Canadian Government Says Free Speech is for Offending Muslims — Not Opposing Israel

Steven Harper is a hypocrite as far as I am concerned. It is OK to offend one particular group under the guise of freedom of speech, but when you say something against a country or group the government favors (in this case, Israel), it is labelled as hate speech? Why the double standard? Height of hypocrisy if you ask me.

The harper government is such an embarrassing bunch of fuck ups and is only in office because Paul Martin was also a gigantic fuck up. Lets try NDP for a term or two next election and see how they do.

I am so disgusted with this Government’s hipocracy and how they have taken us from an honest broker on the world stage to a right wing Fanatical nation.

Any natural hidden power will open up at last. If you try to resist it, soon it will burst out.

Another country of low morals declaring the murderer be protected while the victims suffer in silence.

About which BDS movement is this article referring? Is it the Nazi BDS movement of the 1930s or the Arab inspired BDS anti-Israel movement to Belittle Defame and Slander the world’s sole Jewish state?

Either way, what does BDS really mean? For some it means to Belittle Defame and Slander the world’s sole Jewish state.

For others it means Boycott Divestment Sanction.

I’m a firm supporter of BDS that means to Buy Defend and Support Israel against the evil Jihad being waged against it.

that also proves that both the government and Frum are pathetically blatant liars.

What a crew of hypocrites, we call the Canadian Government.

Enough of this fascist state of PC. Boot out Harper so we may live free again.I do not like to be told what to beleive in and who to beleive in!!! Even under threats!!!

By next fall all canadians will see the light and throw out this fascist govt.We are free people and we are not to be told what to beleive , who to beleive under threats .!!!

An even more alarming development in Canada is found in the recent revelations that the RCMP view indigenous activist groups as “bacteria”. http://aptn.ca/news/2015/05/07/idle-movement-like-bacteria-says-internal-rcmp-document/
A clear lineage exists from the “vermin” label that was once common in North America and which I see applied by some Israelis to Palestinians.

As a Canadian I am sickened by Harper’s policies and postures and I hope that a new government will soon begin the process of redressing First Nations grievances and restoring Canada’s reputation at home and abroad.

NYT recently ran awful piece on BDS movement and Jewish students. This from Electronic Intifada captures the problem:

Jewish “litmus test”
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An even more troubling interaction occurred between Times reporter Ronnie Cohen and David McCleary, a Jewish member of [Students for Justice in Palestine] at the University of California at Berkeley.
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He spoke to Cohen for more than an hour, phone records seen by The Electronic Intifada show, after the Times had contacted SJP specifically asking to speak to Jewish members.
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McCleary also provided copies of text messages between him and Cohen.
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“We talked about everything – why as a Jew I was supporting BDS, why this wasn’t singling out Israel, all the standard questions, but there were all these weird questions about my Judaism,” McCleary told The Electronic Intifada. He said he felt like he was being subjected to a “Jewish litmus test.”
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According McCleary, Cohen asserted that his name “didn’t sound Jewish.” Cohen also asked him if he had a Bar Mitzvah – the Jewish ritual for adolescent boys.
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“I had to explain that Judaism goes through the mother,” McCleary recalled. “I went to Jewish Sunday school growing up. I’m about as Jewish as you get.”
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But the question McCleary found even more disturbing is when Cohen asked him: “Do you look Jewish?”
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In an exchange of text messages after the conversation, McCleary told Cohen that her “questioning of my Jewish identity was deeply troubling.”
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“I am sorry,” Cohen responded.

This guy Mr harper looks very stupid to me. I just can’t believe how this men is the primer minister.

I hate haters!

Free lunch, free drinks, free advice, free speech, free ride … all you are told is that you don’t have to pay for any of these, that all. There is no other expectation of the word free herein.

For your consideration:

AIPAC-backed amendments add to trade bill turmoil

The trade bill amendments aim to discourage foreign governments — in particular European ones — from boycotting, divesting from or putting sanctions on commercial activity linked to Israel and “Israeli-controlled territories.” They were inspired by the “BDS movement,” which was started a decade ago by Palestinian activists to put economic pressure on Israel to change its dealings with the Palestinians.
 
Opponents have a range of concerns with the amendments, which sailed through House and Senate committees. Some support the BDS movement, arguing it is a peaceful, grass-roots campaign that should not be targeted by U.S. trade law. Others, including some who oppose the BDS movement, are more worried about the legislation’s use of the phrase “Israeli-controlled territories.” They argue it’s a veiled reference to Israeli settlements in the West Bank — and that its use is an attempt to use U.S. law to legitimize Israel’s control over disputed land that Palestinians claim for a future state. […]
 
Michael Shapiro, an aide to Roskam, called the concern about the amendments “empty criticism by fringe organizations attempting to derail overwhelmingly bipartisan efforts to curb the BDS movement against Israel.” In particular he blasted Jewish Voice for Peace as an anti-Israel group, and said that “discriminatory boycotts against Israeli companies or U.S. companies that do business in Israel are illegitimate and immoral.” […]
 
An AIPAC source, who would not comment on the record, insisted the amendments have nothing to do with settlements. In the latest version of the statement on its site, AIPAC writes that, while many Arab states have long avoided doing business with Israelis, the primary threat is now coming from Europe, “where some governments are initiating efforts to boycott Israel, divest from Israel and threaten sanctions on companies that operate there.” […]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/trade-bill-israel-aipac-117815.html?hp=t3_r

BDS has nothing with free speech apart of abusing it.
BDS is all about hate of Jews and Israelis. It is willing to hurts Palestinians working and depending on Israeli firms in the process of demonizing Israel.
BDS has announced that they will not stop their actions to isolate Israel even if and after there would be a Palestinian country.
Just like other Muslim trends and organizations, BDS is abusing the freedom of speech in order to spread hate against Israel. This is not free speech this is an organized campaign to hurt Israel economy.
Harper understands the difference. Most of the people reacting here, do not or don want to. Fine, just remember that Israel is not the final target of the Islam. US and Canada are and Europe is within a grasp. Now go ahead and support BDS and their free speech and we will see where we are all in 10 years’ time.

There is a difference between the two sides which you have unfairly glossed over. Jews have never murdered people for making fun of them or arguing against them. Muslims routinely do that. Therefore pro-BDS speech is not mere speech, it is speech hand in hand with gangsterism, and SHOULD be restricted or banned.

You can see David Frum in action on CSPAN.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?305586-1/911-false-flags-black-ops-evening-debate-

“In that regard, Stephen Harper is the perfect Poster Boy for how free expression is tribalistically manipulated and exploited in the West.”

I agree with that, and I would say “hate crime” is manipulated in the same way as “war crime”. At the same time, I still believe war crime charges, as well as hate crime charges have their place. I think both crimes describe dimensions of criminal actions that are not captured by other descriptions. That hate crime, or hate speech laws are abused, I don’t find a compelling reason to do away with them. If someone spray paints “Joanie Loves Chachi ” on a door, I would want that to be measured differently than if someone spray paints a swastika on a door. One, is vandalism that a home-owner will need to pay to remove, one is a threat of violence to an entire group. If right wing Western governments pursue investigations of hate crimes against Jews, more vigorously than investigations of crimes against Muslims, I find that a failure not of the laws, but of the people enforcing them.

If one sort of law needs to be retired, I would argue that it is “war crime” that is more open to political hypocrisy and abuse, appearing to be victor’s justice, or a weapon to be used mainly against black nations and enemies of the West.

I’m thinking of the Khadr case, a 15 year old, convicted in a makeshift tribunal, of charges that were invented, after the supposed crime. And the crime? An invading US soldier was killed in Afghanistan, and the evidence…tortured and coerced.

“He was finally charged in 2007 “as an unlawful enemy combatant” with crimes invented by the U.S. Military Commission Act of 2006. These are not crimes under international or Canadian law and were not even crimes in 2002 under U.S. law. In any event the U.S. accusations had never been proven in a property constituted court.

In October 2011, in exchange for Omar Khadr confessing to these charges, a U.S. military tribunal sentenced him to eight more years on top of time served with the condition that he could apply to return to Canada. Since Khadr’s confession was extracted after over nine years of torture and mistreatment, it cannot be a valid determinant of guilt says Edney.

Khadr’s case was a violation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which places special importance on protecting children, even those in custody according to Edney

Gail Davidson of Lawyers Rights Watch, a local spokesperson for the new committee, said:

Canadian authorities wrongly persist in claiming that the illegal Guantánamo Bay sentencing gives them the legal right to continue to imprison Omar.

The Supreme Court of Canada and the U.S. Supreme Court have confirmed that his rights have been violated by the U.S. and Canada.The UN Committee against Torture called on Canada to honour our legal obligation to provide him with compensation for the violations confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.  Canada has a legal duty to release Omar and ensure that the violations of his rights are investigated and remedied.”

http://rabble.ca/news/2013/04/why-omar-khadr-still-jail

Free speech doesnt mean you can insult anyone you want, it is my right to boycott as a protest if I feel there is some injustice. If you dont agree do whatever u like but dont enforce your opinion on me

For comic relief: Stevie and the Conservicats Sing With a Little Help from Big Fear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzst_vy49xM

First of all, I sincerely hope I’m not writing this just to see my comment go unpublished, as was the case for too many of my latest posts, and I hope so not because these posts are so goddamn important, but because it’s really starting to piss me off to lose my precious time for nothing looking up sources and thinking of pertinent arguments that are, contrary to a lot of what I’m used to reading here, absolutely not ego-related…

Now, as to the fact of the matter…

There’s one sorry evolution your article doesn’t mention, and a crucial one at that, which doesn’t affect Canada only : if, by October 19 (federal election day in Canada), voters grow tired of Harper (which, if we are to believe the latest polls, doesn’t seem to be the case right now), they can still choose one of his contenders. That’s the basic virtue of democracy, isn’t it ? But what policy will they get instead if said contender gets elected ? The exact same one !

Trudeau, Harper’s main contender, already expressed his endorsement of C-51, the famous anti-terrorism bill the Canadian federal parliament just passed in third reading, despite major opposition from civil society groups, a whole kebab of former PMs, as well as dire warnings from official privacy guardians.

On the BDS matter, all three major parties are on the same line :

“The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses. As a @McGillU alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough” (March 13, 2015)

https://twitter.com/justintrudeau/status/576465632884981760

“[…] Canada, a country where the federal Liberal and NDP leaders also oppose BDS, appears to have lined up more strongly behind Israel than any other nation.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-cites-hate-crime-laws-when-asked-about-its-zero-tolerance-for-israel-boycotters-1.3067497

As this holy alliance of parties – merely reflecting, one could argue, the global consensus on economic questions – is far from anecdotal, the “civilized (=Western) tribes” are left wondering what kind of democracy is actually ruling their lives, and what good it actually does blaming one man (however sold to the oil lobby he may be) for the dereliction of an entire system…

Furthermore, as these restrictions on free speech come with an ever more radical shift to the far right in Israel, one can but wonder 1) which vision for Israel Western governments are endorsing; 2) to which degree the far right’s “ideal” is dominating all major pro-Israel circles in the West (Their unequivocally backing the latest war on Gaza should be an indication…); 3) by extension, to which degree this “ideal” might have (once again) permeated so-called Western elites; 4) by which concrete mechanisms this ideology has infiltrated Western centers of power; 5) to what these circles owe their legitimacy, and in how far they are representative of non-Israeli Jews; 6) what Western nations and progressive Jews have to gain in the process.

Your article is isolating Canada, but in a globalized environment, looking at the latest impediments the BDS movement is facing in a panoramic way reveals a confounding synchronicity…

– In Israel itself :

“On Wednesday, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the country’s “anti-boycott law,” which makes it a civil offense for people or groups to advocate boycotting Israeli or settlement products, institutions, or individuals, and the advocacy has a reasonable chance of succeeding. The decision legitimizes violations of the rights to freedom of expression and association, and punishes advocacy urging businesses to respect international law.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/18/dispatches-israeli-supreme-court-upholds-anti-boycott-law

– In the U.S. :

“With little notice, anti-BDS directives were injected into the “Fast Track” legislation that passed the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday night, despite broad opposition to the bill […].

The passed amendment has not yet been made public, but Josh Ruebner, policy director for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, told Common Dreams that Cardin’s office confirmed that the language was based on the Senate legislation S.619, which states:

To include among the principal trade negotiating objectives of the United States regarding commercial partnerships trade negotiating objectives with respect to discouraging activity that discourages, penalizes, or otherwise limits commercial relations with Israel, and for other purposes.”

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/23/us-lawmakers-quietly-advance-legislation-penalize-boycott-israel

– In France :

“In February 2010, the penal court of Bordeaux convicted Saquina Arnaud-Khimoun for labeling Israeli products with the sticker “Boycott Apartheid Israel.” The court ruled that she had “hindered the normal exercise of economic activities by making a distinction on the basis of nationality.” […]

However, in July 2011, a court in Paris acquitted Olivia Zémor, a member of the group EuroPalestine, for posting a video on the internet showing Palestinian and French activists wearing t-shirts calling for a boycott of Israel. Zémor was brought to court by four organizations, including the Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

The Paris court ruled that calling for the boycott of Israeli products is not prohibited under French law. The tribunal said that “Criticism of a State or its policies cannot be regarded, in principle, as infringing the rights or dignity of its nationals, without seriously affecting freedom of expression in a world now globalized, whose civil society has become a major actor, and since no ‘criminal offence against a Foreign State’ has ever been established under substantive law or international common law, because this would be contrary to the commonly accepted standard of freedom to express opinions.” ”

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/france-penalizes-boycott-of-israeli-products/2012/07/12/

Knowing how publicly ingratiating France’s current administration has proved to be towards the Israeli government, for them not to follow suit would come as a surprise. Under the previous admin, a simple circular letter was sent by the (outgoing) Attorney General to all public prosecutors, urging them to consider the activities of the BDS movement as being subject to prosecution under articles 225-1 and 225-2 (§ 1, 2 and 4) of the French penal code.

(from Thomas’ French counterpart : )
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessionid=B76B3DB010D4E60A86B0835F3BA3A6B1.tpdila11v_3?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006417828&dateTexte=&categorieLien=cid

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?idArticle=LEGIARTI000026268210&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719

There’s some raw irony in this legislative evolution dictated by the executive branch, in that the same person would later, as head of the French State Dept., advocate sending special police forces to tame Tunisian insurgents during the Arab Spring…

But aside from that, what is this law (passed in 1977) saying ? It punishes any discrimination of individual citizens on grounds of, among many other things, their alleged or actual ethnicity or national ties/origins. The minister’s circular letter was meant to make clear the latter was precisely what BDS was guilty of.

(in French : )
http://www.liberation.fr/politiques/2010/11/19/il-est-desormais-interdit-de-boycotter_694697

But the law (voluntarily ?) contains a loophole : ‘political opinions’ are one of the other criterion mentioned as grounds for discrimination…

In your Guardian piece (the one you refer to at the end of this article), you wrote the following :

“It is not possible, nor probable, but certain – 100% inevitable – that empowering the state to imprison people for the expression of “hateful” ideas will be radically abused, will be exploited to shield power factions from meaningful challenge. Demanding that Google or Twitter suppress ideas specified by the state is the hallmark of tyrants.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/free-speech-twitter-france

As far as BDS is concerned, the question is of a different nature, at least according to current French law : if, as the aforementioned examples show, a law is confusing enough to let any judge decide for himself whether to rule against person A on grounds of discrimination, or not to rule against person B because the ruling itself would be discriminatory, 1) isn’t any such ruling politically motivated ?; 2) aren’t the rule of law and the equality it is supposed to imply in se invalidated ?

Among all entities most likely to abuse power, thus censorship, the state comes first, because, despite it selling itself to oligarchs, it is still the most centralized form of power (of which, by the way, said oligarchs are now pulling the strings).

As I’ve made abundantly clear in the previous lines how skeptical I am of the state, I would nonetheless like to make the following comments / ask the following questions :

A/ What do you consider an idea to be, and when does the state, according to you, exceed its legitimate prerogatives ?

Some of your latest stances on freedom of speech seem far less monolithic than the opinion you expressed in that earlier piece, but since you’re referring to it again, the question seems valid.

Example 1 : a Twitter user states all members of the ADL should be killed, and he’s promising a reward to the people who’d kill them.

Example 2 : in a particularly violent rap song, a young Muslim claims synagogues aren’t only temples of prayer, or places where Jews study theology, but also recruitment centers for the IDF (which, in some cases, at least in France, appears to be true…), and that all Muslims should regard them as such.

Example 3 : a neo-nazi revisionist is publishing a book in which he states that the state of Israel is based on one big lie, and that it should therefore be eradicated.

Example 4 : in a famous sketch written thirty years ago, talented French comedian Pierre Desproges made fun of the Holocaust. The audience was laughing cheerfully at his depiction of a pretentiously reluctant Jew when came bath time…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWMYDhIzvkI

Example 5 : in his latest rap song, a young Muslim states synagogues aren’t only temples of prayer, or places where one studies theology, but also recruitment centers for the IDF.

Example 6 : a pro-Palestinian academic shows up on TV claiming what Israel did to Gaza last summer is to be likened to what the nazis did to the Warsaw ghetto, and that, since a majority of Israelis supported the bloodbath, they are all equally responsible for its consequences.

Though the opinion of the guy in example 5 is probably the one with the greatest potential destructive impact, his merely calling for eradication cannot be translated into fact, whereas the guys from examples 3 and 4 can remotely convince some twisted mind to take action, while remaining ‘clean’ themselves. Equally possible is that their expressing those opinions has no consequence whatsoever. Knowing that, should the state await potential consequences ? Wouldn’t it be accused of doing nothing (by one community or another) while it had the knowledge and could have acted to prevent, say, a murder ? If so, wouldn’t that give additional arguments to specific lobbies ? Doesn’t the state have to do something when a direct threat is issued ? If so, what can/must it do ?

Should the state treat all forms of expression in the same way ? Are artistic expressions forbidden ground for the state ? Is the humor from example 1 the same as, say, Streicher’s, or even Dieudonné’s ? Is humor always well-intentioned ? Can it not itself feed hatred ? Should ‘the times’, the political context, be an indication of what type of humor a society/a state should tolerate ?

When state officials read example 6, there’s only one conclusion they can come to. This is not the case regarding examples 1 and 3. In order for them to label the opinions expressed in these examples as anti-Semitism, they have to interpret them in a way that is favorable to their own beliefs, the state’s beliefs. In other words, they have to crush these opinions (and the ones expressing them) by giving them a different, or even opposite, meaning allowing them to censor or condemn something that has not been said or written. They have to transform irony into affirmation by denying it the benefit of the doubt, thereby not only vilifying people with trumped-up charges, but also impoverishing language itself, of which only their technocratic variant remains tolerated.

Now, here’s my main question to you : is it not a little too intellectually comfortable to remain on the surface of things with general Manichean statements about freedom of speech vs. censorship, or the state vs. the harmless little hatemonger ? Wouldn’t a casuistical review allow a more nuanced picture ? Or would making any distinction of any sort between these six examples mean opening Pandora’s box ? In other words, is example 6 equally worth defending as example 1 ? If so, doesn’t that undermine the latter, which is slightly more elaborate and critical of power ?

Moreover, you keep advocating free speech in general, but I’m sure you too would like, for instance, homophobic hate speech to vanish. If you didn’t, why would TI have published an article like this one : https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/black-writers-confront-online-racism/ ?

In that perspective, the question that comes to mind is : what is/are the cause(s) of hate speech ? Many governments point out outdated, inadequate, education methods, but instead of lamenting the near absence of critical thinking training, they (Vallaud-Belkacem, for instance) prefer resorting to good old hierarchical authority. Why isn’t TI asking this question ? Not asking it makes it look as if you consider all is fine and well, and nothing can change. Asking it, on the other hand, might lead to the conclusion some powerful groups (and even the state itself) have a vested interest in maintaining the “two minutes of hate”…

B/ “Nothing has been more destructive or dangerous throughout history – nothing – than the power of the state to suppress and criminalize opinions it dislikes”, you wrote in the same Guardian piece.

I can think of at least six alternatives to your statement (not all of which, however, are fundamentally contradicting it) :

1/ Nothing has been more destructive or dangerous throughout history – nothing – than the slow alignment of all supposedly democratic forces of popular representation behind one particular orthodoxy.

2/ Until now, nothing had been more destructive or dangerous throughout history – nothing – than the power of a central institution – religion, state, i.e. – to own the monopoly of public opinion.

3/ Nothing was more destructive or dangerous – nothing – than the power of the state to suppress and criminalize opinions it dislikes, until multinational corporations became omnipresent, along with mass entertainment, both diffusely leveling the cultural playing field to the Gaga-point, forcing most indie record shops and book stores to close shop, and taking over most independent TV and radio stations, making it almost impossible for any dissenting opinion to be heard/read, and for any opinion to remain fundamentally dissenting once it has succumbed to the call of the conformity-producing-and-inducing entertainment apparatus carrying the promise of a meaningful audience.

4/ Nothing has been more destructive or dangerous throughout modern history – nothing – than a majority of the people left uninformed, or not caring where their government/their country are headed.

5/ Nothing has been more destructive or dangerous throughout history – nothing – than obscure, unelected, interests leading a country to war.

6/ Nothing has been more destructive or dangerous throughout history – nothing – than the confiscation of wealth, power and knowledge by a tiny minority.

A couple of things:

Having looked at this story, I think it may be jumping the gun to say Harper’s government is going to pursue hate charges. They got one guy who said this was happening is not a spokesperson for the safety minister. While I am no fan of Harper and I wouldn’t put it past him to try to press these charges, there is no other indication of the pursuit of these charges.

In looking at the charges highlighted in the email exchange, I think if the Harper government did try to pursue them, they would be in for a long road. As an example, saying I am boycotting Israel over something I find morally objectionable and they committed crimes against humanity would not classify as a hate crime. However, saying I am boycotting because all Jews are filthy shit eaters who fuck their mothers and suck their father’s dicks would be a different story. Notice the differences? Setting aside that saying that about jews is a complete lie and hugely inflammatory, the big difference is that Israel is not considered a minority group. Jews are, at least in Canada. The law itself seems pretty obvious to me so I doubt charges would actually stick if pursued.

I am wondering if this may be an attack on the idea of hate speech laws in other countries. I have heard it argued these type of laws suppress free thought but no one has ever cited an example of it or they just don’t want to point out something especially heinous by someone they wouldn’t want to be said. To me, hate speech laws do what they are supposed to do. Protect some of the most vulnerable of society. Hate speech can go a long way to really affect people personally and there are many cases of suicide over a constant barrage of hate speech. One could call some of it harassment but the lines are becoming blurred when it comes to a country like the US which has been struggling with hate speech and the first amendment for a very long time.

I suppose that the first thing to be done is to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Mr. Harper.

BDS HARPER… that sounds good, but what would sound even better would be to hear Mr. Harper said that “Palestine hasa right to exist.”

Mr. Harper is a scary man. and — is Canada’s anthem ‘OH CANADA?” If yes; Oh Harper, Oh Canada, Oh Humanity!

Most Muslims are like “We’ll take a kicking for the world to go on ticking,” while some (very few) are like “Fuck you insulting us, we’re prepared to die defending our faith, and defending our home countries against Western intervention and looting, which your ridicule of us facilitates.” It seems both responses are reasonable, and in fact the former is remarkably and surprisingly humble, although on no account can the violent response be deemed justifiable (in my opinion).

But Zionists are like “We’ll take no criticism, at all.” And some of their lunatics are killing defenseless people just as the Muslim nutcases are. And the West supports corrupted Zionism and its murderous behavior with arms. money, and international protection ON AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL.

If the watchword is “accept criticism of your violence-facilitating belief system as sensible, and modify your behavior accordingly” the Zionists are failing to even recognize the validity of the criticism itself, let alone admit and begin to correct their faults – because Zionism has corporate/military/institutional support – thus the playing field is not equal in this regard, and the charade of all this being about free speech is bullshit, utter bullshit.

What the corporatist/militarist/Zionist West needs is humility, and what the Muslim world needs is to more fully own its largely meek response as a decent thing which ultimately wins out over violence by shaming it away.

Stephen Harper and his party have cognitive dissonance and appear to be conspicuously Christian Zionist. Canadians are generally likeable, but their government is presently compromised in a way similar to the US – all 5 eyes countries’ systems are being plagued with establishmentarian moral ruination – by authoritarianism, corporatism, militarism and (more than anything) cowardice.

Read charitably, the email might be taken as a threat to rigorously punish “hate speech” violations by groups involved in what the official thinks is an anti-Semitic cause, rather than a claim that boycotts and divestment from Israel is innately illegal. Nonetheless, so long as foolhardy censorship laws exist, people will be prone to assume the worst, usually with good justification.

What I know is that in the U.S., we made the biggest strides against racism at a time when some popular politicians still freely used offensive racial epithets. Once the censorious people came in, all concerned with appearances and never with essences, that progress ground to a halt. Today it is practically a newsworthy story whenever someone says the magic word to indicate a racist sentiment, and so wretchedly substandard schools for minorities are a status quo that goes without comment or concern.

Banning hate speech is the most effective expression of hate there is. It riles up racist outrage for the martyrs of their cause. It validates every cockeyed conspiracy theory as something that is true that the government is covering up. And it allows the masses to slumber oblivious of the issue, never suspecting anything could happen until the moment it becomes violence and the targets are left to flee for their lives.

in case someone else hasn’t mentioned this:

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Anti-boycott-bill-becomes-law-after-passing-Knesset

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/High-Court-rules-on-boycott-law-398206

i’ve seen talk here and there about making it an international tactic as opposed to just bullying peaceful activists within their “borders”. must be that thar “lawfare” i hear so many folks talkin’ ’bout.

funny how even the israeli version of this stupidity only threatens civil lawsuits whereas for harper that isn’t enough: you must be ostracized, punished severely and wear the scarlet letter of “HATER” as long as the “Harper Government” sees fit.

i’m sure the approaching election and the groveling for donations that accompanies it have nothing AT ALL to do with the conservatives turning their israeli ass kissing to 11.

Fwiw CBC reporter Neil MacDonald is the brother of former SNL Weekend Update anchor Norm MacDonald.

Yes, really. How sweet it is.

People like this and American congress/govt makes me sick on how low they will go and bend constitutional rigjts and freedom to please a terrorist state like israel.
Sincevwhen is it a hate crime to expose the criminal act of a country? How come that law does not apply to Iran or did not apply to Iraq or Libya? Oh wait, i forgot, these are Arab/Muslim countries, they are not protected under the freedom of speech/expression act or hate speech act.
Such clowns like Harper, our McCain, Rubio, Boehner etc belings in the zoo,

By the way, the job of a spokesperson is to never repeat the stupid things the boss says, but rather seamlessly substitute in true words of wisdom. Our State Department has had a couple of really good spokespersons during the Obama administration. They move on to better paying jobs, of course. The Canadians, well, certain of their pop stars need good spokespersons, and they probably pay much better than the government. That is the source of the problem here.

…and that is why his government has just been d-throned and it is not likely the new government has been bought & paid for too and thus a mute point just like Harper’s government if one could call it that….

History repeats itself. When the movement to divest in businesses doing business with then-apartheid South Africa began, it faced the very same opposition, from the very same elements, which is to say, from racists and the business community, and their lackeys in government. But thanks to his amazing hubris, Netanyahu is confirming the very worst charges against him, and in so doing is effectively countering his numerous defenders in the press. As more and more people come to accept the truth, the divestiture movement will gain strength, and pressure to stop providing economic and military aid to Israel will have the desired effect. Let us look forward to the day that the Israeli government finds it necessary to give in, and pursue a righteous course in its dealings with all its citizens and with its neighbors.

Are sanctions by US and other countries on Iran hate-speech?

I think there is a spokesperson who is looking for a new job. Reading comprehension: 0. Political comprehension: 0. Interesting that the CBC story was declared false rather than the result of a mistake. That should result in someone else getting fired. Of course it is possible that there are no better qualified genuine conservatives for the jobs.

So, now that they’ve been called out, they’re trying to deny it. Typical nutjob conservative response.

I sense the election donations from the Canadian Jewish community flowing in to the coffers of our principled Conservative Party as I write.

This is just the beginning of overt boots on the ground. The spider is getting ready to wrap up its victim good and tight. The U.S. /U.K. merged regime will be the next in line. Too sad.

Just signed on to the anthropologists’ boycott document. I had a series of concerns about it previously, and so had not added my name, but the hypocrisy of the Harper government has worked its persuasive magic on me.

Such fair weather friend-ery is certainly not laudable. It’s like when you volunteer at an event, and there are always those people who show up after all the set-up is done, strut around like they did all the work during the fun part, and disappear before clean-up. I have no problem with people who represent themselves honestly in this case. If someone thinks the Hebdo case specifically was enough to merit protest, outside of any free speech claims, fine. But if you want to claim to represent free speech it’s not your freaking trophy wife. In sickness and in health, when defending easy and difficult things, and all that. Even when I disagree with TI’s core staff (can’t speak for all of them as I’m not familiar with all of their work) I appreciate that they have demonstrated considerable real world work and risk-taking that aligns with their stated beliefs.

Harper and his government are so in need of a “cerebral enema”…they can not keep track from one day to the next the rants of a disturbed government / leader…His followers are corrupt….he is corrupt…and they are corrupting the reputation of this nation

Glenn, what you’re describing is what George Orwell called “doublethink”, both in the assertion that “freedom” excludes disfavored points of view, and in false equivalences, e.g., BDS = terrorism.

It also is the Canadian gov’t’s demonstration that it has the power to determine what’s officially good and evil — and will enforce it. The fact that they’re this brazen about it simply reinforces their point.

I suppose I should insert a quote by Holmes or Brandeis about free speech, but it’s too late for that.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.
— “1984”

Attacks on Islam and Muslims have always been considered free speech.
And anything said in defense of Islam and Muslims has always been labelled hate speech.

Stephen Harper is a great example of the hypocrisy.
He is a great example of some who incites hate against Islam and Muslims in the name of free speech and at the same time silences all those who disagree with his hate against Islam and Muslims using his hate speech laws.

#jesuisBDS

Consistency is just too much to ask for. Nazis in Skokie and MLK in Washington DC, being consistent can be pretty bizarre too.