Year-end columns are always difficult. The desire to tie up loose ends runs up against the urge to write on new events. Alas, the bombings in Mumbai and Stephen Harper’s political temper tantrum will have to wait a while longer while I look back at three stories:

1. “Although he’d be the first black president, don’t expect Obama to abolish slavery” (June 10)

The “election” of Barack Obama as a reformist president is more hoax than hope. As this cartoon by Ben Heine shows, the real issue of the election is that an honest election is impossible in a one-party state. Note the smallness of the newspaper headline announcing Obama’s victory relative to the faceless, hapless America voter. (reprinted with permission)

Like any American politician, Obama is well aware of the master/slave relationship in Washingtelaviv, and that his career, not to mention his life, depends on him doing as he’s told.

Of course, to admit that Obama will continue Bush’s anti-Muslim, made-in-Israel foreign policy doesn’t play well in a country desperate to believe in anything positive. Thus, to avoid any substantive analysis of Obama’s obsequiousness, media coverage of him is deliberately stripped of substance and reduced to image worship.

Before the election, his race was exploited for fearmongering and disinformation purposes—lies about Obama being born in Kenya and being muslim are still believed. Now, race is used as a palliative narcotic— “Be happy! Believe! Black = Progressive!”— and everywhere there’s that beaming smile.

	Detail from the commemorative “historic victory” plate propagating the superficial image of Obama as a champion of reform. (Note the pro-Israel lapel pin)

The fact that Obama did win was good in the sense that the public was not taken in by the overwrought national anti-Obama smear-and-rumour campaign, led by none other than Faux News. For the first time since 1976, the U.S. public, not a neo-fascist pressure group, elected a president. On the other hand, one could argue that Obama didn’t win anything because voters had no real choice. The Democrats could have run an autistic hamster against McCain and still won.

For all of Obama’s charm and ability to speak in complete sentences, he has turned out to be a fraud, one that could be more disastrous than Bush. It’s easy to condemn a buffoon like Bush and a reptile like Cheney for committing genocide for Israel. It is almost impossible to criticize a likeable man, a likeable black man, for doing the same thing, especially since there is no alternative to Obama in the one-party state.

It is possible that Obama’s zionist toadying is an artful ruse designed to lull Israel and the Lobby into a false sense of security, and that at the right time he will actually behave like an American president. I hope this is turns out to be the case, but so far there is no evidence to support this wishful scenario.

2. “Human Rights Tribunals neither good nor bad—just necessary, unfortunately ” (August 11; see also July 8, August 19)

The human rights cases against Maclean’s this year showed the Lobby that anti-Muslim defamation tactics come with a price. (file art)

First, it is an axiom of logic that if evidence “A” leads to punishable offence “B,” and if “A” is recognized as true, then “B” must necessarily follow. Yet that is precisely what the tribunal did not do.

Despite accepting the all of the plaintiffs’ arguments about the fallaciousness and defamatory nature of Steyn’s piece, the tribunal managed to rule that the case did not meet the standard of defamation.

“The only explanation is that the tribunal rendered a political decision, not a legal one,” said plaintiff Khurrum Awan. “It could just as easily have ruled in our favour. Nevertheless, we do not plan to appeal the decision because we attained our strategic objective—to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.”

Awan said Maclean’s spent $500,000 alone on the B.C. case, but that does not take into account the case in Ontario. The total legal cost to Maclean’s is somewhere around $2 million.

Faisal Joseph, counsel for the plaintiffs, surmised that the tribunal members chickened out because they were intimidated by the propaganda campaign launched by Maclean’s and its media acolytes. The real reason may never be known since members do not comment on decisions, but the following excerpts from the ruling should prove that the plaintiffs did, in fact, win the case.

Para 94: Dr. [Naiyer] Habib testified that, after he read the Article, he began searching the Internet for comments about, and reaction, to it. He discovered several Internet blogs referring to the Article. He was offended by their content, which included calls to exterminate European Muslims with DDT because they were multiplying like mosquitoes… calls for an end to Muslim immigration, and calls for enough bullets or nuclear bombs to eliminate the Muslim “problem.”

Awan said the tribunal let Maclean’s off because it said the magazine could not be held responsible for the content of these blogs, but that reasoning is irrelevant since it has nothing to do with the essential bigotry and incitement to violence depicted in the Steyn article.

Para 115: ...the Article’s description of an Islamic conspiracy with “serious global ambitions” to dominate the world, and create what the Article calls “Eurabia,” has no basis in the Qur’an or Islamic traditions. As part of their beliefs, adherents of Islam are not exhorted to conspire to take over the world. Dr. Ayoub testified that similar accusations had historically been levelled at the Jewish community.

If such calumnies against Jews are unacceptable—the Lobby still trots them out to smear those they accuse of being “anti-Semitic”—the same should hold true for non-Jews, right? Wrong:

Para 6: The panel has concluded that…the complainants have not shown that the Article rises to the level of hatred and contempt… to breach s.7(1)(b) of the [Human Rights] Code.

I leave it to you to judge the validity of the plaintiff’s case, as well as the stupidity and cowardice of the tribunal’s judgment.

3. “ ‘By way of intimidation, thou shalt do war’— the slogan of The Lobby’s thought police” (March 11; and April 14)

Despite libels from the media and disrespect from the Vancouver Public Library, my book presentation in February was a huge success as well as a resounding defeat for the Lobby's free-speech knee-cappers.

Since my presentation was put up on YouTube and Google Video, traffic to my website has increased dramatically, and book sales have been steady. I am most proud of the fact that, despite the high postage costs, most of my sales are to Europe and Asia. For example, I sold 10 copies to one buyer in Switzerland and just sold 12 to another buyer in Hong Kong.

Despite a co-ordinated zionist smear campaign, and craven disrespect from City Librarian Paul Whitney, who helped the Lobby sabotage my presentation, it was an huge success.

Regarding freelance hatemonger Terry Glavin, who defamed me in two separate CanWest fishwraps. I’ve received four legal opinions attesting to the libelous nature of the attacks and have finally lined up a lawyer willing to sue CanWest in the New Year.

All three of these stories show that, despite the mainstream media’s penchant for fraud, defamation, intimidation and censorship, the truth does get out, and victories are possible.