Humboldt Bus crash reminds us how fast private grief becomes public property
gregfelton.com (May 11, 2018)
On April 6, just north of Tisdale, Sask., at the junction of Hwys 35 and 335, a westbound truck slammed into a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team. The collision claimed the lives of 16 team members and injured 13 others. As expected, this disaster became national news, moving Canadians to express condolences and show commiseration through memorials and contributions to the Humboldt Broncos GoFundMe webpage. Given the magnitude of the calamity, this story was expected to stay newsworthy for a few days but then fade away. However, the Humboldt Broncos crash became public property, as Canadians from all over decided that they were also emotionally invested in this loss of life. read more
Conspicuously enthusiastic blamecasting exposes beneficiaries of Parkland shooting
gregfelton.com (April 18, 2018)
Since the “lone gunman” narrative of the Parkland shooting has been shown to be preposterous, it cannot serve as the cause of the current gun-control movement. That means it must have come from somewhere else. This inescapable conclusion meets with considerable resistance from those who cannot separate appearance from reality or have embraced the gun-control movement for its own sake and are happy to sanction a fraud. Nevertheless, cognitive dissonance cannot alter the fact that the shooting was a pretext to a larger purpose: to stampede the nation into a gun-control frenzy...read more
Parkland shooting exposes the terrible power and appeal of sacred violence
gregfelton.com (March 31, 2018)
To the average American, a mass killing appears as a spontaneous act of irrational violence that leaves in its wake dead bodies and shattered lives. It evokes a natural, emotional reaction, especially among those caught up in it. People who react emotionally, though, do not think critically, and if they do not think critically they do not question the official media narrative of what happened. Instead of being a thorough investigation into the cause of the killing, the narrative is largely a selective, voyeuristic exploitation of its effect: tearful survivors, anguished friends and family, and interviews with witnesses. This exploitation is then spun into a narrative to manipulate the public into accepting an ex post facto version of what ostensibly happened. Analysis and debate are actively sabotaged lest the received truth from the Church of CNN and its high priest Anderson Cooper, inter alia, be cast into doubt...read more
Bell’s corporate compassion rings hollow
gregfelton.com (February 19, 2018)
Every year since 2011, the telecom giant Bell Canada has sponsored a mental illness awareness campaign called “Let’s Talk,” culminating at or near the end of a designated month in “Bell Let’s Talk Day.” Bell President and CEO George Cope said the motive for the campaign came out of a desire to reduce the fear and stigma surrounding mental illness, which keeps two out of every three sufferers from seeking help. To date, the campaign has raised more than $86 million and donated funds to more than 400 organizations, among which are the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Calgary Counselling Centre, Atlantic Wellness Community Centre, Inc. and the Greater Victoria Citizens’ Counselling Centre. However, it is an axiom of economics that altruism is contrary to the nature of a corporation, a rapacious artificial entity that exists only to maximize profit and shareholder equity, regardless of the effect on workers or the environment. .....read more
Mind Over Media: Profiles in Cowardice
gregfelton.com (January 5, 2018)
ROMANA CLAY: “Welcome back to Mind over Media, where we scrutinize the people that make up the news. I’m Romana Clay and back in the studio is Professor Joseph Howe, Director of the Centre for Media Integrity in Victoria, B.C. He has just written his first book, an analysis of the failure of nerve within U.S. and Canadian governments. (turns to Howe and the camera pulls back into a two-shot and showing the cover of the book) Professor Howe, the subject of your book is not exactly new, so what do you mean by your title Profiles in Cowardice?”
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Anniversaries of major events promote political interests, not the public spirit
gregfelton.com (November 17, 2017)
To all intents and purposes, our political, economic and moral world begins with World War I, the seminal event of the 20th century. The carnage, devastation and psychological trauma of Europe’s first total war did to the old political order what a certain asteroid did to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago: it wiped out an existing hierarchy and forced the creation of another that would ultimately be dominated by the U.S., which emerged from that war as the world’s new apex predator. Now, in the early stages of the 21st century, anniversaries of events that have defined our concept of modernity are going to come in profusion, events like the Russian revolutions, League of Nations, stock market crash, the Great Depression; World War II, atomic weapons, plastics, the United Nations, McCarthyism and the Cold War....read more
Democratic Party oligarchs already scheming for the 2020 nomination
gregfelton.com (November 14, 2017)
[A different version of this essay appears in Charlottesville: A Political Theatre in Three Acts…, edited by Dr. James Fetzer available from Moon Rock Books. Also, see update at the end]
To this day, establishment Democrats are in denial about their party’s role in causing the election of Donald Trump. Rather than support the candidacy of the popular, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, who would have defeated Trump handily, the Democratic National Committee sabotaged his campaign so that it could nominate the loathesome and unelectable Hillary Clinton. Why would a U.S. political party knowingly commit electoral suicide? Essentially, the Democratic Party hierarchy is more loyal to a foreign government (Israel) than it is to the U.S. For these “Clintoncrats,” installing a warmongering Israeli satrap in the White House was more important than nominating a candidate who cared about the U.S. national interest and American lives......read more
Charlotesville violence could easily have been avoided, but that wasn’t the plan
gregfelton.com (August 31, 2017; updated September 23)
Like the World Trade Center/Pentagon attack, the Boston Marathon bombing and the two bombings in Paris (Charlie Hebdo and the Batalcan), what took place recently in Charlottesville, Virginia, had less to do with a conspicuous act of violence than with how that act of violence could be exploited to serve a political purpose. The specific details of the event—the Charlottesville city council’s decision to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the protests and counter-protests of the decision, the loss of a life—have been eclipsed by excoriations of President Donald Trump and boilerplate condemnations of the Confederacy, slavery and Southern racism.....read more
There’s no debate: Clinton is unelectable
gregfelton.com (October 14, 2016)
In my previous essay, I showed that Hillary Clinton is politically unfit to be president because of the corrupt manner in which she “won” the Democratic nomination from Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now it’s time to show that she is also mentally and politically unfit, but to do so it is necessary to go outside the pro-Clinton media, which is minimizing or censoring negative reporting about her to skew the vote....read more
Buffoon or psychopath—that’s the choice facing American voters
gregfelton.com (September 8, 2016)
If the U.S. were a genuine democracy, Hillary Clinton would be on trial for war crimes and Donald Drumpf (Trump) would have been ridiculed into obscurity. Yet, these two grossly unfit people lead the two major parties, proving, as if further proof were necessary, that democracy in America is dead. The upshot is that voters face a seemingly no-win choice between a warmongering psychopath and a narcissistic man-child with the political equivalent of Tourette’s. Slitting one’s wrists seems preferable to entering a voting booth; however, there is a way to understand this election that can show Americans the best way to vote. First, there is the question of legitimacy...read more
Brexit benefits world, not just U.K.
gregfelton.com (July 31, 2016)
Since the end of World War II (WWI, Act II), the virtue of a United Europe has been implicitly accepted and propagated as an article of faith. The previous two wars came about, the story goes, because nations fought nations; therefore, the path to peace and prosperity must lie along the road to unity. Today, a military union (NATO) guarantees European security from external threats, and a customs union virtually does away with trade barriers, leading to greater trade and prosperity for all. As this union expands to encompass more and more members, replaces petty nationalism, the resultant democratic supernation grants increasing numbers of Europeans the freedom to live, work and prosper in any member nation. This is the United Europe ideal. The Brexit vote showed it to be bankrupt. ....read more
America is staring into the abyss and preparing to jump
gregfelton.com (April 22, 2016)
A wise man once taught me: “Nobody is completely useless; at worst he can be held up as a bad example.” It is in that spirit of hopefulness and constructive criticism that I come to praise Donald Trump (or “Drumpf”), not to bury him. Thanks to Trump, this electoral silly season has generated some of the most relevant analyses about U.S. politics, the kind of commentary that we should have started in 1980. Regardless of how one feels about Trump, his candidacy is profoundly significant. Thirty or 40 years ago, Trump would have been laughed off the political stage. Bombastic, bloviating, buffoonish and in love with his own self-importance, he has morphed into The Great Attractor for voter anger.....read more
‘Terrorism’ is but prologue to propaganda
gregfelton.com (January 3, 2016)
To all intents and purposes, the U.S. media is a collective state propaganda organ that differs little from that of the former Soviet Union. Five conglomerates controlling 90 per cent of the newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV stations, and movie studios fabricate crises, misrepresent informed criticism and punish honest reporters to ensure public compliance with official political, economic and moral doctrines. If this seems a tad over-the-top, consider the following unreported (of course!) news item.....read more
Christmas—the Blackest Time of Year
gregfelton.com (December 14, 2014)
“If the U.S. sneezes, Canada catches a cold,” such is the dominant and domineering influence of the virus factory to the south. Once upon a time (for it seems so long ago) Canadian governments believed it wise to immunize this country from anti-democratic pathogens like military aggression, economic determinism and anti-statist extremism. Today, these are not only officially embraced, but are presented to the public as a national ethos. The very idea of Canada as an independent, moderate democratic state is unthinkable, if not unutterable. As Canada’s political immune system becomes even more ravaged, the effect of these pathogens is now more acutely felt at this time of year.....read more
Palestinian activism is loud, but is it enough?
gregfelton.com (August 4, 2014)
On Saturday, July 19, I was among those who went to the Vancouver Art Gallery to protest Israel’s latest atrocity against Palestine. Actually, it’s all one, long, sustained atrocity punctuated by feverish periods of acute sadism. Among the carnage wrought by the world’s most moral army, four Palestinian boys were murdered for sport as they played soccer on a Gaza beach. We know about this crime because NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin happened to witness it, took pictures of the dead boys and announced it to the world. For his noble efforts NBC fired him from Gaza and replaced him with a Jew from Tel Aviv. NBC, like all corporate media, are indentured to Israel, so honest reporting like Mohyeldin‘s cannot go unpunished...read more
Beautiful game being ruined by ugly people
gregfelton.com (July 16, 2014)
Germany’s victory celebration may have died down, but the Luis Suárez issue will likely be a major topic of World Cup discussion for some time. During the Uruguay–Italy match, as the whole football-watching world knows, Suárez’s teeth found the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. For this act of dental dementia, the Uruguayan striker was fined more than 100,000 Swiss francs and banned for nine international matches as well four months of league games for Barcelona, now his new team, including all football-related activities....read more
Reporting of ‘missing’ Malaysian airliner evokes unexpected feelings of déjà vu
gregfelton.com (April 8, 2014)
From the beginning, as government officials and news analysts theorized about what might have happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, they appeared to do something rather remarkable—make logical inferences based on available evidence. The standard practice today has been for government flacks and “experts” to pre-empt any meaningful investigation of a disaster by prejudging its cause and feeding house-trained media stenographers, who regurgitate the officially predigested “truth” to the public. But, as is often the case, appearances are deceiving. ...read more
WTFN—Year in Review 2013
gregfelton.com (December 29, 2013)
BRIAN COHEN: “Welcome to Year in Review at WTFN, the time when we analyze some of the big news stories of the past year. I’m Brian Cohen and with me in the studio are (the camera pans to each in turn) WTFN political correspondent Eric Blair; Romana Clay, host of Mind over Media; and via satellite from Victoria, Professor Joseph Howe, Director of the Centre for Media Integrity. Welcome. I’ll start with you, Romana: what event stood out for you?”
ROMANA CLAY: “For me, one of the more bizarre events was relatively recent, the world’s reaction to, and coverage of, the death of Nelson Mandela. On the one hand the outpouring of grief and admiration was expected, as was the overwhelming media coverage. Mandela had for decades been the pre-eminent symbol of black resistance to white minority rule in South Africa, and was the country’s first black president. On the other hand, the whole affair felt hypocritical.” ...read more
Kennedy’s assassination is the coup d’état that dare not speak its name
gregfelton.com (November 24, 2013)
For an event that changed the course of world history, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy passed with barely a ripple. It featured the same sort of superficial solemnity and obligatory rehashing of canonical texts one expects at a religious observance. At Easter, the clergy do not expect faithful Christians to question the absurdity of the Resurrection as they hearken unto ritualistic stories and watch the umpteenth depiction of the Crucifixion. The ritual is a time to reinforce official belief, not stimulate thoughtful discussion. So it came to pass that the 50th commemoration of the Kennedy assassination was, like all the others, a manipulative ritual designed solely to allow people to expiate their grief and honour a martyred saint. ...read more
Boston Marathon Bombing
This story is true; the facts have been fabricated to keep the false flag flying
gregfelton.com (May 9, 2013)
For decades, pretentious wonks have declared that we live in “The Information Age,” as if information were a commodity unique to our time. Inanity aside, the claim is patently false, notwithstanding the advent of computers and virtually instant communication. We do not live in an “Information Age” because “information” connotes data that is beneficial and objectively valid. Information can help solve problems, educate, and generally improve life. This was true of written language, movable type, the radio and the telephone, but look around today—do you see problems being solved, people becoming smarter, or life getting better? I thought not. ...read more
FIFA’s anti-racism dictatorship a greater threat to football than alleged ‘racism’
gregfelton.com (April 15, 2013)
In June, Israel will host the European Under-21 football championship, and in doing so will formally debunk the myth that FIFA gives a toss about fighting “racism.” In fact, it will confirm, as if further confirmation were necessary, that the great football anti-racism campaign is a pretentious, divisive sham. Let’s examine two starkly contrasting examples of “racism” and how FIFA handled them. ...read more
Even in our Dark Age, reason and honesty can still be found if you’re willing to look
gregfelton.com (September 10, 2012)
Despite the wealth of informed, factual, critical analyses over the last 11 years, it is still possible to come across someone who clings like grim death to the official illusions about the attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. I imagine that this peculiar variety of cognitive dissonance is no different from that exhibited by worshippers of any act of sacred violence that spawned a religious or quasi-religious cult, such as holocaustianity, creationism, or free-market economics. The identification of the ego with the moralized interpretation of that violence, reduces the believer to an idiot, a child who lacks the capacity for rational thought. When cognitive dissonance becomes an epidemic, totalitarianism and ignorance become the norm, and reason becomes a threat. This happened during the Dark Ages under the despotism of the Imperial Christian Church, and is the case today under the Imperial Jewish Church (Zionism).
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FIFA-Fo-Fum: I hear the din of the racism drum
gregfelton.com (July 31, 2012)
For fans of European football, July is pretty much downtime until mid- to late-August when the UEFA, German, Spanish and other supercups officially conclude the previous season. After the excitement of the Champions League and European Football Championship (EURO 2012), the spotlight shifted to transfers and lower-key international friendlies, which help clubs prepare for their upcoming domestic seasons. This year, though, a spotlight off the pitch continued to compete strongly for media and fan attention. I am, of course, referring to “racism,” an unfortunate solecism that is more emotional than accurate. ...read more
Activists who talk like zionists continue to betray Palestine
gregfelton.com (April 12, 2012)
For some time now, I have been trying to get in touch with Ali Abuminah to ask him to explain his denunciation of Gilad Atzmon. I am used to Palestinian activists, Arab or non-Arab, attacking each other over this or that political or doctrinal difference, but this attack is worse than most. Abuminah has been in the forefront of the anti-zionist movement for years, and over that time has built a considerable reputation. His website, electronicintifada.net, is still an outstanding source for non-zionist (read: uncensored) news about the Occupation. Consequently, his denunciation of Atzmon was guaranteed to be influential and reach a large audience, thereby maximizing the potential damage to Atzmon’s reputation and scholarship....read more
Mind Over Media: Pre-censorship and the End of Newspapers
gregfelton.com (January 12, 2012)
ROMANA CLAY: “Welcome back to Mind over Media, and part two of our focus on the decline of newspapers. On the last show, we saw how newspapers fill their pages with sports and infotainment filler to distract the public from stories and opinions that challenge the political and economic prejudices of the paper’s corporate owners. However, this contrived information vacuum is self-defeating because it merely forces ever more people away from newspapers and onto the Internet. Today, we look at another cause of declining print influence, pre-censorship, and with me again is Professor Joseph Howe, Director of the Centre for Media Integrity in Victoria, B.C. Welcome, back professor.” (He nods politely to Romana Clay.) First, tell us what pre-censorship is and why it’s more dangerous to a healthy society than the profusion of infotainment.”...read more
Mind Over Media: The End of Newspapers
gregfelton.com (October 22, 2011)
ROMANA CLAY: “Welcome to Mind over Media, where the news is news. I’m Romana Clay. As should be obvious to anyone, the Internet has supplanted newspapers as the primary source of news for increasing numbers of people. Last year, a survey by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism found that 41% of respondents chose the Internet as their primary news source, whereas a mere 10% chose a newspaper. The proportion was highest, as might be expected, among people aged 18 to 29.
“But is this decline in newspaper popularity due to technological innovation, or are newspaper owners and editors chiefly responsible for its demise, and is this demise permanent? Today, we begin a two-part investigation of the declining relevance of print journalism with Professor Joseph Howe, Director of the Centre for Media Integrity in Victoria, B.C. Welcome to the show.”...read more
Turn off. Tune out. Unplug. Disbelieve.
gregfelton.com (September 7, 2011)
And so it begins. The compulsory veneration of the seminal event 10 years ago that gave us our national security state will dominate our media and be pounded into our consciousness. In newspapers, on TV and on radio we will be assaulted by endless replays of the World Trade Centre collapse, interviews with survivors or bereaved relatives, stories of pain and suffering, heroic portrayals of rescuers, and moralizing about the need to defend our freedoms. We will have drummed into us, subtly and not so subtly, the official story of how the U.S. was attacked by Muslim terrorists,and why we citizens must, for our own safety, willingly accept sacrifices to our civil liberties, the evisceration of the rule of law, the deaths of our soldiers in needless aggressions, and the mutation of our civilian police from law enforcers to law breakers. ...read more
Canada’s Adbusters magazine and the Israel Lobby
gregfelton.com (November 17, 2010)
In view of recent events, last week’s Remembrance Day commemorations ought to have been cancelled out of respect for the thousands of Canadian soldiers, airmen and sailors who gave their lives fighting fascism. It’s a cruel irony that we should be honouring Canadians who liberated Europe 60-65 years ago when Canadians at home are losing theirs today. The latest target of the Canadian Jewish Congress is Adbusters magazine, a counter-culture alternative to the pro-business, pro-Israel mainstream media. Publisher Kalle Lasn ran an article and a single pair of photos comparing the Nazi persecution of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to the Zionist persecution of native Palestinian Arabs in Gaza. The parallel is not perfect, but it’s very close, and politically relevant....read more
‘Leave it to Bieber’ pre-empts real news
gregfelton.com (October 25, 2010)
The concept of self-parody is clearly lost on Vancouver Sun Managing Editor Kirk LaPointe. I called him recently to find out what thinking lay behind the decision to run eight (!) feature stories on Justin Bieber à propos his Oct. 19 concert. Here’s what he said to me: “Look, I’m not going to give you an answer because that kind of question could harm the paper’s reputation.” Did I hear that right? B.C.’s newspaper of record spends eight editions fawning over a 16-year-old poptart, and LaPointe thinks that explaining the decision would adversely affect the Sun’s reputation? Sorry, Kirk, but it’s a bit late in the game to start caring about the Sun’s reputation. Besides, search parties are still out. It gets better....read more
The Globe and Mail shrinks in more than size
The Canadian Charger (go to original) (October 15, 2010)
Newspaper redesigns often have an air of financial desperation about them. Cajoling readers with different fonts, layout or paper size does little but add a transient sense of novelty that dissipates quickly. The Globe and Mail’s latest attempt to tart itself up is particularly sad. The daily broadsheet is now a pared-down, 11-inch-wide “narrowsheet” that looks as if it’s mutating into a tabloid. Editor-in-chief John Stackhouse said the redesign is the most significant in the paper’s history, but the radical reduction begs allusion to a hungry person who has been forced to tighten his belt, but nevertheless boasts how slim he looks. ...read more
New York Times cover-up of Park51-related anti-Muslim attack?
The Canadian Charger (August 27, 2010)
Since this piece was posted, a typical, hatred-infused American viciously attacked a Muslim cabbie in New York, an attack that has been linked to the Park51 project. Michael Enright, a 21-year-old film student who had been filming a boosterish documentary on marines in Afghanistan, slashed and stabbed the throat of Ahmed H. Sharif, a 44-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant. Enright started up a conversation with Sharif, during which Sharif said he was Muslim. The following account comes from the cityroomblog of The New York Times. ...read more
America—Land of the freak, home of the depraved
The Canadian Charger (August 27, 2010)
The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so Muslims should expect to receive the same protection afforded Jews or Christians. In fact, George Washington made a point of recognizing the need to protect Muslims from Christian persecution. So how come the government deliberately violates its own laws and moral precepts to incite hatred against Muslims, Muslim organizations and Muslim states? There’s no point looking for a rational explanation because there isn’t one. Such perverse behaviour cannot be defended legally, politically or morally within the context of any democratic state....read more
Libby Davies vs. Winnipeg Free Press
The Canadian Charger (June 25, 2010) Go to original)
Vancouver NDP MP Libby Davies did what no politician in a free society should ever have to do—she apologized for being honest. But then, Canada is not exactly a free society, is it? How could it be if a parliamentarian can be slandered, intimidated and browbeaten simply for expressing an honest political opinion? Unfortunately for Davies, Canada, like the U.S., is an occupied country where the Israel Lobby is the chief arbiter of truth....read more
War—beyond good and evil
gregfelton.com (May 13, 2010)
On the subject of war, Germany doesn’t exactly fare well in our culture. In fact, anti-German sentiment is integral to our shared part and our sense of ourselves. Every culture needs a mythic self-image to sell to its people and future generations, and our modern world defines itself by the defeat of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler. We associate the Germany of these men with war, injustice, destruction and cruelty. We, the Allies who defeated them, see ourselves as the epitome of peace, justice, progress and human rights. Each image is, of course, grossly simplistic and self-serving. ...read more
The Olympic Games were excellent; too bad about all the hype
gregfelton.com (March 10, 2010)
Like the vast majority of Canadians, I watched and enjoyed the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Despite the crassness of the “own the podium” campaign, I love the fact that Canadians won a record 14 gold medals. Having said that, I’m glad the games are over. In contrast to previous Olympics, when my enthusiasm got revved up around the start of the games and ended with the closing ceremonies, my enthusiasm for the Vancouver Olympics dissipated long before the opening ceremonies....read more
Did 2009 mark the beginning of the end of Israel?
Canadian Arab News (December 10, 2009)
One particular event cast a sickening pall over the entire year, and in doing so reminded us that our world became ever more violent and perverse in 2009. Although this event itself ended in January, its fallout continued and will be felt for years to come. I am referring, of course, to “Operation Cast Lead,” Israel’s attempted liquidation of the Gaza ghetto. The event is significant not only because it was premeditated slaughter, but also because it did incalculable damage to Israel’s propaganda industry. ...read more
Bombastic, bullying and preposterous—Netanyahu epitomizes the toxic hasbarat
gregfelton.com (October 25, 2009)
As we saw last time, the well-orchestrated campaign to “rebrand” Israel at the Toronto International Film Festival backfired. Not only did it attract the sort of negative publicity Israel’s propaganda (hasbara) department specifically sought to avoid, but the Israeli government’s role in it was publicly admitted.I brought up this example to illustrate the growing desperation and ineptitude of Israel’s propagandists. With nothing honest or credible to say in support of Israel, these “hasbarats” regurgitate tedious non-cognitive boilerplate that does more to discredit Israel than prop it up....read more
Israel’s propagandists shoot themselves in the foot as they shoot off their mouths
gregfelton.com (September 30, 2009)
If you have ever visited a blog or on-line discussion group on the Middle East you have doubtless had the misfortune to run into them. They are known by the language they use: depraved sexual insults, bile, bigotry, threats, disinformation and character assassination. That’s right: I’m talking about “hasbarats,” zionist trolls who infect the Internet with hasbara, pro-Israel propaganda. Of course, mainstream media hasbarats have been around for decades, as have “hasbaratchiks,” fifth-columns in foreign governments who subvert national policies to serve Israel. The Internet, though, is the latest, some might say the greatest, propaganda playground, and Israel cannot cope with factual, passionate, well-documented stories that expose its war crimes and unrepentant criminality....read more
Natural selection applies to modern dinosaurs, too.
Canadian Arab News (August 13, 2009)
Some 65 million years ago, as we all know, a huge asteroid ploughed into the Earth, changing life forever. The space rock hit with such force and generated such intense heat that it liquefied carbon deep within the Earth’s crust and ejected the resulting liquid into the atmosphere. There, it cooled to form a blanket of tiny beads that blocked out the sun. Virtually in an instant, 75 percent of all plant and animal life was wiped out… It’s possible, I suppose, that mammals, even man, might have evolved without cosmic assistance, but if early hominids and proto-hominids had to live alongside Tyrannosaurus and other predators, human civilization would almost certainly not have developed. In no small way, then, we humans owe our existence to natural selection caused by a freak accident....read more
Preconceptions hobble understanding of Iran
Canadian Arab News (July 9, 2009)
As much as I hate to admit it, neither Israel nor its colony on the Potomac is responsible for the unrest in Iran. It would be easy to charge zionist agents provocateurs with inciting popular unrest to challenge the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, since:
• Ahmadinejad is staunchly and overtly anti-zionist;
• Israel is itching to launch a premeditated attack on Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear power;
• Saudi Arabia agreed to allow Israel to overfly its territory for such an attack;
• Egypt permitted an Israeli nuclear submarine to pass through the Suez Canal for military exercises; and
• The U.S. has been conducting covert operations in Iran for years.....read more
In a corrupt world, nothing succeeds like satire
Canadian Arab News (June 15, 2009)
It’s amazing how much excitement a little wit and some basic computer artistry can generate. My satire of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as a man of principle and courage took on a life of its own as scores of websites and blogs posted it, debated it, and translated it. Reaction ran from jaw-dropping (albeit temporary) elation from those who thought Israel finally got what it deserves, to a collective colon purge among zionists who went into Defcon 4 panic mode....read more
One Year Later
The Book, The Library and the Lobby
Canadian Arab News (February 25, 2009)
Exactly one year ago today during "Freedom to Read" Week at the Vancouver Public Library, I did battle with The Lobby and won. Despite a co-ordinated attack from three Lobby agencies, and duplicitous sabotage by City Librarian Paul Whitney, I nevertheless managed to deliver a talk about my book The Host and The Parasite—How Israel’s Fifth Column Consumed America....read more
Propaganda, fraud and defamation were the year’s big stories (again)
Canadian Arab News (December 9, 2008)
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: ...read more
Frightened, ignorant and distracted—that’s how the media want us to act
Canadian Arab News (September 3, 2008)
News, like food, is something we consume every day, and what holds for the belly holds for the mind—“we are what we eat.” This analogy got me thinking about the documentary Supersize Me!, in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald’s fast food three times a day for a month. The heavily salted, high-fat diet affected his mental health and damaged his liver. He had to spend at least two months detoxifying. Now, imagine a film entitled Monopolize Me! in which a whole society is fed a steady toxic monodiet of highly processed, Christian-fried, pro-business, Israeli propaganda. ...read more
Human Rights Tribunal’s neither good nor bad—just necessary, unfortunately
Canadian Arab News (August 11, 2008)
“Men should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution, for it is their salvation.” —Aristotle, Politics, Book V, Chapter 9
The human rights case against Maclean’s magazine, discussed in my last column, has significance beyond the anti-Muslim defamation that writer Mark Steyn is charged with committing. Of much greater importance is the smear campaign being launched against the country’s human rights tribunals in the mainstream media and by unhinged bloggers. ...read more
Memo to The Lobby’s media tyrants: defamation is not protected speech
Canadian Arab News (July 8, 2008)
The tyrant, by his nature, exists in a state of war with the society he governs. The interests of the state, the government and the tyrant are collapsed into a singularity, so a challenge to any act of government is deemed to be a threat to tyrant’s authority, and hence the state. Because the tyrant’s right to rule is illegitimate, it must be maintained by constant application of coercive force. There is no respect for the public good or the rule of law, for that would presuppose the existence of a higher, objective moral and legal authority...read more
Although he’d be the first black president, don’t expect Obama to abolish slavery
Canadian Arab News (June 10, 2008)
Barring a third act of electoral fraud, Americans will go to the polls in November to make Barack Obama Israel’s next U.S. governor. That’s about the best voters could have hoped for out of the display of pandering and prostitution known as “the primaries.” Sen. John McCain has unresolved sanity issues, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is just an overeager warmongering whore for Israel. At least with Obama’s defeat of Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Americans have a real human being to vote for. ...read more
‘By way of defamation, thou shalt do war’— the slogan of The Lobby’s propagandists
Canadian Arab News (April 14, 2008)
Much like the U.S. banking industry, Israel’s propaganda industry is facing collapse. The “currency” of zionist propaganda is irredeemably debased and The Lobby faces a dwindling market for its propaganda, especially among Jews and Jewish academics. Last September, a study by the American Jewish Committee found a growing generational chasm between older and younger U.S Jews. ...read more
‘By way of intimidation, thou shalt do war’— the slogan of The Lobby’s thought police
Canadian Arab News (March 11, 2008)
When I approached the Vancouver Public Library last fall about about presenting my book The Host and the Parasite—How Israel’s Fifth Column Consumed America, program director Barbara Edwards suggested that, given its controversial nature, I wait until February to take advantage of “Freedom to Read Week.” I agreed, but still warned her that the library would likely come under great pressure and harassment from The Lobby to cancel it, since Israel’s mouthpieces don’t believe that freedom of speech applies to critics of Israel. ...read more
Hollywood writers strike a sorry spectacle
Canadian Arab News (January 7, 2008)
Another New Year's Day has come and gone. (Tweeeeet!) We can all thank the Roman senate, which in 153 BCE, moved the celebration from the onset of spring to the agriculturally and astronomically irrelevant beginning of January. Seems excessive tinkering by successive emperors had pushed the event out of sync with the Sun, and so the senators had to come up with a solution. Speaking of things being out of sync—how’s that for a segue!—the Hollywood writers strike that began in October has carried on into the new year. ...read more
Ebenezer Scrooge—The real spirit of Christmas
gregfelton.com (December 24, 2007)
Few traditions at this time of year are as enduring as watching the 1951 movie A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sim. I cite the movie, not Charles Dickens’s original 1843 story, for two reasons. First, we live in a post-literate age where reading as a pasttime now comes a distant fourth to movies, TV and video games. Second, unlike most book-to-film adaptations, the film is widely acknowledged to be better than the book, despite some arbitrary rewriting, like changing Scrooge's fiancée from “Belle” to “Alice” and giving her a less happy future. ...read more
Ottawa MD makes case for amateur journalism, political activism, and cultural understanding
gregfelton.com (October 18, 2007)
Anyone interested in finding out the facts about Palestine, the crumbling U.S. economy, the destruction of the U.S. military or the treasonous activity of the Israel Lobby knows better than to rely on daily newspapers or TV newscasts. As our "mainstream" journalism degenerates further and further into disinformation, censorship, fearmongering and infotainment, amateurs and Internet writers have become increasingly vital sources of uncensored news and commentary ...read more
Rebellion, apathy or self-delusion—how do you respond to oppression?
Canadian Arab News (October 11, 2007)
I spent much of the winter and spring of 1979 at the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language in Moscow. For the previous 3.5 years I had studied Russian language, literature, history and politics from the comfort—some might say, isolation—of Canadian universities. Now, I found myself in a country where the state determined what people believed; an omnipresent security apparatus enforced intellectual and behavioural conformity; and the very act of speaking to a foreigner was cause for police interrogation. ...read more
Even those we admire can succumb to bias and cognitive dissonance
Canadian Arab News (September 6, 2007)
When Robert Fisk speaks, people listen. They should. This long-time Beirut-based reporter for The Independent has distinguished himself as a rare voice of integrity when mass-media Middle East reporting has become ever more reflexively pro-Israel, pro-war, anti-Arab and downright irrational… Consequently, whether he likes it or not, Fisk has attained celebrity status and people put great store by what he says. For that reason he should take greater care when he expresses an opinion on a subject outside of his field of expertise. ...read more
Academic freedom doesn’t extend to those who speak out against Israel
Canadian Arab News (August 9, 2007)
The equation of Western democracy with individual freedom, equality and the rule of law is the great conceit that informs our perception of good and evil states. Naturally, we live in a “good” state, whereas states that do not respect these three fundamental tenets, like Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, are “evil.” I chose this religious terminology deliberately because it depicts a fallacious moral dichotomy. We are taught to associate the abovementioned states (among others) with concentration camps, genocide, enforced conformity, propaganda, hatred and intellectual censorship. In so doing we also reinforce the convenient illusion that these repressive practices are inapplicable to “good” states like ours. ...read more
Juxtaposing casuistry against honesty doesn’t add up to editorial balance
Canadian Arab News (July 19, 2007)
To illustrate the willful ignorance that plagues mainstream news reporting—as if further proof were necessary—I’d like to describe the bizarre behaviour of a local radio station after I called to inquire about its international coverage. During the noon newscast, I heard yet another negative story about Iran, this time concerning the country’s high execution rate of minors. What bothered me was not the story itself, but why CKNW decided to inflict this particular one on its listeners. True, every news story is worth telling if it’s accurate and can be justified to the station’s audience, but there are dozens of stories out of the Middle East far more important and relevant than this one. ...read more
As major events unfold, the media keeps us ignorant and distracted
Canadian Arab News (July 5, 2007)
To illustrate the willful ignorance that plagues mainstream news reporting—as if further proof were necessary—I’d like to describe the bizarre behaviour of a local radio station after I called to inquire about its international coverage. During the noon newscast, I heard yet another negative story about Iran, this time concerning the country’s high execution rate of minors. What bothered me was not the story itself, but why CKNW decided to inflict this particular one on its listeners. True, every news story is worth telling if it’s accurate and can be justified to the station’s audience, but there are dozens of stories out of the Middle East far more important and relevant than this one. ...read more
Maginot Line of censorship and disinformation outflanked in the belly of the zionist beast
Canadian Arab News (May 24, 2007)
If you’ve ever looked through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars you know that objects appear smaller and more distant than they really are. For a government involved in an illegal war, especially a genocidal war against a civilian population, this is the perspective on the violence it expects the media to present for domestic consumption. Whereas the media gets exorcised if a single Jew gets his hair mussed, the suffering of Arabs is portrayed as distant, indiscernible, yet morally justifiable and the war againste them eternally “winnable.” ...read more
Censorship and libel await those who apply DNA tests to prove Israel’s fascist paternity
Canadian Arab News (April 26, 2007)
The divide between pointed commentary and bigoted effluvium is, like everything else in the media, defined by political interests. The intrinsic merit, or demerit, of a comment is virtually irrelevant compared with the political clout of the party on the receiving end of the comment. Radio shlock-jock Don Imus got punted from his morning show on NBC because he grossly insulted the black members of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. What Imus said was gratuitous, ignorant and does not bear repeating, but the fact that he lost his radio show over it, despite abject public contrition, says less about Imus’s unfitness to host a radio show than the political power that blacks and women have won over the last 40 years. . ...read more
Ontario Press Council refused to acknowledge proof of plagiarism in Globe and Mail editorial
Canadian Arab News (March 22, 2007)
The Globe and Mail was guilty. The evidence said it was guilty. So what happened to the men and women of the Ontario Press Council impaneled to evaluate the charge of plagiarism? Well, they decided to ignore the evidence and allow Globe representative Patrick Martin to pollute the hearing with irrelevant arguments and casuistic digressions. The judgment handed down on March 14 reflected these digressions, and so was marginally less inane than editor-in-chief Eddie Greenspon’s non-cognitive retort to me when I brought up this same evidence in March 2006. ...read more
Internet supplements provide nutrients lacking in our low-info mainstream diet
Canadian Arab News (March 8, 2007)
Journalists, as a rule, are no longer meant to inform the public. Where once one could argue that most of them served the public interest and abided by H.L. Mencken’s maxim “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” those who report and interpret the news now come under great pressure to distort the truth, censor themselves (or be censored), and serve certain interest groups, lest they take offence at being afflicted. ...read more
To bring about political climate change we must face many inconvenient truths
Canadian Arab News (February 8, 2007)
An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary on climate change by former vice-president Al Gore—the real winner of the 2000 election—proves conclusively that global warming is a man-made problem. The best example comes about a quarter of the way into the movie when Gore presents a double graph showing how temperatures rise as concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide go up. Although this conclusion is hardly newsworthy in itself, the time scale involved makes it highly significant. It is based on an analysis of Antarctic ice cores, which have preserved climatic records going back 650,000 years! Over that time, the concentration of CO2 never exceeded 300 parts per million—until now. ...read more
Israel rewrites history with impunity, but Iran is vilified for discussing it
Canadian Arab News (January 18, 2007)
After the end of the 1967 War, UN Security Council Resolution 242 mandated that Israel withdraw its military forces behind the 1949 Green Line that demarcated Occupied Palestine (Israel) from Palestinian Territory. It was not a formal border, but rather an armistice line. Despite the unequivocal voice of the international commuunity in this matter, Israel has maintained its illegal occupation. To make matters worse, all subsequent attempts to negotiate a peace with Palestine, once Israel was forced to recognize the refugees in its midst, has been predicated on using the Green Line as a basis for a permanent settlement. ...read more
Israel’s thugs sink deeper into the cesspit of defamation, denigration and denial
Canadian Arab News (December 21, 2006)
An empire in its death throes is not a pretty sight. The more desperately its rulers cling to power in the face of impending defeat, the more they hasten its demise. The more its rulers fight to preserve their rule, the more the empire is sacrificed to serve selfish, repressive wants. By the time Odoacer entered Rome and became the first Germanic king of Italy in 476, the Roman Empire had long since self-destructed. It had become exhausted and consumed by repression, bigotry, murder, and class warfare. When “barbarians” invaded the people had neither the strength nor the inclination to defend Rome. ...read more
Canada needs a healthy expression of honest anger
Canadian Arab News (September 21, 2006)
Those of us of a certain age remember…Network, the great 1976 satire about the lurid, ratings-driven world of network news. The movie is memorable for many reasons, not the least of which is Peter Finch’s portrayal of deranged newsman Howard Beale, whose iconoclastic fulminations changed him from a suicidal ratings failure into a champion of the masses and a ratings gold mine for the station—for a while, at least. The movie is told from the normal point of view of the smarmy network executives. I say “normal’ because their speech, behaviour and attire are consistent with our standards of modern Western society. Beale, on the other hand, screams, gesticulates wildly and is dishevelled, yet he represent truth. Herein lies the film’s genius. ...read more
Freedom of thought has no meaning for those who prefer the prison of their own prejudices
Canadian Arab News (September 7, 2006)
There are, of course, synaptically alert people like Barry Zwicker who have steadfastly refused to swallow the conspiratorial nonsense about two aircraft being able to bring down steel framed buildings, or a passenger aircraft with a 125-ft. wingspan making a 16-ft. hole in the Pentagon. But these people are still the exception rather than the rule. Most of us—those of us who aren’t sick to death of it—will willingly embrace the official narrative put forth by the official priesthood. We will put our critical faculties on hold as we sincerely and compassionately listen to the earnest testimonials and reflections of people who helped with the rescue or just happened to be in New York that day. ...read more
Honourable Jews must be neither seen nor heard
Canadian Arab News (August 24, 2006)
…The equation of Zionism with Judaism is a well-known lie, and zionist Jews who use it to justify Israel’s atrocities are finding themselves going up against increasing numbers of honourable Jews who are appalled at what is being done in the name of their religion. ...read more
Israel, The Lobby and their acolytes perform a hatchet job on Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario
Canadian Arab News (June 8, 2006)
Zionists must wage a constant battle against critical thought and historical accuracy, lest the fallacy of Israel’s “democracy” and reality of Palestinian destitution under Occupation become as culturally entrenched as that other holocaust—you know, the one led by Adolf, Hermann and Heinrich.…The latest victim of this gangsterism is the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees for its support of the global boycott of Israel led by the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. ...read more
‘Smoking gun’ fax proves The Lobby directed defamation of Jewish professor at York U.
gregfelton.com (May 30, 2006)
When last we met Professor David Noble on Dec. 9, 2004, he had just begun a $10 million libel action against his employer York University and the Canadian Jewish Congress, which also might as well be called his employer. That’s what all the fuss is about.…On Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006, the university administration finally released a copy of the fax informing it of Noble's flyer. The date of the fax (below) and the signatories prove that off-campus activists for The Lobby engineered the defamation of Noble and that York’s administration was complicit.• address charges of plagiarism and unethical conduct directed at the Globe’s editorialist; and
...read more
Globe resorts to disreputable ‘Dershowitz Defence’
Canadian Arab News (April 19, 2006)
On March 29, The Coalition of Arab Canadian Professionals and Community Associations (CAPCA) served the Globe and Mail editorial board and publisher with a petition signed by itself and numerous individuals and associations. The undersigned demanded that the Globe:
• issue a correction and an apology regarding its Feb. 15 editorial.
• address charges of plagiarism and unethical conduct directed at the Globe’s editorialist; and
• develop relationships, both formal and informal, with Canadian groups that can help provide full Arab, and Palestinian, perspectives regarding the Globe’s Middle East content and be able to show that such relationships have been sought and established. ...read more
Our craven, incurious media treats the show trial of Zacarias Moussaoui as news instead of farce
Canadian Arab News (April 19, 2006)
Did Zacarias Moussaoui have anything to do with the attack on the World Trade Center, and should he face the death penalty in connection with the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans? These questions go the very reason Moussaoui is on trial in a Virginia courtroom, yet they are largely irrelevant to the trial itself. The real defendant is not Moussaoui, but the “war on terrorism” and the official fictions that support it. The trail serves to show that the official version of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is accurate; to show that the government is waging and winning the “war on terrorism”; and to show the American public that justice is being done in their name. ...read more
Editor-in-Chief excuses defamation, plagiarism
Canadian Arab News (March 16, 2006)
Edward Greenspon’s reaction to Marcus Gee’s plagiarism has been lamentably predictable, and indicative of the declining calibre of the Globe and Mail—deny and duck for cover. Clearly, the paper’s integrity counts for nothing when Israel’s main mouthpiece is under fire. ...read more
Globe and Mail’s anti-Hamas editorial reveals plagiarism, prejudice and Israeli servitude
Canadian Arab News (March 2, 2006)
Anyone who has ever had the dubious pleasure of reading Marcus Gee’s opinion columns on the Middle East and the U.S. knows how impossible they are to digest. To write, for example, that George Bush aids democracy; that Israel’s Wall is defensible; or that Palestinian refugees have no inherent right of return shows contempt for honest argument, accurate research and respect for the Globe and Mail’s readers.…So long as Gee penned his poisoned prattle under his own name he risked only his own reputation. Now, in his capacity as editorial page editor, Gee’s zionist hubris has tainted the reputation of the entire paper. “People still need context, they still need background, they still need insight and relevant commentary,” he told the CBC. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But consider the source. ...read more
Holocaust histrionics and defamation give new meaning to the term Middle East ‘coverage’
gregfelton.com (February 26, 2006)
Since late 1947, Zionist Jews have been waging genocide against Palestinian Arabs. By all that is logical, this atrocity should have dominated our news and those responsible should already have been tried and convicted of war crimes. The fact that this hasn’t happened is entirely due to the Perverse Paradox of Great Crime. ...read more
Nobody has the right to spread slander, libel or bigotry in the name of freedom of speech
Canadian Arab News (February 16, 2006)
“Why should we insult and upset an important part of our audience for absolutely no public value?” —Tony Burman, editor-in-chief of CBC News
Pay attention to the end of the above quote—“absolutely no public value.” The point is not that the cartoons of Muhammad insulted or upset Muslims—offensive speech is defensible—but they gratuitously and maliciously enraged Muslims by falsely equating Islam with legitimate armed resistance to Israel’s illegal Occupation of Palestine. ...read more
Ken Whyte blackens the reputation of Maclean’s
Canadian Arab News (February 2, 2006)
Last Feb. 14, Canada’s venerable newsmagazine got a new boss. Kenneth Whyte took over from editor-in-chief Anthony Wilson-Smith, who resigned for personnel reasons, and also took on the role of publisher. Upon being appointed, Whyte pledged to build upon his predecessor’s editorial reforms and make Maclean’s “more relevant and more talked about.” “People still need context, they still need background, they still need insight and relevant commentary,” he told the CBC. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But consider the source. ...read more
Hariri assassination coverage gives readers the hole story
Canadian Arab News (October 27, 2005)
At last, the truth about Judith Miller is out. This anti-Arab White House stenographer can no longer pass herself off as a reporter, with all the ethical criteria that that word implies.…One would hope that the [New York] Times’ disgrace would serve as a lesson to other newspapers to report facts not fabrications about the Middle East, and ensure that all points of view are properly represented, even to the extent of agreeing with unpopular régimes. Lamentably, this rather obvious lesson is lost on the Globe and Mail and its new foreign editor Stephen Northfield. ...read more
Gazans finally win but their tormentors get all the attention
Canadian Arab News (August 18, 2005)
Throughout North America, the pro-Israel media have trained us to identify Palestinians as “terrorists.” Reactions against military or “settler” violence have been depicted as aggressions, whereas “settler” murders of Palestinians, airstrikes against cities, refugee camp invasions, and mass demolitions of homes and orchards have been portrayed as legitimate, defensive measures. It should come as no great surprise, then, that the reporting of Israel’s pullout of the Gaza Strip and eviction of Jewish colonists has been grossly distorted for the benefit of Israel. ...read more.
Spector of hypocrisy wages petty war against CBC’s honest reporting
Canadian Arab News (August 4, 2005)
Nothing is more dangerous for a media propagandist than the unbiased use of language. Words are the tools of independent thought, and since independent thought is the enemy of the dissembler, words cannot be allowed to have objective meaning. They must be reduced to buzzwords—moral brickbats to be used to bludgeon “the enemy” and warp the public mind. Thus, it comes to pass that Norman Spector is again riding one of his favourite hobby horses—the CBC’s refusal to use “terrorism” to describe Muslim resistance fighters. ...read more
As the Globe spins: Editors and hacks have no need of facts
Canadian Arab News (July 21, 2005)
Another bombing—another anti-Muslim feeding frenzy at Canada’s national newspaper, or what passes for one. This time, the bigotry was openly displayed in a sanctimonious and odious July 14 editorial. ...read more
As the Globe spins: Sound news judgment? Not on the front page
Canadian Arab News (July 7, 2005)
I recently had an all-too-brief e-mail exchange with Globe and Mail managing editor Colin MacKenzie. I was curious to know why Canada’s national newspaper was virtually deaf, dumb and blind to the incendiary “Downing Street memo.” The memo, which was leaked to Sunday Times of London reporter Michael Smith, and published this May 1, details the degree to which the Bush government premeditated its assault on Iraq; knew that such an assault was illegal; and schemed to manufacture propaganda to mask the illegality. ...read more
As the Globe spins: Middle East correspondent worse than none
Canadian Arab News (June 9, 2005)
Foreign correspondents add considerable credibility and flavour to a newspaper. First-hand accounts of people and politicians provide the context and analysis that the homogeneous mass of wire service copy does not usually provide. In the case of the Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon, we have an example of a correspondent who does precisely the opposite. ...read more
Newsweek—your source for yellow-bellied journalism
Canadian Arab News (May 26, 2005)
During the last four years rumour, innuendo and character assassination have defined North American journalism regarding the Middle East. Any official White House or Pentagon pronouncement—no matter how ludicrous, specious or unsubstantiated—is reported as if it had a basis in fact. The state of journalism is so debased that, in the White House press briefing room, respected veteran reporter Helen Thomas was banished to the back row for asking an intelligent question, and a phony reporter (“Jeff Gannon”) who pandered to Bush’s official mouthpiece was treated with respect, until he was exposed. ...read more
As the Globe Spins: Selective reporting obscures Natan Sharansky’s hypocrisy and bigotry
Canadian Arab News (May 12, 2005)
Reputations, like résumés, need updating from time to time lest they grow stale and misleading. This fact is especially true regarding Jews who are perceived to be “human rights” activists....Now, one of [Irwin] Cotler’s causes célèbres is in the news, and the pro-Israel media, including the Globe and Mail, prefer to churn out boilerplate than do a proper job of reporting....read more
As the Globe spins: Why bother with intelligent analysis
when there’s brass to polish?
Canadian Arab News (April 28, 2005)
As expected, the Globe and Mail endorsed George W. Bush’s choice to head the World Bank. Despite vigorous international critics and pleas from Bank staff, ultrazionist warmonger Paul Wolfowitz was appointed unanimously. One can only imagine the arm-twisting, and bribery that Bush had to employ to overcome Wolfowitz’s severe political handicaps. I mean “imagine” in the literal sense because the Globe’s chief editorial on the subject told its readers next to nothing useful about the man or his qualifications for the position....read more
As the Globe spins: Editorial looks tough, but lacks credibility
Canadian Arab News (April 14, 2005)
The propagandist’s greatest asset is the perception of reasonableness, because his power comes directly from the public’s willingness to believe what it’s told. A useful tactic in this regard is a self-criticism to mitigate the fallout from highly damaging news. Take the Globe and Mail’s seemingly aggressive March 11 editorial that condemned Israel’s construction of 105 illegal settlements in the West Bank. ...read more
As the Globe spins: Associated Press more a news filter
than a news source
Canadian Arab News March 31, 2005)
Like a lot of major newspapers, the Globe and Mail relies on wire services for much of its foreign reporting. Wires provide mountains of stories at a fraction of the cost of maintaining a foreign bureau, but quantity does not equal quality, as we see in the dispatches from the Associated Press and its reporter Matthew Kalman. Kalman figures prominently in major stories in Occupied Palestine, but his reporting is transparently pro-zionist and anti-Arab. It is not news so much as it is covert propaganda designed to cast Israel in the most favourable light. ...read more
As the Globe spins: Coverage of Lebanon’s demonstrations
doesn’t tell whole story
Canadian Arab News (March 17, 2005)
The Globe and Mail’s March 15 cover story on Lebanon’s anti-Syria demonstration is typical of how bias can colour a story that is essentially accurate in its specific details. The points to note here are assumptions and suggestive juxtapositions that are allowed to colour the tone of the reporting, thus giving it a generally pro-U.S./pro-Israel slant. ...read more
Unsettling behaviour challenges zionists’ moral comfort zone
Canadian Arab News (March 17, 2005)
A true believer is a master of self-delusion. Without it, the highly selective moral universe that sustains him cannot survive. Real-world counterarguments and honest criticism must be denigrated and rationalized away because they explode the perversity of the dogmatic verities that give the true believer his sense of moral superiority and peace of mind. For Israel’s media Jews, defending the zionist faith while remaining deaf, dumb and blind to Israel’s holocaust against Palestinians leads them to commit contortions of logic and cognitive dissonance. ...read more
Marcus Gee the very model of a modern media prostitute
Canadian Arab News (March 3, 2005)
These are tough times for fans of fascism, especially those in the media who make their reputations (such as they are) shilling for Israel and the U.S. The more we learn about U.S. corruption in Iraq or zionist repression in Palestine, the harder and more desperately these scribblers have to work to convince us that black is white, tyranny is democracy and slavery is freedom. I can only surmise that it was this sort of desperation that led Marcus Gee to write two such monumentally dishonest columns on Feb. 23 and March 2. ...read more
Radio station rolls over and crushes host
Canadian Arab News February 17, 2005)
The most powerful instrument of censorship is not a church, media monopolist, lobby group, or secret military agency. It is the fear they engender in us—fear of losing a job, fear of ostracism, fear of losing money, fear of being sued, or in extreme cases fear of being arrested. This reaction, this internal censor, effectively inhibits people from expressing informed, contrary opinions, even though such a right is guaranteed under the Constitution. ...read more.
Prejudice and distortion constitute honest reporting’ when a Muslim speaks plainly
Canadian Arab News (November 11, 2004
Canadians who never heard of Mohamed Elmasry before last month, likely do now. The president of the Canadian Islamic Congress made a comment on Michael Coren’s television show that threw the zionist lobby and their media minions into a collective tantrum. At issue was Elmasry’s definition of the acceptable use military force by Palestinians: ...read more
National Post gives stupidity a bad name
Alberta Arab News (September 30, 2004)
After a case of clear-cut misconduct has been discovered, the perpetrator will react in one of five ways: honestly (apologize and take his medicine); invisibly (keep his head down and hope the problem blows over); dishonestly (point the finger at someone else); cowardly (run away); or stupidly (justify it, thereby compounding his disgrace). For some reason, Kelly McParland chose stupidity. Before we get to him and who he is, here’s the misconduct in question. ...read more
Coverage of Sept. 11 anniversary fosters cult of martyrdom and manipulation
Alberta Arab News (September 16, 2004)
Well, another Sept. 11 anniversary has come and gone. I thought this year’s seemed more subdued, less fraught with anxiety. Perhaps after three years the attack no longer has the same immediacy; perhaps the U.S.’s record of murder, stupidity and greed in Iraq have started to make us uneasy about condemning Arabs as terrorists. ...read more
The New York Times: All the misinformation fit to print
Alberta Arab News (September 2, 2004)
Respectable journalism has lost a lot of respectability over the last few years. Reporters Jayson Blair (New York Times), Janet Cooke (Washington Post) Stephen Glass, (New Republic), Patricia Smith (Boston Globe) and Jay Forman (Slate) were all caught embellishing stories or lying outright. ...read more
U.S. disinformation no match for al-Jazeera’s honest reporting
Alberta Arab News (August 19, 2004)
Eventually, al-Jazeera will be as commonplace on Canadian television as BBC or CNN. For this evolution to occur, the Jewish Lobby’s libel of “offensive content” against the Qatari satellite station must be exploded. In my last column, I showed how easy this is to do. Nevertheless, the Lobby and the spineless CRTC have for the moment chosen to deny Canadians access to honest coverage of the Middle East. ...read more
Prior restraint proves Canada’s hate laws must be repealed
Alberta Arab News (August 5, 2004)
As we all know, what’s good for democracy is bad for the Jewish Lobby, so its role in sabotaging last month’s bid by cable companies to carry al-Jazeera should surprise no one. Yes, the CRTC approved the Arabic satellite channel, but set such onerous conditions on cable companies that the legal and financial risks of recording and monitoring all of al-Jazeera’s programs outweighed any potential benefits from new subscribers. ...read more
Gee, the Globe and Mail need a lesson in honest commentary
Alberta Arab News (July 22, 2004)
Exactly one month ago, Glasgow University came out with a study that found that Britons who watched ITV and BBC television news had a grossly distorted impression of the Middle East. Many of those surveyed thought the Palestinians were the occupiers, and some even believed them to be refugees from Afghanistan, which isn’t even an Arab country! ...read more
The massacre that dare not speak its name
Alberta Arab News (April 15, 2004)
What took place in the Jenin refugee camp two years ago on April 3 didn’t happen, if the North American media are to be believed. No massacre took place. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians weren’t gunned down or buried alive in the rubble of their homes. Arab children didn’t die lingering deaths because they were denied medical attention. No, none of this happened. Why? The Sharon government said so, and its version of events gained wide acceptance because our media are too afraid or indifferent to stand up to the local zionist lobbies. ...read more
Zionism’s willing dissemblers abet Palestinian misery
Alberta Arab News (April 1, 2004) For Palestinians, the fight for justice has been an uphill battle that predates the creation of Israel. Not only have they had to fight against illegal occupation, they’ve had to fight overwhelming Jewish sympathy and media prejudice. ...read more
B’nai Brith--preposterous purveyor of propaganda
Alberta Arab News (March 4, 2004)
As surely as night follows day, B’nai Brith can be counted on to rubbish any politician who dares criticize po’ l’il Israel. The most recent recipient of abuse is Liberal MP Pat O’Brien, who said Israel’s wall denies basic rights to the Palestinians and further reduces the West Bank and Gaza Strip to concentration camps. ...read more
Media comes out the loser in political forum
Alberta Arab News (December 3, 2003)
If recent trends continue, Canadians could wake up one morning to find their democracy all but gone. Falling voter turnout, incompetent politicians and a sensationalist press have all contributed to a culture where public service is no longer a respected career. ...read more
Internet outflanks zionists ‘Maginot Line
Alberta Arab News (December 3, 2003)
Given their influence in government and media, one would think that North American zionists would feel rather contented.... Nevertheless, zionists are clearly disturbed. For all of their clout, they have lost credibility and influence, especially among younger Canadians. ...read more
Lies, damn lies, and lynching the truth
Alberta Arab News (November 14, 2003)
If you want to commit fraud, go into the movie business. There, you can misrepresent people, and fabricate facts and events with impunity. Nobody will say: “You can’t do that; that’s not the way it happened.” Nobody will drag you before a board of ethics, or demand that your “artistic licence” be revoked. Accuracy is not allowed to get in the way of making money. If it did, The Untouchables, U-571 or Exodus would never have been made. ...read more
Straight dodges bullet; Sun shoots self in foot
Al-Shorouq (November 2003)
Among the titles heaped upon recently deceased CanWest founder Israel Asper, “thug” was conspicuously absent. Of course, one isn’t meant to speak ill of the dead, especially the barely cold, but the damage Asper and his gormless spawn have wrought on Canadian journalism will doubtless be his most lasting legacy. ... read more
Arab News helps Canada inch toward a free press
Alberta Arab News (October 30, 2003)
Imagine what our understanding of the Middle East would be like if we had a free press. Newspapers, radio and television would carry stories with headlines such as:
“Barak’s ‘generous offer’ a fraud; Arafat right to reject”;
“U.S. Security Council veto abets war crimes against Palestinians”;
“30% of Palestinian children under five chronically malnourished; and
“Israel founded on terror and theft.”... read more
Zionists practise art of repression
Al-Shorouq (October 2003)
In last month’s column, I showed the cause and effect between a BBC World broadcast of a documentary on Israel’s nuclear program and Israel’s need to censor uncomfortable truths... But the war on truth is waged on more than one front, which means zionists can’t put all their mud in one sling. ...read more
Israel finds BBC too truthful for comfort
Al-Shorouq (July 2003)
To sustain a fundamental lie over the long term, a propagandist must do more than disseminate false or misleading information; he must also wage a perpetual war against truth. No lie can long survive without frequent censorship and intimidation of critics, because lies are like radioactive atoms—highly unstable. ...read more
The whole world’s watching!
Al-Shorouq (June 2003)
In his 1985 television series The Day the Universe Changed, James Burke presents 10 stories of how scientific knowledge and culture combined to change our world. Each begins with an advancement that begins to redefine our worldview—our “universe”—and then through a chain of events leads to a major innovation, like modern medicine, the production assembly line or evolutionary theory. ...read more
Jewish prism steals light from Arabs
Al-Shorouq (May 2003)
The Toronto Globe and Mail claims that it provides its readers with the most comprehensive “perspective” on the news. Such self-serving statements must be taken with mass quantities of salt, but when compared to, say, the National Post, the claim certainly seems to have a grain of truth. ...read more
Thought and propaganda in the media
Al-Shorouq (April 2003)
If you’ve ever wondered how truth became the first casualty of war, look at the way Canada’s media cover Arabs and Muslims; or rather, how they don’t. Except for a few journalists like the CBC’s Neil Macdonald and Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis, balanced and fair reporting in the national media is virtually non-existent. ...read more
National Post a national disgrace
mediamonitors.net (August 19, 2002)
Imagine you’re a juror at a criminal trial and the time comes to decide the fate of the defendant. During the trial, however, only the prosecution was allowed to present evidence, and defence council was not allowed to cross-examine witnesses. Moreover, the judge embellished the prosecution’s case in his charge to the jury. How do you render an informed verdict? ...read more
National Post prizes propaganda over principle
Vancouver Courier (December 26, 2000)
Somewhere on the front page of Conrad Black’s National Post you’d think there would be a picture of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Twice this fall, the paper’s editors and editorialists failed spectacularly to impose their proprietor’s political Weltanschauung on the Canadian public. ...read more
Readers hoping for news get railroaded by celebrity Twain
Vancouver Courier (August 13, 2000)
On its front page The Province boasts of being “B.C.’s best-read newspaper.” This presupposes, of course, that the Province is actually a newspaper, a publication that delivers news (important information) to its readership. Of late, that supposition is hard to sustain. With the Aug. 7 issue, the “Tab,” as it’s affectionately known, plumbed such depths of journalistic shallowness that it’s worth wondering if its editors can distinguish legitimate news from prurient trivia and celebrity worship ...read more
American transfusion can help newspaper circulation
Vancouver Courier (May 21, 2000)
Soon after media giants Hollinger and Thomson announced plans to sell the majority of their newspaper holdings—in Thomson’s case everything but the Globe and Mail—Heritage Minister Sheila Copps had an epiphany: Canada has to do something about the concentration of ownership, and reform the rules governing foreign newspaper investment. At present, the limit on non-Canadian ownership is 25 per cent, which means that the only buyers who can afford to bid for the dozens of dailies and non-dailies collectively up for grabs are, you guessed it, other Canadian media giants—Torstar and Quebecor, to be precise. ...read more
Sound and fury against Garr column signifies nothing
Vancouver Courier (May 14, 2000)
William Jennings Bryan died on June 26, 1925, five days after “successfully” prosecuting John Thomas Scopes for teaching evolution in a Tennessee school. Here’s how the great American editor H.L. Mencken a month later concluded Bryan’s obituary: “Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was arrogant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had travelled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded of childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you imagine everything he was not. The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.”...read more
All news not equally fit to print
Vancouver Courier (May 2, 1999)
Have you ever come across a newspaper story that you think you’ve read before? Chances are you have. One of the shortcomings of news reporting is that much of what gets printed, or broadcast for that matter, isn’t really news....read more
Human rights grandstanding breeds Malaysian malaise
Vancouver Courier (December 5, 1998)
Memo to Jean Chrétien: Don’t piss off your host if you expect his country to buy Canadian. This ain’t rocket science; it’s just good business. After all, a trade mission is supposed to drum up business, not just rack up frequent flyer miles and score a keen looking jacket. ...read more
Conrad Black’s credo: All the news that’s fit to own
Vancouver Courier (November 8, 1998)
To appreciate how sick this country is, you need look no further than the daily newspaper—in more ways than one. Every day seems to bring reports of yet another big-business merger or proposed merger. ...read more.
National Post impaled on its own hubris
Vancouver Courier (November 1, 1998)
On Tuesday, Canada became a little blacker, yet from this blackness emerged a light; nay, not so much a light, as a journalistic recrudescence. A new national newspaper was born. After many false labours, Conrad Black’s new conservative organ finally issued forth, albeit in spurts. Suffice to say, it was a difficult delivery. ...read more.
Papers learn to be Black like David
Vancouver Courier (September 27, 1998)
With friends like publisher David Black, opponents of the Nisga’a Treaty don’t need enemies. By now you’ve heard that Black, who owns 60 community papers in B.C., banned any pro-treaty commentary and demanded that his editors adhere to a strict anti-treaty editorial policy. Furthermore, to ensure his papers toe the party line, Black commissioned constitutional expert Mel Smith to write eight approved lectures that point out the treaty’s dangers. ...read more
Celebrity worship breeds bad journalism
Vancouver Courier (September 6, 1998)
How now, Sing Tao? So far, most of the comments about UBC’s new journalism school concern its name, “The Sing Tao School of Journalism.” As you read in last Sunday’s Vancouver Courier, critics charge that the name implies corporate control of education; others say pish-posh—a name’s just a name....read more
Readers tune out as journalism loses its rigour
Vancouver Courier (August 9, 1998)
One of the biggest newsmakers today is the news. In the last couple of months, a Boston Globe columnist was found to have fabricated information and CNN was forced to repudiate a major investigative story. The story of Operation Tailwind, about the use of sarin nerve gas by U.S. forces in Laos in 1970, was found to be entirely unsubstantiated. The fallout of this admission is especially embarrassing: If the great all-news network can’t get it right, who can? ...read more
More to rights hearing than meets the press
Vancouver Courier (January 4, 1998)
This month, as we know, is named for Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings. His familiar head with two bearded faces back to back look in opposite directions, as if to the past and to the future. In that spirit, I’d like to take one last look at 1997. Here, then, is my nominee for the year’s worst reported news story—the human rights suit the Canadian Jewish Congress filed against the North Shore News and its now-retired columnist Doug Collins. ...read more
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