The Lost Boys of Neverland Have Been Discovered

In March of 2001, Rahim Jaffer, an Alliance MP, got into a bit of trouble when a hoax he had helped to perpetrate, blew up in his face.

Jaffer then owned a string of coffee shops in Edmonton, one of them set to open on the very day that he was supposed to do a radio interview with Peter Warren, on Corus Radio Network.

To solve the problem, Jaffer had his administrative assistant, Matthew Johnston, appear in his place.  However, when the show was aired, someone recognized Johnston's voice and called into the station to complain.

Peter Warren, the show's host, says the hoax was eventually revealed, but not before both Johnston and Jaffer tried to cover it up. Warren says his producer asked Jaffer directly if they had talked to him on the air.

"She reached him [Jaffer] at his cafe in Edmonton and said to him, 'Was that you on the interview with Peter Warren on the Corus Radio Network an hour ago?' and his answer was, 'Yes it was. I was happy to do the interview'."   Warren says they finally got an admission from Johnston and Jaffer when they asked them to put their version in writing.

Jaffer's friend, Ezra Levant, would later say that "Matthew had acted entirely on his own".

However, Preston Manning, leader of the Reform Party that had morphed into Alliance, gives a slightly different version of the story, one far more believable.  (Think Big: My Adventures in Life and Politics, p. 379-80)

After realizing that he had set up the radio interview on the day that he would be opening his new coffee shop, Jaffer made arrangements himself with Matthew Johnston, to appear in his place. Since it was radio no one would see him, and the Edmonton-Strathcona MP drilled his replacement on potential answers to specific questions.

When the media got wind of the hoax, Jaffer and "his team" went into damage control.  According to Manning:

Chuck Strahl, the House leader, first learned of all this from Jason Kenney at a strategy meeting at Stornoway. Chuck told Jason that Rahim's account had better be the whole truth, because the media would be looking for contradictions, and if they found any Rahim would be in even greater trouble. Jason [Kenney] then said "I wouldn't worry about that. $40,000.00 buys a lot of silence."

Apparently that was the amount of taxpayer funded 'severance' given to Matthew Johnston for keeping quiet.

The reference to $ 40,000.00 was made without elaboration. The next day the same statement about $40,000.00 was repeated by Ezra Levant to both Chuck Cadman and Deborah Grey, who at his time demanded an explanation. Ezra then said that it meant nothing, that he was just shooting off his mouth and it was no big deal.

I would say that fraud is a pretty big deal. Matthew Johnston was later named senior vice-president of Levant's magazine, the Western Standard.

Jason Kenney, Rahim Jaffer and Ezra Levant were once known as the "Snack Pack".  All young Reformers, all single (Jaffer later married Helena Guergis) and all products of the Fraser Institute.

A decade later the two remaining members, Kenney and Levant, have become more like the Lost Boys of Neverland, from J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan.

They are boys who fall out of their prams when the nurse isn't looking and were lost by their nannies in places such as Kensington Gardens. Having gone unclaimed for seven days, they were whisked off to Neverland, where they live with Peter Pan. There are no "lost girls", because girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams and be lost in this manner.

A little tumble out of a pram does explain a lot, and when we hear of another hoax involving Jason Kenney and Ezra Levant, it becomes clear that this pair simply refuse to grow up.

Bureaucrats working in Jason Kenney’s department posed as immigrants to pull off an elaborate stunt for Sun TV News, according to documents obtained by CP’s Jennifer Ditchburn. (Wait. What? How is this real?)  According to Ditchburn, what happened was this: Sun TV was supposed to film a citizenship reaffirmation ceremony in their studios, but the department could only find three people willing to participate. Instead of cancelling the stunt, they had federal employees, presumably on the federal clock, stand in for the rest of the crowd.

And in typical fashion, Kenney is blaming someone else.

" I want always to be a boy, and have fun. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again " Peter Pan

New Item on Menu - The McFox Sandwich

My neighbour told us of an experience he had with the local McDonalds.  He was sitting in one having breakfast and found himself offended by a debate playing out on the television, that included racial slurs.

So he went up to the counter and asked if they could change the channel but was told "no".  Apparently, they were not allowed to do that, so instead he asked if they could just shut it off, but again "no".  Not allowed.

The following week, he avoided that particular place and went to a different McDonalds, but was surprised to find the same right-wing station, airing the same offensive dialogue.  Again, he tried to get the staff to change the channel or shut it off, and was told the same thing.  They were not allowed.

I asked him if it was Fox News or Sun TV.  He wasn't sure, since they are both pretty much the same.

My neighbour is not a political activist.  He is a retired educator and former military officer.  He wrote a letter to McDonalds, he said, the fist time he had ever felt compelled to do something like that.

I thought that maybe the local owner of the franchise was right-wing, and that it was he who decided what was being played, so I googled McDonalds/Fox News.  What popped up was a recent posting on Daily KOS, Is McDonald's in bed with Fox News?, citing a similar experience.

I asked a manager why one only had Fox News all the time, and she said they were told they had to leave it on that station at all times and were unable to change the channel. When I asked if customers had requested it, she said no, "Nobody likes Fox, we get a lot of complaints about it."

I thought to myself, I don't work there, so maybe I could change it. But fiddling with the channel buttons had no effect. That single channel was hard-wired into the set; like Big Brother on the telescreen in "1984," it is impossible to watch anything else. When I asked if it was a corporate mandate to have the TV on Fox News, the manager nodded yes. Apparently they were free to switch between various sports networks on the other set, depending on what sporting events were currently happening, but the Fox News TV was permanently set to only that station.  "Nobody likes Fox," she had said, but yet that's the only choice McDonald's was giving us, whether we liked it or not.

When my friend complained, in both incidents, several customers backed him up.

McDonalds is supposed to be a "family restaurant", but Fox News, on both sides of the border, is hardly family entertainment.  Fox and Sun like to boast about their viewing numbers, but how many of those "viewers" are being force fed this right-wing propaganda?

It is hate porn.  The only sensual experience many of their viewers and commentators have.  I swear every time Ezra Levant goes into one of his "white people" rants, he closes his eyes and smokes a cigarette.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else, who has noticed Fox/Sun as a McWatch.  I certainly wouldn't take children into that restaurant.  They need to post a warning on the door:  "Television content not suitable for the majority of viewers".

Sorry Ezra. He's Not Just a Man in a Suit

While Ezra Levant and Sun Media "protest too much", the links between the Harper government, the English Defense League and the international patriot movement, which includes the Tea Party Express, continue to mount.

In the following Sun TV segment, Levant once again goes after the "anti-Israel, pro-terrorist" CBC. This time for suggesting that the Jewish Defense League was a terrorist organization.



Levant lists those on the U.S. State Department roll, which does not include the JDL.

That's because the JDL is on the FBI's list of domestic terrorist organizations. And for good reason. According to their files, the JDL has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks within the United States, including:

The two terrorist plots prevented by law enforcement in 2001 were being planned by domestic extremists. Ronald Mike Denton was planning to attack his former place of employment, the Chevron Oil Refinery at El Segundo, California, when he was arrested in March 2001. In December 2001 Irving David Rubin and Earl Leslie Krugel, members of the extremist Jewish Defense League, were arrested as they were in the final stages of planning attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the local office of U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa.

Both were charged in the incident.

The JDL was also involved in a letter bomb incident that killed an office worker.

LOS ANGELES -- A California court has sentenced to life in prison William Ross, who, together with the American-Israeli couple of Robert and Rochelle Manning, was charged in a 1980 mail-bomb killing.

The sentence closes a case that aroused strong emotions and protests among Orthodox and nationalist groups in Israel and Los Angeles and has dragged through the federal courts since 1988. According to court testimony, Ross, a member of the Jewish Defense League, enlisted the Manning couple, also JDL members, during the 1970s to construct and mail a booby trap.

So Mr. Levant. Meir Weinstein (aka Meir Halevi, aka Marvin Weinstein) is not just a man in a suit, and the Jewish Defense league is indeed a terrorist organization.

I've posted on them and their close relationship with the Harper government before.

Who is the JDL?

The Jewish Defense League was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City in 1968, and has been listed as a "right-wing terrorist organization" and a "hate group". They have been involved in the bombing of Arab and Soviet properties in the U.S, alleging that they were "enemies of the Jewish people".

Besides creating the JDL, Rabbi Kahane was behind the Kach Party in Israel, which was eventually banned as racist and undemocratic. They were behind the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, a terrorist attack on unarmed Muslim Palestinians, while at prayer, killing 29 and wounding another 125.

Meir Weinstein, the national director of the Canadian branch of the Jewish Defense League, joined the JDL, at the age of 20, after reading the book Never Again written by Meir Kahane.

And though he denies involvement with the Kach Party, despite the fact that both share a clenched fist logo, his inspiration, Rabbi Kahane, was behind both groups.

After the Rabbi's assassination in 1990, the Kach movement split in two, creating the Kach and Kahane Chai. And for Ezra Levant's information, both of these are on the U.S. State Department's anti-terrorist watch list, as well as Canada's.

So he might want to rethink his claim that his buddy Weinstein, is just "a man in a suit" who hates terrorists.

The English Defense League

In January of this year, Weinstein and the Canadian JDL, held what they called their "first" rally in support of the English Defense league. According to the National Post:

A “support rally” for the controversial English Defence League is scheduled to take place at the Toronto Zionist Centre on Tuesday night. Tommy Robinson, the EDL leader, will speak at the rally through an on-line hookup. It is believed to be the first Canadian rally for the EDL.

“I am disappointed that the JDL would support an organization whose record in the U.K. is one of violence and extremism,” said Bernie Farber, CEO, of the Canadian Jewish Congress. “This is more than unwise and I sure hope they reconsider this decision.”

The rally took place as planned.

Meir Weinstein, announced recently that his group would ally with the British organization, which is known for violence and extremism ...The JDL said it is forging ties with the British group to "take a stand against the forces of political Islam."

In an online hook-up with English Defense League founder Stephen Lennon, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson, the Briton said Canadians "need to wake up. The Islamicization of your country is on its way." The Canadian Jewish Congress has opposed the alliance between the two rightist groups, saying that while Islamic fundamentalism is "a real threat," combating it with "generalized hatred against Muslims, as does the EDL, is only a recipe for fuelling more conflict.

Republican candidate, Rabbi Nachum Shifren, travelled to England to speak at a rally, calling the targets of their hatred, "Muslim dogs", and Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, expressed support for the EDL, comparing it to the American Tea Party movement.

True "patriots" one and all.

Tommy Robinson is right.

Canadians do need to "wake up". But not to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, but to the threat of home-grown terrorist organizations, that have aligned themselves with our current government.

And thank you Ezra Levant.

I've spent days researching the EDL, Geert Wilders and Anders Behring Breivik, pouring over hours of video. But my best links come from you.

Maybe you'd do less damage to Harper's credibility, if you just stopped talking.

Sun TV, Ezra Levant and Why the Danish Cartoons Matter

Ezra Levant, long time neocon insider and self-proclaimed stockaholic (one of 3 Stockwell Day fans), is among the bombastic characters on Fox News North (Sun TV).

He used to run a small magazine (now out of business), where he published the infamous Danish cartoons, knowing, or at least hoping, that they would cause a stir.

He has gotten so much mileage out of those cartoons with Canada's right-wing, that he chose that as the topic for his debut performance on Sun TV, and in his best helium induced squeal, cried about "freedom of speech" and his rights as a Canadian.



Of course, as always, the subtext is Muslim.

In 2007, Harper MPs Brad Trost and Andrew Scheer (now Speaker of the House), went after CBC for plans to air an independent satire The Altar Boy Gang.

And just as Ezra spoke of being hauled in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, these two MPs wanted CBC to be hauled before a Parliamentary committee.

TWO Conservative Members of Parliament will seek to have the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) answer to a House of Commons committee for a television program the Catholic Civil Rights League has described as blasphemous.

So where was Levant's high-pitched squeal then? Suppression of free speech in Canada in the 21st century. Censorship akin to that of China.

CBC promised not to air the series, despite the fact that it was highly unlikely that it would result in hate crimes against altar boys. Or hate crimes against anyone.

But it was deemed 'sacrileges'. So why not the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammad in unflattering frames? Why were they not deemed 'sacrileges'?

Without actually lying, Levant also misinforms his viewers, by stating that the protests resulted in 200 murders. The "murders" were of protesters, when police opened fire on them. An important point, because without that background we might assume that the protesters, or "terrorists", murdered innocent Danes.

I had initially planned to ignore Sun TV, but after being sent several clips by my right-wing readers, I decided that it would be wrong of me to do so.

They need to be exposed.

One follower said "He's completely right... Since when did freedom of speech become a Conservative cross to bear? I thought that liberals were all about freedom of speech... What interesting times we live in when Conservatives are more liberal than Liberals...",and another: "Long live the freedom to have an alternative to CBC!"

I might agree if the conservatives actually believed in "free speech", but they don't. They've brought in a censorship bill with the help of Jim Flaherty's pal Charles McVety, and Flaherty will now only fund art projects and cultural events, deemed "inoffensive".

And what does the Liberal Party have to do with this? I think they mostly ignore Levant. He's such a silly little man.

Silly but Dangerous


In the 1920s in Germany, another silly little man, Julius Streicher, created a newspaper Der Stürmer, to combat what was deemed a liberal press. Anti-semitism had been around for centuries, but this was the first time that it became so organized.

Streicher hired cartoonists, like Philipp Rupprecht, who drew the cartoon to the right, depicting an outspoken Adolfus Hitler, who had been forbidden to address public meetings in much of Germany. The caption reads "He alone of two billion people on earth may not speak in Germany.”

Like Levant, Streicher was constantly being charged with hate crimes, and was the target of many lawsuits filed against him by the Jewish people. They feared that his often vile cartoons would incite hatred.

The publisher had a good lawyer, Harms Krafft, who at 12,000 marks a pop, found something in the country's "code law" to get his client, a decorated war hero, off.

Krafft's principal client, moreover, was a man well able to make a favorable courtroom impression. The rhetoric of patriotism was a familiar defense in Weimar Germany for everything from petty theft to political murder. And Julius Streicher was an authentic war hero. (1)

Streicher's vile cartoons, many pornographic, were deemed to be little more than "healthy public opinion." He argued that the German people had a right to know.

As the follower of Sun noted: "Long live the freedom to have an alternative to CBC", I wish progressives would find an alternative to what now passes for television news and commentary.

We have a right-wing show, a further right-wing show, an even further right-wing show, and then Sun TV.

We need someone daily exposing this movement, along with its think tanks, AstroTurf groups, and especially the Religious Right, now dictating most policy.

And we need it soon, before Sun TV becomes the only voice Canadians have.

Sources:

1. Jews, Nazis, and the Law: The Case of Julius Streicher, by Dennis E. Showalter, Museum of Tolerance