Archive for the ‘JOHN BAIRD’ Tag
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN THE NATIONAL POST
Christie Blatchford seems to have become The Conservatives’ chief apologist.
Her apology here though seems totally unneeded.
I believe in these two cases of dropped candidates, the bone-headed people involved would have made perfect Conservative candidates.
Pranks? Isn’t this the party of robo-calls and frat-boy negative advertising?
Isn’t this the party of never telling the truth to people?
Of never giving a straight answer?
The party of not complying with officials attempting to investigate misdeeds?
The party of hiding the many stupid things it has done?
The party of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Nigel Wright, and other charmers?
The party of slavishly catering to special interests?
The party of giving the finger to many of the world’s serious concerns?
The party of John Baird who resembles nothing so much as a mad dog when he argues with people?
The party of Peter MacKay, a man who had an affair with a subordinate, later harassed her and called her a dog in public, and then lied about it as well as a man who has demonstrated incompetence in almost every portfolio in the cabinet?
The party of the absolute thug, Patrick Brazeau?
The party of Maxime Bernier, who left top secret NATO papers at his biker girlfriend’s house for weeks?
The party of Pierre Poilievre, perhaps the most seriously twisted sister ever in Parliament?
I just cannot believe what an opportunity the party has missed with these two new fellows, each surely potential minister material.
It’s a shame, I guess that’s the price you pay for political correctness.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
EXPANDED FROM A POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY EINAT WILF AND NOAH SLEPKOV IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
This piece is a set of words strung together almost without meaning and certainly without logic. Its only intention is to plant certain suggestions in readers’ minds, one of the key purposes of any propaganda. According to the authors, John Baird, Canada’s current foreign minister, was not guilty of provocation in blundering into East Jerusalem as a guest of Israeli politicians, rather he was being “brave” in the cause of peace.
Brave? John Baird?
Baird has always been a coward because only a coward acts aggressively towards the weak, as he does regularly in both domestic politics and in trips abroad, and certainly the Palestinians are weak, living at the mercy of Israel’s brutal and dishonest behavior.
The leaders of Israel do not want what any normal person calls peace. Their behaviors over decades make that abundantly clear to all but biased observers.
Israel has always followed the policy advocated by early Zionists called “the iron wall” in its attitude towards the Palestinians.
How much better would have been a policy of generosity towards its neighbors, but no, generosity in Israel’s attitude has never received the slightest consideration. The one prime minister who came just a little closer to altering the county’s brutal policies was assassinated, as it happened by an Israeli.
Israel holds all the cards – armaments, economic power, American influence, and absolute rule over millions of people – but it has never made a truly honest effort for genuine peace. Words, words, and more words combined with arrogant and impossible preconditions set even for discussions.
What we see is a garrison state, armed to the teeth, threatening its neighbors constantly, ready at the smallest provocation to kill thousands, and we see that state rule over 4.5 million conquered people with a heavy-handed system of apartheid, a system recognized as apartheid by every sensible and decent observer in the world from Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu to Jimmy Carter.
And, week by week, Israel slowly steals the land on which those 4.5 million people live, stealing it through all kinds of cynical and dishonest laws – an ongoing, slow-motion practice of ethnic-cleansing in every sense of the term.
What other state could accurately claim as its national symbol a D-9 armored bulldozer used to destroy the homes of others and sometimes simply to crush opponents?
Canada’s arrogant and ill-informed foreign minister, John Baird – and Canadians all know that he is arrogant and ill-informed owing to his everyday behavior at home – steps in to validate Israel’s ghastly behavior in East Jerusalem, never once saying anything about human or democratic rights.
And why does John Baird choose to behave in this obtuse fashion?
Because he is a creature of the Harper government which has as its goal, by its leader’s own admission, the elimination of the Liberal Party in Canada, a party which was always been even-handed in the Middle East, reflecting the attitude of a majority of Canadians.
Harper’s strategy includes having ended state support for political parties, using every disagreeable parliamentary dodge he can think of, being an enemy of transparency in government, suppressing the voices of experts in the civil service, and actively seeking a new and substantial flow of private financing, as it happens, from apologists for Israel eager to fund a turn in Canada’s historic and fair-minded policies.
In the United States, this pattern of funding is now an integral part of its foreign affairs. In just one example – and there are countless examples – the unpleasant Newt Gingrich received the best part of $20 million from just one wealthy American heavily involved in Israel’s affairs to run his presidential bid.
The price for that money? Newt’s peppering his speeches with ignorant assertions like “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian.” In another notorious example, Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader, once openly suggested that Israel just go ahead and run all the Palestinians out of the occupied territories – surely the kind of assertion that does not come naturally from an ultra-conservative economics major for whom property rights are virtually religious dogma.
And just so, John Baird’s bull-in-a-china-shop behavior in East Jerusalem and at the UN or Peter Kent’s sudden outbursts, almost like someone given to speaking in tongues, about Canada defending Israel or Harper’s regular speeches claiming credit as a warrior against (virtually non-existent) anti-Semitism and deliberately conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
In the normal world, we know peace in any violent disagreement is often only obtained by outside intervention and patient talks and mutual respect, but somehow when it comes to Israel, this common understanding just disappears. Israel is never pressured to treat its neighbors with respect, and it is never pressured to talk to them without arrogant preconditions. Never.
No one dares say a word about the decades of abusing 4.5 million people, of Israel’s endless torture and assassinations. Nor do the “brave” John Bairds of this world raise their voices when Israel kills 400 children as it did in its invasion of Gaza or when it commits piracy on the high seas or when it murders a Canadian officer serving as a UN observer or when it drops a million hideous cluster bombs on civilians as it did in Lebanon. No condemnation over the theft of farms and homes is ever heard. Not a word about endless illegal arrests and the imprisonment of thousands. Nor a word about the seizure of taxes and foreign aid moneys from their rightful owners.
Of course, there is never a word about the Six Day War so many decades ago, the very event which put all those people at Israel’s mercy, a war which Israel cynically started knowing it could win, aiming ultimately to create what is known as Greater Israel. Nor was a word said about Israel’s attacking a well-marked American intelligence ship, of which they had been advised in advance, during that war to silence signals informing Washington that Israel was turning around its armor to seize all of what it controls today. And there was not a word about the mass murder of hundreds of Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai to expedite that turnaround.
Does anyone in his right mind believe peace is obtained the way Israel has claimed to pursue it? Only if your definition of peace is Israel’s taking all the additional land it covets without any of the people who own it and live there, which is pretty much what the concept of Greater Israel involves. I suppose that is a kind of peace, the kind of peace brutal American soldiers achieved in My Lai, Vietnam, or in Fallujah, Iraq.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad quit on Saturday after months of tension with President Mahmoud Abbas
We may safely assume that when the likes of John Baird care about a political figure such as the Palestinian prime minister staying in office, the resignation means absolutely nothing to the Palestinian people.
Apart from the fact that John Baird has no stature whatever in world affairs and no credibility as a statesman, the simple fact is that he is an ignoramus on affairs in the Middle East.
Baird is also a man – perhaps a reflection of his argumentative and destructive life as a domestic politician – who has proven he has no concern for the terrible situation of the Palestinians.
He is in addition a pathetic figure whose only objective in the region is to loyally serve American-Israeli positions – resembling in the act a wagging dog waiting for his master to hand out a treat.
Palestinian politicians like Abbas and those associated with him are pleasing to Israel because they maintain a totally submissive demeanor. There is almost something in them of the nature of the old minor Hollywood black actor known as Stepin Fetchit.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
While Chretien’s observation is already shared by most citizens genuinely concerned with international affairs, his testimony still is welcome.
Chretien is one of our most respected former prime ministers, a man who is admired by a number of world statesmen as an ethical statesman and a remarkable politician.
The grotesque and clownish stunts of Peter Kent, Maxime Bernier, John Baird, Helena Guergis, Peter MacKay, Rahim Jaffer, and the bloodless, narrow ideology of their leader do not go unnoticed in the world.
There is an inherent lack of commitment by this government to openness, honest communication, genuine democratic principles, and balanced human rights.
Everything from cheap stunts like pernicious robo-calls, ceaseless negative advertising, ugly outbursts, and blatant catering to special interests reduces our stature.
There is also – and quite in conflict with the historic role of Conservative Parties in Canada – a marked spirit of following America’s lead in almost all matters of international consequence – almost a visibly servile posture.
Informed people in countries around the world – politicians, members of international organizations, and private citizens – note these things and their goodwill towards our country must inevitably be reduced.
And this has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with core traditional conservative principles.
It is strictly a reflection of the ugly ideological bent of this government.
A bent demonstrated in everything from contempt for Parliament, contempt for important international forums and organizations, unbalanced and almost viciously partisan statements on the Middle East, and its cheap way of expressing itself on many solemn occasions, such as the recent death of the widely-liked President of Venezuela.
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“Talking to other leftists and anti-american socialists is obviously going to get the desired result of Canada being disliked. I fully expect nothing being done by our current governemnt to be gain acceptance with the worldwide pro terrorist socialist alliance. Nothing to read here….and to think a criminal thug like Chretien should be given any further respectability is beyond me.”
You are too uninformed to comment with any meaning.
A number of prominent world leaders have in the past made public statements of admiration for Chretien.
No one but Mr. Netanyahu – a genuine thug who has committed murder, piracy, and theft – expresses admiration for Harper.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY PAUL KNOX IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Yes, indeed, and what a sad excuse of a foreign minister for a country which has long strongly supported the UN.
But of course his purposes are other than what they might seem from his obtuse words.
His first purpose, always and everywhere, is to support the United States, echoing and mimicking its prejudices and excesses.
Recall, it was the “Baird faction” in the United States that actually violated treaty obligations to refuse paying UN dues for a long period of time.
And it has always been the United States that tries manipulating what it wants out of the UN, giving American actions in foreign policy the plausibility of world support,
But when it fails to achieve that support from the UN, as in its infernal plots in Syria or its war crimes in Iraq, it grabs up its briefing books and runs home yelling about backward forces and lack of American values.
Baird is simply a pipsqueak version of the same thing, and he behaves in this appalling way to gain whatever little nods of approval he may get from the people really in charge of every decision made in his office.
The second purpose is, always and everywhere, to be blubbering support for Israel’s outrageous behavior.
Israel has, and has long had, utter contempt for the UN.
Israel’s attitude is actually bitterly ironic, because Israeli leaders love to quote the various events in the past which supposedly legitimate their current situation, UN actions being amongst them.
But, at the same time, Israel hates the UN for all its past resolutions holding Israel responsible for acts it doesn’t want to be responsible for.
In effect, Israel’s attitude is the same as that of the United States towards the UN: it’s just fine if it gives me what I want, and it is hateful when it doesn’t.
Precisely the attitude of a bully, one with no respect for genuine democratic values or individual rights.
And John Baird is in eager pursuit of the kind of campaign-finance support for his party that always comes from the Israeli lobby when a leader appears to be putting Israel’s interests on a par with, or even sometimes beyond, those of your own country.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
If there’s one thing our distinguished Foreign Minister can’t stand, surely it is hostility.
He’s such a gracious, charming man himself.
http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/2012/02/baird-john-in-full-form-sadly-typical.html
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
This was the act of an extremely foolish and impetuous man.
Canadians traditionally are people who try to resolve issues through diplomacy, and you can’t have diplomacy without diplomats, a point I would have thought rather obvious, but apparently not so to all, judging from a sampling of mindless comments.
There is not one good thing that can result from this act for Canada or Canadians, with the sole exception, if you are a Conservative, of the Conservative Party’s campaign coffers owing to special interest donations.
Then there are the hollow cheers from the little mob of unofficial representatives for Israel’s interests (interests as defined by the three madmen currently running the place: Netanyahu, Barak, and Lieberman) who swarm like flies on any story of this nature, trying to bury thoughtful comments and prevent meaningful discussion.
You can tell them, almost to a person, despite the pseudonyms used in almost every case, by their tone: it lacks all logic and is devoid of ethics.
They never argue the genuine merits of one side or the other: they just call names, advocate the destruction of millions of innocent people, and offer limp efforts at frat-boy jokes.
What is Canadian about such behavior? Just as what is Canadian about Baird’s utterly foolish act?
Nothing, unless your idea of being Canadian is to sound and act like America’s Republican buffoons, the pathetic likes of Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh or indeed Mitt Romney.
None of whom ever uttered a thoughtful sentence, and all of whom regularly go out of their way to say obtuse and abusive things that create conflict and division.
Divisiveness and conflict – that literally defines Stephen Harper’s legacy to Canadian politics.
The audience you draw does tend to define the nature of your acts, and you’ve only to read a sampling here to understand what Harper and Baird have achieved, and it is not something in the interests of the vast majority of Canadians.
But then Harper is a 39% prime minister, isn’t he?
And our democracy is badly bent when that kind of support allows acts and words that will do damage for years to our long-term interests.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“There is a good chance the Canadian Iranian Embassy was being used for more than public relations. Espionage, spying whatever, it should have been closed years ago.”
Israel is well known in intelligence circles for its relentless espionage on Canada and the U.S.
American counter-intelligence has a special, large assignment in working against the efforts of their so-called ally.
The ally who produced the most destructive spy in American history, Jonathon Pollard.
The ally who sold some of Pollard’s “product” to the Soviet Union.
The ally who, during its 1967 war, deliberately attacked, for two solid hours, the American intelligence ship Liberty in order to blind the American government to what they were doing in that war.
The ally whose spies were caught during 9/11 watching and photographing the disaster from a phony moving truck, an event never explained.
From Canada’s point of view, it is the ally which time and again has abused Canada’s passports by using phony ones on assassination assignments.
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“Yes, Ahmadinejad is an idiot, but then again so are you and people still speak to you. “
Ahmadinejad has said a few foolish things, mainly under his irrepressible tendency to poke fun at the pretensions of theirs.
But a highly successful politician in a country with a greater population than that of France or Britain and who holds a PhD in Civil Engineering is anything but an idiot.
It is foolishness to say so.
He is likely more intelligent than most of the recent presidents of the United States.
And the foolish things he has said should be compared to the collected words of a Bush or a Reagan or a Romney.
Assuming a bright, capable man is wild-eyed plays right into the hands of Israel’s around-the-clock propagandists, and it certainly does not contribute to understanding.
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“Why is Mulcair a lobbyist for Iran?”
Why are you a lobbyist for stupidity?
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“I see now, we need those absurdly expensive F35’s to combat the enemies Harper is making on behalf of Canada, how American!!”
Well said.
And just watch, if we do buy these absurd machines, and if they do fly as advertised finally after billions more spent, when Netanyahu yells, we’ll be flying the dozen or so operational at any one time (they require horrific maintenance) to wherever Israel has decided once again to bomb someone it doesn’t like.
On a per capita basis, there is one country whose armed forces, including every weapon imaginable, is obscenely out of proportion to its size in population or wealth, and that country is Israel.
It sits by the Mediterranean like a Crusader enclave, a virtual garrison state, a country with the population of Ecuador and the arms and army of France.
And it is currently run by a madman.
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‘And how exactly do they think to “retaliate”? After we nuke the crap out of them, there won’t be a bacteria left to live in that stinky country.’
“Bacteria’ is the plural form of the noun, requiring a plural modifier, not “a.”
But then that covers the intelligent part of your words.
How can anyone but a complete madman lightly speak about exterminating 70 million people?
But I do believe we’ve had such talk in the past.
In Germany during the 1930s.
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“Look at the lefty socialist twisting in the wind trying to defend Iran, an exporter of terrorists.”
Well, I don’t know about Iran exporting terrorists.
Seems an absurd thing to say since there isn’t one genuine news story about Iranian terrorists anywhere.
Iran also remains at peace with all its neighbors.
Can we say the same for Israel? I don’t think so.
Of course, we do have stories of what Israel exports.
At least half a dozen people were killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza – that giant refugee camp – this week alone.
And Israeli’s Barak just made threats – his favorite hobby, making threats – about how the IDF could easily conquer and run Gaza.
Of course, there’s all that wonderful human-rights stuff about Israeli terrorists assassinating totally innocent Iranian scientists with car bombs.
And your words are a perfect example of the kind of dishonest rubbish-thinking exported by Israel.
Day after day after day.
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“I’m guessing principled decisions such as this, totally escape the left.”
No, you have it the wrong way round.
Decisions such as this totally escape the principled.
And we should add that language such as your “the left,” intended to characterize large numbers of people you don’t like, would have been perfectly comfortable on the tongue of a Dr. Goebbels.
Indeed, all your fellow name-callers entirely miss or ignore that damning fact.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Fact 1: Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program according to every expert and credible intelligence agency.
Fact 2: Iran belongs to the Non-proliferation treaty and it permits regular inspections.
Fact 3: Iran has demonstrated no aggressive intentions in its modern history.
Fact 4: The President of Iran likes to make tail-twisting statements and likes to poke fun at pretensions, but he has never threatened Israel. He is often misquoted by Israel in that regard, but what he actually said is nothing more than what the CIA itself has said in internal studies of Israel: it does not have a long-term future in its present state, and that fact has nothing to do with war.
By the way, with all the propaganda we have dumped upon us regularly, not many people know that Iran’s President is an extremely intelligent man, possessing a PhD in Civil Engineering. He is not a wild-eyed fanatic, a description which much better fits the current Prime Minister of Israel.
Fact 4: Israel does not belong to the Non-proliferation Treaty, and it allows no inspections of any kind, ever.
Fact 5: There’s a good reason for not belonging to the treaty because Israel in fact has a nuclear arsenal of about 150 warheads. It broke every law there is in achieving this status.
Fact 6: Israel is one of the only countries known to have worked towards the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It worked with and assisted apartheid South Africa in becoming a small nuclear power. The current President of Israel’s signature is on documents from decades ago offering to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa.
Fact 7: Israel has very much demonstrated aggressive intention – indeed, it has done so for the last 60 years, attacking every neighbor that it has, many more than once. It started several major wars and it has committed outright atrocities against the people of Gaza and Lebanon.
Fact 8: Israel is led by screaming madman, a man who daily issues threats against those who have not attacked his country and works tirelessly to get the United States engaged in yet another war. Both the Presidents of France and the United States are on record as saying that he is liar who cannot be trusted.
Grovel, grovel, grovel. Mr. Baird, it’s okay to get up off your knees now. It truly is distasteful to see a Foreign Minister of Canada behaving in this irrational fashion.
Is there any stupid behavior this government is incapable of as it chases campaign donations from special interests?
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“Nothing quite like a story about Iran to bring out the Jew haters.”
This kind of carelessly stupid rhetoric is repeated every time anyone criticizes Israel.
The only merit in this boringly-repetitive and hateful man’s words – and those of several regular chums here in the cause of defending what cannot be defended – is that this charge is becoming hopelessly threadbare.
The words already have become close to meaningless from constant repetition.
But the words are well on their way to becoming laughable, in a black comedic sort of way.
Remember the fairy tale of the boy who constantly yelled “Wolf!” He enjoyed himself with his stupid antics, but when a real wolf appeared, there was no one who would listen and help him.
It is the people with hard ethics and concerns for human rights who always are the only real friends of people undergoing terrible treatment.
The likes of Harper and Baird – right-wing opportunists – were the very people in every country of Europe who never spoke up in the late 1930s. They were busy joining Bunds and Fascist organizations of every description in Britain, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
Not a single liberal of conscience joined such filthy outfits.
And it is liberals of conscience today who criticize Israel’s outlandish and savage behavior.
The leader of North Korea – a state often described as “rogue’ – is comparatively quiet and peaceful compared to the madman running Israel today.
There is no other way to see the facts, unless you are blind ideologue who cares nothing for truth, which of course is exactly what your use of language says of you.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Well, it has become a civil war, and such wars have a history of being the bloodiest everywhere.
And who is responsible for getting the horror going?
We know to a certainty it was the United States and Israel.
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“The government sits back and does nothing while these activist / terrorists run rampant.
“WRONG …. the army is called out to use all means possible to restore order.
“Why do we continue to support every gang of hooligans ?”
Because this gang of hooligans is supported and supplied by the United States.
Do you see even one act or policy of the United States that our present government doesn’t closely embrace?
I think it fair to say it grovels when facing South.
We have Mad Dog Baird making pompous pronouncements about unwarranted new measures against Syria.
We have his boss, the Dark Bulk, periodically breaking out in sudden outbursts of loyalty to Israel and Israeli interests, to the complete exclusion of all others.
And it is in Israel’s interest that this whole elaborate plot to upset a stable country and perhaps partition it was created by the United States, just as the horror in Iraq was about Israel and not oil.
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“If you want the true unpolluted by propaganda news, you must go OnLine to Al Jazeera.”
Why on earth do we need to go to Al Jazeera when we have ignorant propagandists like “Hapl” scribbling daily in the Globe and Mail?
Indeed, Al Jazeera, while not perfect, is one of the more objective and balanced sources in a sea of propaganda and deliberate misinformation.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
That’s all Harper ever does…build momentum…political momentum.
That’s why all the vacuous photo-ops in parkas.
Maybe they could just build a little fake arctic set in Ottawa, all refrigerated and with a few Inuit kept around in native costume, for filming these ridiculously meaningless efforts.
You know, like the fake lake for the G-20?
John Baird, baring his teeth, could pass for a sled dog too if the camera did only a head shot.
Sovereignty in the North has only one serious threat, and that is the hyper-militaristic United States.
But our Boy in Ottawa not only is the most servile in our history towards that country and its goals, he is ready with agreements on our borders which will only further and quickly erode claims to sovereignty.
If you recognize the importance of our North and its future to us, you cannot support Stephen Harper.
But you do very much support Stephen Harper.
So this is all empty blather, just as his photo-ops are.
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If Harper genuinely wants a research facility in the North, we know there are plenty of unemployed government scientists to man it.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
I wonder if Gorilla Boy, as he perambulates around for cameras to stress the horrors of Syria, knows that the American invasion of Iraq produced more than 2 million refugees.
America pretty much refused to take the people it made homeless.
But Assad’s Syria took the largest number of them.
Some heartless tyrant.
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To understand why John Baird has well earned the epithet, Gorilla Boy, see:
http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/2012/02/baird-john-in-full-form-sadly-typical.html
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Boost Canada’s role in Syria?
What role?
We have none so far as the people of Canada know.
Is Gorilla Boy planning something of which we haven’t been advised?
Stay out of other people’s civil wars.
Even when they have been deliberately engineered by the United States and Israel.
But, of course, the genuine authors of this war are the people who have extraordinary influence in this most un-Canadian of governments, and that’s the real reason he’s going.
His job is to add to the phony western clamor the U.S. orchestrates to protect its nefarious investment in creating terror.
Saying anything else is just blather.
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Our country has never been at so low an ebb in world affairs as it is under this extremist government.
A nasty loudmouth is our foreign minister and a servile American wannabe is our prime minister, and in every international forum – from climate change to war – Canada has lost the prestige it had by vigorously serving the wrong side.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“Baird looks ahead to post-Assad Syria…”
And the great majority of Canadians look ahead to a post-Baird Canada.
What a servile and utterly undistinguished man is in charge of our foreign service.
Not a word about the dirty forces at work here causing many deaths, only the dishonest pretense that the revolt is a genuine uprising for democratic interests.
He gets all his cues from Hillary, and likely he called her for approval of his words before even opening his mouth.
He’s pathetic.
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“Baird looks ahead to post-Assad Syria? from the way i am seeing it Assad forces are defeating the western backed terrorists. How can Baird look at ahead at a post Assad Syria.”
A good point.
Despite increased American resources secretly pouring in, Syria’s army – and it is Syria’s army – is looking to be victorious in recent efforts.
Anyway, I hope so, and not because I support non-elected leaders but because I more strongly oppose non-elected international bullies like the US and Israel, and I generally support victims against oppressors.
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“So? Who died and made Baird God so that he can postulate the fate of the world?
“What’s in the air in Ottawa that gives these guys their I’m-the-king-of-the-world complex?”
That’s how Hillary makes you feel when you call her to grovel. She’s the inspirational speaker from Hell.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“Canada had lost sight of religious freedom as human right,” Baird says
John Baird makes me think of a man suffering from rabies, foaming at the mouth and shouting absurdities.
His words are nothing less than the kind of crazed and incoherent shouts we would expect from a person suffering from late-stage rabies.
No country on earth better respects the principles of freedom of religion than does Canada, full stop.
And certainly not the United States where the venom of religious intolerance enters public debate and even policy on a regular basis.
I, for one, deeply resent being preached at in this fashion by a man who holds a senior cabinet post: a torrent of deliberate dishonesty, bent only for his own political advantage.
He not only fails utterly to serve religious freedom, or any other human or democratic value, he clearly serves the opposite purpose, hoping to inject America’s poisonous religious and ideological debate into Canada’s traditionally peaceful politics and policy.
This is just disgusting.
Freedom of religion, everywhere and always, implies freedom from religion.
You cannot have a free society where government serves and promotes religious interests of any kind.
It is up to religious people in the privacy of their homes and religious institutions to make religion part of their lives.
Good God, the very people sharing John Baird’s delusional thinking are the people who hate things like Islamic republics.
This government is now showing the most dangerous signs yet of destroying the very fabric of Canada with such crazed and severely divisive rhetoric.
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“Almost without fail, the lack of religious freedom, except in a few isolated circumstances, can be attributed to religion. Nobody hates and persecutes likely the truly religious, and, they usually go after others who are truly religious.”
The West suffered through centuries of persecution, burning people alive or torturing them with horrible machines, over such trivial matters as the nature of the wine and bread at mass.
Tens of thousands of proud aboriginals in Peru and Mexico and other places were tortured into accepting Christianity, being summarily executed if they did not.
Old women, perhaps suffering from mental illness, were burned at the stake as witches.
There is a huge list, spanning centuries, of abuses by the religious when they were in positions of secular power.
It is so very recently that the West has achieved the precious situation we have of genuine religious freedom.
And people like Baird work relentlessly to set the clock back, hoping in doing so to make a political gain for their party.
Israel styles itself a democracy, but it is a very strange form of democracy we see there.
Do readers know that is against the law in Israel to preach and try converting people to Christianity?
Do readers know that non-Jewish spouses are treated in an entirely unfair way there?
Do readers know that important personal documents in Israel are printed with your religious identity?
That many privileges and public services in Israel depend upon your religious identity?
Is that Baird’s idea of religious freedom?
Is that why he gives public money to a fundamentalist group and now spouts utter nonsense?
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“Problem for atheists: If God doesn’t exist, where did the first life come from? Where did good and evil come from? Why is it that life hasn’t been found on any other planets?
“If we’re all just a fluke of chance, you’d think that there would be many other ‘flukes’ in the universe.”
There is a perfect example of the kind of rubbish bulldozed to the surface, contaminating public policy matters, by Baird’s unacceptable words.
What this pathetically uninformed comment-writer does not understand is that we are at the very dawn of space exploration, comparable perhaps to the first tests of ocean-worthy ships before even travelling to North and South America to discover them teaming with life.
And despite that, scientists at NASA are now convinced some forms of life do exist on Mars, the only planet we have begun to explore. The proof will come within a decade or two.
And, please, our solar system is only one pitifully insignificant collection of matter in the cosmos. Our own galaxy contains hundreds of billions of suns, and so far we know that there are more than a billion other galaxies.
Only genuine fools would say what this comment-writer says in light of any knowledge about the current situation of science.
As to problems for people’s ways of thinking: the biggest one in all of history is whence evil if there is a god who is good?
It’s never been answered – Milton tried and failed and only survives because of his poetic genius.
It is easy to observe in the world, if you bother looking, that evil not only exists, it thrives and prospers almost everywhere. Good people regularly suffer, and monsters enjoy untold influence and wealth and power.
But the important point is this: what does your religious muttering have to do with public policy? Or what should it have to do with public policy?
The answer is obvious: nothing.
And just so Baird’s insane rhetoric.
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“Why didn’t they just give Amnesty International the $5 million and request that it be directed to cases involving religious persecution??”
Good question.
But, of course, Baird has no genuine interest in such matters, and his words only disguise far less worthy purposes.
My great fear here is that they are working towards a government construct that could one day serve to criminalize or penalize those who, for example, speak against the human rights abuses of Israel.
It would be easy to frame that kind of genuinely repressive law in a pseudo-religious context.
And with that, Messrs. Baird and Harper would be taking us back to the 16th century in terms of freedoms.
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Please see, postings two and three here:
http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.ca/
The irony of the reality of Baird’s private life versus the kind of repressive forces he supports – for campaign funds, of course – is genuinely painful.
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‘He said that Canada now will “stand with the Jewish state.”‘
That phrase is ominous indeed, suggesting again the sense of my comment, previously, concerning the genuine ultimate aims of this backward idea for a government agency.
By definition, “the Jewish state” is not a place for religious freedom, any more than would be an Islamic republic or a Christian democracy.
You cannot, by law, even preach Christianity in Israel.
And there is a host of other things you cannot do or say in Israel, all of them concerning religious identity.
The very fact that Israel wants to be recognized as “the Jewish state” is frought with danger, because Israel has about 19% of its (formal) population, Palestinians who refused to run from the 1948 terrors of Irgun and Lehi and Stern Gang.
Israel didn’t – and doesn’t – want them but it is more or less stuck for now. Many Israelis speak in public for their expulsion.
I use the word “formal” because in Israel there are effectively two levels of citizenship: those with an Israel passport and those who are part of what is legally deemed the superior Jewish nation. All rights and treatments under law are affected by this terrible distinction.
To endorse that kind of human rights abuse so forcefully as does Baird is frightening to Canadians who regarded theirs as one of the world’s freest and most just societies.
And the same man is trying to create an engine of government that is wholly inappropriate in a free society, and which is potentially far more dangerous than it sounds at first pass.
And the same man gave a million dollars in public funds to a fundamentalist religious group.
Does anyone in his or her right mind trust John Baird?
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
My perception is that Harper’s government has precisely one competent and respectable senior minister, Jim Flaherty, and even he has his shortcomings.
He remains the only one in international exposure that is not an embarrassment to the country.
Harper’s list of clowns and weasels is long and may well serve as further evidence for the demonstrated principle that extremely conservative views are associated with lower intelligence.
Peter Kent, Bev Oda, Peter MacKay, Leona Aglukkaq, Vic Toews, and, in the past, Helena Guergis, Maxime Bernier resemble a skit from Monty Python on government. We’ve never been so low in public esteem.
I’ll add John Baird who, although intelligent, has the manner of a savage ultra-orthodox Israeli settler shooting at Palestinian children and bulldozing olive groves.
How do you “sweep” with toxic material like that?
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“Amazing – after 4 elections the Harper party is still talentless.”
Yes, pretty well talent-less so far as ministers.
But you cannot call Harper talent-less.
His set of redoubtable skills is a dark one, truly Machiavellian . Canada has not seen anything quite like him in my lifetime.
He has a thick hide, little or no respect for opponents and even disappointing associates, and, while mouthing slogans, his whole direction shows virtually no respect for democratic values or genuine human rights.
He displays many qualities that might fairly be described along the lines of an intelligent, manipulative, sociopathic personality.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is nothing less than misappropriation of public funds by John Baird.
And it would be so no matter which religious group asked this inappropriate favor.
But it is also unpleasant to see a photo of Baird playing the same smarmy game as Newt Gingrich and Company in the United States, going after campaign funds by wearing a yarmulke and carrying out other acts having nothing to do with government or proper politics or indeed his own faith.
I think it also proper to note that Hasidic Judaism, the association of the group to which he granted these funds, is in many respects as backward towards women as fundamentalist Islam.
Also, in view of the rather widely known fact that Baird is a closeted gay, does it not matter that Hasidic Judaism regards being gay as sin subject to some pretty unpleasant penalties?
Harper’s crowd in every respect follows the Republican Right Wing, many of whose political campaigns are paid for massively by special interests responding to this kind of grotesque fawning and favoritism.
An American casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, almost entirely financed Newt Gingrich’s recent primary campaign, having given him, at last count, 16.5 million dollars.
Adelson was quoted as saying he would give another comparable amount to the Republican campaign in the fall.
Just one of many groveling stunts Newt Gingrich did in return for such largess was to make public statements that there was no such thing as a Palestinian. It doesn’t get any more pathetic than that.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“Almost all the top comments here have unnecessary and ANTI-SEMITIC language.”
People who criticize Israel are not, ipso facto, anti-Semitic.
Nor are the people who apologize for Israel’s bloody excesses necessarily qualified to judge the motives of others who do not accept such behavior: fanatics in any realm of human activity are never people qualified to sit in judgement.
It is an insult to logic and intelligence to have this slur repeated, over and over, yet in every forum of public opinion concerning Israel, we have this name-calling repeated.
It is ad hominem attack which itself reflects clear prejudice and often just plain hatefulness.
If Israel is to be a state like any other state, it is subject to the same criticisms as any other state, full stop.
And today Israel, as a state, breaks almost every international norm and treaty and convention you care to name.
People who care about such things are not to be put off by gratuitous insults.
There are huge issues at stake in Israel’s behaviors and in its demands, and since Israel and her supporters demand of people in Canada, the United States, and Europe, never tire of seeking assistance and support, surely the people of these countries have the right and obligation to speak about very troubling matters.
Israel extra-judicially kills at will regularly. If you want to support that, fine, but there is no argument against the ugly fact.
Israel steals the homes and farms of others regularly. Again, if you want to support that, fine, but it is practice violating every norm of a free society and indeed of a free enterprise economy operating under laws.
Israel keeps millions in oppressive bondage with no genuine rights or application of just laws. You are free to support that, but others are right to observe it is a throwback to societies we all believed were things of the past.
Israel attacks every neighbor that it has, over and over, and it demands military action against countries like Iran who have made no threats. You are free to support that, but others are just as free – in our society at least – to say that the invasion of Iraq, which the U.S. conducted on Israel’s behalf, was a terrible war crime, responsible for deaths of a million souls, and repeating it in Iran is simply unthinkable.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
A SERIES OF RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Why on earth would anyone think John Baird knows what he is talking about?
Apart from the fact that Mr. Baird has proven himself in public numerous times a dishonest and patronizing and unethical politician, Canada in fact has no equivalent of MI6 or the CIA, so we have absolutely no information sources of our own (CSIS being limited to domestic efforts).
Baird is merely echoing the words of Israeli and American sources, both of which not only have their own special interests for what they say but are proved liars in countless instances.
We have the blunt testimony, made public through error, from the presidents of France and the United States as to what a complete liar Mr. Netanyahu is, an unprecedented and unimpeachable testimony into secret affairs.
Israel endlessly plots to gain advantage and position throughout the Middle East. Its plots have nothing to with genuine security but with a desire to sit as arbiter of all affairs within a thousand miles of its borders (whatever those are).
Only the other day the United States quietly cancelled a large joint military exercise with Israel, having become quite fearful that Israel would exploit it for engaging the United States in war with Iran.
Top level American military and intelligence men expressed their deep concerns to Obama that Israel’s series of black operations in Iran, including the assassinations of several scientists were aimed at triggering just such an event.
It would not be the first time for Israel: both the Six Day War and the two-hour attempt to sink the American electronic spy ship USS Liberty in 1967 were black operations, the second intended both to blind the United States as to what was happening in the war and as an effort to draw the United States into it.
And you cannot get much blacker than Israel’s now-known sharing of nuclear technology with apartheid South Africa.
Baird serves Harper’s interests as a faithful junk-yard dog, and we all know Harper has bent over backwards to express views on Israel and Israel’s interests which have no basis in Canada’s traditional foreign policy.
Harper is motivated in at least two ways in this dark effort: one, he is a fundamentalist Christian full of biblical nonsense about Israel and the end of time from the nightmare lunacy of the Book of Revelations.
And two, Harper is miming American Republicans in being totally solicitous of all things Israeli because it brings in a steady flow of campaign donations, and we know Harper has as a goal for personal achievement to destroy and replace the Liberal Party, with campaign financing games being a major tool towards the goal.
Baird only demonstrates he is one more shabby new-Conservative politician ready to put short-term goals of party political success ahead of Canada’s genuine long-term interests, which absolutely do not include ugly business like starting another Iraq-style war with Iran, a country guilty of nothing, and perhaps convulsing the world into a major crisis.
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“I recently watched a documentary about the rise of Adolph Hitler. Seeing all those cheering, delighted ‘fans’ at every event as he gave his speeches made me wonder what kind of people could applaud that sort of bile and hate. Reading the comments in the Globe, though, I can easily see we still have that same sort around today in Canada. I think half the regular comment posters here would cheer another Hitler if he promised to rid the world of Jews.”
The comment is ignorant beyond telling.
I have studied the rise of Hitler in serious and scholarly books. The rise of such people provides important historical lessons needed to protect democratic and human values.
Most Germans never wanted Hitler.
Despite the most strenuous efforts, he was never able to get a bit more than 37% of the vote.
Hitler took over in an elaborate coup d’état after having been appointed as Chancellor by President Hindenburg, an old man desperate for peace in the streets and a man who previously was quite contemptuous of Hitler.
And most Germans never wanted war, but they were trapped by a vicious and ruthless government. Just read the works of the great American journalist of Hitler’s time, William L. Shirer. He was there, and he was an intelligent and perceptive witness to events.
It is not just a coincidence that the popular vote for Harper is close in percentage (39.6%) to that of Hitler’s highest achievement: every society has malcontents, ideologues and savages as part of its fabric, just as a certain percentage of every human population is mentally unbalanced.
And when people – politicians or ordinary people making grossly dishonest comments – tell lies, over and over, louder and louder, we should all be acutely aware we have entered a danger zone in human affairs.
Baird has nothing but prejudice and no genuine information whatsoever to support his yelling and chest-beating.
How would we distinguish that mode of behavior from a small-time Joseph Goebbels type?
We cannot.
__________________________________________
“A very good reply by Mr. Baird.
“The difference between Iran and other dangerous countries like Pakistan is that Iran actively funds, trains and directs terrorist organizations that target the likes of Israel and the US and now Saudi Arabia. Iran is also very bellicose about annihilating Israel or the Zionist regime like they call it (as if there is a difference?) and this is before anyone was talking about attacking Iran.
“In the end, people here who ignore the facts at all costs will never be convinced until a bomb falls on their head.”
It ain’t our heads on which bombs will fall.
It’s 70 million completely innocent Iranians.
Just as the Iraq invasion – again, a product of Israel’s tireless efforts on a very weak American president – killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and destroyed a society for a generation.
It is only the genuine ideologues and haters pushing for extreme measures against Iran.
And surely we all know by now where policy driven by ideologues and haters takes us.
A one-way trip to nowhere.
And note what colossally dangerous prejudice the person making the comment displays: “other dangerous countries like Pakistan.”
Goebbels couldn’t have said it better.
_________________________________
“The only threat a nuclear armed Iran poses is to the American ability to invade them.
“End of story.”
A brutal truth, but only a partial truth.
No country would ever use nuclear weapons in that fashion, because it would be national suicide.
And that is also precisely why the ideologues and haters who promote Israel’s twisted views do not understand reality.
We know Israel has at least 150 nuclear weapons because former President Carter told us that a couple of years ago.
The truth is that even were Iran developing nuclear weapons – and it is decidedly not doing so – all that would result is the kind of stand-off we had in Europe for decades.
And that stand-off kept the peace.
Israel does not fear Iran with nuclear weapons per se. It fears the rising influence of Iran in the region, an influence which in part stems from America’s stupid invasion of Iraq, another insane project advocated by Israel.
Israel unquestionably wants the same kind of virtually absolute authority in its region that America enjoys in the world at large.
The word for that is simple: it’s imperialism.
So here we have, once again, imperialistic and grossly selfish motives posing as desperate security fears and humanistic concerns.
It simply ain’t so.
__________________________________
“a rapid[sic] left-wing Jew” liza writes in describing Mr. Gerald Caplan.
Again, Goebbels could not have said it better.
How does anyone, not mentally unbalanced or viciously hating, write such ugly things?
Were anyone other than an apologist for Israel to utter such hate-speech, he or she would be attacked savagely.
But it’s okay when you promote war and destruction on behalf of Imperial Israel.
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“It really is time for people to wake up. This is real.
“Remember 9/11.”
Ah, the ultimate stupidity has been uttered: “Remember 9/11.”
9/11 was a crime committed by 19 unstable men, each of whom paid for it with his life.
But that didn’t stop the arm-pumping, belly-over-belt crowd from murdering in blind rage at least half a million people having nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it.
Gee, I’m glad we have writers like this to remind us of stupid human beings can be.
We’re chimpanzees with bigger brains, just big enough to cause horrific destruction.
__________________________________
“Perhaps Mr. Baird and his colleagues will take the time to educate themselves”
When what you are after is propaganda and appeals to humanity’s worst instincts, you don’t educate yourself.
Why let education stand in the way of rage and irrationality?
It’s so much more fun to stomp up and down like Mr. Baird does, the very picture of an angry child, albeit a terribly ugly one.
http://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/2010/06/canadas-john-baird-does-lunch.html
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“Gerald Klu Klux Kaplan has the IQ of pond scum and it is to this paper’s eternal shame that it publishes his ignorant and hateful delusions. Since when does the globe publish racists like him? If Mr. Klu Klux Kaplan hates the jooz so much, maybe he should write for Stormfront or something.”
Sorry, but apart from the misspellings, isn’t it people like you who hurl ugly names, instead of cogent arguments, who demonstrate low IQs?
Although in truth, IQ has nothing to do with it.
Goebbels was a highly intelligent and educated man, but he was a hater and a believer in ugly fantasy.
And just so, this writer.
__________________________________
“Baird and his staff write well, but they cannot hide their ethically indefensible support for Israel’s politics of repression, aggression, and religious superiority. I worry far more about Israel and the US than I do about Iran.”
They don’t want to hide it.
They make a very clear and public appeal to the supporters of Israel’s bloody excesses.
It’s precisely the scenario we see with America’s Republicans, all racing to outdo each other in excessive and nasty statements about whatever it is that Israel does not like.
How can anyone argue that such people are serving the national interest?
__________________________________
“For those whose comments are full of anti Islamic stuff, are you aware that a proportion of the Palestinian population that was driven out after WW II was Christian?”
I’m glad you remind us of that truth.
Hanan Ashwari, for example, an able politician and academic, is Christian.
And so are tens of thousands of Palestinians.
By the way, it is illegal in Israel for Christians to preach conversion as they do in Canada or the United States every day.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
Canada “mulls” future with an important United Nations’ agency?
This kind of politically-motivated, special-interest blubbering casts a very dark shadow on Lester Pearson’s distinguished career and achievements in international affairs.
Our dear current foreign minister is again working hard to destroy Canada’s international reputation for fairness and decency, but of course that’s what his boss Stephen Harper has worked ceaselessly towards since holding office, and we know no one utters a word on anything in this government that hasn’t been pre-approved by the chair-throwing leader, even his almost uncontrollably angry and nasty gorilla boy, Baird.
Good God, aren’t the Palestinians to be considered as full human beings unless Israel nods to say they are?
And just consider in whose company Baird’s words place us: Just the other day, Israel’s foreign Minister Lieberman made clear public threats to murder Mr. Abbas over these matters. And those threats come after numberless others from a man who is just about as much a lowlife as you would find in any dictatorship on the planet.
But no objections are ever made by the United States, a country which actually believes it stands for human rights and democratic principles: indeed, we hear the opposite, that the United States will stop funding the agency, in effect reneging on treaties and long-standing obligations. Do it my way, or I’ll take my things and go home is the glorious response of our freedom-loving neighbour.
And why is that?
Because Obama is in political trouble, and he needs campaign funds and good press, just the things the American Israel lobby is in a position to grant or withhold.
So all sense of fairness is cast aside by Obama in pursuit of re-election, a man who has proven himself a weak and ineffective president in just about every respect, except when measured by the number of his extra-judicial killings by drone, which is now in the thousands.
And of course, running after Obama is Stephen Harper, desperately running along behind like the neighborhood’s most unpleasant brat trying to gain favour yelling “Me too!”
And there’s another aspect of Pearson’s distinguished legacy disappearing: when Lyndon Johnson demanded Canada send troops to Vietnam – he actually grabbed Pearson by the lapels – Pearson had the guts to say no.
From Harper, we get Canada volunteering for whatever stupid and demeaning job he sees before the United States even asks.
How low we’ve fallen.
__________________
“Here are a few excerpts from the Hamas charter…”
Well, how many terrible things has Hamas actually done compared to what we know Israel has done?
When was the last time Hamas killed 400 Israeli children?
When was the last time Hamas pirated ships on the high seas, killing 9 people only trying to deliver humanitarian assistance?
When was the last time Hamas or any other organization dropped a million horrible cluster bombs inside Israel, as Israel did in Southern Lebanon?
When was the last time Hamas held ten thousand Israelis as illegal prisoners?
When was the last time Hamas removed hundreds of Israelis from their homes and just stole them?
When was the last time Hamas openly murdered scores of highly-placed Israelis?
And have you ever read the bloody horrors of the Old Testament?
Huge sections of it are packed with violence, ruthlessness, intolerance, arbitrary rules for everything, and just plain hatred of others.
And it is the Old Testament ideas governing Israel in many aspects, courtesy of the ultra-Orthodox parties who always make up the balance of power there.
Read those ghastly stories of war and murder and rape and slavery and weird laws about what cloth you may wear and what food you may eat, and, yes, how women are totally subservient to men, how a child should be sacrificed if his father believes he hears God demanding it, and you will understand why Israel respects none of its neighbors and has attacked most of them more than once.
And, oh, it could not be clearer in the Old Testament that all non-Jews are inferior beings, not to be spared any brutality – nothing Hamas or any other Arabic group has ever written and accepted is more poisonous than that.
Some basis for a state in the 21st century. A state which demands to be recognized as a one-religion state, a state which even today treats all its non-Jewish citizens as second-class at best.
And if you have a very dark sense of humor you will enjoy the bad joke of a Jews-only democracy, surely no different in concept to an Islamic state.
Of course, if Israelis find Muslims so repulsive and backward, we might ask why the founders of modern Israel insisted on creating it in a place totally inhabited with and surrounded by them?
Makes a lot of sense to me.
_______________________________
“The entire UN is corrupt.”
Then why does Israel always wave the UN documents which – under pressure from foreign powers – mandated its creation?
Your expressed view is ridiculous.
The entire rest of the planet’s population is corrupt because it doesn’t do what a tiny population in Israel demands?
Of course, you also neglect the fact that Israel stands in contempt of a host of UN resolutions. Being in contempt of just one has been used as an American excuse for bombing others.
JOHN CHUCKMAN
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL
“Just as fascism and communism were the great struggles of previous generations, terrorism is the great struggle of ours.”
And what about state terrorism, the largest and most lethal form of terrorism?
State terrorism is an everyday practice today by the United States, and it has been a building block of Israel since the foundation.
The early Zionists called it “the iron wall,” and that phrase encapsulates Israel’s every policy since 1948.
A significant part of Israel’s 1940s effort to carve out a state included the work of terror gangs like Stern, Lehi, and Irgun – all of whom assassinated, planted bombs, and generally terrorized Arabs.
Israel today sits back and claims terror is such a threat, but Israel itself is a garrison state, grotesquely over-armed and ready constantly to assault any neighbor it disapproves of, and it disapproves of virtually all of them.
It is a lawless state, possessing atomic weapons against all international rules and desires, and a state moreover that was willing to proliferate atomic weapons technology with South Africa, something it has never even received censure for.
Israel also stands in contempt of a list of UN Resolutions, the very kind of thing the United States has used as an excuse to bomb some government it doesn’t like.
It also stands in violation of dozens on international agreements and protocols.
Israel does not hesitate to kill children – having slaughtered 400 of them in its vicious attack on Gaza, and according to the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Israel has killed more than 1,200 children since the year 2000.
Israel does not hesitate to kill peace workers, such as those aboard the Gaza humanitarian fleet attacked on the high seas, pictures and eyewitness reports from which clearly show Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed crew members in cold blood.
And don’t forget, while Israel was bombing Southern Lebanon a few years ago, dropping about a million cluster bombs (the world’s most ghastly, inhumane weapon) to maim and kill women and children and farmers for years to come, it also killed 4 UN observers, including a brave Canadian who died at his post.
John Baird’s boss, our glorious prime minister, after that cold-blooded murder said only he couldn’t understand why the UN had observers there: that is the fetid pool of thought from which John Baird’s words come.
On a per capita basis – the only fair way to compare – Israel is pretty much the world leader in brutality and abuse.
It keeps about ten thousand – the number is always changing – Palestinians illegally in prison.
Nearing half a century, it keeps more than 4 million Palestinians under occupation, totally illegal occupation, and it abuses them constantly with checkpoints and endless red-tape.
It helps itself each week or so to any parcel of someone else’s land that it chooses, indeed it has cobbled together a set of laws and regulations designed specifically to allow it to do this to Palestinians who cannot possibly meet the vicious laws’ requirements – anywhere else this would be called theft by a state.
It decides whether it will assassinate leaders that it does not like, and it does so regularly, with complete impunity – that’s the purest form of police-state terror you can come up with.
To carry out these dozens of assassinations, it breaks laws in many countries and it regularly abuses national passports by stealing and altering them or forging them, and Canada’s passport has been a frequent victim of this criminal behavior.
It does all these criminal acts with the complete support and approval of the United States, without whose influence and twisting of arms and rules, Israel might well collapse of its own gross excesses.
You do not and cannot get peace from a state which behaves as Israel does. It’s like saying the blacks in apartheid South Africa could have had peace by talking to the apartheid government – it literally is that absurd.
Only influence from outside can remedy what Israel has inflicted for decades.
But that influence will certainly not come from the dark bulk who represents less than forty percent of Canadians.
He’s too busy trying to please the United States in every nicety and detail, and he is too busy trying to appeal to the minority of intense Israel apologists, hoping to secure his party’s long-term financing, hoping to establish the same kind of arrangement which now absolutely determines the ongoing injustice of American foreign policy for the Middle East.
The dark bulk is ruining our international reputation, in every area of endeavor, making of us a sort of unofficial 51st state in the world’s eyes.
This is a nightmare world John Baird defends, a world where war is peace and hatred is love, but he does it unblinkingly and aggressively like a Joseph Goebbels defending his master’s bloody deeds.
_____________________________________________
FROM A READER:
“Recognizing the Zionist Stab in the back as the cause of their hardship, was the only reason that Germany democratically elected the Nazi party, to keep the Jews from repeating history.”
Absolutely wrong in every detail.
I’m no friend of Israel’s bloody work, but I deal in facts and logic, not ignorance and distortion.
Hitler was never elected.
The highest vote the Nazi Party ever got in free elections was about 37%, and that was after years of furious effort.
He was appointed Chancellor by the aging President, von Hindenburg, who wanted to stop the turmoil and fighting in the streets, part of which was of course Hitler’s own efforts through his private army of Brownshirts, the SA.
The Nazis conducted an elaborate coup with the burning of the Reichstag, and the aged and much admire war-hero president died. Hitler rammed through legislation giving him the presidential powers and more.
Once firmly in power, the Nazis conducted a number of plebiscites, and they got the kinds of votes you always saw in the Soviet Union’s elections, figures like 98%, but if you accept those as valid you really are a sad, uncritical soul.
As for “the stab in the back” there was no such thing. It was a figure of Hitler’s vivid and fetid imagination.
Hitler considered the Weimar Republic itself a stab in the back. He always hated any form of liberalism or popular government.
______________________________________
“Being surrounded by Muslim-only states does that. 4 million Jews live in a tiny state surrounded by a billion Muslims in 57 states, and it is apparently racist for Israel to be a Jewish state. Wow. But I can understand why the Jew haters want this “right to return”; flood Israel with enough Muslims and then you have 58 Muslim states!”
Simply appallingly ignorant.
What does the make-up of other states have to with Israel?
Nothing, and indeed when you make this appalling argument, your words closely resemble those of Hitler in his demands for lebensraum for the German people and his claims that Germans deserved a special space in which to flourish for the future, that too many other European states held more land than they needed.
In case you don’t know it, Israel has about 1 million non-Jewish citizens – I don’t mean the more than 4 million of the occupied territories but people who carry Israeli passports.
These are the descendants of the Palestinians who refused to run from Israeli terror in 1948.
Israel didn’t want them, but it was pretty much stuck with them.
However, Israel has found many ways of treating them through contrived laws as second-class citizens.
More than one prominent Israeli has advocated running them off the land.
The current ethically-obtuse Foreign Minister is definitely sympathetic to that kind of filthy thinking.
So if Israel is formally recognized as “the Jewish state,” what happens to those poor citizens?
I think we can all guess, and it won’t be pleasant.
And do you not recognize the irrational nature of the demand for a single ethic/religious state? It is no different at all to fundamentalist Islamist demands for Islamic states.
The truth is that Israel in concept was an outdated 19th century concept. It has proved divisive and destructive its entire brief history. It ranks among the world’s most unjust states.
But nevertheless, mistake or not, the world accepts its existence so long as it stops violating every law and moral concept we know to maintain its ethnic purity.
Is it too much to ask that it retreat to its borders and to finally start treating its neighbors as human beings?
CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS 