New Media

Vancouver-Kingsway’s most infamous Islamic terrorist sympathizer and recently-punted Green party candidate, Kevin Potvin, evidently believes that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

After being raked in what he calls the “corporate” (read: neocon, Zionist-controlled, Satanic) media for an article written by him in his own publication, The Republic, stating directly that he cheered for Osama bin Ladin on 9/11, Potvin is striking back in a curious way: he now claims that journalists and society as a whole have been cowed by relentless, shadowy pressure from their corporate masters to show an appropriate level of sympathy for those slaughtered on that day and condemnation for their killers.

I didn’t cheer on 9/11. I certainly didn’t feel a lump of love in my heart for the people who did it. And as much as Potvin has attempted to tell himself otherwise, the vast majority of clear-thinking and moral citizens in our part of the world didn’t, either.

But Potvin seems to have found a home, quite literally on the political fringe. Work Less Party cofounder Condrad Schmidt says of Potvin: “He’s a smart man, and he’s intelligent. You couldn’t ask for a better candidate. And we’ll run him in Kingsway–where else?”

As a related aside, the video above shows leftist icon Noam Chomsky dismissing the possibility of a neocon conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks.

I attended a Thursday night debate in Vancouver’s Gastown over Canada’s role in Afghanistan. Author and panelist Terry Glavin has already summed up the event, and the larger debate, nicely on his own blog.

It is refreshing to see intelligent people able to really discuss the issues that need to be talked about (ie. what the role of Canada’s NATO allies ought to be, how we can conduct ourselves according to international law in a chaotic environment against a fanatical enemy, the opium trade, Pakistan, etc) rather than a watered-down sound-byte without any context (ie. should we stay or should we go). Most of the panel agreed that Canada and the world had to stay involved, since simply pulling out all foreign troops would result in a horrendous civil war.

But I couldn’t escape the feeling that the people who most needed to be there, the ones who believe that their own commitment to peace precludes the involvement of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, even if a pullout resulted in hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths in that country – did not attend.

It would be nice if we had reached a point in the national discussion where we could all at least agree with Terry Glavin and others on the following: The Taliban were and are as savage, cruel, misogynist, violent and cunning as any of the battalions the enemy has deployed, and the people of Afghanistan continue to suffer their depredations. Canada has been honoured with the privilege and the opportunity to be fighting this war on the side of the Afghan people, at the request of the Afghan people, shoulder to shoulder with the Afghan people.

But not everyone is quite there yet. That’s a shame.

Given that Canadians are currently involved in military operations against one group of extremists aspiring to a state in Afghanistan, it is instructive to see how a group with a similar ideological framework can simply ignore international condemnation, tear up peace agreements, blame the victim and go on the attack whenever they feel like it. NDP Leader Jack Layton and his adherents calling for negotiations with the Taliban really ought to be paying attention.

Just weeks after concluding a unity government deal with Fatah to induce the international community to end sanctions, Hamas has once again declared war.

For those who are keeping score, the international community imposed sanctions in the first place because of Hamas‘ ongoing terrorist links, after Palestinians fed up with Fatah corruption voted for Hamas as the only other political party available (since all moderate Palestinian politicians have already been co-opted by the extremist movements or executed as collaborators).

The international community didn’t actually ask for a unity government. They asked for Hamas to renounce violence and recognize existing peace agreements. That didn’t happen.

And now that Hamas has declared the ceasefire between itself and Israel nullified (which only makes sense, given constant rocket attacks on Israeli civilian centers since Hamas was elected), the sanctions have no hope of ending. It’s a tragedy for the Palestinians, Israel and everyone in the world who would rather that the world wasn’t such a violent place.

Canada’s parliament has narrowly voted down a Liberal proposal to set a firm date for a pullout from Afghanistan, only because the NDP thinks that two years from now isn’t soon enough.

Canada’s opposition parties are in a hurry to get our troops out of harms way and replaced by forces from other NATO nations. It’s fair enough to reject an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan with no strings attached.

But one wonders whether they would really feel all that terrible if no other NATO ally stepped up to the plate and Afghanistan descended into the same kind of chaos that birthed the Taliban regime in the first place.

Instead of arbitrary deadlines, the opposition might instead at least propose benchmarks for Canadians and our NATO allies to measure success and logically determine the prospects for a continuing mission. But for now, all we can see from Stephane Dion’s Liberals is unrealistic and cynical foreign policy on the fly and from the NDP, the appeasement of civilization’s enemies.

Canada’s New Democratic Party continues to fight the good fight against corporate greed in the form of banking fees.

Conservatives may not like it, but hopefully the other political parties will see the light.

Banks saved millions by getting rid of many bank teller positions as ATM machines made those jobs redundant. Next, they started charging clients ATM fees, allegedly to pay for installation and maintenance of those same bank machines… which should have been paid for from the savings in staff payroll.

Banks are trying to have it both ways. Up until now, it’s worked, with billion-dollar profits for the leading financial institutions. It’s just gouging and it should stop.