November 19, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

In the struggle for Freedom of Speech on the Internet, the latest SYSTEMATIC disinformation being disseminated is that

1) Ernst Zundel is filthy-rich and does not need the help of "fight-censorship" groups (NOT true; he needs them desperately! He is NOT living in a mansion; the Zundel-Haus is a 100+ year old house, rebuilt after the 1995 terrorist arson! etc. etc.)

2) that Ernst Zundel has an excellent legal team that is more than a match for his opposition (TRUE in terms of quality, UNTRUE because his lawyers are outnumbered in that the current struggle is a "David against Goliath" 14 to 2 situation. The opposition has unlimited legal and financial resources, courtesy of Canadian taxpayers . . . whereas Ernst has only the donations of his supporters and what he can earn by selling some of the sketches which survived the arson . . . )

and

3) that Ernst is not fighting a respectable "anti-censorship" campaign (DEFINITELY NOT TRUE; the legal battle is being fought strictly along both constitutional and jurisdictional fronts - as all the records show!

In other words, constitutionally and jurisdictionally, the censors have no jurisdiction and, hence, no right to censor Ernst Zundel. The people spreading this disinformation on the Internet in the newsgroups, in the "fight-censorship" conferences etc. KNOW this!)

On November 6, a Revisionist friend forwarded me the following e-mail from Professor David Lloyd-Jones, who currently heads the "fight-censorship" group in Canada.

One of Ernst's attorneys had approached Jones, who is teaching at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and asked for an affidavit on Ernst's behalf in the latest round of legal battles, since this "fight-censorship" group claims it is in favor of freedom of speech, especially as it relates to the Internet - and allegedly against censorship generally.

Jones dragged his feet until the last minute before he declined. His lame excuse was that, for a variety of reasons, he could not and would not help in the Zundel struggle.

The person who sent me the e-mail below wrote:

". . . .. here's a sample of the strange twisted 'logic' regarding the Zundel case being discussed on the Electronic Frontier Canada mailing list.

Assassination of dissidents is compatible with choosing 'freedom'... bizarre!"

You be the judge what "freedom of speech" in Canada means, according to one of its self-professed "freedom of speech" leaders.

Here it is, in full:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 05:40:15 -0500
From: David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@pobox.com>
To: David Jones <djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA>,
efc-talk@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA
Subject: Re: RE: FW: Gov't cannot censor Net, but gov't can censor individuals

From: David Jones <djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA> writes:

>I am actually fairly confident that if the CHRC v. Zundel case is at all "winnable", then Zundel will very likely win it all on his own.

>I am less certain that a battle over the Canada Elections Act could be won by an individual or group with limited resources, such as Terry O'Neill, Krishna Bera, or even EFC, but ... I think it would be worth a try.

These two paragraphs, it seems to me, sum up the problem Pierre-Elliot Trudeau stuck us with when he tried to make Canada into a Jeffersonian constitutional democracy. Trudeau was educated by Jesuits. This schooling can sometimes lead you into a superfluity of rationalism.

In the case of the clown Zundel, I think that the best attitude is that shown by a young Jews' newsletter I get: they discovered that fat ol' Ernst owns and treasures a perfectly restored 1962, I think it is, Cadillac; so the question came up, do we go and destroy the damn car? Or do we rather admire the asshole's taste? The conclusion -- somewhat aided by the fact that some kids had gone and inspected the car -- was: neat; we admire the bastard's idiosyncracies. (sic)

At this point I should perhaps remind readers that I am a member of the Net subcommittee of the Community Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Within that subcommittee and its parent committee I tend to be in a minority: I oppose the hate laws. In that sense I am a Trudeauesque Jeffersonian. On the other hand I am a believer in direct action: if people like the Zundel crew ever became a serious force in political life, then we should (and certainly shall) side-track them in alleyways and kill them.

Now then, the Election Act and the whole silly polling thing. This law tries to make our democracy work better. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, I dunno.

At the second last Federal election I told this Liberal canvasser that I hoped there would be a clean Liberal majority, but I was going to vote for Winnie Ng, the New Democrat. The guy was stunned: his mentality was completely in the popularity zone. He could note conceive of a person having one hope for the national government and a somewhat more nuanced hope at the local level.

The anti-poll-results laws are written by morons like this guy. They believe what they read in the papers, and therefore they belive (sic) that everybody else believes what they read in the newspapers. For fools of this kind, controlling what goes into the newspapers is second nature -- their first nature being controlling what goes into the newspapers. :-)

They are able to do it under British Commonwealth law. We are not Jeffersonians.

Here is my theory: we should choose a free press (and radio, and Net, and... and...) We should not have it handed down to us from on high, the way the Americans do. We should choose freedom -- including the other guy's freedom -- every day. When we serve on school or municipal boards, when we write to our members or Parliament. When we take management roles in our unions. At the service club or the Chamber of Commerce. Every damn day.

That is how we give freedom real content.

-dlj.

I know this is a convoluted letter for the uninitiated, but the scurrilous tone of this missive speaks volumes.

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"Mr. McCarthy and I do not agree on much. The world he desires is as nightmarish to me as the world I desire is to him. In almost every issue of politics, ethics, and philosophy, we are opposed, save for
freedom of speech -- and our rationales for supporting that are likewise wildly different. All this as it may, if he told me 2+2 equaled 5, and you told me that 2+2 equaled 4, I'd trust him over
you."

(One "freedom-of-speech" (Jewish) participant arguing with (Revisionist) Matt Giwer on the relevance of the "Holocaust" in the struggle for freedom of speech on the Net)

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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