern term.

Claire Hoy points out the origins of the "human rights" commissions extraordinary powers of search and seizure:

While the Levant case involves the Alberta commission - where Levant was recently grilled by a commission commissar for the apparent crime of holding political views that the commission and a complainant - it was Ontario under Davis - and particularly under two of his senior ministers, recently retired Ontario chief justice Roy McMurtry and lawyer-surgeon-cabinet minister Bob Elgie - who set the tone for commissions to run roughshod over centuries of due process and legal objectivity.
[...]
Davis, to the chagrin of many in his own cabinet and caucus, tabbed Elgie to rewrite the human rights code, the result of which was a proposal to give human rights officers more power than police to search for and seize private documents without a warrant and based solely on a complaint, whether frivolous or not.

There was so much opposition from Davis's own party to the June, 1980 proposals, that the premier - typically - decided not to fight an election on his police state bill. But after regaining a huge majority in 1981, Davis pushed the new law through the legislature, a law that has served as the prototype for all the other provinces and has led to the sorry situation where Levant - and Maclean's magazine writer Mark Steyn - are being forced to defend their opinions simply because there are some readers who were offended by them.

It is sickening for Borovoy to now lament this state of affairs. This is the same Borovoy who, during an instructive two-week period in 1981, appeared at both the federal investigation into RCMP wrongdoing in Quebec and the hearings into Elgie's infamous Bill 7. In Ottawa, Borovoy argued passionately that the police should not have the power to search and seize without a warrant. At Queen's Park, he argued just as passionately that human rights officers had to have the powers or search and seizure without a warrant.

At the end of the day, some of Elgie's proposals - although not many of them - were modified slightly, but the result still was an overweening, totally biased bureaucratic juggernaut which, although supposedly set up only to deal with discrimination in housing and employment, has continued to expand its power and influence into every facet of our lives.

It's time to blow them up and start again. And it just shows what happens when a politician - in this case Davis and his crew - is more interested in catering to mouthy militants than in dealing in a reasonable way with the vast majority of people who, despite what the zealots may claim, are decent, law-abiding Canadians.

It's time to write all your politicians, provincial and federal, and tell them to rip up the "human rights" acts. The administration of justice in this country is falling into disrepute, and for good reasons.

Who will speak for Geert Wilders? Maybe not the Dutch bloggers

In the previous post, Dag raises the question of how we might stand up to defend the freedom of expression of someone, Geert Wilders, who knowingly provokes Muslims by making a film on the Koran, knowing full well that this is likely to lead to forms of mob violence around the world, with innocent victims. He and I have had a little discussion on this in the comments.

Now comes the news from Klein Verzet that Dutch blogs are in trouble from Dutch thought police who want to shut them down. At least one blog, representing the Dutch wing of the Stop the Islamization of Europe movement has been shut down by Wordpress after complaints which Wordpress took to be from the Dutch government but which, it seems, were simply from some self-anointed "Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet". While it now seems that the blog is back up, here, it remains noteworthy that Wordpress were willing to remove a blog simply on the basis of allegations from anyone, governmental or not, especially as Wordpress could not read the Dutch passages that were being claimed as illegal hate speech.

Those who require, for their own ability to overcome existential angst, some guarantee of their self-righteousness, become the kind of people who are keen to shut down blogs for alleged crimes against the Utopia of universal equality and brotherly love. The fact that the Utopians always end up being the worst oppressors of human freedom and dignity is a lesson some can never learn. I have not seen the blogs in question, but short of direct incitements to violence, there really is no good reason not to allow all ideas, good and bad, to be played out through free exchanges which are the only way for us to come anywhere close to guaranteeing that the good will eventually rise to the top and the bad will be marginalized. The case against the SIOE blog can be seen here, and it is not about incitement to violence, but rather about the alleged unfairness with which generalizations about Muslims are being made.

As bloggers, we should strive to become transparent and accountable to our readers, that people can know what we are about and debate us accordingly, that we all may show our faith that it is in the competition of a free speech environment that we make likely that real commitments to truth will develop, so that we may overcome our cowardice, and make ourselves capable of standing up for those who, whether we agree with them or not, are unfairly targeted by hate mongers in the guise of hate opponents.

Those who would try to circumvent this process of free exchange, by assuming they already have the special knowledge to know what is and is not acceptable to say or think need to be widely condemned. Those who would appoint themselves thought police with the right to shut people up are the enemies of transparency and accountability, for they encourage all bloggers and thinkers to hide behind various veils. We must all draw a line around the thought police and make it a mark of shame to be in their circle; as Dag says in the comments of the preceding post, we must stigmatize those who are for evil, those who would scapegoat their enemies, to bring about restraints on freedom of expression, that they may not hear things that make them crazily insecure about the very real cultural and existential conflicts that are a fact of life and history and that must be faced if they are to be successfully mediated. Let us face evil in a fair fight and not try to make it go away through legalistic sleights of hand.

To this end of keeping speech and thinking forever open, the Covenant Zone bloggers meet every Thursday, 7-9 pm, in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Please join us if you can. Look for the blue scarves we wear in solidarity with the freedom lovers of Europe.

The Sword of Islamocles

Geert Wilders, a minor politician in the Netherlands, promises to release a ten minute film portraying the Koran as a fascistic work, and he does so in the expectation of riling Muslims to protest. Wilders suggests that the Koran be banned from the Netherlands. Wilders seems to be deliberately antagonizing the Muslim militant population in the Netherlands, knowing in advance the likely outcome of his provocation, having seen already the Muslim furor during the so-called Danish Cartoons incident, roughly 100 dead, property destroyed, the Danish economy made to suffer, relations with the Islamic world harmed. Wilders is seemingly doing deliberately what the Danish cartoonists didn't do at all: provoking a Muslim madness. If Wilders claims he is only exercising his rights to free speech in the Netherlands or that he's showing that such rights are under attack and need to be protected from further encroachments, I think the man will leave me teary-eyed at the gate as he sails into the sunset of my esteem; everyone concerned knows the film Wilders claims to be producing is not about the Koran but is specifically meant to piss off Muslims to the point they go enraged and violent into the streets to attack the European order. If Wilders releases his film in public the certainty of violence on the part of Muslims is almost certain, would be incredible were it not to occur. We all know that Wilders is going to try to do something that will get people killed. What about it?

Wilders' life isn't going to suffer any further constraints than he lives under now if he releases a film that antagonizes Muslims. There's not much more the Muslims can do to him than they already do. Not Wilders but others stand to lose, and they stand to lose their lives because they aren't politicians under 24 hour state guard protecting them from Muslim militants. If Wilders releases his film and that drives Muslims crazy and violent, who will protect you and me from the Muslims? Not Wilders. We'll be on our own.

We can be totally certain that if Wilders releases his film and if that sends Muslims into fits of public and random violence, there will be the usual suspects out claiming that he is responsible for the harm done, abetted by the government who didn't stop him, &c. Nothing new there. But if we're not teen-aged intellectuals or middle-aged Death Hippies, if we are in fact just ordinary folks who live private lives and who aren't really responsible for much of anything outside our own behaviour, then what are we to make a man who might do something that could get us killed just for being by-standers? Who is this minor Dutch politician and what gives him the right to play with the lives of others?

On the face of it, Wilders' film, no matter what he does in it, isn't going to be more than an objective yawn for most of the world, a short nothing of a film no one would care about at all if not for Muslims and their entirely predictable violent reaction to manufactured offense. it's obviously not the movie. It's the fact that Wilders is deliberately provoking a hostile crowd who will turn violent a the first opportunity. Some dutch might be killed over this. Muslims will likely do the killing if there is any. If Muslims are killed by the police it won't disturb me at all; but if innocent by-standers are harmed, then it seem to me to be a bad thing-- that they are harmed or killed. I can't see this as a problem from Geert Wilders and his deliberate provocation of violent lunatics. That just don't count for nothing.

Geert Wilders didn't create the Cyclops now living in the Netherlands. That particular Islamic beast is the collective creation of the Dutch innocent by-standers themselves. The very Dutch of the Netherlands themselves forged and hoisted the Sword of Islam that now hangs by a thread over the collective people, and they have no one else to blame for this crisis than themselves. Small comfort that most Netherlanders are not particularly responsible for the destructive thing that is Islam in the nation. The Netherlanders voted this way or that, paid their taxes, lived their lives, and now they face a possibility of being murdered by jihadis riled up by a local politician. I'm not claiming any of this is fair. I might even have some sympathy for the people, those who are harmed or killed, if Wilders film comes out as planned and if it gives jihadis an excuse to riot and burn and kill. Some sympathy but not a lot. Wilders didn't create the Islamic menace in the Netherlands, cowards did that; and now cowards will have to pay for that cowardice. Cowards allowed out-of-control Muslims to become entirely out-of-control because cowards could not face criticism of their peers and they could not face the fact that their phantasies were nothing more than stupid and harmful, thus continuing on till such a pass as this. Cowards pay.

Wilders isn't necessarily a coward. If the Dutch go into the streets to fight pitched battles with Muslim rioters, then perhaps Wilders will be there in the front line. But that's not the kind of cowardice and courage I mean here. It's not physical courage that counts today, it's moral courage, the very kind most Europeans don't have in any great supply, judging from what we see in the nations of that dying land right now. This issue is not about Wilders at all, it's about what the dutch are going to do to stand up to and defeat those who would kill them in the streets. Wilders is very much provoking the people of the Netherlands to stand up and fight for the nation and for a free live of genuine privacy. What courage will the Netherlands show the world?

Jihad in the West is the creation of cowardly Europeans and Americans. Jihad in the West is the creation of cowards who refused to stop it from coming and to stomp it out when it grew. If now some people are harmed or killed by the very jihadis they have made possible, then I shrug and hope I come out unharmed. If not, I'll blame not Geert Wilders but the politicians and Left dhimmi fascists who made this threat that overhangs me and all of us.

MAWO and Fire This Time: Out, damned spot! out, I say!

The radical Utopian Gnostic left ruins lives, and not only those it kills. Its historical death toll may well be over a 100 million in the last century globally, but many more lived in a diminished reality because of Gnostic religious fantasies underpinning totalitarian societies. Nonetheless, many of the old lies and fantasies, and the blindly scapegoating sacrificial religion that sustains it all lives on in sad corners of our city and nation, kept alive by the patronage of certain sectors of our local governments, unions, universities, and other public sector organizations. This thanks to bureaucratic patrons who think themselves in need of sharing in the leftist fantasy that they have something to sell to their various audiences to justify their positions as a white collar elite that often have little obvious productive role or purpose in the world of free people and markets, and whose political role is often not to create new political possibilities for the exercise of our shared freedom, but to restrict political thinking in the interests of established institutions, elites, and resentments. A look at the tired Marxist rhetoric from the leftist quoted below will illustrate the point.

We, at Covenant Zone, had a little run in with Ivan Drury and his former group, MAWO (e.g. here and here), a couple of summers ago. Ivan has now broken with MAWO and its parent group/tyrant, and published a long apology to the leftist community for his many sins while under the influence of an insane religion and cult leader. I would like to say this statement is a sign that one man is freeing himself from the evils of Gnosticism. But as we can see from his text, he still has a long way to go. There is no point in commenting further on any of this; it speaks for itself, another sad revelation into the fact that all Gnostics end up humiliated by reality, if they don't die first. But for the record, if it should one day disappear from the web, I excerpt telling parts of Drury's statement.

My name is Ivan Drury. I’m writing this letter to inform the left and progressive community that I have broken with Fire This Time, MAWO, and all other related groups. Through this letter I also hope to begin to stand accountable for the many irresponsible and destructive things I am responsible for having done when I was a member of these groups.
[...]
I resigned quietly in January 2007, but did not send an ‘official’ resignation letter until October 2007.
[...]
Emotionally and personally, my experience in the group really messed me up.
[...]
FTT has never involved itself in a coalition or founded a committee or worked on a project or written an article or taken on a campaign or done anything for any reason other than for the purpose of cadre building. The construction of a ‘pure revolutionary cadre’ has stood above all other purposes as the driving motivation of FTT.

It is a group that has taken an exceptional view of itself. Regardless of the state of class or social struggle, regardless of the level of organization of the left or of the forces of oppressed people FTT stands exceptional as the ‘one-true revolutionary group’. The philosophy of the group is that an individual must be ‘exceptional’ to be a member of this group, to be a ‘true revolutionary’ in a time and place ‘like this’. If the group is the revolutionary exception, and if the members are all the revolutionary exception then surely they stand as exception to all the rest of the left. Thus, you are with us or against us. Thus, one rule applies for what is done to Us and another for what We do to our Opponents (especially in the radical left). Every single principle that is traditional or expected of the left (or, hell, of a decent person) has been systematically sacrificed in order to build the cadre under the umbrella of exceptionalism.
[...]
However, while there are sectarian ‘vanguard’ groups all over the world, there is something particularly problematic with FTT. FTT is the production of the vision of one man: [Mr. X - name removed by Covenant Zone]. He did a one-man entry into the Anti-Poverty Committee (as he had in numerous groups before) with the purpose of dragging out with him some recruits for his own ‘vanguard’ group. Unfortunately, I was among those who left with him.

Since APC I watched [Mr. X](and helped him) employ the same tactics in every group or coalition we were (allowed to be) members of. The same stood for student groups, like the Social Justice Centre at UBC. While recruiting, [Mr. X] would use his charm and charisma to make young people, and predominately young women, feel important and exceptional. However, this sense of exceptionalism came with the steep price of complete devotion to [Mr. X]. Impatient for his cadre to develop into ‘professional revolutionaries’ he drove these recruits’ political development in his image with a constant one-two of [Mr. X]-dependent confidence building and [Mr.X]-dependent ‘ego-smashing’. When a potential conflict arose in a left-progressive coalition or group he would do everything in his power to escalate the situation into a ‘principled’ showdown. If he came out of such fights with new recruits ‘steeled’ in battle; then it was a success.
[...]
[Mr. X] considers this dependency, above all, the sign of what he calls an “advanced element”. He even rationalizes his authority by citing the lineage of his revolutionary ideas back to Lenin, evoking the tired claims of being the one-true-inheritor of the Bolshevik legacy. [Mr. X] enforces the idea in the group that rebellion against him is egotistical, and a sign of ‘petit-bourgeois tendencies’.

Inside the group [Mr. X] is a tyrant who tolerates zero dissent to his absolute control. “Discussions” in meetings consist of two or three hour lectures from [MR. X]. “Democratic centralism” means agreeing with and enforcing his often arbitrary and mood swinging political rulings on the fly. “Organizational norms” mean constant phone contact with him to receive constant marching orders on everything from speakers’ lists and the admission of ‘opponents’ to events, to which button to wear on which side of your coat. No joke. These “norms” also address every aspect of personal life, like how to hang car keys, what clothes women members are allowed to wear, how to invite someone to coffee, how to flush a toilet. [Mr. X] actually (shortly before I left) forced every member of Y3WA to sign up on a schedule to clean the bathroom in his house every day for a month because someone had clogged the toilet! (OK, I’m ranting now.)
[...]
In other words: if it’s not a cult now, the continued stigmatizing of FTT by other left groups is only going to help bring FTT members into an increasingly vulnerable and dangerous situation.

However, on the other side of the coin is the qualification that many supporters of FTT or MAWO or VCSC have made: if the group is so bad, why are they so active? They’re the most active group in the city! And they’re attracting so many new activists and young people!

I held many of these justifications throughout my membership in FTT. The breakthrough I reached, shortly before I resigned, can be summarized as follows:

1) FTT’s hyper-activity is for the purpose of ‘cadre building’ and not for the sake of anti-imperialist or pro-Cuba education work.

2) FTT’s ‘cadre building’ is done outside of and exclusive to the dynamics of class and social movement in Vancouver, so non-FTT/Y3WA people lose the opportunity to learn from their own experiences and actions. Instead they are fed ready-made actions and lines.

3) FTT’s energy is directed in these actions only at those who are deemed ‘recruitable’ or otherwise imagined to be of service to the group.

4) FTT’s actions take up space that might otherwise be filled by the organic self-action of oppressed people (rather than this small group of wannabe ‘professional revolutionaries’)

5) Thus the group has stolen a new generation of young activists out of more authentic, spontaneous, organically occurring movements and brought them into this ‘exceptional’ state. Here, they are cut off from the dynamics of society to be burned out through such hyper-activity or (in select cases) to be permanently recruited into [MR. X]’s sub-universe. Therefore, they are unable to play the important roles of instigators and counterweights to older and more conservative activists in coalitions such as StopWar.ca. FTT is not building ‘revolutionary fighters’, it is building a ‘good cadre’. What exactly that means can be left to [Mr. X]’s therapist. Mine thinks it sounds like the construction of automatons.
[...]
I think it best to illustrate FTT by talking about those things I know best—the things I was myself responsible for. I am nervous about admitting to this stuff, but there have been questions about nearly every one of these matters and I also think that the dishonesty and lack of accountability that FTT has taken is one of the worst or most telling signs of its sectarianism. So, here’s a list of (some of) the worst things I was responsible for as a member of FTT:

//I manipulated and abused members of Y3WA and FTT.

Usually I was just along for the ride, but occasionally I would lead assaults on ‘petty bourgeois tendencies’ of other members. I carried out “exit meetings” on members who resigned or tried to resign. These involved attempts to humiliate and degrade these people so that whatever was left of their confidence would be broken so badly that they would not get involved in any other group and become our opponents. Usually the meetings worked and these people left politics altogether.

Despite my own shameful abuse of other members, the most painful memories are of those many moments when I did not speak up against [Mr. X]’s abuse of others. He organized mafia-type meetings on a regular basis. If a member was letting their ‘petty bourgeois tendencies’ show— whether in a political mistake they made, or by how they dressed, or if they looked tired or were feeling grumpy—[Mr. X] would show up at their door or call and demand a “meeting”. This meeting would usually take place in his bedroom, and he would bring along a witness, like me. The last of these meetings I attended was in the living room of the house that six of us lived in. [Mr. X] had three witnesses at that meeting, and let them do most of the interrogation. The subject was being berated for her ‘petty bourgeois tendencies’. The specific charge? That she was too attached to her parents. The evidence? That she was refusing to steal from their credit card to buy a computer for “our movement”. The meeting lasted over three hours. In the end, she caved to our extortion. I sat through the entire meeting and never spoke out against what was going on. I knew that I should have, even at the time. But I didn’t.

The consequence of such events repeated nearly daily for over four years is a terrified and emotionally shattered group of young people. They are completely dominated by one leader and forced to crawl over one another and anyone else for his approval.

//I never opposed [MR. X]

My gravest responsibility and greatest mistake in four years of membership in FTT/Y3WA was my consistent support of [Mr. X] consolidation of power inside the group. This little-man’s power has placed him in a position of zero-accountability; that is, he can and does get away with anything inside the group. It has meant that the members of this group are routinely terrorized by a man who considers it his duty and burden to educate them about revolutionary politics and organizational norms—down to the tiniest fixed detail of what Our position is. Of course, there is no debate or discussion on these points. The reading lists of members are strictly controlled and even discussion of these readings is restricted to sessions under [Mr. X]’s control.
[...]
//I helped [Mr. X] assault Mike Krebs

When another founding member named Mike Krebs resigned in 2005, I harassed and threatened him over the phone. I drove [MR. X] to the grocery store where both Mike Krebs and I worked. I stood guard at the back door while [Mr. X] went in the front. I watched from the back door while [MR. X] assaulted Mike Krebs by the cash registers. While it was not a planned action, and though I was shocked and appalled at what I’d witnessed, I said nothing at the time nor when asked about it by a skeptical member of Y3WA afterwards. I defended [Mr. X] to another founding member, Nasim Sedaghat, when she confronted him at a meeting days after the assault, and then I remained silent when she resigned on the spot. And I lied about this series of incidents every time I was asked by others in the left.

//I helped to create a hostile atmosphere in StopWar.ca

While on the road to expulsion from the StopWar.ca coalition, I accidentally hacked the email account of StopWar coordinating committee member Derrick O’Keefe. While joking with [Mr. X] and Mike Krebs that most far-leftists in Vancouver probably used some combination revolutionary names as email account passwords, I tested my joke on Derrick O’Keefe’s account… and the account opened. What was done afterwards was no joke or accident. With the justification that we were “defending ourselves”, [Mr. X] demanded that we read Derrick’s emails and publish them in our “defense campaign”. These emails chronicled an ongoing discussion between Derrick and other coordinating committee members of StopWar.ca. Nearly all of them included personal and confidential notes and information about and from coordinating committee members and some general members of StopWar such as Lawrence Boxall, Sid Schniad, Mabel Elmore, Haseena Majeed Charlie Demers, Jef Keighley, and others. As with everything else, I went along with this against my better judgment. I cooperated with the publishing of these emails in critical documents distributed at coalition meetings, to the media and then by the thousands in FTT newspapers and on the FTT website (where they remain).
[...]
When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, it became clear that FTT was disconnected from the organizing that was already being done. A new group—the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME)—was organizing mass actions through a close collaboration between some activists and some members of the Lebanese and Muslim communities. Because of our reputation, there was no way we would be able to get involved in this incredible effort. So the question of how to intervene rose up.

Through our (only) contact in the Muslim community, I had visited many mosques in the Lower Mainland. When this contact began to introduce me to people as “Abbas” I did not object. [Mr. X] had instructed me early on to “just go with” whatever came up in the mosques. He said that I should not ever “out” myself as a leftist as that would surely destroy our contacts. So I proceeded to attend prayers, go through the motions, and look for any openings in an ongoing attempt to catch up to the CJME as though it was some sort of contest. When anyone asked me if I was Muslim, I’d say, as though ashamed, “No…but I’m interested in Islam.” But when occasionally I was introduced as a “convert,” I would not correct people.

Like this, FTT was able to hold a single moderately sized demonstration with some members of these communities. Ours was a pale— completely opportunistic, dishonest, and disrespectful—copy of the achievements of the genuine coalition built through the CJME.

During this period I led “tactical operations” in StopWar.ca organized marches to ensure the MAWO banner was visible at the front of the march. I appeared at the scene of endless sectarian battles with FTT/Y3WA affiliated campus groups against student union and social justice centres, at events of the Palestine Community Centre, No One Is Illegal, the STATUS Coalition, the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, etc.
[...]
When I believed that everything was being done for the construction of a “revolutionary cadre”, I could explain and justify any, and I do mean ANY, action. However, with that ridiculous shroud dropped from my eyes, these things are all incredibly shameful. All a series of terrible mistakes, for which I am incredibly sorry.

WHAT I BELIEVE IN NOW

I am a Marxist. I believe that capitalism cannot be reformed. I believe that capitalism must be replaced with socialized property and production through socialist revolution. I believe that it is only through the self-action of oppressed people that revolution can occur. I believe that ideology alone does not determine the effectiveness of activism today. Activists and organizers from many different ideological traditions have made great contributions to the cause of social justice. There are innumerable ways for individuals to add their efforts to this international movement against capitalism. [Mr. X]'s rigid definition of what it is to be a revolutionary is a dead end.

H/T Terry Glavin

Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two: why then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

100 Rampaging Youth In Paris Suburb

Not five, not fifteen, but a gang of one hundred French Youths attacked French police in the Paris suburb of Courcouronnes this weekend.

Translated from Le Parisien: Tensions in Courcouronnes

Police had to resort to firing flash-ball guns during a face-off with one hundred people, Saturday night in the Canal neighborhood of Courcouronnes (Essone), it was learned Sunday from police sources.

Police fired flash-ball guns and tear gas to disperse a group of youths who answered by throwing various projectiles, the same source said.

Police officers proceeded with identity checks but there was not a single arrest. No one was wounded, it was said.

The police were initially called in by residents who were complaining about forty rioters in a square, a group rapidly joined by over fifty more guests from a party in the neighborhood. The face-off lasted more than an hour.

If you're planning on visiting the southern Parisian suburb of Courcouronnes, to obtain a follow-up on this or other stories taking place there, please consider the safety measures suggested by the region's official website, on how to visit Courcouronnes: [my translation]

"Theft from cars: do not tempt the devil!"
...Even when you are behind the wheel, keep vigilant. Remember to never leave your bag, or any other object of value, in plain sight on the seats. Instead, place your personal objects in the shadows, or on the floor and redouble your caution whenever the windows of the vehicle are open. Never hesitate to lock [yourself in] your car, even after you've reached your building's parking.

They're honest with the tourists, even if they are keeping the deteriorating conditions largely secret from other citizens. Was there any coverage of this story in the French press beyond this one mention..?? I didn't see it. Will it only become newsworthy when the rioting youth grow from platoon and company strength to regimental and brigade scale in numbers?

[Thanks to Le Salon Beige, who make special mention of the lack of arrests in this case.]

An important letter to PEN Canada

GayandRight: A letter to PEN Canada notes how the famous organization of writers devoted to free speech has yet failed to take a stand on the most central question of freedom of expression in Canada today.

This is the same organization that has only given modest support to our friend, the writer Howard Rothberg, silenced by an incident during a reading of his book at a Chapters bookstore in Waterloo.

When it comes to disputes involving Muslims, many of our "liberal" organizations sit on the fence. They're only really capable of wailing against the "oppression" of a now mythical white male patriarchy. When a quarter of Brits think Winston Churchill was "made up" we can see that the freedom of the academy to teach that all reality and identity is a mere construction of some nexus of power and knowledge has achieved results. We need again to discover a freedom in contact with reality and not the wishful thinking and academically-respectable conspiracy theories of far too many "cool" postmodern writers.

The "myth" of Churchill reminds me of something Mark Steyn wrote:

The problem with the left is its inability to get over ancient battles. The only defendant ever acquitted under Section 13 at the CHRC is the "Canadian Nazi Party", on the quaint grounds that, despite the plaintiff Richard Warman's best efforts to whump it up into a huge threat, it did not, in fact, exist. That tells you everything about what Warren Kinsella calls Warman's "bravery". It's easy to be brave when you're fighting phantoms. As I wrote in The Western Standard of March 27th 2006:

The free world is shuffling into a psychological bondage whose chains are mostly of our own making. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, you’ll recall, published an advertisement directing readers to Romans 1:26, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and I Corinthians 6:9, and was fined $4,500, as was the advertiser, for “exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule”.* The British “historian” David Irving sits in an Austrian jail, having been convicted of Holocaust denial. It’s not unreasonable for Muslims to conclude that, if gays and Jews are to be protected groups who can’t be offended, why shouldn't they be also?

They have a point. How many roads of inquiry are we prepared to block off in order to be “sensitive”? And, once we’ve done so, will there be anything left to talk about other than showbiz gossip? Holocaust denial should be ridiculous and contemptible but not illegal. If the objection is that it’s a uniquely terrible stain on humanity, that’s all the more reason to talk about it openly. How did we end up in a world where David Irving sits in a cell for querying the numbers of the last Holocaust while men march through London streets promising a new Holocaust and are given a bodyguard of police officers to help them do so?

The above column is not available on line, but it will be included in my forthcoming book, The Mark Steyn Flagrantly Islamophobic Reader.

Technorati Tags: Howard Rotberg, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, freedom of expression, PenCanada, Winston Churchill

I rather enjoyed...

Charles Adler: Canada is becoming a tyranny of politeness

What's A Covenant Worth..?

Even after hundreds of hikes through our city's dozens of parks and mountain trails, even after ten years living in the city of Vancouver, there are still days when I catch sight of a new bird that I had never seen before.
It happened again today as I spied a striking white and black fellow with a tell-tale red spot on the back of its head. A diligent internet search suggests that I saw a downy woodpecker, but I didn't know that at the time... As usual when I see something so beautiful in the woods, my instinct is to look around and invite any stranger nearby over to share the good fortune. Today this was the older Asian gentleman armed with a rather large camera that I had passed a few moments before, along the trail. I waved him over, explaining that there was a bird here worth filming.

Turned out he couldn't speak a word of English, but my spontaneous pantomime act eventually made things clear, and judging by the look on his smiling face he was as happy as I was by this unexpected treasure found in the park.
After a while we shyly went our separate ways, each unable to find words the other would understand, but the expressions we were wearing said as much as anything sociable we might have thought to say to one another.

A few twists and turns later and we crossed paths once again, each stopping in place as we realized the trail was too narrow for both to pass simultaneously. I fell back to my pantomime skills again to infer that he should have the right of way, and I stepped aside (into what turned out to be much deeper muck than I expected! Oh well) to give him his space; mountain trails like that one tend to bring out the chivalrous side of we hikers, especially when things are all iced over as they were today.
Once out of the park I whimsically continued walking to take full advantage of the day's gorgeous weather, letting me day-dream about a day when I might possibly own one of the beautiful houses nestled among these trees. Eventually I was approached on the slippery sidewalk by two very well-mannered young Japanese women, probably English Second Language students. With the same exemplary courtesy that all these ESL visitors seem to display, they gently asked for some clarification on how to get to the park that I, coincidentally, had just come from. Their English wasn't much better than the older fellow I had met in the woods, however, so with a practiced patience I went over my directions three or four times, and then once more just to make sure. Reading their smiles I could tell when they felt they were back on secure footing for their trip, even if the state of the sidewalks promised otherwise.

After a few more blocks the hours of walking were starting to take their toll, so I pointed myself in the direction of the nearest bus stop to begin the long journey over bridges and rivers, suburb after suburb, to head home. Then I saw it. Lo and behold, sliding towards my feet, escaping puddles and slush, glides a crisply folded twenty dollar bill.

If I had breezed past the two lost and confused teens on the sidewalk, if I hadn't stopped to be of service to the elderly tourist in the woods, would I have had the same timing to arrive at the same spot inside the same time frame to scoop up this twenty dollar bill?

As if I still needed it, here came ever more evidence that it pays to patiently search for ways to connect with people, it pays to try and be of service to each other, it pays to be curious enough to look outside of oneself and imagine what the world may be like from another's point of view.

Today's date, February 2nd, couldn't have been a more appropriate occasion for me to undergo my humble adventure, for it was on this day two years ago that I first met my current Covenant Zone co-bloggers, Dag and Truepeers, and started participating in our weekly Vancouver meetings. Searching for words to describe how I feel leaves me as silent as earlier in my pantomime escapades back on the mountain... I'll settle for saying I am grateful for such a rewarding association, for what our weekly meetings have taught me about our world; often a painfully disillusioning revelation, yet nevertheless one still leaving room for hope.
I didn't quite know what I was in store for that cold wet night, two years ago this evening... but it seemed an adventure worth pursuing then, and remains so now.

Here's to another year of agreeing to disagree, of not knowing what to do beyond the knowledge that something positive must be done, and that therefore trail after trail must be explored; that each encounter along the way be undertaken in good faith that the exchange may add value to our lives; that despair over the difficulty of the task ahead can be overcome through a willful renewal of effort, an impossible challenge made so much easier from the continued practice of searching for a common thread despite a lifetime of uncommon experiences.

What's a Covenant worth? Faith in the future... and a promise of Peace.

Liberal Fascists fight back against free speech and real human rights: Write or call your MP this weekend or Monday morning!

After reading countless blogs and newspaper opinion pieces from all kinds of decent Canadians, condemning the Canadian Human Rights Commissions for going after Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, and others exercising their right to free political speech; after reading about the corruption of all due legal processes at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, including, most shockingly, its enabling of investigators who publish hate speech on white racialist web sites all the better to make a case against these web sites for hate speech; after reading of how Liberal MP Keith Martin was going to introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for a small reform to the Canadian Human Rights Act, removing one of the sections most offensive to free speech in Canada; I was at first shocked, and then reminded of the fanatically religious evil that freedom lovers are up against today, when I read the following headline in the Globe and Mail. 'White pride' website hails Victoria MP as hero. None of the above-mentioned concerns was given any coverage in this story. No, instead, it seems the mainstream media are willing to reduce this all to another question of human rights under attack by White Supremacists and their naive aiders and abettors.

The Canadian Press story, a more complete version of which appears here, by Joan Bryden is discussed by Ezra Levant:

Joan Bryden, Canadian Press's house Liberal, followed Kinsella's memo to the letter. She wrote that wire service's first story on the subject -- not about my interrogation, or about Maclean's, or the YouTube/undernews phenomenon, etc. Her focus was the reddest red herring Kinsella she could find: that, besides 5,000 blogs, dozens of columnists across the political spectrum and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association support Martin's amendment, a no-name white supremacist does too.

"The cases of Levant and Maclean's writer Mark Steyn have sparked much furious debate," wrote Bryden. Well, not enough of a debate for her to write about, though as a journalist her trade depends on freedom of speech. But when she could smear Martin's initiative by a tenuous association, well, that's a newspeg and a headline.

What will the Liberals do?

Bryden quotes a spokesman from Stephane Dion's office as saying the obvious. "This is not the position of the Liberal Party of Canada or the Liberal caucus or Mr. Dion," said spokeswoman Leslie Swartman. Of course not; it was a private member's motion.

But then Swartman went further: "We support the Canadian Human Rights Act and will not entertain changes to it such as this." That may or may not be true; I doubt the Liberal caucus or shadow cabinet has considered the matter. But even if it's true, it could also be said of 95% of private members' business. Bryden herself opines that Swartman's comments "suggested Martin will be asked to withdraw it."

That could be the suggestion. Or it could be Kinsella's Bryden's own troublemaking spin. Martin is clearly digging in -- he's seen the blogs and the wall-to-wall editorials on the one side and, uh, Kinsella on the other side, and he's done the political math. What will Stephane Dion's math be? Will he really risk losing yet another member of his caucus over a private member's motion, something designed to allow MPs to vent ideas outside the lines of their party? Kinsella wants a fight, for his own purposes. Does Dion? Does he want another mini civil war in the Liberal Party to fill the news for a week, as it did so devastatingly last November? And what will he do if other Liberals vote for Martin's motion? Kinsella's a "Kick-Ass" bomb-thrower. But does he know how to hold together a party, demoralized by opposition status, still split along leadership faultlines? Uh, no

What now?

Kinsella's excitement has sped things up. Bryden managed to find someone else to quote before MPs deserted for the weekend: a freshmen NDP MP says he's against the motion. Over the weekend, other MPs and staff will probably chew over the subject, and maybe even do some fact-finding on their own -- and these days, that usually means using Google. It's my guess that by Monday, there will be a lot more MPs with opinions on Martin's motion, and they, too, might see the incredibly disproportionate support for his amendment, across the ideological spectrum. I predict -- though it is a prediction fused with hope -- that next week MPs and even cabinet ministers weigh in on the subject, and that Martin's little private member's motion turns into something much bigger: the first honest, open debate on the Canadian Human Righs Act, well, ever.

Note that, other than Jason Kenney's skirmishing, no Conservatives have commented publicly on this matter. I think that must end next week, if only because the MSM now smells a partisan (or at least intra-Liberal) fight. Thanks to Martin, Kinsella and Bryden, the issue is now firmly associated with a visible minority Liberal MP whose human rights credentials are impeccable. What a perfect political setting for the Conservatives to enter the fray -- calmly, thoughtfully, as followers of Martin and not radical leaders, in a bi-partisan display of their true commitment to human rights: the fundamental human rights of freedom of thought, expression, religion and the press. Next week will be interesting.

Some of Levant's commenters are not so optimistic:

I wish I could agree with you Ezra, but my sense is, from what I've gathered from people I've been chatting up around The Hill, that the Conservative's really don't want to touch this issue with a fifty-thousand foot poll right now.

They maybe onside with you, and onside with us as a whole, but they're piss scared that with them running at 5 points behind the Liberal's in the polls, that this could easily be spun the wrong way in a clearly unsupportive media.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Toronto Star's headline sometime next week is: "RACIST GROUPS PRAISE ATTACK ON HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS".

If the Conservative's jump into the fray, that headline will rather be written: "RACIST GROUPS PRAISE CONSERVATIVE ATTEMPTS TO KILL HUMAN RIGHTS LEGISLATION".

Then of course, you'll have the additional gratuitous nonsense from the Liberals. I can already see it: "First you interfere with the AECL, and now you're interfering with Human Rights Tribunals!".

The Liberal's, lead by Scott Reid, Cherniak and company, will go out of their way to paint this as an alliance between Nazi groups and the Conservatives (we're already seeing that happening) and more Conservative interference in independent government bodies.

This whole thing could backfire huge.

I think we've already established where most of the media stands on this issue.
Mike Brock | Homepage | 02.02.08 - 2:40 am | #

------------

CBC radio news is going apoplectic on the story, and SERIOUSLY spinning it.

No mention of you, Steyn or Macleans, no mention of the hrcs at all, but they sure like talking about "white supremacists".

IOW, no surprises at all from the CBC.
djb | 02.02.08 - 7:11 am | #

In other words, It seems the MSM is gearing up to tell anyone who will listen that the many thousands of Canadians who have been expressing outrage in the blogs and newspapers of the lands are, knowingly or not, all in league with white supremacist neo-nazis. For daring to speak out against officialdom's take on "human rights" in the name of real human rights, we are to be plastered with the tired slander, evoking, but not explaining or validating, the fundamental revelation of the religion of White Guilt, i.e. Auschwitz. We've seen it all before a thousand times. The attempt by the left-liberal elite to avoid or end debate by using emotional name-calling, invoking false moral equivalences, refusing empirical distinctions or real and important differences, instead of facing up to the real issues in play. Keith Martin has put his name on the line in an attempt to have a real open public debate in this country. Now it's time to put yours on the line too. Now is the time to send an email or phone your MP, as well as the Prime Minister's Office. We have to let them know that there are a lot of people out there who really care about this issue.

Take a look at what MP Keith Martin wants to remove from the law, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act:

Hate messages

13. (1) 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.

Interpretation
(2) For greater certainty, subsection (1) applies in respect of a matter that is communicated by means of a computer or a group of interconnected or related computers, including the Internet, or any similar means of communication, but does not apply in respect of a matter that is communicated in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a broadcasting undertaking.

Interpretation
(3) For the purposes of this section, no owner or operator of a telecommunication undertaking communicates or causes to be communicated any matter described in subsection (1) by reason only that the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking owned or operated by that person are used by other persons for the transmission of that matter.

R.S., 1985, c. H-6, s. 13; 2001, c. 41, s. 88.

Now check out the definition of "discrimination" in the first part of the Act:

Prohibited grounds of discrimination

3. (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted

In other words, it is illegal in this country to expose a person to "hatred" or "contempt" for pretty much any reason you could imagine. Do you really want a small class of mutually-accrediting officials deciding what intellectual differentiation you make in discussing religion, or sexuality, or family life, or culture, is or is not discriminatory and likely to expose someone to "contempt"? Do you want the law dealing in such subjective terms, and thus able to create thought crimes, as they already have in their very selective applications? Do you really believe such a law can be applied without bringing our traditional ideals of a universally-applied rule of law into contempt? Can any group of "judges" not be corrupted by a need to become politically correct in order to know whom a citizen may criticize on the internet - say "white nationalists" or conservative Christians - and whom one cannot, e.g. certain Muslim organizations or values.

We have entered in this country a time of public insanity brought about by the dominant religion of our postmodern culture: a cult of non-discrimination, the Utopian belief that human beings can somehow share a political space without having to fight for or defend anything, without having any commonly validated, or even permitted, ideas about what is good and what evil, what forms of culture are superior to others, what is a mark of freedom and what of oppression, what is a more or less rational or productive resentment and what is delusional and destructive. Because to have any such ideas you have to be willing to discriminate against someone or some form of religion. You have to take a stand and be willing to deny the Utopian fantasy of a world without conflict. But this fantasy cannot ever come true; holding on to it can only erode the existing order and its means for rational negotiation of our differences in free-speaking and decentralized arenas. The fantasy can only either lead us back into a tribal jungle where people have to join gangs for protection and fight each other without the rule of law to help defer conflict; or, it can only lead us into some kind of totalitarian order where no one, save the officially-accredited Joan Brydens of the world, dare voice their opinion. I mean, there simply haven't been any other kinds of reports on the current "Human Rights" scandal in the Globe and Mail and many other Canadian papers.

We write about these themes often here. If you need more discussion or links, read this blog's archives for the last few weeks. But for me, now is not the time to try and recapitulate all the arguments. As the story quoted at the top of this post suggests, this is the weekend when politicians in Ottawa have to decide what position they're going to take on Keith Martin's motion, at least tentatively. SO, now is the time to get in contact with your MP and let the politicians know how you feel about the cult of non-discrimination. I will only leave you with one more link, to a video which is a very compelling and funny, not too complicated look at how our liberal culture has fallen into the Utopian nonsense of a cult of non-discrimination:


Technorati Tags: Joan Bryden, liberal fascism, free speech, Canadian Human Rights Act, Keith Martin, Ezra Levant, Warren Kinsella, Liberal Party of Canada

Another Church Vandalized In France

France’s churches are increasingly the target of a degree of vandalism far more vicious than can be explained by the resentment and envy motivating mere graffiti or broken windows. What is in the heart of a young person when they go to the trouble of wreaking such large-scale destruction to the objects so representative of an adult’s faith in the promise of a better future?

Translated by myself, a no-longer-unusual story from Angers:

Church vandalized in broad daylight

Yesterday, in Angers, they overturned altar and tabernacle, overturned the baptismal font…

Located in the heart of downtown Angers, Saint-Joseph church was targeted yesterday [January 30]. It was the former parish priest who discovered the sad tableau: “Passing through Angers, he came to visit the church with members of his family, reported father Michel Fromont, the current priest….

Inside the church, vandals were especially active in the chancel: the little wooden altar, which serves for weekly Mass, was overturned. The tabernacle was ripped out “even though it was cemented into the wall”, said father Fromont. The vandals even tried to break it open it once it was on the ground, in the middle of shattered vases. The baptismal font lost its water once it was knocked over. And the principal altar cloths were thrown onto the ground.

Closed at night, the church doesn’t open its doors until 9:00 am. In order to avoid being surprised by visitors, the vandals acted in the morning, between 9:00 am and noon, after having gained access through the main entrance. For father Fromont, these acts are “not petty”. “This isn’t benches or chairs that were broken, but very meaningful religious objects.” Not to mention that there “already had been incidents here”.

Beyond the overturned crosses, the priest mentions a video, filmed in the church, broadcast over the internet. A short amateur film showing youths skateboarding in the church, sitting on the altar, or joking in the confessional. “We weren’t aware of it, but someone alerted us to it after having seen it online, among other videos of a gothic style.” This was several months ago. At that time, no complaints were made. But yesterday’s actions have changed that. Father Fromont has passed along the security video that he had, to the police.

An older story of church vandalism, involving the decapitation of a Madonna, here.

[Thanks to Le Salon Beige]

France's "Customary Rebellions"

When does it stop being crime, and start becoming war?

Reports on France's crime statistics for the previous year raise serious concerns over the hardening of attitude seen in the generation of thugs that are attacking French police. Law enforcement officials are being targeted with a fury and a frequency that is starting to take a marked effect on police morale.

A particularly troubling aspect is that the battle doesn't subside once the attackers are caught; now arrests are accompanied by promises of retaliation once the thugs are released, retaliation at a very personal level... "We know where you live", the arresting officers are told by the unrepentant youth in their handcuffs. (I have a translation post "in the works" on what the thugs are doing to off-duty police officers, which I hope to publish soon)

A spokesperson for one of France’s police unions was interviewed recently in the French media, sounding alarm bells that few are prepared to hear... because the answers require sweeping changes that so few are prepared to imagine.

In regards to this glorious balance sheet, one result nevertheless casts a shadow over the 2007 activity report: the flagrant rise in violent acts against agents of public authority. Gérard Bastian is the police sergeant of the Léman BAC [Anti-Criminality Brigade] and is the departmental secretary of the Alliance national police union.

"…In 2007, there was a 9% rise of violence against agents of public authority at the departmental level. This represents 115 recorded acts compared to 96 in 2006.... The report is alarming. We can no longer tolerate this. For the last three years, the phenomenon has been growing exponentially. And if it previously only really affected night personnel, today it touches those who work during the day as well.”

What do these assaults entail?

"Foremost, there is violent behavior, that occur almost daily and are being committed by simple offenders, which is rather exceptional. And watch out, when we roll up a violent scene, it has to be organized at force 10, because if they were all rolled up, the courts would never empty. It’s also verbal threats towards the officials. 'We know where you live, we’ll catch up with you.' There is a form of intimidation that has installed itself."

Physical violence also?

“The rebellions are becoming customary. Before, when there was an arrest, the guy went along, today, they dare us to arrest them, by physically opposing us. It’s the same thing when they’re brought to jail. Another new phenomenon: the rise of material destruction and the large-scale stonings of police cars. Six or seven vehicles were damaged by stonings in Thonon-les-Bains over the last four months!”

What are the solutions for stemming the tide of this phenomenon?

“There must first be an adaptive judicial answer. If they don’t take this problem seriously, we’ll quickly reach another level of violence. We must not play down the situation. For myself, I don’t feel reassured; the violence has grown truly significantly [over] the last three years."

Things look bleak, but there have been periods in French history where society suffered under even worse chaos than at present. There was, for one example, the time when France started to emerge from the shadow of the Hundred Years War:

[In 1422] Henry VI of England was crowned King of France; but as he was not yet a year old, the Duke of Bedford ruled as his regent... He suppressed brigandage by hanging 10,000 bandits in a year; judge therefrom the condition of the land.
Demobilized soldiers -- ecorcheurs (skinners), coquillards (shell men) -- made the highways perilous, and terrorized even large cities like Paris and Dijon. Over Normandy the ravage of war had passed back and forth like an infernal, murderous tide; even in luckier Languedoc a third of the population had disappeared. Peasants fled to the cities, or hid in caves, or fortified themselves in churches, as armies or feudal factions or robber bands approached. Many peasants never returned to their precarious holdings, but lived by beggary or thievery, or died of starvation or plague. Churches, farms, whole towns, were abandoned and left to decay. In Paris in 1422 there were 24,000 empty houses, 80,000 beggars, in a population of some 300,000. People ate the flesh and entrails of dogs. The cries of hungry children haunted the streets.
___Will Durant, The Reformation, chapt III, "France Besieged", pgs 70-71

As France’s economic foundations are besieged by a new generation of brigands, there is increasingly evidence of a slow-but-sure shift in the hearts and minds of victimized citizens, no longer viewing the veritable army of vandals as the victims but as the predatory force they reveal themselves to be. The leftist pretension that unemployment is at the root of a teenager’s decision to set a police car ablaze, is melting under the flames of the Molotov cocktails the teenager is raining on everyone’s heads.

Progressives!

Three Cheers!

Before we get to the theme and links that have occupied my attention this last week (to be posted later today, I hope), just a reminder that Covenant Zone bloggers and friends meet every Thursday in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, 7-9 pm, in front of Blenz Coffee. If you'd like, please join us in discussing the covenant we all must share if we are to guarantee each other's future in a free society.

This last Saturday marked the second anniversary of the first meeting of bloggers that soon led us to create Covenant Zone. At that first meeting, advertised by Dag as a chance for local bloggers to get together to discuss the (radical) Muslim and (Western) Gnostic problems, I met the tough-talking, but not particularly fearsome blogger in person. Unbeknownst to me, Dag had seeded the McDonald's restaurant with "friends", guys in need of a free meal, to act as security lest anyone come who had taken offense at Dag's postings on No Dhimmitude. There was no need for that. The only "bad" guy in sight was a leading organizer for the Liberal Party of Canada. And since that day, no one has seen the need to disrupt a weekly Covenant Zone meeting. We still live in a pretty free society, notwithstanding signs that this is eroding (we are free to be ignored as long as we don't want more public roles), signs which we like to talk about, and to which we now see a few people (even Liberals) reacting in positive ways.

In any case, nothing lasts forever if it is not renewed. No matter how free Canada is or has been, it still requires each of us to make a commitment in our daily lives and actions to work to protect each other's freedom, even when people do things with it which seem wrongheaded to us. Freedom today has to struggle against a culture that seems to value risk management above all else, a liberal managerial culture which wants to restrict risky actions that might have the effect of not only creating greater freedoms, but new differences and inequalities and resentments - life fully lived, in short. For too many of us, politics has come to mean a Utopian dream of overcoming politics through endless mediation by the therapeutic classes - a dream of bringing about some future without "discrimination" or inequalities or injustices. Such dreams can never be realized, given human nature, and they only really result in pressure to put the lid back on human resentments and conflicts, while we all wait naively for the day when the top blows off and things get really nasty. Much better, it seems to me, to embrace a political culture where we actively accept the inevitability and need for new signs and new differences as a mark of a freedom we can all share, a freedom for each individual to share in the signs by which we can gain a real sense of transcending the ever eroding past.

Millions of Canadians actively negotiating their differences in a million local covenant zones strikes me as a far better dream than a few great leaders and judges telling us what we can and cannot do to insure a country without "discrimination". Three cheers for Keith Martin, a Liberal who wants to protect our freedom to make light of Islam and Gnostics and Conservatives and homosexuals and Catholics, and whatever else we want to talk about, in the Covenant Zone.

Untouchables

Before we get to more serious posts, another little glimpse into the culture clash of our times:

ST. JOHN'S — An Iranian man studying in Newfoundland has been sentenced to three months in jail for kissing a woman on her breast while the two were sharing an elevator.

Farhood Azarsina, 25, pleaded guilty last week to sexual assault.

Mr. Azarsina, a PhD student in engineering at Memorial University, admitted kissing the top of the woman's breast while the two were on an elevator at the St. John's school on Sept. 27.

He apologized in court last week, explaining he acted on impulse.

Judge David Orr said during sentencing Wednesday that Mr. Azarsina “has a superficial understanding of the effect of his actions.”
[...]
Judge Orr said the fact the assault took place in an elevator, an enclosed space, added to the trauma.

Mr. Azarsina said he didn't realize the seriousness of the offence in this country.

“You can't expect all males to control themselves when the breasts are out,” he said.

The 20-year-old woman, in a victim-impact statement read in court last week, described the negative effect the incident has had on her life.

“It wasn't supposed to be a day I should remember. Instead, it was a day I'll never forget,” she said, adding it has turned her into a fearful person who is unable to sleep or concentrate.

“I'm struggling to retain some kind of normalcy in my life.”

Mr. Azarsina told the court last week that he has also suffered. He said he was verbally and physically harassed by other prisoners during his time in jail.

“They called me 'camel-back rider' and 'Osama bin Laden,' said Mr. Azarsina, who claimed he was assaulted twice.

None of these histrionics bodes well for the future, it seems to me.