free speech is for everyone, even idiots like ezra levant

At Progressive Bloggers, I've seen many posts about Ezra Levant's drama-queen turn in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Most progressive bloggers, as far as I can tell, are ridiculing Levant. It's tempting: the neocon blowhard is an easy target.

But I'm disappointed at how many progressive people seem to think the Human Rights Commission is doing the right thing, and that Levant is the transgressor.

The man's opinions are loathsome. But are we so myopic that that we only believe in free speech for ourselves?

And if we are so selfish (and unprincipled) that we care only about our own rights, can't we at least understand that any law prohibiting certain speech or writing will eventually be used against us?

Thanks to Rusty Idols, I saw this Glenn Greenwald column defending Levant's right to free speech.

If you're not up on this bit of Canadian news, Greenwald will fill you in.

I've written several times before about the oppressive, dangerous hate speech laws which are common -- increasingly so -- in both Canada and Europe, whereby the Government is empowered to punish as criminals citizens who express offensive or otherwise prohibited political views. But here is a visceral illustration of what these sorts of laws engender that ought to give great pause even to proponents of such laws.

Ezra Levant is a right-wing Canadian neoconservative who publishes Western Standard, a typical warmongering, pro-Likud journal -- a poor man's Weekly Standard for Canadian neocons. In February, 2006, he published the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which prompted an Islamic group's imam to file a complaint (.pdf) against Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, charging Levant with "advocating hatemongering cartoons in the media," and the imam specifically accused Levant of "defaming me and my family because we follow and are related to Prophet Mohammed."

Rather than dismiss the complaint as a blatant attempt to punish free thought and free speech, the Alberta Human Rights Commission announced that it would investigate. To do so, they compelled Levant to appear before a government agent and be interrogated about the cartoons he published, his thoughts and intent in publishing them, and the other circumstances surrounding his "behavior." Under the law, the Commission has the power to impose substantial fines and other penalties on Levant.

The hearing was closed to the public -- only his lawyer and wife were allowed to attend -- but Levant insisted on recording the proceedings and was directed by the Commission not to publish the video, but he did so anyway. Here are the noxious fruits of hate speech laws: a citizen being forced to appear before the Government in order to be interrogated by an agent of the State -- a banal, clerical bureaucrat -- about what opinions he expressed and why he expressed them, upon pain of being punished under the law. This is nothing short of stomach-turning.

. . . .

Technically, the complaint was filed under Canada's anti-discrimination and "human rights" legislation, but political life in Canada has seen numerous prosecutions for political opinions under that country's oppressive hate speech laws. Government investigations for political opinions are thus an accepted part of their political culture.

A similar complaint was recently filed against Mark Steyn, arising out of the publication in Maclean's of an excerpt from his odious book, America Alone. That complaint was also filed by a Canadian Muslim group, claiming that the passage "misrepresents Canadian Muslims' values, their community, and their religion." Steyn will also now likely be hauled before some government tribunal, forced to account for the ideas and opinions he expressed, incur substantial attorney fees in defending himself, and be subjected to the trauma of some government proceeding against him which can result in numerous punishments.

People like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are some of the most pernicious commentators around. But equally pernicious, at least, are those who advocate laws that would proscribe and punish political expression, and those who exploit those laws to try use the power of the State to impose penalties on those expressing "offensive" or "insulting" or "wrong" political ideas. The mere existence of the "investigation," interrogation, and proceeding itself is a grotesque affront to every basic liberty.

For those unable to think past the (well-deserved) animosity one has for the specific targets in question here, all one needs to do instead is imagine these proceedings directed at opinions and groups that one likes. If Muslim groups can trigger government investigations due to commentary they find offensive, so, too, can conservative Christian or right-wing Jewish groups, or conservative or neoconservative groups, or any other political faction seeking to restrict and punish speech it dislikes.

Down that ugly path lies people like Newt Gingrich, openly advocating that the First Amendment be narrowed considerably to exclude advocacy of "radical Islam" as a means of combating terrorism. People who favor and seek to exploit Canadian and European hate speech laws are but opposite sides of the same tyrannical coin as Gingrich and his allies who are eager to restrict political expression here.

I often post about Americans who are punished for expressing dissenting opinions. Why is it wrong for the US to punish people for expressing themselves, but OK for Canada? Because Canada is coming at it from a supposedly liberal point of view, under the guise of protecting minority rights? That can't matter. What matters is that the government is restricting freedom of expression, and every progressive person should oppose that.

More from Greenwald:

There are numerous ways to combat advocacy of rancid ideas. Using the power of the Government to force people to "justify" their opinions to government tribunals and face punishment for them is, by far, the most malevolent -- far more dangerous than the expression of any particular idea could ever be.

UPDATE: Law Professor David Bernstein previously noted that Canada's hate speech laws have had unintended consequences, as such laws inevitably do:

Moreover, left-wing academics are beginning to learn firsthand what it's like to have their own censorship vehicles used against them. For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.

Just like Bush followers who bizarrely think that the limitless presidential powers they're cheering on will only be wielded by political leaders they like, many hate speech law proponents convince themselves that such laws will only be used to punish speech they dislike. That is never how tyrannical government power works. [Full column with links here.]

I couldn't agree more.

I hate how this fuels that ridiculous "liberal fascism" trope. Type "ezra levant human rights commission" into Google Blog Search and you'll see what I mean.

the sexist world we live in

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I'm not blogging about the Democratic primary races. It's impossible to block out altogether, but I'm paying as little attention to the circus as I can. If you read this blog, you know I think the whole US election system is a bankrupt, corrupt, anti-democratic sham. No viable candidate will make meaningful change, and any candidate who would try, will not be viable.

We'll all be happy to see the face of the US change (if indeed it does - I won't be surprised if "something happens" and they dispense with even the pretense of elections), but will the direction of the US change?

So. I don't care about the Democrats, and I care very little about this election. And you damn well know I don't care about Hillary Clinton!

But I do care about sexism.

It comes as no surprise that a female presidential candidate is earning a special place in hell from the rabidly right-wing US media. Canadian media is not immune to sexism - Belinda Stronach's change of hair colour made front-page, above-the-fold "news" - but if you don't dabble in US media, it's hard to imagine what's going on. Jamison Foser at Media Matters dissects Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball" to give you an idea.

This was brought to my attention by my friend James, who sent me this post from Group News Blog, where Sara Robinson (who you may know from Orcinus), links to a post from Media Matters, which itself references a post from firedoglake. Whew! That's a ton of cred.

With acknowledgements to all those sources, here's Foser at Media Matters.

Put simply, Matthews behaves as though he is obsessed with Hillary Clinton. And not "obsessed" in a charming, mostly harmless, Lloyd-Dobler-with-a-boom-box kind of way. "Obsessed" in a this-person-needs-help kind of way.

More than six years ago, long before Hillary Clinton began running for president, the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine reported that, according to an MSNBC colleague, Matthews had said of Clinton: "I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for."

Even before that, Matthews told the January 20, 2000, Hardball audience, "Hillary Clinton bugs a lot of guys, I mean, really bugs people like maybe me on occasion. I'm not going to take a firm position here, because the election is not coming up yet. But let me just say this, she drives some of us absolutely nuts."

Not that there was much chance his feelings would go unnoticed by even the most casual Hardball viewer.

Matthews has referred to Clinton as "She devil." He has repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," referring to the "scheming, manipulative" character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can." He has called her "Madame Defarge." And he has described male politicians who have endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus."

Matthews has compared Clinton to a "strip-teaser" and questioned whether she is "a convincing mom." He refers to Clinton's "cold eyes" and the "cold look" she supposedly gives people; he says she speaks in a "scolding manner" and is "going to tell us what to do."

Matthews frequently obsesses over Clinton's "clapping" -- which he describes as "Chinese." He describes Clinton's laugh as a "cackle" -- which led to the Politico's Mike Allen telling him, "Chris, first of all, 'cackle' is a very sexist term." (Worth remembering: When John McCain was asked by a GOP voter referring to Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" Allen reacted by wondering, "What voter in general hasn't thought that?" So Allen isn't exactly hypersensitive to people describing Clinton in sexist terms.)

Matthews repeatedly suggests Clinton is a "fraud" for claiming to be a Yankees fan, despite the fact that all available evidence indicates that Clinton has been a Yankees fan since childhood. In April of 2007, former Washington Post reporter John Harris, who has written a book about Bill Clinton, told Matthews to his face that the attacks on Clinton over her history of being a Yankees fan were false. Harris said: "Hillary Clinton got hazed over saying she was a New York Yankees fan. It turned out, actually, that was right. She had been a lifelong Yankees fan. But people were all over [her] for supposedly embroidering her past." But Matthews doesn't let a little thing like the truth get in the way of his efforts to take cheap shots at Clinton: At least twice since Harris set him straight, Matthews has attacked Clinton over the Yankees fan nonsense, once calling her a "fraud."

Matthews has described Clinton as "witchy" and -- in what appears to be a classic case of projection -- claimed that "some men" say Clinton's voice sounds like "fingernails on a blackboard." In what appears to be an even more classic case of projection, Matthews has speculated that there is "out there in the country ... some gigantic monster -- big, green, horny-headed, all kinds of horns coming out, big, aggressive monster of anti-Hillaryism that hasn't shown itself: it's based upon gender."

Matthews has suggested that Hillary Clinton "being surrounded by women" might "make a case against" her being "commander in chief." He once asked a guest if "the troops out there" would "take the orders" from "Hillary Clinton, commander in chief." When his guest responded, "Why wouldn't they listen to a [female] commander in chief? Sure," Matthews responded: "You're chuckling a little bit, aren't you?" When his guest responded "No," Matthews couldn't quite believe it, sputtering: "No problem? No problem? No problem?"

Matthews has wondered if she is unable "to admit a mistake" because doing so would lead people to call her a "fickle woman." He has said that Clinton is on a "short ... leash" as a presidential candidate, lacking "latitude in her husband's absence" to answer a question. He has, at least twice, called Hillary Clinton an "uppity" woman -- both times, pretending to attribute the phrase to Bill Clinton. But, as Bob Somerby has explained, there is no evidence Clinton has ever used the term.

One of Matthews' favorite topics is Clinton's marriage. After The New York Times ran an article purporting to count the number of nights the Clintons spend together, Matthews' imagination ran wild, and the MSNBC host couldn't get the Clintons' marital life out of his mind. At one point, Media Matters counted 90 separate questions Matthews asked guests about the topic during seven separate programs; the number undoubtedly grew after we stopped counting. In the middle of one of Matthews' bouts of obsessive speculation about how often the Clintons are "together in the same roof overnight, if you will," Washington Post reporter Lois Romano asked him, "[W]hat is your obsession with logistics here?" In response, Matthews snapped at her: "Because I'm talking to three reporters, and I'm trying to get three straight answers, so I don't want attitude about this. It's a point of view -- I want facts. Tell me what the facts are, Lois, if you know them. If you don't, I don't know what you're arguing about."

Matthews has claimed: "[T]he reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around." John McCain's political career got started after he left his first wife for a wealthy and politically connected heiress, married her, and ran for Congress. But Chris Matthews doesn't suggest that the reason McCain is a "U.S. senator ... a candidate for president ... a front-runner" is that he "messed around." Even Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said Matthews' comments about Clinton went too far: "I mean, it's rough business what these people over there [at MSNBC] are doing. We don't do that here. We would never say that Senator Clinton got her job because her husband messed around. I mean, that is -- that is a personal attack. And it is questionable whether a network should allow that or not."

Matthews periodically gets it into his head that the most important question in the world is whether Bill Clinton will be a "distraction" or whether he will "behave himself." He badgers Clinton aides about the question and warns that Bill Clinton "better watch it." He asks if Clinton will be a "good boy" or be guilty of "misbehavior." Matthews is not so subtly referring to Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. But curiously, he doesn't have the same concerns about McCain or about Rudy Giuliani, as I wrote nearly a year ago.

Think about this for a second: Chris Matthews is holding it against Hillary Clinton that her husband cheated on her. But he doesn't hold it against John McCain and Rudy Giuliani that they cheated on their spouses. Matthews seems to think women are to blame when their husbands have affairs -- and men who cheat on their spouses are blameless.

And then there's Matthews' fixation on Hillary Clinton's "ambition." In December 1999, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson appeared on Hardball to discuss Clinton's Senate campaign. Matthews asked Wolfson eight consecutive questions about whether Clinton was "ambitious." Finally, Matthews said, "People who seek political power are ambitious by definition," leading Wolfson to tell him: "if you say so. If it will make you happy, I'll agree." If Matthews has ever displayed as much interest in the "ambition" of male candidates like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, or Mike Huckabee, he has done so in private.

You can go here to read the whole piece, complete with copious links and sources.

Sometimes sexism in the media is so commonplace, it becomes invisible. Sara Robinson uses a highlighter to give you the idea.

Just in case some of you don't quite entirely understand how deeply offensive some of Matthews' leering, condescending cracks are, I'd like to put the sensible high heel on another foot and see how truly ridiculous it looks. Let's imagine that Matthews has been on the air for ten years regularly spouting comparable bilge about politicians from another group.

Let's consider, just by way of example, about how far his career might have gone if he'd been saying pretty much the same stuff about African-American men.

Imagine that, back in 2001, Matthews got on MSNBC and said of Colin Powell: "I hate him. I hate him. All that he stands for." Or that he told the Hardball audience: "Colin Powell bugs a lot of whites. I mean, really bugs guys like me on occasion....let me just say this, he drives some of us absolutely nuts."

Consider what would happen if he referred to Jesse Jackson as a "black devil," and likened him to Step'n Fetchit, who "steals whatever's not nailed down because he can." Or called him "Willie Horton." Or described white politicians who endorse him as "self-hating ni**er-lovers." Or described his walk as a "strut." Or wondered aloud if white troops would take orders from him, and laughed when his respondent called him on it. Or called him "uppity" -- on at least two occasions.

How would people respond if Matthews showed the same salacious interest in the intimate details of the Obamas' marriage as he has in the Clintons'? Media Matters says they counted 90 questions on the matter over seven programs -- and then gave up counting. What if he badgered Obama aides on whether or not Michelle would be "a good girl," or guilty of "misbehavior," and warned that she'd better "watch it"?

What would the reaction be if Matthews became obsessively fixated on Andrew Young's "ambition" -- to the point where he asked a guest eight consecutive questions about whether or not he's "ambitious"? Or if he accused Young of being "anti-white" and insisted that "he should just lighten up on this racial 'the whites are coming to get me' routine?" Or if he wondered aloud how Young could serve as an ambassador without "shucking and jiving" for the president?

Every single example above is an exact racist corollary to some sexist remark Matthews has made to or about a woman over the course of his career.

A guy says this stuff about black people, and everybody gets it. He's a bigot, infected by so many stereotypes that he's unfit to comment on matters of national importance, and unworthy of a single moment of the country's precious airtime. Newscasters don't make it to the national level if they're they least bit prone to saying this kind of stuff on the air. Don Imus lost his job over saying things like this about black women, and that was a good day for everybody but him. In 2008, serious people just don't talk that way about African-Americans any more.

But, evidently, you can still get paid several million dollars a year by getting on national TV and talking this way about women, and nobody will ever think to call you out on it.

Continuing Sara's analogy, I don't hear too many white people joking about lynching. At least not in front of black people. But men will joke about rape in front of women. Aw c'mon, lighten up, don't have a stick up your ass. Can't you take a joke?

This was sent to me by DeanG, a progressive from Texas (they're out there, people!) and a long-time reader of wmtc.

As reported in the Chronicle (Jan. 11, 2008 issue):

The competition's most popular topic was, believe it or not, rape. The first comic told two rape jokes. Another said he could never be a rapist because he likes to sleep after sex. Yet another said he would call his victim the next morning because he's such a nice guy.

Er, ha.

Later one of the competitors began his act by promising the audience that he wouldn't tell any rape jokes. He broke that promise two minutes later with a one-liner about using "ropes and formaldehyde" to solve his romantic problems.

Ha again.

Ha indeed. I guess I was just born without the "rape is soooo funny" gene. These fine, upstanding young men are attending college with our daughters, sisters, cousins, friends. I mean, I've always known that rape is a major issue on most college campuses. I just didn't know it had become fashionable to make sport of it.

Now some of you are firing up your keyboards right this very minute to tell me to lighten up, get a sense of humor, stop being such a feminazi. One, I'll just point out it was a man writing the Chronicle article who found this vein of humor offensive. Two, I'll remind you that it is precisely because I do have a sense of what is humorous that I find this stuff not funny, but disturbing. If you think it's funny, it's because you think there is something inherently funny about men coercing and forcing women to have sex. You are okay with laughing about sexual violence.

If you are comfortable with the realization that you like laughing at women's pain, then go ahead and laugh your head off. But do me a favor, and call me again sometime in the future after your sister or wife or mother or daughter gets raped, and tell me again how funny the rape jokes are.

Oh, wait, you don't think a little forcible persuasion actually counts as rape? Well you are in good company; when I was a graduate student at Duke, a survey of undergraduate men showed that something like over twenty percent of them were A-OK with forcing a woman to have sex with them, if they thought they wouldn't get caught. I'll bet those guys would think these jokes are hilarious.

Unsurprisingly, the 5 women in the New Jersey competition did not lace their routines with rape jokes. Though we are told "one did sing a ditty about not wanting to be raped".

The whole thing just makes me tired.

What do you want to bet that there are far, far more people who will be outraged by the news that Harvard has established 12 postdoctoral fellowships for women and minorities in chemistry and chemical biology, than there are who will be bothered by the notion of undergraduate men mocking rape victims?

I wholeheartedly thank Zuska for this, but the best part of the post is the comments. I encourage you to read them. Some excerpts:

Men telling rape jokes is all about making certain that women understand that they present themselves in public only at the pleasure, and with the forebearance, of men.

Women telling rape jokes *can* be about the humour of transgression, depending on how it is done. Men, no way.

Transgressive humor only works when the joke teller is not operating from a position of privilege vis a vis the taboo being transgressed. South Park is funny because the children are completely utterly powerless, and don't even understand the nature of the taboos they are transgressing.

Posted by: PhysioProf | January 10, 2008 3:44 PM

There is a difference between joking about taboo subjects and being a member of a dominant group joking about doing bodily harm to another person. "Baby eating" jokes, for example, are more acceptable because they mock the old stereotype of witches (women) and jews(minorities) eating Christian babies. It's sort of re-claiming a stereotype. Dead baby jokes are more acceptable because nobody actually makes a habit of killing babies. (Now I'm not saying that these jokes are funny)

But, being a white person joking about "stringing up" a member of another race IS NOT cool, because a lot of white people in recent history have actually done that. Also, being a man joking about raping a woman isn't cool for the reason that it feel threatening to us women.

Posted by: haydin | January 10, 2008 3:49 PM

I'm not usually troubled by a darker, "inappropriate" humour, but this crosses a line. It reminds me of an evening out at a restaurant with a group of men who, assuming I was idiotic as there were, joked that they'd could all share statutory rape charges because they found the young waitress so attractive.

I'm a gay man that straight men assume is straight, what I've heard from some straight men out of earshot of women is abhorrent. Attitudes need to change.

Posted by: Matty Smith | January 10, 2008 3:50 PM

It's been 40 years since my college girlfriend was raped on her way to my apartment. I still think about what it did to her, and don't find rape humor funny at all. However, rather than scolding men for poor taste, insensitivity and boorishness, I would rather hear women come back with castration jokes or colonscopy jokes. It takes a thick skin to succeed in a hypercommunicated world.

Posted by: Howard | January 10, 2008 4:28 PM

"would rather hear women come back with castration jokes or colonscopy jokes."

No, that doesn't work. It's not the same.

Rape jokes are so offensive because, as PhysoProf said, they're made out of a sense of superiority over women.

Castration doesn't happen regularly to men. It's not something the average male has to fear. So men can just shrug of jokes like this. But women do have to fear rape.

Part of rape jokes also is, that the jokes isn't just a joke.

For example jokes about dead babies are mostly just stupid, but never as offensive as a rape joke, because nobody (sane at least) would ever entertain the idea about killing babies. But part of rape jokes is the idea (the temptation) to actually do it. When, for example, a male makes a rape joke about a waitress, it's not only a joke, but also shows the desire (resp. lust) of this male towards the waitress. Yes, part of rape jokes in male groups is that the idea of rape is entertained (though mostly not conducted).

A dead baby joke can be very offensive if told to, for example, parents who just lost a baby. No one in their right mind would do that and claim it's funny.

It's the same with rape jokes.

So no, rape jokes can't be funny. (When told by men. I can entertain the possibility that they could be funny when told by a woman, though I can't imagine a situation where they would be funny even then.)

Posted by: student_b | January 10, 2008 5:00 PM

. . . .

I think 'student_b' has got it right.

We could make jokes about, for example, babies turning cannibal -- which could be funny for the simple reason that no such thing would ever happen, yet it is ghoulish to think about.

But a joke about rape? Rape can happen, and it isn't a negligibly rare event. What if a big bruiser made a joke about raping one of the men present? How funny would that be? No one in their right mind would make a rape joke. But someone in their wrong mind might.

Men aren't the only ones to be wrong-minded. Women joke about castrating their men, cutting their throats, and setting fire to them. Check the news stories: all these things actually happen.

Posted by: Nelson Muntz | January 10, 2008 6:33 PM

. . . .

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

And I'm with Student_B. It just isn't the same. It's all about power and fear. Fear and power. Two sides of the same coin.

It must end. We must speak up.

Rape jokes just aren't funny.

Posted by: whymommy | January 10, 2008 10:40 PM

That's a sample. I recommend reading them all.

what does a war cost?

I think a lot about the hidden costs of war.

Last July, the cost in dollars was $12 billion a month. This in a country where millions of citizens do not have access to basic health care or decent education, where thousands are still homeless from a hurricane (that private corporations continue to profit from).

The most obvious cost is measured in lives - as of today, estimated to be between 80,000 and 90,000 Iraqi civilians and 4229 "coalition" (3922 US).

But as terrible as those numbers are, they are only the beginning. Amputation, paralysis, blindness, poverty, homelessness, mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide... What else? What am I missing?

Today the New York Times - you know, the paper that did so much to justify the invasion? - began a series called "War Torn". Subtitle: A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.

It's a long article. Here's a brief excerpt.

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.

This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, "like Falluja."

Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame — and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

"Matthew knew he shouldn't be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven," Detective Laura Andersen said, "but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself."

Head bowed, Mr. Sepi scurried down an alley, ignoring shouts about trespassing on gang turf. A battle-weary grenadier who was still legally under-age, he paid a stranger to buy him two tall cans of beer, his self-prescribed treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

As Mr. Sepi started home, two gang members, both large and both armed, stepped out of the darkness. Mr. Sepi said in an interview that he spied the butt of a gun, heard a boom, saw a flash and "just snapped."

In the end, one gang member lay dead, bleeding onto the pavement. The other was wounded. And Mr. Sepi fled, "breaking contact" with the enemy, as he later described it. With his rifle raised, he crept home, loaded 180 rounds of ammunition into his car and drove until police lights flashed behind him.

"Who did I take fire from?" he asked urgently. Wearing his Army camouflage pants, the diminutive young man said he had been ambushed and then instinctively "engaged the targets." He shook. He also cried.

"I felt very bad for him," Detective Andersen said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Sepi was booked, and a local newspaper soon reported: "Iraq veteran arrested in killing."

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: "Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife." Pierre, S.D.: "Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress." Colorado Springs: "Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring."

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

Think of every soldier who resists. How many lives do they save?

january 11 protests

At View Images, you can see a large number of excellent photos of yesterday's day of protest. (Type "january 11 protests" in the search bar.) The site asks you not to reproduce or distribute them, but I hope you'll click.

Think Progress has posted photos of protests in Istanbul, London, Brussels, Manila, Budapest and Washington DC.

Protesters in London held an all-night vigil in front of the US Embassy.

Eighty protesters were arrested in front of the US Supreme Court. Here's a photo of one of them, with her baby.

Here's a photo from a protest in Fresno, California. (Maybe our friend Granny was there.)

Here's a report with some photos from a protest in Dallas, Texas.

It's moving to see so many people, all over the world, give of themselves to stand for justice. For some people, standing for peace and justice is a way of life. Activists in Needham, Massachusetts have been doing so for five years.

The writer asks: "For some of us who have passed the vigil-keepers many times in the past five years, their presence serves a purpose that goes beyond their specific cause. Their constancy and steadfast devotion raise humbling questions for the rest of us, such as: What cause do I believe in fervently? And what am I doing to support and promote it?"

what i'm watching: tsotsi

We saw "Totsi" last night. I'm very partial to redemption stories, and this one is very well done - not sugar-coated, not overly predictable, and not too heavy-handed.

I don't put any stock in the Academy Awards, but if you do, Tsoti won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

hello pot, meet kettle

Front page headline in today's Globe and Mail:

Bush calls on Israel to end Palestinian occupation

The mind boggles.

six years on: guantánamo must be closed

Guantanamo Bay Fact Sheet

6.5 x 8 feet – approximate size of cell in Guantánamo

1805 – number of days that hundreds have been held at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial as of December 10, 2006

430 – Approximate number of people in custody at Guantanamo Bay as of November 17, 2006

14 – number of "high value detainees" held at Guantanamo

13 – age of Mohammed Ismail Agha when taken into US custody in Afghanistan in late 2002 before later being transferred to Guantanamo

10 – number of people in Guantanamo who have been charged with any crime

Attempted Suicides

350 – incidents of self-harm in Guantanamo Bay in 2003

120 – incidents were "hanging gestures" in 2003

110 – incidents of harm/suicide were reported for 2005

34 – number of prisoners whose self-harm incidents were labeled "attempted suicide" by the US since January 2002

23 – number of prisoners that tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003

[21– number of the 23 prisoners whose attempts were written off as "attention-getting" gestures

2 – number of the 23 prisoners classified as attempting suicide.]

3 – number of prisoners who died in detention of apparent suicides at Guantanamo Bay

Detained without Adequate Proof

55% – percent of detainees not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States

40% – percent of detainees who have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda

18% – percent of detainees who have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda or Taliban

8% – percent of detainees characterized as Al Qaeda fighters

Bought Detainees

At the time when the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies:

86% – detainees were not detained on the battle field but were instead arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody

66% – detainees were captured by Pakistani authorities

20% – detainees were captured by the Northern Alliance/Afghan authorities

8% – detainees were captured by the US authorities

3% – detainees were captured by other coalition forces

All over the world today, ordinary people, clad in orange, will gather to call attention to the plight of other human beings who had the bad luck to be in the way when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In this story from Amnesty International, there's already photo from today's demo in Australia.

Hundreds of thousands of peace and justice groups all over the world - as well as thousands of elected officials in Canada, the UK, Japan, Israel, Germany and other countries - are calling for an end to this horror. Meanwhile, the US continues to operate outside of international law and democratic process.

From Amnesty International:

This anniversary is not just about Guantánamo. The detentions there are only one part of the unlawful detention policies and practices that the US government has adopted since 11 September 2001 in the name of counter-terrorism and national security. These include secretly transferring detainees between countries ("renditions"), holding them in secret detention sites and subjecting detainees to interrogation techniques and conditions that amount to torture or other ill-treatment.

Please think about what you can do to add your voice to this global shout. The ACLU has lots of ideas, and it's not too late. You can find a demo and join others standing up for human rights.

Human Rights Watch articles about Guantánamo here.

Witness To Torture on what's been done.

Canadians can also use this day to call attention to Canada's own special shame, Omar Khadr. There's a powerful essay about Khadr here at Counterpunch. Canadian Robert Billyard writes:

As a government in abdication, official Ottawa - our peerless politicos and esteemed civil servants - have become acolytes to The Empire as they retreat from governance and anything that resembles moral scruples.

The disgrace is theirs and ours. Theirs for doing nothing and ours for letting them get away with it.

get them while they're finger-painting so they don't get us over here

A US force has stormed a kindergarten in a Shi'a-dominated district in Baghdad, smashed toys, doors and windows and arrested three of its guards, the Iraqi government said on Tuesday.

US troops raided Kanari kindergarten in the Jamila area of Sadr City in Baghdad where they smashed children's toys, doors, windows and roofs, according to a statement by the media centre of the Iraqi cabinet.

"No evidence was found during the raid on the kindergarten that proves the school's involvement in terrorist acts or that it is used for storing weapons," the statement said.

The reason for the operation was not immediately known.

No comment. What is there to say?

u.s. dod will not investigate kbr gang-rape case

A follow-up.

The Defense Department's top watchdog has declined to investigate allegations that an American woman working under an Army contract in Iraq was raped by her co-workers.

The case of former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones gained national attention last month. An ABC News investigation revealed how an earlier investigation into Jones' alleged gang-rape in 2005 had not resulted in any prosecution, and that neither Jones nor Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been able to get answers from the Bush administration on the state of her case.

In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones' case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter.

. . .

Jones' lawyers also professed disappointment. "How could the Department of Defense refuse to help [Jones]?'" asked attorney Stephanie Morris, who noted that the criminal investigation into Jones' allegations has been going on for more than two and a half years, without apparent results. [More here.]

My earlier posts about this case are here and here.

start them early and train them right

We started watched "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen" the other night, the second movie by Aboriginal director Zacharias Kunuk.

We both really liked his first film, "Atanarjuat the Fast Runner". "Atanarjuat" is the first feature film made in Inuktitut, the language spoken by the the Inuit people. It's based on an ancient Inuit legend, and is a gripping, compelling story. It's also a chance to visualize how early hunter-gatherers lived, what their daily lives might have been like. That was fascinating.

With that in mind, we expected to enjoy Kunuk's "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen". But no. To say we didn't enjoy this movie is being kind. We couldn't sit through it. It was just plain boring. You know I'm not a shoot-em-up, car-chase, armies-on-the-plains kind of movie watcher. But geez, something has to happen. Anything!

Because we didn't like this movie, I ended up watching "Futurama," and because I was watching "Futurama," I ended up seeing an ad... And this ad that drove me crazy.

I didn't write down the name of the "toy" being sold, but Googling, I found this: Rose Petal Cottage, part of the Dream Town collection by Hasbro.

It's a playhouse. In the ad, two happy, long-haired, white girls are opening and setting up the playhouse, which is filled with "accessories" - which, of course, are sold separately.

And what are these accessories?

A toy washing machine.

A toy kitchen sink.

A toy muffin-making set.

And of course, a toy nursery, complete with crib and baby.

To which I can only say: AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

I can barely articulate my disgust. I am reduced to rhetorical questions.

Do you see how early the indoctrination begins?

Are these toys playhouses ever marketed to boys? Or are girls the only people who need to practice laundry, baking and child care? (Does anyone really need to practice doing laundry?)

Why is work marketed as play? Of all the infinite varieties of play these girls might want to try - all the building, creating, climbing, colouring, running, pretending, experimenting - why do they need to play at doing the fucking laundry??

I'm not suggesting that baking and child care are drudgery on the order of laundry (although for me they would be much worse!). Baking - real baking, of real food - can be fun for any child. All children can enjoy playing with dolls. But link baking, laundry and baby in a "dream house" marketed exclusively to girls, and you've created a very specific kind of monster.

Of course there's nothing wrong with "playing house," and when kids invent a "let's pretend" game on their own, it can be a fun exercise of their imaginations.

But that's not what Rose Petal Cottage is about. This is gender-role indoctrination and insatiable consumerism all wrapped up in one neat, expensive, made-in-China package.

And my final rhetorical question: What century is this?

On the toy's website, there's a link to watch the commercial.

nova scotia declared part of red sox nation

The 2007 World Series Trophy came to Halifax this week! There are deep regional and cultural connections between New England and the Maritime Provinces, and I thought this tangible evidence was really cool.

The trophy's appearance was the work of the Bluenose Bosox Brotherhood, a Canadian branch of Red Sox Nation diehards who found themselves in the spotlight for a few days.

For Wright — a fan since his father took him to his first game at Fenway Park when he was six — the chance to see, photograph and maybe even hold the trophy is simply too good to pass up.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any fan of the Red Sox, my goodness," Wright said this week from his Halifax home. "I can't believe they have agreed to do this.

"The Yankees, those bums, would never bring it here."

Wright is a member of the Bluenose BoSox Brotherhood, a collection of more than 100 stats-spouting supporters who lobbied extensively since the team's latest World Series win in October for the trophy to come north.

Apparently not everyone was happy about the arrival of the trophy.

I guess the little guy is a Yankees fan.

job news

Good news: my weekend job was just made permanent.

This is the firm that offered me a raise and promotion, then withdrew the offer, then made another offer of more work for less money.

This week they offered me the same job (my current position) on the same terms, but as a permanent, rather than contract, employee.

In the practical sense, not much changes - I don't work enough hours to be eligible for benefits - but increased job security is a good thing. I've also been doing some legal transcription at home to fill in extra income, and the combination has been working out well.

Looking back through wmtc posts labeled "my working life," I'm reminded that I was hoping to get work as a private ESL tutor or editing university students' term papers. Neither of those things have happened.

The problem with those options is the lack of an accessible, steady stream of work to tap into. If I can't find a steady source - and if it's very time-consuming and competitive to get the work in the first place - the usefulness as a support for my writing life greatly diminishes. And after my adventure with the notetaking work - investing so much time and effort, only to abandon it - a steady, easy, predictable income-earning routine feels very important.

january 11: wear orange (and other things to do)

I am trying - always - to not bombard you with pitches for activism.

I try to space those posts out, looking for some middle ground between the urgency of the need, and the reality of organizing. If you pile on too much, it all blends together and just gets ignored.

But the urgency is real. The occupation of Iraq drags on, the rumblings of an attack on Iran get louder, my friends the war resisters need safety. I feel a deep personal need to try to move more people into more action.

Nowhere is the urgency more dire than for the US's great shame, happening every minute of every day, on that little island off the coast of Florida.

This Friday, January 11, marks six years since the first detainees were brought to the prison at Guantánamo Bay. For a timeline of what's been happening since, see the ACLU or Witness Against Torture.

Both these groups are spearheading a national and international effort to draw attention to this travesty and demand: Close Guantánamo!

The action is simple: on January 11, wear orange, the colour of the prisoners' jumpsuits.

The ACLU has an excellent organizing tool that every person concerned - ashamed, angry, disgusted, depressed - about Guantánamo can use.

GOT 1 MINUTE?
• Sign the Pledge
• Join on Myspace or Facebook
• Download factsheet
• Sign up for ACLU's Mailing List

GOT 5 MINUTES?
• Get an armband
• Send an E-card: Tell 5 friends about January 11
• Add a button to your website
• Get "Why I'm Wearing Orange" for your office or notebook
• Print a Poster
• Share the Pledge with others

GOT 15 MINUTES?
• Write a Letter to the Editor
• Write a Blog Post

More time?
There's more you can do...

I urge you to go here to get the links. At the very least, we can all sign the pledge and wear orange this Friday. Even better, find a local action - and go.

Witness Against Torture has been campaigning to shut down Guantánamo for several years. They've staged some very bold protests, wearing hoods, masks and orange jumpsuits. You can read about their protests here.

To learn more about who is being held at Guantánamo go here and here. (As I post this, CagePrisoners.org is not working, but hopefully that is a temporary glitch, not something worse.)

I know it can be overwhelming. There are so many people asking for your time and your money. But please, this Friday, take one small action to stand in solidarity with some of the most direct victims of the US's reign of terror. Wear orange - and tell someone why.

wmtc meets canadian hope

We finally met Tom and Emilio last night! Allan and I had dinner with Nick and Mason and the two new arrivals.

Things seem to be going well for them, apart from the usual annoying nonsense that seems inevitable with such a big move. They seem to feel really at home in Toronto - which is very easy to do. Listening to their experiences reminded me of those first few weeks, when I walked around amazed at how friendly everyone is.

I was really touched to hear Tom say that, for the first time in years, he's sleeping through the night - because he no longer has to worry his family being broken up, about Emilio being deported. Crossing the border brought me a tremendous sense of relief and peace, but I can only imagine the difference it makes to these men.

There are several more multinational same-sex couples following in Tom and Emilio's path - a path blazed by Gito and Juan. And since almost 11,000 Americans emigrated to Canada in 2006, we can assume there are even more who don't blog.

* * * *

On a more mundane note, this dinner brought us in to Leslieville, a Toronto neighbourhood we hadn't really seen yet. As a urban-transplant in suburbia, I'm slooowly adding to my knowledge of Toronto, increasing my options and my mental map when we come in "to town" (as they say out here). I love living in Mississauga, but part of its appeal is that Toronto is right down the street.

election fraud story update

After reading the New York Times Magazine story on electronic voting, I updated that recent thread.

It's here if you are interested.

george mcgovern: a call for impeachment

George McGovern, who is spending his twilight years trying to rebuild democracy, has written a call for impeachment.

Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse

by George McGovern

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.

Today I have made a different choice.

Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.

But what are the facts?

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged — perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion — by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

. . .

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country’s laws — that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."

I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.

There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.

I don't love the United States the way George McGovern does, but I truly admire the man and his dedication.

You can read the whole piece in the Washington Post or here on Common Dreams.

ssod

Search string of the day:

if hillary clinton wins the election i'm moving to canada

Why wait? Come on up!

mainstream media discovers u.s. election fraud, only seven years late (updated)

From the Better Late Than Never Department, tomorrow's New York Times Magazine will sport this cover story: WARNING: Can You Count On These Machines?

Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher, a stalwart voice for democracy, gives this preview:

Coming between the Iowa and New Hampshire tallies, this Sunday's cover of The New York Times Magazine ought to strike a chord. It shows a man inside an exploding voting booth with a WARNING label over it and the words: "Your vote may be lost, destroyed, miscounted, wrongly attributed or hacked."

The massive Clive Thompson article, titled "The Bugs in the Machines," is quite chilling. "After the 2000 election," it opens, "counties around the country rushed to buy new computerized voting machines. But it turns out that these machines may cause problems worse than hanging chads. Is America ready for another contested election?"

One key passage: "The earliest critiques of digital voting booths came from the fringe -- disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks -- but the fears have now risen to the highest levels of government."

One expert says that "about 10 percent" of the devices fail in each election.

The piece focuses on the newly popular "touch-screen" machines, noting that "in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite" of the intention to add "clarity" to results: "they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices 'flip' from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburgh, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayor candidate in 2006--even though he's pretty sure he voted for himself.)"

During this year's primaries, about one-third of all votes will be cast on touch-screens. The same ratio will likely hold this November, even with some states junking the devices.

The Times notes that "what scares election observers is this: What happens if the next presidential election is extremely close and decided by a handful of votes cast on machines that crashed?"

Then there's this: "If the machines are tested and officials are able to examine the source code, you might wonder why machines with so many flaws and bugs have gotten through. It is, critics insist, because the testing is nowhere near diligent enough, and the federal regulators are too sympathetic and cozy with the vendors."

The reporter seems to agree with this, detailing "a regulatory environment in which, effectively, no one assumes final responsibility for whether the machines function reliably," and everyone points fingers at each other.

Thompson declares, chillingly: "In essence, elections now face a similar outsourcing issue to that seen in the Iraq war, where the government has ceded so many core military responsibilities to firms like Haliburton and Blackwater that Washington can no longer fire the contractor."

Comments one elections supervisor: "This is a crazy world. The process is so under control by the vendor."

Thompson reveals that during a visit to the polls a suburb of Pittsburgh just days before last November's elections, he was left alone with six iVtronic voting machines. It looked easy to cut and reseal the seals. "In essence," he concludes, "I could have tampered with the machines in any way I wanted, with very little chance of being detected or caught."

The Times feature here. I haven't read it yet, but perhaps I will blog about it after I do.

* * * *

OK, now I've read the whole piece, and I disagree with the criticisms being levelled against it. (See comments.)

"Can You Count On These Machines?" is not about the connections between the vendors of electronic voting machines and the Republican party. It's not about how people like Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell helped steal the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, and how the mainstream media ignored that. Those are all vitally important topics, but not the topics Clive Johnson set out to research.

Johnson is a tech writer, and the Times story is written from a more neutral point of view. And because of that, it's less open to accusations of partisanship, "conspiracy theory" (you know my feelings about that expression) and that reductionist catch-all for those of us who are angry and heartbroken at what's happening in the US: "Bush hating".

But read the story.

There's no doubt that it is an unqualified indictment of electronic voting. Johnson makes it very clear that the use of this technology jeopardizes the fairness and accuracy of elections. He shows that the people who most oppose electronic voting are people who know the most about computers. He explains why voting - which must be accurate and verifiable but still anonymous - is simply incompatible with computerized systems, which can be some of those things, but not all three, reliably, at the same time.

I have some problems with some of the tone and nuance of the article, but this is the New York Times Magazine, not The Nation. I don't have to agree with every word to know that the appearance of this story is a good thing.

There are many, many things wrong with the US election system, and getting rid of electronic voting is not going to fix all of them. But getting rid of electronic voting is still an important goal - and this story might help make that a reality. How can that be anything but a good thing?

9/11: truth, kooks and obstruction

At every War Resister Support Campaign event I've attended - and, I'm told, at every peace rally and progressive event in Toronto - people from the local 9/11 Truth Movement are present. Normally, I would be inclined to think this was a good thing. 9/11 is the singular event from which so much that we object to has flowed, and there is so much we don't know about it. Links between what really happened leading up to the attacks and what is happening today are crucial to our understanding, and should be crucial to the peace movement.

However... what actually happens is not at all a good thing. The Toronto 9/11 Truth folks hold a huge banner reading "9/11 Was An Inside Job," which, in my opinion, is extremely off-putting. I don't know what their slogan is shorthand for, but its implication is, to put it mildly, not a good starting point.

And that's the least of it. There's one guy who shows up at every event. He holds a megaphone and walks around shouting "Nine-eleven Was An Inside Job" over and over. He does not engage in discussion; he only hides behind his megaphone and shouts. When asked to stop, he will often point his megaphone directly into someone's face and chant his slogan at them. He contributes nothing. He educates no one. The sole effect of his show, as far as I can see, is to turn people off the idea that there is anything substantial about the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Every movement has its share of kooks. I've been an activist for most of my life, and I've never been involved in a cause that didn't attract at least a few nuts. Some are people whose hearts are in the right place, but because of social ineptitude or control issues or who knows what, they are unable to participate in a group dynamic. Some don't even seem to have their hearts in the right place, and one can only wonder why they're there at all.

So the kooks are always there. But I've never seen a movement whose public face is the kooks themselves.

As you know, my partner Allan is involved in the 9/11 Truth Movement, and we've talked a lot about why the craziness is so visible. Allan believes that much of the kookiness is planted, or at least nurtured, by the enemies of the movement. That may be so. I think the nature of the movement - how much information is unknown and possibly cannot be known - may also attract a certain variety of activist. And then, all movements for change attract some kooks. The answer is probably some combination of the three.

The presence of 9/11 Kook In Toronto has caused me some personal discomfort. At War Resisters Support Campaign meetings, the phrase "the 9/11 people" is shorthand for these disruptive, counter-productive, megaphone people. I think, to a lot of people's minds, the 9/11 Truth Movement is 9/11KIT.

When I was tabling at the peace rally in October, the other person at the table said, "The 9/11 people are like the unwanted relatives at every event. No one wants to go near them." He thought he was making a joke. I said something like, "That guy is obnoxious, but there's a lot more to 9/11 than meets the eye." It was lame, and didn't go anywhere, but I was glad I said something.

But mostly it doesn't feel appropriate to speak up - saying something would in itself seem disruptive. So I'm left sitting there feeling like I did in junior high when someone would make a crude anti-Semetic remark, never guessing I was Jewish.

Here on wmtc, I notice that when I blog about 9/11, no one leaves comments. I don't know if that's because readers don't know much about the subject, or because they think I'm a kook myself for giving the ideas credence, or because they know Allan is passionate about it, and they think if they disagree I'll go off on them. Or maybe just a coincidence. Other topics don't garner a lot of comments, either.

* * * *

The catalyst to these thoughts was the recent admission by the official 9/11 Commission that their investigation was obstructed by the White House and the CIA. This should be a giant HINT, HINT telling the public that what they think they know about the events of September 11th is, at the very least, woefully incomplete.

Of course the entire mainstream media has completely ignored the 9/11 Truth Movement. But much sadder, and more dangerously, most of the alternative media has either ignored it, or worse, outright ridiculed it. I'm hoping that this recent admission starts to break that silence.

One recent positive sign about this appeared this past week, when Glenn Greenwald wrote about it in Salon.

The bi-partisan co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, jointly published an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times which contains some extremely emphatic and serious accusations against the CIA and the White House. The essence:

"[T]he recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation."

More strikingly still, they explicitly include the White House at the top of their list of guilty parties:

"There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations."

To underscore the seriousness of their accusations, Keane and Hamilton end with this:

"What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the [sic] greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction."

It's hard to imagine a more serious scandal than this. As I noted the other day, it is a confirmed fact that Alberto Gonzales and David Addingtion — the top legal representatives of George Bush and Dick Cheney, respectively — participated in discussions as to whether those videotapes should be destroyed. The White House refuses to disclose what these top officials said in those meetings. Did they instruct that the videos should be destroyed or fail to oppose their destruction? The NYT previously quoted one "senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter [who] said there had been 'vigorous sentiment' among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes."

Thus, we have evidence that "top White House officials" vigorously argued that these videos should be destroyed. The number one aides to both the President and Vice President both participated in discussions as to whether they should be, almost certainly with the knowledge and at the direction of their bosses.

And now we have the 9/11 Commission Chairmen stating as explicitly as can be that the mere concealment (let alone destruction) of these videos constituted the knowing and deliberate obstruction of their investigation into the worst attack on U.S. soil in our history. Combined with the fact that the videos' destruction almost certainly constitutes "obstruction of justice" with regard to numerous judicial proceedings as well, we're talking here about extremely serious felonies at the highest levels of our government.

Both legally and politically, it's hard to imagine a more significant scandal than the President and Vice President deliberately obstructing the investigation of the 9/11 Commission by concealing and then destroying vital evidence which the Commission was seeking. Yet that's exactly what the evidence at least suggests has occurred here.

What possible justification is there for the White House to refuse to say what the role of Addington, Gonzales, Bush and Cheney was in all of this? Having been ordered by Bush’s new Attorney General not to investigate, are the Senate and House Intelligence Committees (led by the meek Silvestre Reyes and the even meeker Jay Rockefeller) going to compel answers to these questions? In light of this Op-Ed, do Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee think the White House should publicly disclose to the country the role Bush and Cheney played in the destruction of this evidence? If there are any reporters left who aren’t traipsing around together in Iowa, it seems pretty clear that this story ought to be dominating the news.

If you can't access the Salon link, Greenwald's column is available here, complete with links, on Common Dreams. Read. Think.

If you're interested in learning more, the bottom of this recent wmtc post contains some good links to get you started.

let them stay: january 26 event

The War Resisters Support Campaign is organizing a pan-Canadian Day of Action on January 26.

The House of Commons resumes on Tuesday, January 29. We are calling on Parliament to immediately cease deportation proceedings against US war resisters in Canada, and to enact a provision allowing the resisters to gain status in Canada.

If you support this cause - if you believe former US soldiers who refused to participate in the occupation of Iraq on the basis of conscience should be allowed to remain legally in Canada - this is your opportunity to take action. Have fun, get educated, get inspired and involved for a day - with no long-term commitment. What could be easier?

There will be events in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and other cities. Right now I don't know much about the events elsewhere in Canada, but ours in Toronto is shaping up to be a fun and spirited day.

We'll be at the Bloor Street United Church, 300 Bloor Street West at 1:00. There'll be speakers, music, and an opportunity for you to take action that will make a real difference in people's lives.

Confirmed speakers so far include Shirley Douglas, who many people don't realize was very active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, and Lawrence Hill, who co-wrote The Deserter's Tale with Joshua Key. There will be other interesting speakers, too, but they're not confirmed yet, so I can't tell you who they are.

This promises to be a rally unlike any other you've attended, and not only because it's indoors, at a church. We have something funny and unusual planned. If you live in the Toronto area, I hope you'll come by. I'll be at the table in the lobby, so please do introduce yourself if we haven't met in person yet.

Information about events in other cities will be here once it's available.

Naturally I'll be reminding you about this before the event, but if you're in the Toronto or Vancouver areas, why not mark your calendar now?

consumption factor

In keeping with my recent thoughts on consuming animals and on consuming in general, I'd like to share this essay by Jared Diamond.

I can't say Diamond's name without plugging the two extraordinary books I read by him, Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. Collapse is more accessible than Guns, Germs, but I highly recommend reading both. With the first book, it might help to skim some of the numbers-heavy proofs in each chapter. They're not necessary to your understanding of the concepts, and a reader easily could get discouraged. Or, start with Collapse and work your way back to Guns, Germs.

Both books permanently changed the way I see the world. It seems to me that's the greatest compliment you could bestow on any piece of writing.

In this essay in the New York Times, Diamond looks at our prospects for reducing our out-of-control rates of consumption in a finite world. He writes with "we" meaning people in the US, but his points apply to everyone in North America.

What's Your Consumption Factor?

By Jared Diamond

To mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it's 2 raised to the fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.

To understand them, consider our concern with world population. Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce.

If most of the world's 6.5 billion people were in cold storage and not metabolizing or consuming, they would create no resource problem. What really matters is total world consumption, the sum of all local consumptions, which is the product of local population times the local per capita consumption rate.

The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.

The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that's a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya's more than 30 million people, but it's not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.

People in the third world are aware of this difference in per capita consumption, although most of them couldn’t specify that it’s by a factor of 32. When they believe their chances of catching up to be hopeless, they sometimes get frustrated and angry, and some become terrorists, or tolerate or support terrorists. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it has become clear that the oceans that once protected the United States no longer do so. There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists.

People who consume little want to enjoy the high-consumption lifestyle. Governments of developing countries make an increase in living standards a primary goal of national policy. And tens of millions of people in the developing world seek the first-world lifestyle on their own, by emigrating, especially to the United States and Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Each such transfer of a person to a high-consumption country raises world consumption rates, even though most immigrants don't succeed immediately in multiplying their consumption by 32.

Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world’s fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates. Already, China is competing with us for oil and metals on world markets.

Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let's also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China's) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China's catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven't met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.

We Americans may think of China's growing consumption as a problem. But the Chinese are only reaching for the consumption rate we already have. To tell them not to try would be futile.

The only approach that China and other developing countries will accept is to aim to make consumption rates and living standards more equal around the world. But the world doesn't have enough resources to allow for raising China's consumption rates, let alone those of the rest of the world, to our levels. Does this mean we're headed for disaster?

No, we could have a stable outcome in which all countries converge on consumption rates considerably below the current highest levels. Americans might object: there is no way we would sacrifice our living standards for the benefit of people in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable.

Real sacrifice wouldn't be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe's standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans' wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures.

Other aspects of our consumption are wasteful, too. Most of the world's fisheries are still operated non-sustainably, and many have already collapsed or fallen to low yields — even though we know how to manage them in such a way as to preserve the environment and the fish supply. If we were to operate all fisheries sustainably, we could extract fish from the oceans at maximum historical rates and carry on indefinitely.

The same is true of forests: we already know how to log them sustainably, and if we did so worldwide, we could extract enough timber to meet the world's wood and paper needs. Yet most forests are managed non-sustainably, with decreasing yields.

Just as it is certain that within most of our lifetimes we'll be consuming less than we do now, it is also certain that per capita consumption rates in many developing countries will one day be more nearly equal to ours. These are desirable trends, not horrible prospects. In fact, we already know how to encourage the trends; the main thing lacking has been political will.

Fortunately, in the last year there have been encouraging signs. Australia held a recent election in which a large majority of voters reversed the head-in-the-sand political course their government had followed for a decade; the new government immediately supported the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Also in the last year, concern about climate change has increased greatly in the United States. Even in China, vigorous arguments about environmental policy are taking place, and public protests recently halted construction of a huge chemical plant near the center of Xiamen. Hence I am cautiously optimistic. The world has serious consumption problems, but we can solve them if we choose to do so.

If you can't access this through the New York Times, it's also available on Common Dreams.

your right to not know

Boy does this sound familiar. Too familiar.

A specially created team of military officers played a key role in severely limiting what the Canadian public was allowed to know about the country's role in Afghanistan.

Originally created to assist an investigation into the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, the new team – codenamed Tiger Team – quickly came to scrutinize virtually every public access to information request dealing with the Afghan mission, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

In effect, the team added an extra layer of scrutiny to the access to information process, making it so complicated that an access to information official eventually described it as "convoluted."

The added scrutiny also caused many delays in responding to requests, as access to information officers struggled to understand the new system at a time when the government faced harsh criticism over the treatment of detainees.

Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence implemented a new process last spring for judging what Canadians could and couldn't know about the Afghan mission – a process that included the creation of a military "investigation support team" that oversaw the release of documents.

At first, the team was supposed to handle just information relating to a number of Military Police Complaints Commission investigations into the detainee-handling process. However, it soon started dealing with virtually all Afghan-related access to information requests from the public.

According to documents obtained by The Globe through an access to information request, the Canadian Forces' Strategic Joint Staff launched the investigation support team on March 5, 2007. At the time, two MPCC investigations and a board of inquiry were looking into the treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.

In particular, the investigations focused on three people detained on or about April 6 or 7 of 2006.

The investigation support team, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Dana Clarke, included members of various Forces branches.

"This is the first time that the [Canadian Forces] has been engaged in hostilities since the Access to Information Act was introduced in 1985," reads a May, 2007, SJS document outlining the creation of the investigation support team.

"It has been a learning experience and a number of mistakes have been made. We have noted tendencies to be both too restrictive and too open in releasing information."

However, the documents obtained by The Globe show very few instances where the new team erred on the side of openness. [More here.]

I don't suppose this is linked to Stephen Harper's well-documented penchant for secrecy and disdain for public information? Nah. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

My second most fervent wish for 2008 is to frequently use the words "Prime Minister Stephane Dion".

And hopefully, that will lead to my most ardent wish for 2008 coming true.

happy anniversary to us

Today is the most important day in Laura And Allan Land, the anniversary of our domestic partnership: 21 years.

21 years??? That can be??

Apparently so.

We usually do something very special to celebrate, either go away for a few days or have an incredible four-star dining experience. We did that in New York even when we were really poor.

Last year, as some of you may recall, for that beautiful round number of 20 years, we fulfilled a long-standing dream of staying at the Ice Hotel. (Story here and here; photos here.)

But this past year I had my job upheaval and finances were tight, and we pretty much spent our anniversary-celebration money on the cottage trip we shouldn't have taken (but were glad we did) in September.

When did we become so adult and responsible? Bah.

So this year we are breaking with our tradition and celebrating at home, with some special bottles of wine from this year's Niagara-region wine tour, good food, and music and comedy.

Although I'm sure it will be a nice evening, I'm also afraid that this year will mark the end of our valuing and celebrating this Very Important Day. (Allan tells me it isn't so, but I'm concerned.) So to assuage this fear, I'm already thinking ahead to celebration #22: a few days in Quebec City, which I've heard is wonderfully romantic, and which could also include a day at the Ice Hotel.

Right now we're off to spend the day together foraging for yumminess for tonight's private party.

Here's a link to the story of January 3, 1987, because I never get tired of telling it. A certain New Englander who is both a friend of wmtc and a citizen of Joy Nation might especially appreciate it.

welcome to our country

Another member of the wmtc community is making the big move today! "M Yass" who occasionally writes the blog Vigilamus Pro Te, is moving from the Seattle area to BC.

Emigrating to Canada has been a long and convoluted path for M Yass. Not that long ago, he was a rabid wingnut. Now he embraces progressive values with the special zeal of a convert.

I often wonder, five or six years from now, will the NDP see an increase in membership from the influx of ex-pat Americans? The last count showed more than 10,000 of us arrived in 2006. Subtracting for a certain percentage who move for jobs or marriage, most of those 10,000 moved to escape the march of fascism, empire and theocracy. Why do I think they won't be voting Tory?

Welcome M Yass! We've been waiting for you.

what liberal media? part 3,492,851

In case you don't pay attention to such things (and why should you?), radical right-wing columnist William Kristol will now appear on the pages of the New York Times. Matthew Rothschild writes in The Progressive:

Does William Kristol really need another platform?

He's the co-founder and editor of the Weekly Standard, which Rupert Murdoch owns.

For years, he's been all over the airwaves, first on ABC's Sunday morning talk show and then on Fox.

And he's been, until recently, a columnist for Time magazine.

So why does the Times want him?

In its December 30 announcement, the Times noted that in the mid-1990s, "Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future." But the Times failed to note another, much more important project that he led: The Project for a New American Century, which did so much to pave the way for Bush's Iraq War.

At the Weekly Standard and through the Project for a New American Century, Kristol kept promoting specious claims about the threat from Iraq. And still today he wants war with Iran.

His role in domestic politics is no better. He was instrumental in torpedoing the Clinton health care plan. In December 1993, he circulated a strategy document among Republicans to kill the Clinton plan because it would strengthen the Democrats’ base of support among the middle class. The next month, he urged Republicans to take the stance that "there is no health care crisis."

Egalia, of Tennessee Guerilla Women, figures the Times needs a government cheerleader to replace Judith Miller. See her post for some Kristol pearls of wisdom.

Funny how the liberal media lets the neocons dominate their airwaves and pages. I wonder why that is.

chantal petitclerc in new mobility

My feature on Chantal Petitclerc in New Mobility is out. If you're interested, you can read it here.

Like my recent story on Canadian MP Steven Fletcher, this is written for a wheelchair-using audience, so hopefully the trite "isn't it great what people with disabilities can do" angle is absent.

Petitclerc is New Mobility's 2007 Person of the Year, the first who is not a US citizen. My quest to bring Canadian content to New Mobility and Kids On Wheels continues!

Writing about Petitclerc was really fun. She's a fascinating person, certainly the most well-rounded athlete I've ever interviewed. This is a cover story, so I'm eager to see her beautiful smile lighting up the cover. I haven't even received my copies yet!

what i'm watching: mr. brooks

We saw "Mr Brooks" last night, a suspenseful, creepy and compelling thriller. It's in the cat-and-mouse, serial-killer-vs-FBI vein, but with some unusual variations, and a few very smart plot twists that keep it taut and unpredictable. Ten minutes before the end of this movie, I still couldn't guess how it would play out.

I had forgotten that Kevin Costner is actually be a good actor - he's been in so much dreck. And William Hurt is beautifully creepy. That's all I'll say. If you like suspense and psychological thrillers, you'll enjoy this one.

We saw Mr Brooks no thanks to Zip, who has left us stranded without movies this week. So we tried Rogers' "On Demand" download for the first time, which is easy and not expensive (although you need digital cable to access it).

This is definitely the way we can see the occasional movie during Baseball Season, when there's no point in subscribing to Zip. Although what the odds are of a Red Sox night off falling on a night that it's raining so we can't hang out in the backyard, I don't know. But it did come in handy.

happy new year and two decisions

We ended 2007 with two notable decisions for 2008: our annual party, now in its third incarnation, and this year's vacation.

Wmtc3 will be Saturday, June 7. No conflict with Pride Week or Canada Day, and hopefully no rescheduling. Those who care about such things, please mark your calendars.

And. . . we're going to Newfoundland! We'll certainly get to Nova Scotia on a future trip, but Newfoundland is calling me. And I'm answering!

The trip will be in late June, when it should be warm enough, but not crowded. I don't know if Newfoundland ever gets crowded with tourists, but it's always better to travel when kids are still in school.

It looks like we'll get 10 days there, not counting travel days on either end. Two Newfie-descended friends have told me I need at least two weeks, but 10 days will have to do. You can never do everything, anywhere you go. We'll be sure to make it a memorable 10 days.

I've only just started to read about the area and think about what we want to do. I know that quaint small towns and long, scenic drives are in store, and hopefully we'll see some whales.

I definitely want to go to L'Anse aux Meadows, the archaeological site of the earliest known settlement in North America. We both love that kind of thing, and I won't miss an opportunity to visit any UNESCO World Heritage Site, anywhere.

Newfoundland is actually home to two World Heritage Sites - the only Canadian province that can make that boast. Gros Morne National Park is the other one. I have to investigate how accessible the park is to people like us who are not backcountry trekkers.

I'd also like to visit Cape St. Charles, the easternmost point in North America (if we exclude Greenland, that is!), for perhaps a silly reason. I've been to Land's End, the westerly most point of the UK, and the closest land point to North America. I was there by myself, on a memorable journey in 1985 (a few months before I met Allan). I like the symmetry of it.

I'm excited! Anytime I'm looking forward to traveling someplace I've never been before, I'm happy. My wanderlust is so intense, and it never gets fed often enough.

Any suggestions or information about Newfoundland is welcome. Great photos and info here.