You have to hand it to the neocons. In a world where most of us prefer not to appear too ridiculous, they don't give a flying fig.
Exhibit A? Doubletalk.
The current poster boy for neocon doubletalk is Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who once again this week formally denounced anti-Semitism, a position about as applepie incontestable as you can get. If anti-Semitism isn't criminally deplorable, what is?
So the declaration must be put into context. And here it is, framed in the neocon colours Kenney gave it last week in New York, when he declared his Conservative government would never accept "the new anti-Semitism" - that is, negative attitudes toward Israel, as opposed to Jewish people.
True, his purported target this time was bad actors like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other lunatics at the Durban hatefest. But Kenney has labelled (if not libelled) people before for attitudes not thoroughly in line with the Harper government's uncritical position toward Israel.
Remember KAIROS, the respected Christian group that dared to express humanitarian concerns about Palestinians? Poof! Defunded. Kenney told a Jerusalem audience the defunding was part of his government's response to anti-Semitism.
So last week's "new anti-Semitism" comes with a one-size-fits-all big chill.
Harbour misgivings about how the Israeli government conducts its affairs, and you'd better watch your step, bud. You're probably guilty.
The judgment is a terrible one, horrifying anyone sickened by real anti-Semitism and the violent consequences of bigoted intolerance. But if that person holds opinions on Middle East politics that deviate from the neo-con playbook (which, incidentally, is also embraced by the current Israeli government with its far-right elements), it's a judgment that sticks.
The logic is ludicrous, of course. If differing opinions were anti-Semitic, then half of present-day Israel could be considered anti-Semitic.
It's like the neo-cons' familiar "anti-American" label routinely hung on Canadians opposed to the most recent Bush administration.
A disparaging word about George W. and his cohorts, and - zap - you were anti-American. Trouble is, such reasoning would have made an awful lot of United States citizens anti-American.
But such charges effectively shut down debate. That's their value.
Who can trust anyone deemed "anti-Semitic" or "anti-American" or "anti" any other group neo-cons choose to shelter from legitimate scrutiny?
But here's the funny thing. Kenney - and all the other neo-cons who find this kind of smearing legitimate - are uniformly loud and proud in their professed love of democracy. A couple of years ago, Harper noted in a speech that "our government does not . attempt to intimidate those with whom it disagrees." A guiding principle of the Conservative Party is "a belief in the freedom of the individual, including freedom of speech."
This is the same crowd that falls all over itself to salute our veterans for the sacrifices that have protected our freedoms.
So why do they trample all over them? Why does "Standing Up for Canadian Values" (as the Conservative website headlines it) suggest that freedom of expression is not, actually, one of those values?
There was an interesting letter to the editor in last Saturday's Citizen. Written by Jack Nakamoto, a Second World War veteran who served with the Canadian Army, it told of his wartime leaves in London, where he enjoyed heading to Hyde Park and Speakers' Corner.
What he loved was the reverence for free speech represented by the site, where speakers - even during wartime - spoke critically and freely of British military decisions.
(Given Nakamoto's background, his account is particularly moving. Canadian-born, this was a man - according to earlier Citizen stories - who had to fight racist attitudes toward his Japanese ancestry to prove his Canadianness and fitness to serve his country.)
The letter asks why we don't have a free-speech soapbox in Ottawa.
Good question and good point. But don't hold your breath waiting for some version of Speakers' Corner here. Our neo-con overlords wouldn't stand for it.
They have no qualms about denouncing human rights commissions - which, for all their flawed mechanics, do try to correct wrongs - as "star chambers." As newspaper readers, some of them threaten to cancel their subscription when the paper runs columnists not on their wavelength. They delight in turning up their noses at "political correctness," instead of the, yes, sometimes awkward impulse to reduce the sum total of offence given in the world.
And they apparently relish shutting down, and shutting up, the opposition.
All this they do while painting themselves as the saviours of democracy, a ferocious insult to logic made possible, perhaps, by parliamentary majorities and the realization that an awful lot of whoppers can be crammed into four unopposed years.
It's a brave new world, this neocon island onto which some whimsical political storm has tossed us - a world that is ridiculous, inconsistent, unsettling, brazen.
We have no road maps. And the old rules no longer apply.
Origin
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Exhibit A? Doubletalk.
The current poster boy for neocon doubletalk is Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who once again this week formally denounced anti-Semitism, a position about as applepie incontestable as you can get. If anti-Semitism isn't criminally deplorable, what is?
So the declaration must be put into context. And here it is, framed in the neocon colours Kenney gave it last week in New York, when he declared his Conservative government would never accept "the new anti-Semitism" - that is, negative attitudes toward Israel, as opposed to Jewish people.
True, his purported target this time was bad actors like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other lunatics at the Durban hatefest. But Kenney has labelled (if not libelled) people before for attitudes not thoroughly in line with the Harper government's uncritical position toward Israel.
Remember KAIROS, the respected Christian group that dared to express humanitarian concerns about Palestinians? Poof! Defunded. Kenney told a Jerusalem audience the defunding was part of his government's response to anti-Semitism.
So last week's "new anti-Semitism" comes with a one-size-fits-all big chill.
Harbour misgivings about how the Israeli government conducts its affairs, and you'd better watch your step, bud. You're probably guilty.
The judgment is a terrible one, horrifying anyone sickened by real anti-Semitism and the violent consequences of bigoted intolerance. But if that person holds opinions on Middle East politics that deviate from the neo-con playbook (which, incidentally, is also embraced by the current Israeli government with its far-right elements), it's a judgment that sticks.
The logic is ludicrous, of course. If differing opinions were anti-Semitic, then half of present-day Israel could be considered anti-Semitic.
It's like the neo-cons' familiar "anti-American" label routinely hung on Canadians opposed to the most recent Bush administration.
A disparaging word about George W. and his cohorts, and - zap - you were anti-American. Trouble is, such reasoning would have made an awful lot of United States citizens anti-American.
But such charges effectively shut down debate. That's their value.
Who can trust anyone deemed "anti-Semitic" or "anti-American" or "anti" any other group neo-cons choose to shelter from legitimate scrutiny?
But here's the funny thing. Kenney - and all the other neo-cons who find this kind of smearing legitimate - are uniformly loud and proud in their professed love of democracy. A couple of years ago, Harper noted in a speech that "our government does not . attempt to intimidate those with whom it disagrees." A guiding principle of the Conservative Party is "a belief in the freedom of the individual, including freedom of speech."
This is the same crowd that falls all over itself to salute our veterans for the sacrifices that have protected our freedoms.
So why do they trample all over them? Why does "Standing Up for Canadian Values" (as the Conservative website headlines it) suggest that freedom of expression is not, actually, one of those values?
There was an interesting letter to the editor in last Saturday's Citizen. Written by Jack Nakamoto, a Second World War veteran who served with the Canadian Army, it told of his wartime leaves in London, where he enjoyed heading to Hyde Park and Speakers' Corner.
What he loved was the reverence for free speech represented by the site, where speakers - even during wartime - spoke critically and freely of British military decisions.
(Given Nakamoto's background, his account is particularly moving. Canadian-born, this was a man - according to earlier Citizen stories - who had to fight racist attitudes toward his Japanese ancestry to prove his Canadianness and fitness to serve his country.)
The letter asks why we don't have a free-speech soapbox in Ottawa.
Good question and good point. But don't hold your breath waiting for some version of Speakers' Corner here. Our neo-con overlords wouldn't stand for it.
They have no qualms about denouncing human rights commissions - which, for all their flawed mechanics, do try to correct wrongs - as "star chambers." As newspaper readers, some of them threaten to cancel their subscription when the paper runs columnists not on their wavelength. They delight in turning up their noses at "political correctness," instead of the, yes, sometimes awkward impulse to reduce the sum total of offence given in the world.
And they apparently relish shutting down, and shutting up, the opposition.
All this they do while painting themselves as the saviours of democracy, a ferocious insult to logic made possible, perhaps, by parliamentary majorities and the realization that an awful lot of whoppers can be crammed into four unopposed years.
It's a brave new world, this neocon island onto which some whimsical political storm has tossed us - a world that is ridiculous, inconsistent, unsettling, brazen.
We have no road maps. And the old rules no longer apply.
Origin
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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