The War on Terror is Really About Cults

The "War on Terror" is not going as well as it could, and we really need to rethink our basic assumptions about it. By basic assumptions, I mean we need to question what is the essence of terrorism, and if we know what it is, then can we come up with an effective method to fight it?

We could think of terrorism as a criminal activity, or a cult activity, or we could think of it as a clash of civilizations. Each one would require a slightly different approach, and maybe terrorism is a broad enough concept to have elements of all three. But the approach we seem to have committed to most strongly is treating it as a clash of civilizations. Therefore we are fighting two wars using modern military technology against guerrillas (terrorists, freedom fighters, militant Islamists). This technique seems to be a self reinforcing diagnosis, and the more we treat it as a war, the more it becomes a war. And as I said, this is not working too well.

We could treat terrorism as a crime, but we do not seem to have the international system of justice and enforcement to bring it totally under control. So that seems unsatisfactory also.

We rarely try to treat it as a cult activity. A cult is a group that makes members psychologically dependent on it, and controls their behaviour this way. I suspect that a large part of terrorism has cultish aspects. Although we often blame the Islamic religion, the truth is that these are cults within Islam. A cult does not have any true religion. A cult adopts whatever religion is handy. We have many thousands of cults or near-cults in North America, and many of them use the name of Jesus. Back in the sixties, it seemed cults had a lot of success with eastern religions, and so many of them went with Hare Krishna or some other faddish religion. In the middle East, these cults go with Allah, because the usual way for cults to work is to start off with a popular local religion and simply use the local God as one tool in their bag of mind control tricks.

The reason we don't want to face the reality of cults is that so many North Americans are in cults, and they do not want the light of reason to be shone too brightly on their activities. Many of these cults are benign, and don't disobey the law in any way, although some are violent and perform terrorist acts. But even law abiding cults still cause grief to families who lose members to them. Deprogramming is an effective technique to use against cults, and many cults have been weakened, as their followers have been rescued through these techniques.

Take for example Omar Khadr, a story that has elements of all three. He was rounded up using a war, with bombers, and soldiers killing most of his cult-like party. He was tortured during interrogation, and I don't even know whether that activity falls under war, justice, or some sort of medieval throw back to the dark ages or the inquisition. Then he was put on a show trial, with some elements of a legal system, however flawed that might be. As a result, he will spend the next year in solitary confinement, after which he may be eligible for release in Canada. All of these things are unsatisfactory to some degree.

If we had recognized the cultish aspect of terrorism, we could have used deprogramming from the start. Instead we seem to be increasingly blaming the Islamic religion.

Many cult like churches in the USA, have an agenda that includes a broad based struggle against deprogramming, so this was never tried in our "War on Terror". The cultish Christians also have a belief in the end of the world, and the superiority of Jesus over Allah, and as a result find a holy war not only acceptable, but pre-ordained by God. Of course they are going to suppress any talk of terrorism being nothing more than another form of cult activity, which happens to borrow its rhetoric from the Koran instead of the Christian Bible. (And in case you are wondering, the Bible has plenty of quotes to support any kind of evil activity if you twist the words enough) For example, Elizabeth Smart's kidnappers were Jesus based cultists who used the bible to justify kidnapping and rape.

Americans do not really need the cults to fight a war on terror, as they have the military. But some people in the middle East have discovered the use of cults as a serious weapon in their fight against the USA or even the USSR.


Deprogramming works: http://www.cultnews.com/?p=1814

Top Ten Cults: http://listverse.com/2007/09/15/top-10-cults/

Picture: Cultish practices, http://www.squidoo.com/wordoffaith

Words About Child Soldiers from Col. George Carsted

The Calgary Herald often proudly carried conservative points of view, and that is where I found this anti-Omar Khadr rant by Col. George Carsted.

He recounts how he was only 14 when he took up a gun against the Red Army as it approached his town. But although his action was similar to Omar Khadr, he feels no sympathy for him.

Here are some of his arguments, starting with the point that since he did not see himself as a child at 14, then neither was Omar Khadr a child at 14.

He says:

"I did not see myself as a "child." I may have been scared, but I knew what I was doing."

"He [Omar] did not fight for his country, but supported the aims of a fanatical segment of Islam, whose actions are abhorred by all having one ounce of decency -- regardless of religious affiliation"

"I deem it time for the introduction of a law that strips anyone, whether born in Canada or being a naturalized citizen, who commits an act of terrorism or takes up arms against Canadian troops or those of her allies, of that citizenship"

I would not call George a child "soldier" at 14, from the description he was not part of any military training, nor was he in an organized group. He was just a kid with a gun.

He says Al Quaeda is "abhorred by all having one ounce of decency", when the well known fact is that Al Quaeda was financed and armed by the US government to fight the Red Army in the nineteen eighties. Ironically, the same army he fought when he was 14.

But please, let's not introduce a law that blindly strips anyone of Canadian citizenship for taking up arms against Canadian Troops or those of her allies, because Col. George Carstead would be among those to lose his Canadian citizenship. He has publicly confessed (in writing this article) to taking up arms against the Red Army, which were our allies at that time, against the Nazis in WW2. Maybe if George had been a bit older, he would have known that to fight the Soviets in WW2 was to help the Nazis. But he was just a kid, and probably didn't know what he was doing, no matter what he thinks now.

It's not as easy as you think to write laws condemning someone for the very same thing you do yourself. Double standards are difficult to uphold in the Canadian legal system, and I like it that way.

Picture: Some more teenage soldiers, from the movie "Red Dawn", fighting the Red Army.

About Supporting the Troops, Canadian Style

I just read a headline in today's newspaper "Taliban Smell Victory". I think they could smell victory quite a while ago, or they would not have been able to recruit so many people to run around blowing themselves up and planting land mines.

The point where I realized that the war in Afghanistan was going nowhere was at a CIGI talk given by the Canadian Brigadier General Denis Thompson, April 15, 2008 in Waterloo. He gave a presentation of all the methods Canadian forces were going to employ to pacify Afghanistan. Afterwards was a question and answer, where one person asked "Since the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, what makes you think Canada can win?"

The Brigadier General answered "Because we were invited there." I knew right away he had made a slip up, because the Russians had been invited too. However, the Q&A was not a debating forum, you simply asked your question and the speaker replied and then on to the next questioner.

http://www.cigionline.org/events/archive/35?page=4

I'm sure if any Taliban were sitting in the room at CIGI with us, they could have smelled victory right there, too.

I do not particularly like being accused of "Not supporting the troops" when I say we are not going to win this one. In order to win, you need to know what you're up against. We lost it a long ago when we allowed the Christian Fundamentalists to make this into a Holy War against Islam. We lost it when we admitted that we could not stop the torturing of detainees. We lost it when we started thinking that we were going to advance the cause of women's liberation in Afghanistan. We lost it when the U.S. decided to pull out and go fight Saddam for the oil, instead of hunting Bin Laden. The fighting itself is now just window dressing. You can't win a war if you can't think, and we cannot think while we have our heads full of ridiculous propaganda.

But when it comes to supporting the troops, I am right there. Recently, a friend of mine died, and I went to a reception after the funeral. The reception was held at the local Royal Canadian Legion. I had no sooner walked in than somebody hissed at me that I was dishonouring the dead and I needed to remove my hat. Apparently the dead he was referring to were the war dead. Later I found out that every branch of the Legion has the same inflexible rule. Hats off to honour the dead. No headgear of any kind. I took my hat off. I want to support the troops after all.

But last week, there was a Halloween party at the Royal Canadian Legion in Campbellford, and somebody dishonoured the dead by wearing a hat. Did somebody tell him to remove it? NO. He was given a prize for his costume. Was there any talk of dishonouring the dead? Apparently not. It sounds like a double standard to me. I cannot wear a baseball cap that says "Canada" on it, but this guy can wear a Ku Klux Klan hood, and carry a noose draped around the neck of a pretend black guy, and wins a prize.

Not one article or comment I have seen about this has anything to say about the "no hats rule". I don't want to get into a ridiculous argument of whether or not this was bad taste. But apparently I'm the only one who remembered that wearing any hat at the Legion hall dishonours the dead, let alone a KKK hood. Next time, you sanctimonious hat haters, how about reminding the racists to remove their hoods, too.

I just want to follow up with the comment that if people at the Legion, presumably with some military sensibilities, cannot figure out whether this KKK guy should be kicked out immediately, then we really have no chance winning a war in Afghanistan, because winning requires some cultural smarts as well as air strikes. If we are going to be idiots, we should stay home and be idiots.

Here are the links to the rule, that requires anyone entering a Canadian Legion (an Armed Forces veterans’ association) premises to remove their hat.

http://www.aroundtaber.com/Default.aspx?alias=www.aroundtaber.com/tleg
www.openschool.bc.ca/features/samples/law12_sample.pdf

And about Sikh Turbans in the Legion???
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/moan-zone/93334-hat-etiquette.html
http://www.williamgairdner.com/poppies-trump-turbans/

Considering all the controversy about wearing headgear of any kind, how come the KKK guy gets a free pass and a prize to dishonour our war dead?

Picture: Bikers supporting troops, from this website. http://westerncanada-un-nato-veterans.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Communist Propaganda of the Sixties

When I was in my early twenties, I spent three years with CUSO in Africa. And one of my eye-opening experiences was to come in contact with actual Russian Communists. The local hospital was funded by the USSR as part of their "aid" program. Actually their aid program was designed to extend their influence into all parts of the world, as the Soviet Union had plans for world domination. The Vietnam war was going at full swing at the time, and there was very little contact between "the Free World" (Us) and the "Red Menace" (them). It's hard to imagine for younger people, but we hated Communists back in the sixties as much as we hate Al Quaida terrorists today.

In our town in Sierra Leone, there was a free public hospital and health care clinic, including a dentist. Mostly paid for by the Communists, and staffed with a good number of Russian doctors and even some Russian nurses. The hospital also hired staff from Canada, and at the time, my wife was a lab technician from B.C. working at the hospital lab.

So I had a chance to get to know some Russians, although not really very well, as I did not speak Russian, and they did not speak English. Apparently it was Soviet policy to avoid sending English speaking Russians overseas to places where other people spoke English (like Sierra Leone). That minimized the chances for people to develop friendships with local people and try to defect to the West.

The Soviet language policy, like all others, obviously has its weak points. For example, the head Russian Doctor had spent some time in Algeria, and had managed to learn some French while he was there. I suspect this was the main reason he was transferred to Sierra Leone, where most people spoke English, and he did not speak English. However I spoke French, and so did a few other people. But for the most part the language barrier succeeded. The British, Canadians and Americans generally never hung out with the Russians.

Once in a while I would encounter some Russians at local bar, or at Hospital parties (which I was invited to as a courtesy because my wife worked there.) My first hospital cocktail party, I was not too keen to attend because I knew that it would all be in Russian and I wouldn't understand anything. Even the African doctors at the hospital spoke Russian, because they were educated in Moscow (another Communist foreign aid initiative). I went to the Hospital for the party and stuck close to my wife so I could have someone to talk to. But then she got called off for a medical emergency, and I was standing there alone. Then a couple of Russian guys came over to talk to me. There was the language barrier,of course. Well I quickly found out that in Russian you can skip learning the basic words for Hello, Goodbye, Thank You, and "Where is the bathroom". You only need to know one word of Russian, it is "Wodka", and it basically can be used in any situation. After learning the word for Vodka, I actually do not remember the rest of the party, or even how I got home afterwards.

Another time I met some Russians at a local bar, where we decided to sit together and communicate despite the language barrier. Once I managed to make it clear that I was not American, but Canadian, they decided to shift the topic of conversation to hockey. Apparently Russians really like ice hockey, and they were also brainwashed into thinking that Russia was the number one ice hockey country in the world, just because they always won gold at the winter Olympics. I managed to convince them they were wrong by using the words "Bobby Orr" which was apparently understood in Russian. This was before the Canada-Russia hockey summit of 1972, where Henderson scored the winning goal, but Bobby Orr didn't play.

The Russians liked to give me Communist magazines (written in English) to read. I guess they couldn't understand them anyway, so why not give them to me. I learned a lot about Russian propaganda in those magazines. I was always kind of amazed at how the Russians were so brain washed into loving Communism and hating capitalism, when Communism was obviously such a bad system. But by reading their magazines, I was beginning to understand how their brainwashing worked. It was a combination of fact and fiction, ultimately based on stirring up emotions of fear and hate.

Russians were brainwashed into hating Americans, by constantly reminding them of certain awkward facts, and subtly promoting negative stereotypes.

This is a sample of Communist propaganda back in the sixties and seventies.

• Americans drop atomic bombs on their enemy's cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
• Canadian hockey players are nothing but hired gangsters whose only aim is to injure Russian hockey players.
• Americans say that they beat the Nazi's in WW2, which is a lie, it was the USSR that beat the Nazis.
• Capitalism means that you will not get free education, no free medical care, no job, and you will be homeless and beg for change on the streets.
• Americans drop napalm on innocent women and children.
• Americans have black soldiers who are recruited from convicted rapists in prison.
• Americans lynch people who are different from them (i.e. blacks, atheists and communists)
• Americans are backwards religious extremists who believe the Earth is only 4000 years old, and that they were created by God in God's image,
• American civilians carry guns and have the right to shoot anyone they please.
• Americans understand little of the rest of the world, and hate all foreigners.
• In the past, Americans had slaves, and tortured and mistreated them.
• Americans massacred the Indians and stole their land.
• Many Americans are homosexuals, some are cannibals.
• Many Americans are addicted to mind altering drugs of some sort.
• American propaganda is full of lies about the USSR, to make Americans hate Russians, and want to kill them.

One of the American T-shirt slogans of the day was "Kill A Commie for Christ", so I guess they were not too far off. Although the T-shirt might have been ironic, I couldn't be sure, and I don't think the Godless Commies "got it" either. You can still buy the mugs and T-shirts on Zazzle.com if you want.

Picture: American propaganda against Communism is not completely finished, here is a current website still stirring up hate for Communism. The Russians are out of it now, but anti-communist emotions are still targeting young Americans who are not sufficiently religious or conservative.

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/commies-arent-cool/

Is the Omar Khadr Case a Show Trial?

The Omar Khadr trial is obviously not your average legal murder trial. In fact it is staged in Guantanamo, Cuba, far from the US legal system. I would say it is more of a public show trial for national propaganda purposes. By condemning Khadr for murder, the US is "sending a message" that terrorism is bad and will not be tolerated, and that the Americans, unlike the terrorists, are following some rules of law.

Of course this is not the first show trial ever held. But one in particular has some interesting parallels. The case of 17 year old Herschel Grynszpan, who shot and killed a Nazi official in 1938, was comparable in some ways. i.e. a teenager killing someone who he believed was persecuting his people. In both cases, there seemed to be no intent to murder a particular person, instead it was more or less random. Both cases took place where the teenager was not in his home country. Both trials dragged on for a long time with generally unsatisfactory results.

"The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) occurred on November 9/10 after 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official in Paris, in retaliation for the harsh treatment his Jewish parents had received from Nazis."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/holocaust.htm

For Canadians, it should not be too hard to imagine the outrage the Germans felt toward Herchel. The French refused to extradite Herchel, and dragged out the trial for a few years. But when Germany invaded France, the Nazis were able to track down Herchel and took him to Germany where they wanted him to stand trial. Given that WW2 was in full swing, it's pretty obvious the only purpose for the trial was to send a message to the world, and Jews in particular, that the Germans were the victims, not the aggressors. There was really nothing stopping the Nazis from executing Herchel at will. But even in Nazi Germany, the legal system was a bitch, and the trial proved to be a nightmare for the Nazis. Finally, as the war took a turn for the worse (for Germany) Herchel, still awaiting trial, disappeared never to be seen again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Grynszpan

Is Fact Checking a Lost Art?

Fact checking may becoming another "lost" art. I find that many of my friends or relatives who send me stuff have no idea how to fact check, or have never heard of Snopes.com or wikipedia.

Back in the sixties, the media was biased, of course, but few people really needed to dabble in the art of fact checking. In those days, the vast majority of what you heard was at least factually true. And what was untrue was quite easy to pick out. But that has changed with the advent of the internet and Fox News.

Most people do not have the time to fact check. Especially hard working conservatives I guess, because in my opinion, most of the fact checking that needs to be done is on pro-conservative statements. For some reason, my liberal friends already know how to fact check. I guess that either (A) they have lots of time because they're on welfare (B) most of the lying is done by conservatives

Let's start with Snopes, an excellent website where thousands of circular emails and politically motivated statements are investigated. The most truly hard core conservatives call it a leftist website, and refuse to check it out (along with Wikipedia, and all of published peer reviewed science.) The moderate conservatives usually need me to inform them that it something like Snopes exists, and send them instructions on how to use it.

If all this crap was not repeated endlessly on TV and in the papers, I wouldn't have to be fact checking almost every single thing people tell me, and every email sent to me. And I wouldn't have to email my friends back to tell them how to fact check their emails in the future before they decide to forward them to me.

Here is an example I received last week. I got a seemingly apolitical circular email about the bedbug infestation. But in it was the offhanded comment about how all these bedbugs are coming in new clothing imported from China. At the top of the forwarded email was a comment from someone down the line about how they had "tried to use Snopes but the website wasn't working, but this information seems so common sense that I thought I'd pass it on anyway."

Well, true enough, most of this email was common sense. But in it there was a little dig at Chinese bedding and clothing manufacturers, which Snopes considered to be without real basis. Snopes also pointed out that not all bedbugs come from China, nor do most come in new clothing, which was not mentioned at all in the email. For example, it is easy to bring bedbugs home from trips abroad in or on your suitcase.

So how hard is it to check this email, or anything else, using Snopes? It's really so easy, I cannot figure out what the problem is. Go to Google and type in Snopes Bedbugs, (in this case) and you're at this page in a nanosecond. It even has the entire circular email including the reference to China embedded in the page. Sometimes I need to copy and paste some text from the email into Google first. This type of skill is becoming indispensable to teachers, for example, who need to Google almost every surprisingly good essay that is handed in, to see if it was copied wholesale off the internet.

Sometimes it works for me just to inform people of how to use Snopes. They sometimes just stop sending me stuff, either because everything they look up proves false, or because they take me off the email list for having the temerity to fact check the email they forwarded.

But the hoax emails keep coming and keep getting smarter. Recently I got another email, from a friend I had already instructed in fact-checking. He admitted he did not fact check it himself "because it says right there in the circular email that it was already fact checked by Snopes and its genuine!" Of course I fact checked it anyway, with Snopes, and found out that it was partly debunked in Snopes (and they also debunked the false statement that it was fact checked by Snopes.)

What can you do when the press is regularly spewing fact free propaganda? Do you fact check every word or do you break down and just accept it as being plausible? The purveyors of propaganda are always one step ahead of the average person. Am I some kind of *****n genius just because I seem to be the only one who would ever think to check Snopes anyway, even though email clearly states that it has already been checked by Snopes? Clearly, there is a reason that these Nigerian email scams work.

To see the original email, see Snopes "Big Virus Coming" email near the bottom of this page about postcard viruses.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp

Picture: The Chicago Tribune, owned by conservative Colonel Robert McCormick, published the wrong winner in the 1948 US presidential election. By coincidence, the same Colonel McCormick who is the founder of my home town of Baie Comeau. This misprint probably resulted in a lot of overtime at the local paper mill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman

Fox News North Backs Down, is Canada Safe from Brainwashing?

Apparently, after quite a battle, the Fox News North application was withdrawn.

But are we safe from the brainwashing? Not really, as they plan to launch anyway, just without the benefit of being forced on to the Canadian public. They will lose money for the short term (and hopefully the long term). And they will not even be available on TVs where the subscriber has not specifically paid for them. Which means they will not be able to work their brainwashing magic on Canadians who only see a black screen, and hear nothing on their channel.

But propaganda still has a lot of power in it, so I would not really breathe a sigh of relief. The only real defence against propaganda is a well informed public, who is also media literate. And that is becoming a real worry, even in Canada.

On the other hand, as the right wing coalition of pro-war Christians and free-market big business gains strength in the USA, they will likely win converts in Canada. And they have a lot of money to spend in spreading their message.

Here is an extreme right wing commenter on this web site, with the statement that all Canadian media is left wing and we need a chance to hear the "balanced" Fox News point of view.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3i050e81f63a15745dd5949ca401b230af

"Ron comments October 06, 2010:
In Canada one is only permitted to hear the left wing, politically correct version of world events. They have rewritten history textbooks to reflect that view, they have Commissions that hold kangaroo courts where there is no protection of rights or even adherence to rules of evidence. The Sun TV station threatens that control. They fear that people may actually hear news that does not fit the narrow-minded, hateful world view of the left. Free speech is dead in Canada - the Sun may get its TV station but the left will use their courts and Human Rights Commissions to curtail their broadcasts - We have one voice in Canada - the CBC/Liberal owned voice and anyone who dares to challenge it will be attacked and destroyed. The left hates the U.S. because they refuse to worship at the alter of the left --- many Canadians are quite willing to behave and bow down to that religion - The Sun must not be permitted to provide another view - there is no other view but that of the left! They must not be allowed to broadcast."

Well, in Canada we have "The National Post" and MacLean's magazine. Both are right wing extremist. Then we have on TV the CTV and the CBC and Global, and all present right wing points of view. In Ontario we have TVO which has a nightly news show "The Agenda" with Steve Paikin, who I consider to be right wing. Also nightly on my TV anyway, is the "Michael Coren" show which is about as extreme right as I would ever want to see. It certainly gets me just as steamed as Fox News does.

So I do not agree that we are restricted to leftist points of view in Canada. In fact this allegation is so ridiculous I might even consider it to be a deliberate lie in order to promote a certain right wing point of view. Could we call that comment itself "propaganda?".

The problem with the extreme right wing message, in my opinion, is that it is strongly tied to fundamentalist "Christianity", including the denial of the theory of evolution. Secondly that it is racist. Third it is pro-war, that meaning the desire that the USA should eventually conquer every country on Earth using any means possible, and then convert those countries to fundamental Christianity. And let's not forget that it is also anti-environmental, trying to brainwash people into believing that it is necessary for big corporations to destroy the environment to give us jobs, and it is not just for their short term profit.

This "Narrow minded, hateful, left wing" view that Canadians have been brainwashed into is:

• Equal access to education and health care for all
• World peace with the UN as a body to discuss issues
• World court to try war criminals
• Protection of the environment for future generations
• Freedom of religion
• Protection of democracy
• Freedom of speech (exception: hate speech).
• No racism and NO master race

Amazingly enough Fox News North really could cure us of this left wing brainwashing, if we let it. Here is a clip of the original Fox News at work doing what they do best, which is flushing out racists. Turns out it is themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=277gQDcBtMY

Picture: From a blog by Montreal Simon
http://montrealsimon.blogspot.com/2010/09/fox-news-north-pmo-connection.html

Quebec Bashing from MacLean's Magazine

MacLean's Magazine recently ran a front page titled "The Most Corrupt Province in Canada", with the picture of Quebec's Carnaval Snowman mascot carrying a briefcase bulging with cash. At this point I have lived about half my life in Quebec, and half in the province of Ontario, (plus a few years in Sierra Leone), and I would like to share my perspectives on corruption.

There is an article about it in the Globe and Mail here.

I do not subscribe to MacLean's because of all their hate propaganda. I happened to read part of it when I saw it at a coffee shop. Apparently MacLean's is taking time off from bashing Moslems and the Canadian Human Rights Commission to have another go at the bad, bad province of Quebec and French Canadians.

I have never been able to find a reference to confirm this, but I remember many years ago reading an opinion piece by Barbara Amiel in MacLean's, which was then owned by Conrad Black, her husband. In this article, she claimed (I'm paraphrasing) that French Canadians were genetically unsuited to democracy. Of course, Conrad Black is the same one who recently got sent to jail in the USA for fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and obstruction of justice. He no longer owns MacLean's, but I still see Barbara's opinions in there occasionally, along with articles by one of Conrad's supporters, Mark Steyn.

Now getting back to corruption in Quebec, and the inference that it is much much worse than Ontario, and as Andrew Coyne (National Editor MacLean's) has said it has something to do with "political culture rooted in nationalism and state interventionism."

My one and only experience with corruption, growing up in Baie Comeau, an isolated paper mill town in Northern Quebec was this. My father, a French Canadian, had an English speaking boss of Scots background. He hated his boss, let's call the boss MacLeanson, just to avoid any lawsuits against me, and to incidentally reinforce the ethnic stereotype of the magazine. The company would hire outside contractors to perform many functions including cutting wood, and maintaining the logging roads. All contracts were awarded by MacLeanson. All the contractors were independent French Canadian businessmen. My father noticed a few things going wrong in the woods department. One was that the roads were not being maintained, which annoyed him because of the pounding he took driving a pickup truck from camp to camp. Second he noticed Macleanson had a brand new luxury car every year. My father claimed that Mcleanson was totally corrupt and taking bribes to enrich himself, but my mother argued to not make any accusations down at the company offices, because she assumed this was a simple case of my father not liking his boss and inventing this whole conspiracy. After all, he could have been fired, and with a grade four education in northern Quebec, there were no other places to work. I personally heard about these stories as a young teenager, and tended to side with my English mother, as she was by far the most level headed of the two.

About 12 years after, I was back in Baie Comeau, as a teacher at the English high school. At one parent-teacher meeting, I happened to get into a conversation with the father of one of my students. He was telling me how he ended up living in Baie Comeau. The company had sent him up to Baie Comeau to investigate the books. It seems that the head office could hardly believe that the Baie Comeau division was losing money every year, and wanted to send an independent auditor to figure it out. This parent said that he had uncovered a huge amount of corruption in the woods department at Baie Comeau, enough to explain the lack of profits of the entire division. And one man had singlehandedly taken the company into the red. It was Macleanson. Following his "forced retirement", profits picked up again.

I never encountered any other corruption in either Quebec or Ontario that in any way personally affected me. All I know is what I get in the news and from various official inquiries. I assume that there might be a fair amount going on that is not being investigated, and I do not equate amount of corruption being investigated with amount taking place. In fact it might even be the inverse, as far as I know.

I do not want to be bashing other ethnic groups, like MacLean's does, but I have a question. Given that MacLean's is pushing the idea that this is a French Canadian/left wing thing, are they forgetting that the Mafia, even in Quebec, is from a background of Italian and Sicilian immigrants, whether they speak French or not?

Last night on TV I happened to tune in to the Michael Coren show on the Christian channel (another one I don't subscribe to). They were discussing the MacLean's Magazine article, and it was not long before one opinion was put forth that "all French Canadians supporting the Bloc Quebecois party should be hung for treason". As I recall, no one in the panel felt it necessary to belabour the point or to rebut it.

One more issue is the use of the Bonhomme Carnaval, the mascot of the Quebec Carnaval on the cover. Apparently MacLean's was given written permission by the Quebec Caranaval, although obviously MacLean's was negotiating in bad faith. I suppose French Canadians could be forgiven for thinking that any dealings with English Canadians would involve bad faith negotiations. But they don't. They see this as being just one small group of people at one magazine with questionable ethics, that resulted from the negative influence of convicted felon Conrad Black.

About Heather Mallick's Article on Fox News North

Heather Mallick wrote a commentary in the Toronto Sun "Fox News North is a Rancid Idea". In it she slams Quebecor's project of starting a Canadian right wing 24 hour news channel, and in the article she mentions the one time she was invited to appear on Fox News.

Bill O'Reilly has a popular US TV show where he often invites liberal guests and then "crushes" them in a debate. I don't think I have ever seen any liberal hold their own against Bill O'Reilly (maybe Richard Dawkins was close even though Bill called him a fascist). Conservatives love to watch the dismemberment, but to me it illustrates why we do not need a news channel like that in Canada. The tactics Bill uses include making up facts and statistics (otherwise sometimes called "lying"), and famously cutting off the microphone of the interviewee. Basically the interviewee has no chance. But Bill continues to attract new liberal guests, who naively hope to convince Bill he is wrong and present an alternative point of view to the rabid Fox viewers.

Here is a small part of Heather's interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbX-2X7_h-M

My blog on O'Reilly-Dawkins debate on teaching evolution:

On the one hand, the argument for why we need a Fox North (a Canadian version of Fox News), is based on freedom of speech. In other words, to have freedom of speech, we must have an outlet for right wing views. That's because the mainstream media like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and CTV, are both allegedly biased and show only the left wing point of view.

I don't think we need Fox News in Canada, because Canadian mainstream media is not propaganda. And it is not right that Fox News is demanding special status where it must be included in popular packages on cable TV. Third, that Fox News is in the business of propaganda, not presenting news, and they get caught lying so often to support their right wing point of view, that independent fact checkers are suffering from shell shock. And finally, Fox News has an agenda that is not good for the country, an agenda of promoting racism, hatred, anger, anti-science, war and violence.

In the post 9/11 atmosphere in the USA, Fox News has done remarkably well, but the USA as a country is worse off for it, in my opinion anyway.

Yesterday, the face in front of the Fox News North push, Kory Teneycke, resigned. Kory has a bombastic style that would be well suited to Fox News South. Maybe it is a sign that this type of over the top hate propaganda is not welcome in Canada, I can only hope. Because if we do ever get a Fox News North, freedom of speech wins, but freedom of truth and decency loses. It's really too bad that we even have to make such a decision.

Globe and Mail article: "10 things you need to know about Fox News North" by John Doyle

Here is a "Canadian" conservative blog, a taste of what a "Canadian" Fox News could be like. Actually, you can Google Barack the Barbarian, and take a look at some of the pages from the comic book if you are interested.

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2009/04/not-another-obama-superhero-comic-book.html

A List of French Military Victories

It seems that in the last few years, many Americans cannot get enough of this joke: "List all the French military victories? Answer: There are None!" (or some variation of that.) This seems to have gotten started when the French refused to join Bush's war against Iraq.

It goes to show what a lack formal education in world history at the high school level can do to an entire country. Even university level world history in America is very one sided, if their view of Canadian history is any example.

Anyone with some understanding of Canadian history will know that this very topic comes up a lot in wartime in Canada, because our country is officially both French and English. Being an ex-history teacher, and half English and French myself, I feel that I can answer the question at least as well as most Americans.

List some of the more notable French Victories:

732 A.D.: Tours, the French hold off the Muslim invasion of Europe

If the French had not won that one, we all might be speaking Muslim today and this entire discussion would end here.

1066: French soldiers under William (the conqueror) invaded and conquered England. If Americans are not aware of this date, they should ask an English person for confirmation.

1427 Joan of Arc leads French armies in a series of military victories to save France.


1690 Battle of Quebec. This is the first major face off between the Americans and the French in the colonies. William Phips, Governor of the British Colony of Massachusetts, led an invasion against the Colony of New France (today Quebec). The French colonists won, despite the greater population of the American colonies.



1781 Two battles in one offensive: The Battle of Yorktown (American/French land siege) and the Battle of the Chesapeake (French naval victory) These two battles, one on land an one at sea set the stage for the British surrender in the American War of Independence, leading to the formation of the United States of America. Many Americans have decided that the French were of little or no help in these battles. Take a look at the casualties. Most were in the Battle of the Chesapeake, and I am guessing none of those were American.


France under Napoleon had a series of military victories in Europe. At the peak of their empire, they controlled more of Europe than Nazi Germany did in WW2, and similar to the Nazis, the French were defeated when they tried to conquer Russia in 1812. After the losses on the Russian front, a weakened French army was finally defeated.

French Victories during the Napoleonic wars:

1796 Battle of Lodi drove the Austrians from Italy

1805 Battle of Austerlitz, defeated a coalition of Russia and Austria

1806 Battle of Jena defeated Prussia (today Eastern Germany)

1809 Battle of Wagram French defeat Austrians


Now just for some balance, lets look at the historical French Defeats, as told by an American humour website.

Basically, as most of the arguments go, any French victory was either led by a foreigner, or a woman, or was too long ago, or they won a battle but lost the war, or had help from somebody else, and therefore doesn't count. Therefore, the French are cowards. Just a reminder, it is battles, not wars that are usually won or lost on bravery or fighting skill. The winning of wars also depends on depth of resources and strength of the economy, and geographic issues.

One of the most famous French defeats was the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The U.K. and their allies (most of what is Germany today) vs. France.

Even worse was France defeated by Nazi Germany in 1940. At the end of this battle, France was fighting alone against Nazi Germany. Their allies Belgium and Holland had surrendered. The Soviet Union had signed a peace deal with Hitler. The British had evacuated their troops back to England. America was neutral, or helping any side that could pay for it. Italy joined in on the side of the Germans following the British withdrawal. At the end of the war, Americans found out that it was tougher than they thought to beat the Germans. Most of the heavy work was actually done by the Soviet Union in forcing Germany to surrender.

By comparison to the defeat of France, the Russians did not surrender when the German Army invaded. However, in stopping the Germans, they had 800,000 soldiers killed and 3,000,000 injured. The Russians also had the advantage of a large territory to retreat into, and a long hard winter to slow down the Nazis.

A major recent French defeat was in Vietnam. The French asked the US for assistance, but instead the US decided they could do better and went at it alone after the French withdrew. Most people agree today that the US did not do any better than France in the Vietnam war.

Here, from an American writing on a Chinese website (I'm guessing, see for yourself on the link), is a quote

"But there are two things I hate more than I hate the French: ignorant fake war buffs and people who are ungrateful. And when an American mouths off about French military history, he's not just being ignorant, he's being ungrateful."

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/bayonet_battles.htm#hatefrance


Further reading: French Army 1600-1900

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/FRENCH_ARMY.htm

An Apology to Hunters and Conservatives

Last blog I quoted from a comment that was left on the Fox News website. I really should not have left a troll's comment without explanation, because doing so actually puts conservatives and right wingers in a bad light. And by doing that, I am simply generating left wing propaganda. So now I am going to explain it further and remove all the BS and propaganda from it.

Here is the quote again, from libtardhater67

Sept 2, 9:28 AM on Fox News (previously quoted on my "Survey of the Press" blog.)

"This guy was a worthless libtard! Too bad he is dead, I would have wanted him to know the last time I went hunting I took my last 4 oil changes from my pickup and my last 2 from my ATV and dumped them in the stream where I was. I was visualizing some crying libtard's face when he saw it. Then I killed two more bucks than I had tags, kept the largest and left the other two to rot. Take that, libtards! I hate the "environment"! We humans have the right to do anything we want to the environment."

To state the obvious first. Libtardhater67 does not represent all conservatives. I know some conservatives myself, and they would be shocked that he was dumping used oil into forest streams. And even the most extreme conservative "ant-environmentalist" would at the very least dig a hole and pour the oil in rather than have it float away on top of the water on a stream that could potentially be used by fishermen, or would be necessary to attract deer to a good hunting place. The oil stinks (especially to animals), coats the banks and is generally icky. So this statement by Libtardhater67 is obviously either designed to provoke anger, or make conservatives look bad, or if true, was the act of a not-very-bright person acting under the delusion that this was a political act to further the cause of conservatism. Ironically, exactly the same type of "worthless libtard" behaviour that Libtardhater67 was condemning on the part of a deranged gunman taking hostages at the Discovery Channel. The fact is, that oil spills are not a left wing/right wing issue. All sides come together on the need to prevent and to clean up oil spills. No side wants wanton destruction of the environment as part of their image.

Then, about killing three bucks and taking the largest, I can actually imagine that happening. But once again it is nothing to boast of, even to other hunters. Or maybe especially to other hunters. A good hunter takes a certain amount of pride in what they do, or they would not do it. That means they take pride in their ability to aim a gun (if they are using a gun, I know some who consider bow and arrow a real test of hunting skill). And they take pride in bringing in the biggest buck. But everybody knows there are ways to cheat, and there are some people who can neither hunt, nor aim a gun, who go around bragging of their "expert hunting skills" and their huge kills, while all they do is pay to sit in a prepared blind and wait for thoroughly tamed deer to come and eat food that has been set out for them months in advance. That, my friends is not hunting, that is a firing squad in a petting zoo. Even if they miss, someone else will finish it off with a good shot. Yes it offends some liberals - those that are also animal lovers. But there are also conservatives that are animal lovers.

I have done a little hunting myself when I was a kid, (very little), and I know that some hunters can hardly tell the difference between a deer and a cow, and often wound an animal with a poor shot rather than kill it with a clean accurate shot. The animal then might get away and dies later and rots because the hunter does not have the skill to follow it any more than they have the skill to shoot straight.

And finally I am pretty sure that even the most conservative of right wing extremists does not advocate that any human, no matter how retarded, has the right to do "anything they want" to the environment, no matter how destructive, no matter how dangerous. I'm thinking setting forest fires, but there are other issues too.

So libtardhater67 is just a troll. I'm guessing some 12 year old kid with a bad attitude (it happens!) who has liberal parents who he hears talking about things.

Anyway I want to correct any mistaken impressions I might have left with that last blog of mine. Conservatives are not as stupid as this troll makes them look.

Picture: Taken from this forum, (it is not me or anyone I know) the picture is set on Anticosti Island. Over a hundred years ago, my grandfather hunted deer for food, when he lived on Anticosti. There are still 200,000 deer on Anticosti Island, and many of them are so tame they come up to beg for food at picnic tables.

Who Promotes the Gun Culture: Liberals or Conservatives?

I came across what seems to be a reasonable creationist, making a statement about James Lee, the hostage taker at Discovery Channel. In his blog, he had these words:

"before anyone gets too smug about how Darwinism leads to violence, let's remember two words: James Kopp. You know, the guy who bought a sniper rifle and assassinated abortionist Barnett Slepian? The fact is that deranged people do violent things because they're deranged. Darwin no more caused Lee's violent acts than the Bible caused Kopp's."

Well at least no one can accuse blogger Todd Wood of being one sided. On the other hand this was the first time I heard that Darwin causing James Lee to buy a gun and take hostages.

But now I have a name, let me try to compare the two acts in several different ways.

1. James Kopp killed someone, James Lee did not. You may think this is splitting hairs, or that this is unimportant. But there is a fundamental difference in what these people did. Both were arguably deranged, but one was also a murderer. Pointing a gun at someone is not the same as shooting someone in cold blood.

2. Nobody directly or indirectly incited James Lee to do anything.

3. There has been no support shown for James Lee's methods or even the terms of his manifesto after the fact. There was support for James Kopp even after he killed the doctor.
http://my.execpc.com/~awallace/herokopp.htm

4. Kopp is not the only killer. There were other incidents, such as the bombing of abortion clinics on the other side. Also, at least one other abortionist was murdered, Dr. George Tiller (I think it was May 2009) Also Dr. Tiller had been shot and wounded before. Let's not forget John Lennon being murdered by a Born-Again Christian, incited by other people in his church.

5. James Lee threatened The Discovery Channel, which was supposedly on his side, whereas James Kopp murdered Barnett Slepian who was an opponent of his.

So in the final analysis, Todd's assertion is true. Darwin did not cause Lee's violent acts any more than the Bible caused James Kopp to commit murder. But on the other hand, nobody supported Lee's idea of pointing a gun at someone. Many creationists supported James Kopp's actual act of violence. And other creationists have carried out other murders.

So if somebody says James Lee is equivalent to James Kopp, what they are saying in an underhanded way, is that Darwinism and Environmentalism did something to incite James Lee.

These two events are not equivalent. There is still the clear rhetoric of incitement, and the evidence of other acts of violence incited by the right wing (and religious) extremists.

I think the evidence is solid that the right wing extremists are doing the overwhelming amount of violent incitement, especially with the use of guns. Another clue is that the left has been trying to pass "Hate Laws" making it illegal to incite violence, while conservatives oppose such laws. Nobody bats an eye when right wing Christian TV Evangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassination of opponents publicly on television. Have you ever heard Michael Moore or Al Gore calling for the assassination of anyone?

In my opinion, with the gun-happy culture in the USA, promoted by conservatives (including Christians) , it's surprising that more people have not turned to guns as the answer. You can hardly turn on a TV without seeing people waving guns at each other.

Here is a blog on the consequences of violent conservative rhetoric.

http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2010/03/consequences-of-conservative-speech.html

A Survey of the Press: James Lee and Environmentalism

Last night, after I posted my previous blog, my site briefly rated higher on Google than Fox News. I captured it in a screen grab (see picture left).

Today I have done a survey of attitudes and propaganda about James Lee, by going to some Canadian news source websites and seeing what each had to say. First the headline, second, how a reference in the text to environment was handled, and a quick look at some comments posted at the bottom of the page.

The main Canadian websites all managed to keep "environmentalism" out of the headline. To me, this is the right way to go to avoid spreading right wing propaganda.



CBC News: Discovery Channel Hostage Taker Shot Dead
..."The concerns appear to be of an environmental nature."...


CTV News:Police kill gunman who held 3 at U.S. Discovery Channel
..."He said he was inspired by "Ishmael," a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn and by former Vice-President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth.""...

Radio Canada: Prise d'otages au Maryland Le ravisseur est abattu
..."Des médias ont identifié le suspect comme étant James Lee, un Américain d'origine asiatique qui menait une lutte acharnée contre le réchauffement climatique."...
(Google Translation plus correction) "Media reports identified the suspect as James Lee, an American of Asian descent who led a [fierce] struggle against global warming."...
(acharnée=fierce, which I had to insert because the translator inexplicably missed it. And I might also change "led a fierce struggle" to "conducted a fierce struggle", because "led" might imply he had followers in English, while "menait" does not necessarily imply any followers.)

The National Post: Man who held hostages at U.S. Discovery Channel shot and killed
..."The gunman, who apparently objected to the TV channel’s environmental coverage, died,"...

The National Post web site did not call James Lee an environmentalist, but the commenters to the article certainly did. They seem to be mostly right wing - anti environment, pro war etc. By comparison, the CBC website comments I would say are far more balanced, I saw only one poster on the CBC site assert that Lee was some kind of eco terrorist.


Fox News: Gunman's Environmental Grudges Well Known Before Discovery Channel Standoff

..."Lee, a 43 year old Californian with a seemingly religious fervour for his environmental causes,"...

Of all the unsolicited comments I saw, this one below takes the prize for most obnoxiously right wing, and was posted on the Fox website. This Fox News reader makes James Lee seem almost rational.

LIBTARDHATER67 Sept 2, 9:28 AM
"This guy was a worthless libtard! Too bad he is dead, I would have wanted him to know the last time I went hunting I took my last 4 oil changes from my pickup and my last 2 from my ATV and dumped them in the stream where I was. I was visualizing some crying libtard's face when he saw it. Then I killed two more bucks than I had tags, kept the largest and left the other two to rot. Take that, libtards! I hate the "environment"! We humans have the right to do anything we want to the environment."

(I don't understand why, but the previous comment only came up on my Opera browser and not Firefox.)

Will Potters Blog on Radical Environmentalism
"Calling the Discovery Channel Hostage Taker a “Radical Environmentalist” is Irresponsible and Inaccurate"

Propaganda Alert: James Lee is NOT an Environmentalist

According to ABC news "A radical environmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said."

I am asking ABC News to retract this blatant lie about environmentalists. Even if it was actually true, that James Lee was an environmentalist, it would still be propaganda to link the environmental movement to someone who went nuts and tried to take hostages.

But so far I have seen no proof that this guy was any more of an environmentalist than Charlton Heston. I think we actually have some pretty strong proof that this guy was actually more of a teabag carrying gun nut than an environmentalist .

What is the basis for calling this deranged person an environmentalist? Did he ride a bike to the crime scene? No. Did he recycle all his left over pop cans? No. Is he a vegetarian? Maybe. Does he keep his air conditioner up at 78 degrees? No. Does he belong to the Audubon Society? No. Does he contribute money to the "Save the Whales" campaign? No. Was this action part of a Greenpeace protest? No.

Actually, the evidence of James Lee being an environmentalist was taken from his website manifesto. This manifesto actually has a lot more in common with Glen Beck's Teabaggers than it does with the Environmentalists

He suggests putting a game show on the Discovery channel to give ideas on how to live without giving birth to more "filthy human children", since those new additions "are pollution". Environmentalists have never used to word pollution to refer to anyone's children or babies.

"All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease" That would be a pacifist position, not environmentalist. By the way, pacifists who use guns and strap explosives to their body are also rejected by the pacifist movement.

"Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and
the anchor baby filth that follows that.... FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH
AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!"  (that is pure right wing racist stuff, not on any environmentalist agenda I know of. But a very popular point of view with the right wing.)

"Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy." Too general to distinguish between right and left economics.

"THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! all human procreation and farming must cease!" The end of procreation and farming have never been discussed, to my knowledge, by environmentalists. Although, to be fair most environmentalists do believe that farming does take away habitat from wildlife. But most environmentalists also know that there is a big difference between the amount of land and water used to produce meat and what is needed to produce fruits, grains and vegetables. If James Lee actually knew anything about environmentalism he would at least be aware of this difference.

T-Shirts That Annoy Me

I have not been to the USA since they tightened border security to require passports. So I don't know if people actually wear t-shirts like this. But apparently somebody thinks they want to and is willing to make a buck off it.

Also on this web page: "If you ask me to press 1 for English I hang up!" With slogans like this you really should have the English language spell checker on before you upload your page. For example: "Ah, it's so much fun being right, isn't it? A histerical t-shirt for conservative right wingers. Only found here at conservative-t-shirts.com"

Apparently some conservatives think it annoys Liberals to work hard and live free. I don't get it, except as a not so subtle propaganda statement that liberals always live off welfare, while conservatives always seem to get the hard-working jobs. If you're hard at work stamping out dumb t-shirts all day long, well, just go ahead and knock yourself out. Why should I even care? And why should you care how hard I work at my job, unless you're my boss.

But if you're a CEO raking in 30 million a year in a defence or oil industry, wearing that t-shirt, yes, that kind of annoys me. Start by paying your fair share of taxes! How can people take that much money, while the government sinks into debt paying for wars that in turn make profits for defence industries and oil corporations.

Now how do you annoy a Conservative? Be born anything but white or Christian. Pay your fair share of taxes.


Here's another shirt: "White, straight, Republican, male (How else can I piss you off today)

Obviously, by also being an Evangelical Fundamentalist. Actually the most annoying part of this is that it is apparently a Canadian website. We can't even vote for the Republican party in Canada. And furthermore she is apparently a straight white male? Yes, that actually is beginning to piss me off. I thought she/he was female.

Wait a minute, is he/she even white? Is this Canadian organization cranking out the conservative t-shirts with a shop full of illegal migrant workers where nobody even speaks English? By the way, it might be photoshopped, but if so I didn't do it.

More Propaganda: Mosque at Ground Zero

This report or editorial came from Philip Elliot (AP), 3 hours ago, about how the Republicans are attacking Obama on being insensitive.

The issue, of course is about propaganda. Obama has the best message, and that message, on a level playing field could damage the image of the Republicans, and hurt their chances in the next election. The problem is, that the media playing field is not level. In spite of the incessant propaganda telling us the media has a left wing bias, most of the media actually lean toward the Republicans. Fox News, the most watched 24 hour news channel is saturated with anti Obama propaganda.

In spite of Obama having clearly the better message, the Republicans are probably going to batter him in this round of the propaganda war.

Here is the Issue: A Muslim cultural centre has rented or bought a place two blocks from "Ground Zero" in New York.

Here is Obama's message: People of any religion are free to have meetings anywhere in the USA.

Here is the Republican Message: Obama is insulting the families of those killed in 9/11 by having a mosque built at ground zero.

If the media was unbiased, Obama should win this one. The Republican story has two glaring errors. It's not a mosque, and it's not at ground zero. Obama has a very strong point about freedom of religion, and another strong point that America has no grudge against Muslims, just against terrorists (of any religion actually).

But with a biased media, this story has the power to hurt Obama. After Fox News repeats their story for a while, echoed by the rest of the mainstream media, Obama is going to look like an out-of touch elitist who does not understand the emotional needs of real Americans.

If The Democrats try to fight back accusing the Republicans of racism, discrimination, lying and distorting facts, they are going to come off looking even more like losers.

I don't know how the left wing can win this propaganda battle, with Fox News standing guard against any reasonable Democratic arguments, but the Democrats need to send out this a strong reminder to America.

How about this message for example? "The real traitors to America are those who undermine its freedom. Liberty for all or liberty for none. You would think the Republicans, who claim to believe in "Land of the free, home of the brave", would be the most happy to have an Islamic cultural centre in New York."

The idea is to make the Republicans sound small minded and petty. Here are some specific messages to fight back on:

------------------------------
"It's not a question of whether or not they have a right to build it," Portman said. "It's a question of whether or not they should."

Answer: So it OK to have the right to do something in the USA, just as long as you don't actually try doing it. That is hypocritical.
-----------------------------

"Mr. President, ground zero is the wrong place for a mosque." Rick Scott

Answer: You win, we will not allow anyone to build a mosque at ground zero. Would you like to decide on the place? How about a block from ground zero? two blocks? a hundred miles? A thousand? Are you looking to have an Islamic centre in your home state?
---------------------------------------------------------

"Well I think it's another example of him playing the role of law professor. ... We can have a great debate about the legal arguments. But it's not about that," Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in an interview Monday on Fox News.

Answer: So what is it about, Governor, if it not about law? Instead of the law, how about a group of angered citizens who band together to drive the Islamists out of town? Maybe this veiled reference to lynch mobs is too blatant. So word it a better, more subtle way, but this issue has to be fought, and fought hard if America is to survive as a free country.

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

In spite of the far better message of the Democrats, they simply cannot get their message relayed by the mainstream media. If there ever was a proof that there is no liberal bias in the mainstream media any more, this is it. If freedom of religion and rule of law get beaten by a couple of outright lies and religious bigotry, I say the mainstream media has now officially become a right wing propaganda machine.

Picture: Harper's Weekly Sept 5, 1868. Editorial Cartoon from back in a time when the American press was more balanced.

The Propaganda of "Red Dawn"

The movie Red Dawn, from 1984, was on TV last night and this movie has many of the answers to why right wing conservatives exist. National Review Online has named the film #15 in its list of 'The Best Conservative Movies'

If no followup questions are allowed, "Red Dawn" gives a plausible explanation of

1. Why the survivalist movement is so important
2. Why Americans must keep their guns until they are pried from their cold, dead hands.
3. Why hunting is a fundamental skill that must be taught to all children
4. Why teenagers must have pickup trucks, and why four wheel drive could be important.
5. The importance of high school spirit, and the need for football teams.
6. What is wrong with communism
7. What is wrong with the Green Party
8. What is wrong with NATO
9. Why America is great and always will remain great
10. Why liberals are so easy to brainwash
11. Why Nicaragua needs to be destroyed

This movie was made long before the Iraq and Afghan war, so I will forgive the filmmakers for glorifying terrorism, and insurgency when the shoe is on the other foot.

One particular event in the movie got me thinking. A young American teenage girl, after an attack where she is wounded, managed to kill one of the attackers with a hand grenade. For an almost exact mirror image of this situation, check out the case of Omar Khadr, currently being tried at Guantanamo. Apparently, back in the eighties, was not illegal for a teenager to kill an invading enemy soldier with a hand grenade.  Today it is.

In another scene, one of the the teenage insurgents is explaining why they have to kill the Communist troops. The answer is an emotional "Because we live here". Oooops. Isn't that the same reason why the Iraqi and Taliban are fighting the American Marines? And the Indians of the old west fought the cowboys? But you almost have to be a liberal to figure that out.

http://www.pluckyoutoo.com/2009/03/red-dawn.html

Another review from a bad speller, but still he makes a good point. "this soviet army that kicked our armies ass is somehow defeated by a small gang of poorly armed children who have no combat skill whatsoever"

The conservatives have not given up their philosophy after watching this movie twenty years later. Here is a conservative website "Dirty Harry's Place" in 2008, frustrated with the liberal attitude to Red Dawn:

"Using guerrilla tactics to wage a war against military targets versus using them to kill civilians… that’s the difference between a military unit(the Wolverines), and terrorists(Iraqi “insurgents”). And it’s a big difference, liberals."

This observation, I would say is about the best argument presented on this conservative web page. The only unfairness I can see would be that it is a comparison between a fictional unit (Wolverines) and a real world insurgency (Iraq.)

But if we compare real world to real world situation, we have to take the example of the US military in Iraq. We all know that the US has been unable to avoid killing civilians in a real insurgency, but still claims to not be targeting civilians. What does that mean?

1. The civilians may have been killed because they were in the wrong place when a nearby bomb was dropped

2. The US thought the civilians might have been insurgents, and had to kill them for fear of their own safety.

Why do the terrorists target civilians in real life situations?

1. Military targets are often too well defended (by a competent military, unlike a fictional but incompetent military)

2. They may kill civilians who are collaborating with the occupation

3. They may kill civilians of a different race than themselves, in self defence or in a pre-emptive strike

4. Sometimes what is called "deliberate targeting" is actually an accident, poor aim, or mistaken identity

5. Some of what we call "civilians" are actually mercenaries, for example, the US refers to Blackwater as "contractors"

6. Civilians thought to be feeding information to the US military for air strikes.

7. The civilian settlers, brought in to take land away from the original people.

I am not arguing for the killing of civilians. But obviously, in a fictional situation where you are trying to make one side look good, you will not deliberately show the "good guys" killing innocent people. (see "The Hurt Locker" for example). That's the difference between a propaganda war movie and real war.