KCCCC Day 28: No schadenfreude here (well, maybe a little). And some soul-baring.


  • Are yesterday’s polls so astonishing? Seen here and here and here, there can’t be much doubt anymore: we seem to be at the start of a realignment in Canadian federal politics.  About two years ago, you’ll recall, I was tossed on the political barbecue pit by Michael Ignatieff and his Super-Smart Senior Staff (4S, for short) for having the temerity to suggest, out loud, that Messrs. Chretien, Broadbent and Romanow were right.“I have no relationship with Warren Kinsella,” sniffed the fellow for whom I’d busted my hump for a couple years, and that was that.  My sin? Agreeing with, you know, the most successful Liberal leader in history: suggesting that those of us who opposed Conservatives clearly needed to get together if we were ever to defeat Conservatives.  And, more broadly, that Canada – like other democracies around the world – seemed to be heading towards a binary political universe, whether the political classes approved or not.
  • What now? Well, that’s a really good question.  If the NDP make history, and carry their current popularity past the weekend and into next week, they could very well form the Official Opposition.  The instant that happens, as I told this PostMedia reporter yesterday in a long chat, the aforementioned Ignatieff and 4S are gone.  They’ll all have to resign on election night if they are to escape the enraged, pitchfork-wielding grassroots Grits. Even in 1984’s rout we held onto Opposition status.  With that gone – and the staff, and budget and influence that brings – it will be a long, hard slog back.
  • We get emails, etc. Yesterday afternoon, not a few Gritty folks called and emailed to say, ruefully, “Damn, I guess Chretien and Broadbent and dinks like you were right.  We should’ve gotten together with the NDP when we had the chance.” My response, and as I plan to write in my Hill Times space on Monday:  “Uh-huh.  Forgive me for repeating myself, which I do all the time, but why the Hell would the NDP be interested now?  They look like they’re going to be the Official Opposition, and are on their way up.  Why would they want to get together with a party on its way down? The opportunity has passed.  Enjoy the next decade of misery.” Well, okay, maybe I wasn’t that harsh, but I was certainly thinking it, in my smallish cranium.  I’m just pissed off, you know?
  • Now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of the party: I’m pissed off, I’m gloomy, I’m mostly sad about what has happened.  And, in fairness, it’s not all Michael Ignatieff’s fault: every federal Liberal is to blame.  The leadership wars, the policy vacuum, the lousy fundraising and recruitment, the lack of election readiness, the self-defeating culture within the party itself: all of those things, taken together, have taken us to this remarkable moment.  Personally, I don’t plan to sit out the rebuilding.  After sifting through yesterday’s polls, I announced to myself – and now to y’all – that it’s time for me to take another stab at elected office.  Not sure where, or when, but that’s what I’m going to do.  You read it here first, etc.
  • Pic of the day: Get used to this, too.  He deserves to be happy.

 


“Israeli apartheid” – Peter Kent’s Israel-bashing documentary

An anonymous reader send me the full transcript of the analysis of Peter Kent’s anti-Israel “documentary” by Daniel Kamin and George Gruen for the American Jewish Committee’s Institute of Human Relations.  It makes clear that Peter Kent’s NBC program promoted some despicable anti-Israel propaganda – and that he is a hypocrite, or worse, to now claim to be a pro-Israel advocate in this election campaign.

A sampling of what Kamin and Gruen said:

  • “[Kent’s documentary] on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank neglected the context of the occupation, failing to give any historical perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.”
  • “[Kent’s approach was] misleading and unbalanced.”
  • “NBC was quite clear on what it saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be all about. Showing pictures of the subdued Palestinians who were rounded up after a Jew was stabbed in Hebron’s Casbah (marketplace), NBC’s Peter Kent asserted: ‘This is what Palestinians fear every day: Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. . . . This is what the occupation is all about’…As John Cony of the New York Times wrote in his July I review of the program, NBC should have included a map and a brief history lesson to tell its viewers what the occupation is all about.”
  • NBC’s Peter Kent reported (p. 4) that “every day Arabs are arrested for resisting the occupation. ‘Security offenses’ like promoting the outlawed PLO, or flying the PLO flag, or displaying a picture of Yassir Arafat, mean jail.” Other security offenses, such as planting bombs and stabbing civilians were notoriously absent from Mr. Kent’s litany of Palestinian security offenses. Indeed, a Jewish civilian shopper was stabbed by a Palestinian on the very day Peter Kent visited Hebron, but Mr. Kent’s report focused solely on the Israeli reaction to this act of terror.”
  • “There were repeated references to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the spokesman for the Palestinians…NBC neglected to state that the United States also considers the PLO to be a terrorist organization.”
  • “Why did this NBC special not include these significant developments which occurred in the weeks before the program was aired? Had these events been noted, they would have challenged the simplistic view that the Israeli occupation is the  problem and a monolithic, peace-loving PLO is the solution.”
  • “[In Kent’s documentary] the Palestinians were portrayed as genuinely favoring a two-state solution, when, in fact, a poll taken last year revealed that 78 percent of West Bank Palestinians rejected a state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the ultimate solution to the conflict. These Palestinians saw the establishment of an independent state in the occupied territories as only an interim step toward full control over all of what is now Israel.”
  • “Unbalanced coverage of the conflict…. It is reprehensible that NBC hung this [terrorist] label only on Israeli Jews (p. 22), while refraining from categorizing either the bus bombing or the stabbing as acts of terrorism. There were no visual images to show the wounds of the victims or the suffering of the families of the six Israelis killed in the bus incident. This sympathy was disproportionately with the Palestinians.”
  • “[In Kent’s broadcast] the clear implication was that Israel is responsible for the failure of the peace process. The program neglected to mention the Arab and Palestinian intransigence which has blocked peace negotiations.”
  • “When [NBC] mentioned apartheid in connection with Israel, [they] exploded an emotional powder keg. The inflammatory linking of Israel and South Africa served only to confuse and prejudice the salient issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is difficult to promote dialogue between the parties concerned when one prejudges one of the sides so completely. A more objective, impartial inquiry by NBC would have helped promote public understanding and not simply strengthened misconceptions and fanned passions. We hope that future NBC programs will clarify the issues and also examine viable options for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

KCCCC Day 27: Holy sh*t la m*rde!



Peter Kent’s anti-Israel documentary (updated, with other critics of Kent)

I’m an ardent supporter of Israel, as you all know. I thought Peter Kent was, too.

I was wrong. His 1987 NBC “documentary” – and the linked analysis – seriously call that into question.

Kent’s treatment of Israel was “unbalanced” and “distorted,” the study concluded. And that’s not all.

Peter Kent – and his Conservative Party – have some explaining to do. If they can’t, or won’t, every pro-Israel voter in Thornhill needs to support my friend Karen Mock.

As the former head of B’nai B’rith, Karen would have never authored anti-Israel crap like this.

UPDATE: I’ll post a free link as soon as I get it.  But I’m not alone on this.  Here’s what scholars have said about what Kent did:

 


KCCCC Day 26: Weird, man



This explains so very much.


In today’s Sun: where we Lefties went wrong (updated)

Here it is, linked…

This being the kick-off week for Sun TV, the new-look Sun paper, and the revamped Sun web site, it’s a good time to address a question I frequently get asked by family, friends and total strangers.  To wit:

“What’s a charter member of the latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, secular humanist trilateralist cabal like you doing with a bunch of right wing kooks? Don’t you feel uncomfortable being a Liberal surrounded by Conservatives?”

My stock answer, which has the benefit of actually being true:  “You get used to it.  Besides, pretty much every Leftie in the country is going to feel like I do, in a couple weeks – you know, a stranger in an even stranger land.”

They don’t get it, or they don’t agree.  They will, soon enough.

Stephen Harper’s Reformatories, you see, are heading to victory on May 2. And, barring some big upset in the next few days, it may be a big victory, too.

Now, it’s not like that the Conservative leader deserves a majority, let alone re-election. He’s run up a historically-big deficit, he’s run a lousy campaign, and he’s run his promise to clean up government straight into the ditch – with so many ethical lapses taking place, you need a program to keep track.  (My personal favourite? He fires Helena Guergis for cavorting with hookers, when she didn’t – and he then gives a big patronage job to convicted fraud artist Bruce Carson.  Who, er, brought a real hooker to a party at 24 Sussex.)

So if I’m right, and Harper’s done such a crummy job, why is he cruising to victory? Mainly, it’s because those of us on the Left have done a lousier job.

First off, the Liberals and the NDP had a shot at working together, about two years ago, but they blew it.  The forces of the Left allowed themselves to be scared away off of cooperation/coalition/merger by Harper – despite the fact that Harper himself had brought together the forces of the Right, and then won government.

Secondly, Michael Ignatieff feels more comfortable among Rosedalian Liberals. You know, the ones who – over martinis at the Toronto Tennis Club – always felt more kinship with the likes of John Turner or Paul Martin than they did with, say, Pierre Trudeau or Jean Chretien. You know, Liberal lefties who win elections.

Thirdly, Iggy and his Rosedalian senior staff thought they could ignore Jack Layton’s NDP. By becoming a paler shade of blue, they assured themselves, they’d win back government. Thus, the Liberal chief was more hawkish than Harper on Afghanistan, more enthusiastic about the Oil Sands, and more willing to look at Medicare “alternatives” than any Liberal ever should. In so doing, Iggy scared away soft NDP voters, all of whom now consider Iggy to be a paler version of Harper.

What’s the solution for the Left? Same as it was two years ago: listen to smart guys like Chretien, Ed Broadbent, Roy Romanow, and bring together progressives to form a single, formidable political force. That’s how to beat Harper.

The good news, I suppose, is that those of us on the political left will now have four long years to get our act together.

Because, believe me: on May 3, this Leftie ain’t going to be the only stranger in an even stranger right-wing land.