Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘anti-americanism’

IDFDave has photos of the protesters idiotarians against Bush (via Damian Penny).

As I scrolled the online album of swastika posters, antisemitic and racist statements, and just plain idiocies, it occurred to me that anyone both reasonable and against Bush’s policies had two choices yesterday: To join forces with the wingnuts, or to stay home.

No wonder most of them stayed home.

The wingnuts do these protests a vast disservice. It’s one thing to be against Bush. Hell, I’m not exactly his #1 fan either. But it’s quite another to associate with people who wrap the American flag in swastikas and who hold signs depicting Sharon and Bush as monkeys. There are plenty of good arguments for protesting against the US’s foreign policies, but I really hope that most Canadians are still turned off by yesterday’s kind of displays.

What if you held a protest and nobody came?

The first demonstration — of Palestinians and sympathisers of the Palestinian cause opposed to Washington’s support of Israel — attracted less than 40 demonstrators.

According to a quick head count by journalists, the protest attracted 39 demonstrators, 42 journalists and television crew members and three police officers.

A second, ostensibly larger, demonstration scheduled for the midst of the evening rush hour — was called by a group calling itself Students Against Bush.

Nobody turned up.

I’m sure Jaggi Singh will find a way of blaming the Zionists and the corporations for the massive failure of his protests.

Alan has the follow-up on the UNRWA story, namely that Kofi Annan is backing Peter Hansen, the corrupt agency head who freely admits employing terrorists, among other things. I can’t claim to be too surprised at that one.

Debbye has thoughts on the CBC’s “Greatest Canadian” contest, something I’ve tried to avoid watching because I knew it would make me very very angry. Judging by the top 30, it seems we’re propagating our own stereotypes as a nation, voting in hockey players, any popstar or movie star with crossover American success, and iconofied politicians. The fact that this is a contest where Don Cherry can place in a top 10 alongside Alexander Graham Bell should say it all. *Sigh*.

Imshin is absolutely required reading, lashing out at those who believe that Israel should not exist. She also points to this article, published in the Guardian, about anti-Americanism and antisemitism in Europe.

And this is a little late, but Burnside has packed in his keyboard. Another casualty of the blogosphere. He’ll be missed.

This headline seems better suited to The Onion than to real news: North Korea likens Bush to Hitler:

North Korea has described US President George W Bush as an “imbecile” and a “tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade”.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman was responding to comments President Bush made last week in which he described the North’s Kim Jong-il as a “tyrant”.

This pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Kim Jong-Il, the “Dear Leader” of gas chambers and concentration camps, who has killed and tortured countless members of his population and prompted comparisons to Auschwitz and outrage by Yad Vashem. The “Dear Leader” of child prisoners and sex slaves. The “Dear Leader” who prefers to starve his entire population rather than accept outside aid. The “Dear Leader” of nuclear weapons factories who refuses to even talk about disarming.

But no. In this upside-down world, Bush is clearly the person who merits comparison to Hitler. The “Dear Leader” must be just misunderstood. Or something.

Terrorists blow up a mosque in Afghanistan to prevent people from registering to vote, and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) blames the United States:

Arguing that aid groups were now being specifically targeted, MSF issued a stinging rebuke to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, saying they used aid to help win a “hearts and minds” campaign and garner support from Afghans skeptical of their intentions.

“MSF denounces this attempt to co-opt humanitarian aid, to use humanitarian aid to win hearts and minds,” MSF secretary general Marine Buissonniere told a briefing, adding that in doing so it had endangered the lives of humanitarian workers.

In other words, MSF is mad at U.S. forces for treading on what they see as their turf.

Their argument – that the blurring of the line between traditionally-objective humanitarian work and non-objective military work has led to the targeting of humanitarian aid workers – is not without foundation. But the prevailing culture of some of these aid organizations is neutrality without a moral compass; in other words, they’re so conditioned to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses wherever they work, that they’ve bought into the US-is-evil rhetoric of most of those countries.

Do you think MSF has noticed that, in striving to be as apolitical as possible, it has actually become a darling of left-wing politicos and America-bashers everywhere?

In a not-so-shocking twist, turns out Michael Moore made up the whole thing as a publicity stunt (via Damian Penny):

Dissecting the current dust-up, it seems clear that Disney never intended to distribute Moore’s film. Maybe the Mousketeers are cowards, but at least they are consistent. And Moore is whining now only to hype the pre-Cannes buzz. Sources report that Miramax never planned to release the Moore film, that it was always slated to come out through Lions Gate.

Let’s see, what’s the appropriate reaction here? Ah yes: Liar, liar!

Incidentally, it’s a lie that seems to have caught on. This morning on the radio, Terry DiMonte was decrying “censorship” and saying that he hoped it cost Dubya the election. Moore himself is planning to speak in Toronto today (probably in front of a crowd lapping up his anti-Americanisms like poetry). And I guess it’s not all that shocking that he would try to sell the film on a publicity wave of controversy. But when the lies come from a so-called “documentarian”, it sure says something about his credibility.

Update: Why does it not surprise me in the least that Janet Bagnall has been sucked in?

A few surprisingly on-point Gazette editorials today:

Here’s Norman Webster on the Khadr family and Canada’s welcoming of terrorists:

In his book, Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around the World, [author Stuart] Bell sums up: “Canada has tried to smother terrorism with kindness. … It is perhaps a typically Canadian approach. But it is wrong, dead wrong.”

And here’s Ian Mulgrew on Svend Robinson:

The 52-year-old New Democrat MP always has had a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for look-at-me stunts. But this televised mea culpa topped them all. In one stroke, Robinson created the impression he was leaving politics because of serious psychiatric issues, while simultaneously wedging the door open for his return.

And back to hockey, on the national anthem booing saga:

Let’s see what happens tonight when the series resumes in Montreal. We hope those Bell Centre louts who have booed the U.S. anthem in the past will take a cue from the class showed in Boston on Thursday, and at the very least stand in respectful silence.

On that last one, let’s hope there’s no booing at the game tonight at all – whether for an anthem, or for the game itself. Go Habs!

Last night’s game was fun to watch. It’s not over yet for the Habs.

But perhaps almost more notable than the game itself was how the Boston crowd reacted to the Canadian national anthem. In light of the recent booing of the US anthem at the two Bell Centre games, a notice was posted in Boston asking people to refrain from booing in retaliation. So what did they do? They cheered. Loudly. Now that’s class.

All Eddie as the Leafs shut out the Sens 2-0 tonight. And you just gotta feel bad for Ottawa, cause they absolutely dominated the play, getting all the good scoring chances… gotta be frustrating after a while when you realize you’re trying to score on a brick wall.

In any case, their win tonight puts Toronto in the lead of their series 2-1. Actually, all the Eastern Conference matchups are now in a 2-1 situation. Tampa Bay beat the Islanders tonight to break the tie there. New Jersey beat Philadelphia finally. And Montreal’s win last night put us on the board, but we’re still trailing Boston.

Speaking of Montreal, the media heat’s all over Mike Ribeiro with accusations of crying wolf, after Boston accused him of faking an injury last night. Don Cherry ripped into him relentlessly tonight for being a crybaby. But he was clearly in pain… the close-up showed the trainer doing something that looked like he was snapping his arm back into place. Even I winced. He didn’t practice today, so something’s up. And Ribeiro’s “smirk” at the Boston bench after being helped off the ice – which is what seems to be getting him into trouble – looked a lot more like he was just getting his game face back on to me. Ribeiro has been super all season and he really deserves better than to have the media and fans turn on him now.

And of course, in the ever-continuing shame saga, the US national anthem was booed yet again last night by the Habs crowd. Sure, it was only a minority of people, but it’s really disgusting and unbecoming of a Montreal crowd. If they were booing for political reasons, shame on them; it’s a hockey game. If they were booing for rivalry reasons, shame on them; the visiting team deserves respect. Either way, we ought to show more class than that.

A Peewee hockey team from the U.S. was not booed this year. That’s the news. Why? Cause they were booed last year. Of course, this year they played in New Brunswick, and last year’s series was here in Quebec. That could have something to do with it:

Having borne the brunt of anti-American sentiment during their last visit to Canada, a peewee hockey team from Massachusetts is back again. And this time, they are being welcomed with open arms.

When the Brockton Boxers were in Quebec for a hockey tournament last March, fans upset by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq let them know how they felt.

As they took to the ice in Montreal one day after U.S. troops rolled into Iraq, the 12- and 13-year-olds were lambasted with anti-American jeering.

The Brockton Boxers’ Jon Spano remembers the events well.

“There were protesters and everything… and we had to get escorted off the bus… because there was so many of them,” he told CTV Atlantic affiliate, ATV News.

“Then they burnt our flag and they booed the national anthem and all that stuff.”

Nice. Real nice.

At least the New Brunswick hosts seem to have caught on that these are kids, not international terrorists:

When their bus arrived, a welcoming committee of local pewee players was on hand, banging their sticks in welcome.

What a shame that the Montreal hosts couldn’t figure that out last year.