As Revisionist insiders already know, yesterday's lead editorial in the Globe and Mail, titled "Parliament catches Zundelmania" tried to put a rather worn-out spin on what happened as a result of Parliament revealing itself as the toadies they are by forbidding a Zundelsite Human Rights Tribunal Hearing related press conference in the press room of the House of Commons - as if it were a secret to the cat that special interest groups are slurping away at the taxpayers' trough, thinking it will last forever. To quote Mike Hoffman, my favorite Revisionist writer, the world is sick to death of watching the tribe dump on Germans morning, noon and night - and now it's beginning to show. Even in Canada! And even in the mainstream press!
I now run this entire editorial for global edification, interspersed with Ingrid's comments to round out the picture, Zundelsite style:
Globe and Mail: A FEW years ago, the editors of the National Geographic interviewed Ernst Zundel for an article on Toronto. The magazine came under a lot of fire for that decision, and Torontonians wondered why, in a city of 4.5 million people, a reputable publication would show so much interest in one kooky Holocaust-denier.
Ingrid: As I remember it, that article was published sometime in 1996, in the wake of a burst of publicity about the Zundelsite unleashed by the censorious Wiesenthalers. Up to that massive and global assault, the "kooky" Holocaust denier image of Ernst Zundel had been a politically cultivated Canadian-confined image - utterly undone, all of a sudden, by the Internet.
Now, a curious world was discovering that Ernst Zundel had something of interest to say. The National Geographic, simply responding to that world-wide curiosity, was eliciting and providing responsible answers to its readers from a variety of ethnic leaders in Toronto, as a responsible magazine should.
In part, even the Globe and Mail answers itself in that vein, for the editorial continues as follows:
Globe and Mail: Then again, perhaps Canadians ought to ask themselves the same question. Because from where we sit, it looks as if the National Geographic was simply following its subject's lead: the peculiar, entirely counterproductive Canadian obsession with Ernst Zundel.
Ingrid: This week alone, with its avalanche of outraged citizens reacting to Parliament's decision to do the obligatory hatchet job for special interest groups, proves that it isn't a "counterproductive Canadian obsession." It is the obsession of a handful of "professional" Jewish lobbyists, such as, to name just one, the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Moshe Ronen.
The Globe and Mail: Over the past 20 years, Mr. Zundel has repeatedly been charged, prosecuted, investigated, and by various ever more imaginative means pursued, probed and road-blocked through various courts, civil proceedings and tribunals.
Ingrid: The trail of vindictiveness these Talmudists have left will be a mine of gold to last serious scholars of the law for centuries. Future generations will decide the Scopes Trial was peanuts by comparison - if punning is permitted.
The Globe and Mail: A little man with repugnant ideas to whom no one ought to pay the least attention . . . "
Ingrid: Don't miss the obligatory genuflect. (I just created a noun...)
The Globe and Mail: " . . . has, consequently, been newsworthy enough to appear on the pages of The Globe and Mail no fewer than 509 times since 1977. That makes him, by our count, one of the most famous individuals in Canada. And last week Parliament gave him another motherlode of free publicity by voting to prevent him from using a Parliament Hill room to hold a press conference. A conference that doubtless no one would have bothered to attend, absent our sagacious legislators' insistence on turning his private delusions into the subject of our public policy. Again.
Ingrid: Here I just want to quote a ZGram reader: ". . . could anyone imagine a more inverted Orwellian world than those 'Honourable members' agreeing unanimously, for the sake of 'democracy' and 'tolerance', to ban someone in order to prevent him from speaking?"
The Globe and Mail: Ernst Zundel, one of the most famous people in Canada? Believe it.
Ingrid. Right on. Numero 44 in terms of "best known Canadians in this century" as measured by name recognition, according to a recent poll. This poll was taken by political scientist and well-known Jewish community member, Jack Granatstein.
The Globe and Mail: Browsing through our database covering the past two decades, we find that his name pops up in our pages more frequently than those of such distinguished residents as urbanist Jane Jacobs, or Toronto Symphony Orchestra conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. His renown is four times that of University of Toronto president Rob Prichard. The tale of the tape says that his name appears twice as often as that of the late hockey player Tim Horton and his eponymous doughnut emporium.
Mr. Zundel gets nearly as many mentions as Marshall McLuhan or Glenn Gould. His numbers are just shy of filmmaker Norman Jewison's, and double those of the richest man in Canada, Kenneth Thomson. On its King Street West strip, Toronto is creating a Hollywood-style walk of fame, featuring famous Canadians. The courts may not have given him citizenship, but doesn't he deserve a star in the pavement? By the impartial count of our database, he's better known than one of the walk's first inductees, Christopher Plummer.
Ingrid: The evidence speaks loudly, but the premise of that "fame", as stipulated by the Globe and Mail, is wrong.
It isn't that the Globe and Mail (along with other mainstream media) is sinning against its journalistic calling by feeding its readership trivia. It is that all those articles ALL came with genuflects, repeat abuse of one man's name, endless vilification, vituperation and character assassination. The Globe and Mail was merely a tool to build up a straw man the public was supposed to kick on reflex while handing over shekels.
Globe and Mail: And now that Parliament has voted unanimously to shut Mr. Zundel out of a press-conference room that would have been empty had they let him use it, we feel confident that the little man will only continue to grow. The legalities of Parliament's action are worth pondering. Should the state be making distinctions as to who speaks in public spaces based solely on the content of speech? Could they tomorrow say that every political and social group is free to set up its soap-box in the public square -- except for speakers whose ideas we don't like?
We're not sure what bothers us more: the legalities or the practicalities. Because, practically speaking, Canadian law enforcement and regulation have given Mr. Zundel the kind of sustained marketing campaign that only the biggest entertainers could afford. Maybe bigger: his name has appeared in four times as many Globe articles as Shania Twain, queen of Canadian country.
Ingrid: A crooning Shania Twain, whoever she is, presumably isn't perceived as a threatening image. Mr. Zundel digging in his peasant heels and telling those extortionists "I am at war with you because you mass-market the Mother of all Hoaxes at the expense of the German nation's honour and the German people's feelings - and I will tell it as I see it until the cows come home!" - is cutting a different swath through the complacent pastures that are Canada.
The Globe and Mail: And who does his marketing? Why, Canada does. Parliament's vote has just given him another de facto publicity budget, and none too soon: summer is fast approaching, the time of big outdoor entertainment fests such as Lilith Fair and Another Roadside Attraction. And thanks to our parliamentarians' generous contribution, there will be one more staging of that perennial favorite, Zundelpalooza. Enjoy. You already paid for the tickets.
Ingrid: Yes, Canada has paid. Just this last week, Canadian taxpayers paid for the pronouncement - that ". . . truth is no defense!" - and in a "Human Rights" proceeding, of all places! And I predict that when this shameful Human Rights Kommissar Circus is over, Canadians will find that they have bought themselves, while paying through their noses, a very big chunk of enslavement.
For what has happened in these past few weeks in those Tribunal Hearings would have made Stalin grin.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"Know down to the last cell in your body that the other guy started it. He's the one who put things in an ethical context where considerations like decency and mercy have no referent."
(Neil Smith)