Last October, while being invited to do a banquet program in British Columbia for the Free Speech League of Canada, I had the pleasure of meeting Ontario-based Human Rights Activist Paul Fromm whose main concerns are Free Speech matters and rampant immigration.
( websites - http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/c-far or http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/cafe )
This is the teacher who was threatened with a dismissal notice from a patsy Board of Education eager to do the bidding of B'nai Brith and fellow travelers. I described his plight in a ZGram a few days ago.
That B'nai Brith is watching not just Mr. Fromm but us with eagle's eyes is evidenced by the fact that within hours if not minutes of my ZGram being shot out into cyberspace, out came a crowing B'nai Brith press release pronouncing victory in the Paul Fromm dismissal case and pointing out, in case a sluggish reader missed it, that Mr. Fromm's dubious nature was now confirmed by, among other things, the fact that the announcement of his pending unemployment had come from the Zundelsite - as if that, in itself, proved anything!
It apparently does, in KGB tradition - hobnobbing with the "wrong crowd" earned you a bullet in the neck in your own orchard in not-too-distant Stalin times!
Support for Mr. Fromm, however, came from an unexpected source - one Ezra Levant of the Calgary Sun - who, I assume, is a regular columnist at that paper. Here is what Mr. Levant wrote about Fromm:
". . . To get a job as a public school teacher, should you have to swear allegiance to liberal notions of multiculturalism and immigration?
Should you have to subscribe to an official, government-approved set of political beliefs?
And should the government be able to stop you from participating in political activities in your private life, even if they don't affect your teaching?
Of course not. But that's what's happening in Ontario's Peel Board of Education, in the case of teacher Paul Fromm.
I've never met Fromm nor heard him speak. I have no idea what he stands for-- except newspapers like the Globe and Mail call him 'controversial'
Well, controversial can be good, and it can be bad.
According to charges from his school board, Fromm has 'continued to participate in conferences and meetings sponsored by organizations which advocate white supremacy and anti-Semitism.' That's why his contract isn't being renewed.
Needless to say, to a columnist named Ezra Isaac Levant, this is the bad kind of controversy.
I get worried when someone's linked to anti-Semitism. But I am far more worried about a government that thinks it can hire or fire teachers based on their personal political beliefs . . . "
Well, good for him! Every one of my acquaintances, in our ideological camp or not, would likely by a target for a firing - no pun intended here - based on their personal political beliefs when it comes to excessive legal or illegal immigration out of Mexico!
I live in California where the borders are so porous that I have stopped taking my walks in the morning because of clusters of ragged Mexicans, visibly in transit, who entertain themselves - while sitting on the sidewalks by the road, waiting to be picked up to be transported into the innards of America - with brassy comments on Californians passing by. I understand enough Spanish to know what they're saying - and what that is, is coarse.
The editorial goes on to say:
". . . Three years ago, Fromm was investigated to see whether he was infecting his classrooms with his own ideologies. He was exonerated.
Its sole condemnation: that Fromm's political activities outside of school 'were inconsistent with the fundamental or 'core values' ' that a teacher was supposed to teach.
Who's the greater threat?
On the one hand, we have a teacher who is accused of having 'links' with racist groups.
His classroom conduct has been found to be in compliance with his teaching duties.
On the other hand, we have a government bureaucracy that has arrogated unto itself the right to investigate its employees' home life.
To prowl around what teachers do on their free time.
Worst of all, the subject of these inquiries is the political leanings of these teachers. . . "
And it is not as though Fromm teaches youngsters; several years ago he was assigned already to Adult Education to prevent him from contaminating youngsters with his own brand of politics. Besides, no charges have ever been made, as far as I know, that Paul Fromm mixes classroom time with politics.
Fromm mixes his free time with politics by attending meetings such as the banquet at which I was invited to speak, and which was labeled also as an "anti-semitic" event by the same crowd that is fomenting to get him dismissed - when it was nothing of the sort!
The Ezra Levant column next goes on to say:
". . . Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot.
Imagine if, say, Mike Harris or Ralph Klein started investigating teachers with alleged links to left-wing groups, firing these leftists for their 'links.'
How long would such an inquisition last? Not a minute, knowing Canada's media.
Apparently, though, the laws of political correctness trump the laws of natural justice. Your rights as a citizen now depend on what your personal political views are.
If the racist allegations against Fromm are true, then I have no time for the man personally. But in this country, we allow political dissenters.
Fromm is not using his classroom as a pulpit.
According to Fromm's employers, Fromm had 'demonstrated a profound disrespect for the principles of multiculturalism and ethnocultural equity.'
But it is the Peel educrats, not Fromm, who have demonstrated a profound disrespect for our traditions of free speech and political association."
(end of column)
These traditions are enshrined as RIGHTS, by the way, in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think that is as fine a point as any - and if you feel the same, please write to ezra@incentre.net and tell him that you think so.
It is Jews such as Mr. Levant who give us hope that others will follow, who have the courage and integrity to come out on the side of fairness - which will not earn him the support of many of his tribe.
And I think it is Irony Supreme that, even as I write this, I fuss that praising a good Jew for having done what's right and fair will cause him hurt and grief no end from our enemies - not us! - because I gave him credit for a fair and decent editorial in a ZGram.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
". . . they have instituted a spiritual Socialism infinitely more hideous, and for economic equality they have substituted a spiritual homogeneity which the communist can never hope to parallel in the physical field. And woe to him who dares to practice private initiative in the spiritual-Socialist state! His punishment is not only spiritual, but physical, too."
(Maurice Samuel in "You Gentiles")