This is something that hit my mailbox about a month ago. I laughed, I cried, okay, I finally decided to post it.
I have no idea who wrote the rant but eh..
FROM: DADABASE [noreply@dadabase.ca]
SUBJECT: BOYCOTT NATIONAL POSTYou may know the Aspers. Israel Asper (aka izzy), the late family patriarch, was the son of a musician who immigrated to Canada from Ukraine. In 1957 he received his Bachelor of law degree from the University of Manitoba, and was called to the bar shortly thereafter.
In 1970, he published a well-received right wing book and became a critic of the Canadian tax system. He also won the leadership of Manitoba’s Liberal Party in the same year. In the 1973 provincial elections, he fiercely promoted a free market economy and advocated the elimination of the welfare state. But after running Manitoba’s Liberal Party to the ground (only 3 seats for the party including his own, winning his seat by only four votes), he left politics and entered the realm of media, a much more persuasive endeavor for him and his family. perhaps, he realized that if he couldn’t convince the people in an election, by bombarding them with a constant barrage of right wing propaganda, he may be able to influence them in the long run. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have been more right.
Today, the Asper media empire, called CanWest Global, includes the Global Television Network and 60 daily newspapers, including the National Post. This media conglomerate is run by his off springs Leonard (CEO, CanWest Global), David (VP CanWest Global; Chairman, the National Post) and Gail (President, CanWest Global and Managing Director and Secretary, Asper Foundation).
As Canadians, the Aspers have been consistently pro big business, pro free market and, of course, pro USA. As media owners, they have pushed and promoted American media products in Canada, bringing the most popular American TV programs to the northern tubes and transforming the content of our newspapers from Canadian issues to tabloid infomercials of facts and figures about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s life.
As public commentators on serious issues, they have tried their best to veer the public opinion in this country away from the legacy of Lester Pearson, Tommy Douglas and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, three Canadians they have done their best to smear and attack at any given opportunity. They hate public health. CBC, the Canada Council and every other thing that sets us apart from big daddy USA. Meanwhile, they have done their best to celebrate America and its political system, its excessive culture of greed and aggression, backing our big southern brother in all of its disputes, not only with the world, but with our own government as well. In this regard you can categorically call them the US fifth column.
As if all of this is not bad enough, they seem to outdo themselves in dirty deeds when it comes to international issues. The Aspers have been part of the chorus that has drummed up a vocal opposition to the Geneva Convention, they have promoted war, torture and US unilateral interventions. They have consistently slandered the United Nations on a variety of issues, particularly its unbiased position towards the Israel and Palestine conflict. As politically active members of the Canadian Jewish community, the Aspers have been loyal friends of the Zionist movement in general, and of its right wing and supremacist faction in particular. Israel Asper counts the extremist Vladimir Jabotinsky, and not Ben-Gurion, as his favorite old-school Zionist. And, before the creation of Kadima, the family was a staunch supporter of Sharon’s Likud Party. They have not only been insisting on stronger support for Israel in Canada, but they have used any given chance to slander Muslims, Muslim countries and Muslim governments, in order to push the American/Israeli agendas in the Middle East as far as possible. When even Sharon was not sure about how to get rid of Arafat, the CanWest owned Jerusalem Post had no problem calling for the aerial bombing of the Palestinian presidential compound by the Israeli air force with the goal of murdering the democratically elected president of the Palestinian authority.
Since 9/11, there hasn’t been a day where one or several of the Asper’s media outlets have not run articles, news stories, opinion pieces, letters or even caricatures that supported USA/Israel or slandered and aroused hate towards Muslims. The National Post proudly publishes an opinion column by Daniel Pipes, who has been called the ‘King of Hate’ in America, not by radicals, but by moderate liberals in the US congress. Among Pipe’s firm beliefs are that 30 per cent of all Muslim men are criminals, that Muslim food is stinky and annoying to Europeans, and that the next time a Canadian is killed in a terror attack anywhere in the world, Canadians should learn from Hindu mobs in India and attack the homes and businesses of Muslims in Canada. That’s right. I am not making this up. These are the marvelous words of Mr. Pipes, quoted mostly from the pages of the National Post. An ardent neo conservative Zionist, Daniel Pipes presents himself as a “Middle East expert” who, among his many jobs, you can astonishingly include a Bush appointment to the Washington Peace Institute.
If the hate speech laws of Canada were applied equally to all religious and ethnic minorities, the National Post and most other CanWest Global news outlets would have been shut down long ago and the Aspers would have found themselves in various courts of law, defending their hateful speech against the Canadian media and speech laws. But, thanks to their connections to both the Liberals and the Conservatives, their repeated acts of hate speech against Muslims have remained completely unchallenged, to the point that, last week, the National Post became the first Canadian newspaper involved in the US war-planning psy-op by fabricating a story on a supposed new law passed by the Iranian parliament requiring Jews and other religious minorities to wear a special identification emblem on their clothes. “Just like Nazi-era Germany” they warned us on the front page before cutting to the expected “never again” chorus. If there were an award for unethical use of the Holocaust, the Aspers would end up both as the winner and the runner ups.
The lie was so bad that the paper had to come back and apologize for it a few days later. Nevertheless, the hateful activities of the Aspers continue even after they were caught red handed in painting a false picture of Iran. Remember that this fabrication was done just in time for the likely near-future US nuclear attack on the oil-rich country, another of Israel’s strategic enemies, and the home of plenty of innocent Muslims to be murdered soon.
This week, the Asper Foundation, which ironically is the main founder of the Canadian Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg, along with the Winnipeg Zionist Initiative and Aish Winnipeg is releasing another piece of hate propaganda, this time in a theatre in Winnipeg. This IMAXed docu-drama called “OBSESSION: Radical Islam’s War against the West” includes interviews with “policy analysts”, “terrorists” and “journalists” and is peppered with images of bloody carnage from terror attacks and snippets of translated speeches from religious leaders and young children. In response to this tolerance-building effort by the Aspers and their Zionist buddies, Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association Inc. of Canada, has filed a formal complaint with Winnipeg police alleging the movie promotes hatred. Wayne Helgason, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, who attended a preview screening of the film, is quoted by the Winnipeg Free Press as saying “I would worry about its effect on people… It certainly doesn’t promote tolerance.”
University of Manitoba professor Howard Davidson, a secular Jew, has also been quoted in the same source wondering why any Jewish group want to show the film in Winnipeg. He said he’s concerned it’s anti-Muslim propaganda intended to stir-up support for a war with Iran. “Why are they showing the film? Are they trying to promote understanding?”
Given such extremist politics and propaganda, one wonders why the CBC doesn’t stop bringing in National Post writers to speak on TV and radio on a variety of issues. Never mind that these commentators always end up supporting either Israel, the Bush regime or the Harper government, in opposition to other moderate Canadian voices who themselves are capable of presenting a wide variety of different yet civilized and humane positions.
Why is it that the National Post is available to travelers on every Canadian flight, domestic or international? Who make corporate and non-profit subscriptions to an extremist rag like this possible? Why isn’t anyone out there to challenge the systemic hate speech promoted by the Asper family’s media network? As this rabid family gets nastier and dirtier, why are we, the decent Canadians, shying away from confronting their hateful agenda? What do we owe the Asper family that makes us unable to stand up to the challenge?
Isn’t it time to boycott and maybe ban some of the Asper-produced media content? If the Al-Jazeera network can be barred from the Canadian airwaves, why should we buy, subscribe to, or even allow ourselves to be unintentionally exposed to, Asper hate speech? To start, SUNDAY would hereby like to call for a nation-wide boycott of the National Post. Don’t buy the damn paper. Don’t read it either. If you see it in a coffee shop or a business, throw it in the garbage and voice your concern to the manager. Ask them to cancel their subscription with a letter stating why. Try your letter-writing skills by writing to papers, to your MP, and to others, asking people to boycott the National Post. If you’re anyone they are after for a story, refuse to cooperate with them. Forgo your personal gain and deny them interviews or press pictures.
For example, Sarah Efron, (www.sarahefron.com) a respected Vancouver-based freelance journalist just accepted a full time editorial job with the National Post. I know this seems like a great career opportunity, but we have to write her (sarah@urbanlegend.ca) and politely ask her to turn down her newly offered job. After all, no career is worth helping to spear ethnic-religious hate or to fuel another unwanted and unjust war in the Middle East, even if you’re asked to only shovel paper in the business section.
Let’s all grow larger balls, or weightier clitorises. Enough is enough.
