Steyn: The Mounties always get their Ann

The Mounties always get their Ann

by Mark Steyn, April 13, 2010 Steynonline

From my Notes on a show trial, two years ago:

When I arrived at the courthouse, an officer of the BC Sheriff’s Department said because of ‘security threats’ he’d be sticking by me everywhere I went in the building. I found this rather reassuring for about 90 seconds until it occurred to me he almost certainly meant not that the court had been apprised of security threats against me but that I myself was the security threat.

True. It was the same in Ottawa a couple of months earlier, after Julian Porter, QC had successfully petitioned Judge Hadjis, on behalf of me and my Maclean’s colleagues, to reject the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission’s absurd contention that there was so much “anger” out there it would be unsafe to hold anything other than a secret trial. So in March, very reluctantly, the Canadian “Human Rights” Tribunal opened up the Marc Lemire trial to members of the media and the public. In an idle moment during the proceedings, I asked the Ottawa police officer standing next to me what he was doing there. I meant that, as the CHRT was a federal body, why was a municipal officer there rather than a Mountie? He explained that, being as how they normally held their trials in secret, they didn’t usually need any security. But, having been ordered to open the doors to the likes of me, they’d put in a request for some emergency protection – ie, in case I or Deborah Gyapong suddenly lunged at Judge Hadjis and attempted to shove the Royal Coat of Arms up his keister as a reminder of the travesty of justice his court represents.

That’s been pretty consistent for two years now: As the state security apparatus sees it, we dissenters from Trudeaupian orthodoxy are the the threat to the Queen’s peace. Political correctness starts in the wackier professions, in the college faculty lounge and the ethnic grievance shakedown racket, but eventually it hollows out ostensibly more robust institutions – including the police and even the military: See the US Army brass’ general behaviour re Major Hasan. The British constabulary are particularly far gone in this respect. As John O’Sullivan likes to say, they’re now the paramilitary wing of The Guardian. If a young Muslim girl shows up at a police station in Northern England terrified that she’s in danger of being either honour-killed or shipped back to marry her cousin in Mirpur, they assign her case to a Muslim officer from the Community Outreach team, who’ll often helpfully tip off her dad that she’s been in to see them.

Most municipal police forces in Canada are succumbing to the same pathologies. Do you really want to be tied up by Internal Affairs or the “Human Rights” Commission because there’s cellphone pictures all over The Toronto Star of you resisting some Native or Muslim or gay protesters? Not only won’t the cops crack heads, they’ll stand back and let the rioters crack your head. As I wrote in Maclean’s last week:

Faced with a law-abiding group engaging in legal activity and a bunch of thugs trying to prevent it, the police declined to maintain order. As George Jonas wrote, “Ottawa’s finest exemplified Canada’s definition of moral leadership by observing neutrality between lawful and lawless.” Allan Rock’s weasels attempted to defend themselves by pointing out that it was not the university but the organizers who cancelled the event.

As Kathy Shaidle notes, a grateful Canadian media fell ravenously on that line either to crow that Miss Coulter talks a good game but in the end was too gutless to go on, or that the cancellation was a publicity stunt. David Warren was the only mainstream columnist to point out, that, when the police inform you officially that they cannot ”guarantee security”, you’re certainly free to proceed, but your insurers will decline to cover any subsequent damage to the venue. Canadian police have now adopted a policy of abetting lawlessness by approved groups:

I’m not just referring to obvious surrenders such as Caledonia, but to the bizarre episode of TVO’s The Agenda broadcast from the Munk Centre last week. No Ann Coulter around, only the finance minister of Ontario. But a Coulteresque mob rushed the stage, and the host Steve Paikin had to insert himself between protesters and the minister. “Regardless of what you thought of yesterday’s budget,” wrote Paikin, “I don’t believe guests who agree to appear on The Agenda ought to get beaten up.”

Oh, c’mon, you pussy. Where’s your commitment to social justice? As in Ottawa, law enforcement declined to enforce the law, the OPP remaining in the wings as thugs rushed the stage. “The police, I’m told, were urged not to intervene,” Paikin explained, “lest pictures of demonstrators being hauled off by the cops show up all over YouTube.”

True. You might haul off a Muslim or a lesbian and find yourself in “human rights” hell. Better just to linger nonchalantly by the side until it’s all over: O Canada, we stand around for thee.

For confirmation of the above, consider the account of Miss Coulter’s Calgary visit by the head of her local security team:

It was explained to us in no uncertain terms, that Campus Security personnel could not and would not, remove any unruly patrons or spectators from the event unless they displayed obvious signs of violent behaviour – holding a chair over one’s head threatening to throw it was simply not enough…  To make matters worse we were told that if any of our people laid a hand on anyone at the event, for any reason, we would be charged and face criminal prosecution.

Just so. The mob’s not the threat, you and Ann Coulter are. In the old days, the Mounties always got their man. But these days they’ll get you. Frankly, it’s a lot easier. Canadian law enforcement gives off the same vibe re Miss Coulter that the Dutch justice system does re Geert Wilders – that in many ways the most convenient outcome would be if the mob took care of the problem, pour encourager les autres.

As Kate McMillan says re the security chief’s missive:

In a real country, with real rights, and real journalists, this letter would provoke a national media scandal and formal investigation – but it won’t.

The police are happy to stand by and Caledonify Canada. The IFPS will find it harder to book a room next time they want to bring a “controversial” speaker to the true north strong and free. But, if we’re lucky, we’ll still be free to hold our events on abandoned bits of scrub on the edge of town.

[More...]

STRONG AND FREE?
Steyn on Canada and the Commonwealth
April 16, 2010

Well, Ann Coulter is no longer in Canada, but 30 million Canadians are. So, for the sake of argument, let us take as read the frankly rather boring observation of the northern punditocracy that the whole brouhaha worked to her advantage, and consider instead whether the Canada on display during her 96-hour layover actually works to Canadians’ advantage. Which was the claim advanced by the eminent Canadian “feminist” Susan Cole appearing on U.S. TV to support the protesters’ shutdown of Miss Coulter’s Ottawa speech:

“We don’t have a First Amendment, we don’t have a religion of free speech,” she explained patiently. “Students sign off on all kinds of agreements as to how they’ll behave on campus, in order to respect diversity, equity, all of the values that Canadians really care about. Those are the things that drive our political culture. Not freedoms, not rugged individualism, not free speech. It’s different, and for us, it works.”

Does it? You rarely hear it put quite that bluntly—“Freedoms”? Ha! Who needs ’em?—but there was a lot of similarly self-regarding blather in Coulter Week euphemizing a stultifying, enforced conformism as “respect” and “diversity” and whatnot. “I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind,” wrote François Houle, the provost of the University of Ottawa, addressing Miss Coulter in the smug, condescending, preening tone that comes so naturally to your taxpayer-funded, tenured mediocrity. “There is a strong tradition in Canada, including at this university, of restraint, respect and consideration in expressing even provocative and controversial opinions and urge you [sic] to respect that Canadian tradition.”

[...] [follow the rest at the link.]

Rex Murphy: Understanding the Sarah Palin effect.

Understanding the Sarah Palin effect.

Rex Murphy, National Post
Saturday, Apr. 10, 2010

Among the many delightful characteristics of Sarah Palin is her seemingly unfailing capacity to capture Barack Obama’s angry attention. This week, she criticized his new nuclear policy [Ed. note: link added ex temporis]. Obama responded by saying “I really have no response to that,” which was, I think we’ll all agree, an awkward prelude to his … response. He went on with: “The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues.” Well, colour me huffy.

The last time anyone else checked, neither is Barack Obama. Chicago politics is no richer in seminars on the finer points of nuclear politics than those of Alaska. Nonetheless, adverting to Sarah Palin’s presumed incompetence — not just on nuclear issues, but on anything — will garner automatic applause and smirks of condescending approval from vast swathes of American public opinion.

Sarah Palin [Ed. note: link added ex temporis] irritates, agitates, angers and annoys some of the self-appointed finest minds of America to a point long past reason. She has been the target, since the night she walked on stage to speak at a Republican convention, of some of the most savage commentary that the great republic has seen since Richard Nixon.

The great difference, of course, is that Nixon earned some of his venom. He practised political hardball. He was a remorseless partisan with an appetite for political vengeance

And he received some he did not earn, by virtue of a personality — secretive, bitter even in success, humourless, cold and anxious — that made him, fairly or otherwise, a target for the cruellest and most unrelenting attacks. But in any event, he was the President. He had been in politics for a full generation. For those determined to hate him, there was a large field to till.

But Palin is not the president, nor has she been. She’s been a presence in American national politics for only about two years. She is a cheerful human being, with a large family, an apparently easy-going and normal husband. She has a personality that would sell corn flakes — if not grow them. What career she had in Alaska, she earned. She’s at home indoors and out, radiates human warmth, seems to have some balance about herself, and has displayed over the last year or so a considerable fortitude under an avalanche of mockery and hatred. For the final stroke of this cameo I should note she is smart — smarter than 90% of the people who make a point of how rock-stupid they know she is.

She, by rights, should be queen of the feminists. All that self-reliance, her takeover of Alaska politics, the rocket ride to a Vice-Presidential ticket, a public career she blends with her family life– these seem gold-standard credentials for a real feminist. But official feminism derides herewith an unspeakable intensity. Her early critics were not beyond the inane claim that she was somehow not really a woman.

I side with those who venture that the nerves Palin hits have more to do with class — where she’s from, how she speaks, where she was educated, what she likes (the moose-hunting), than her politics or her gender. She’s rural, she came into national politics from (ugh) Alaska. She and her husband have the unerasable stigmata of the modern working class. She would not be embarrassed to be seen walking into Wal-Mart.

[Ed. note: Emphasis above is mine. This point needs to be fully understood by an awful lot of people. And I agree with Rex - this really is about a class war. ]

NP: Kevin Libin: It’s Ann Coulter! Don’t call the police!

Kevin Libin: It’s Ann Coulter! Don’t call the police!

by Kevin Libin, April 09, 2010

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes no guarantees about property rights. Their protections are largely established by the criminal code: call the police and tell them someone’s in the process of burgling your jewelry store, or stealing your car, and in most cases, they’ll send officers over in a hurry.Canada’s charter does, on the other hand, establish some pretty explicit protections for free speech. But what happens if you ask for protection from authorities when someone is infringing on your right to speak at a public forum?

Not much it seems.

At least, that’s the unavoidable impression one gets from the following fascinating account from Rick Benoit, vice president of VP Protection, Inc., the firm that was hired to handle security for Ann Coulter’s recent visit to Canada. The letter details what happened at Ms. Coulter’s last stop, in Calgary, just days after rowdy students at the University of Ottawa forced organizers to cancel her appearance there. Though there was an obvious risk of a similar incident in Calgary—particularly after the Ottawa students’ intimidation tactics proved so effectives—according to Mr. Benoit, not only were police and campus security both unwilling to do anything to protect the free speech of Ms. Coulter and the other speakers, the warned the private bodyguards not to contain any aggressive behaviour “for any reason” or “we would be charged and face criminal prosecution.”

If you don’t believe him, how about Steve Paikin, who broadcasting a live episode of The Agenda from the University of Toronto with Ontario’s finance minister as a special guest had to play bodyguard to the minister after a mob rushed the stage.  “The police, I’m told, were urged not to intervene,” Paikin explained, “lest pictures of demonstrators being hauled off by the cops show up all over YouTube.”

That only raises a critical question: if the police won’t protect someone’s right to speak, who will?

The Last Line of Defence, or Is It?
Rick Benoit, Vice President of Executive Protection
VP Protection, Inc,  Toronto, Ontario

When most people think of the Police, Security Personnel, or individuals who are involved in law enforcement, there are usually certain words or phrases that come to mind; law and order, the enforcement of laws, the protection of people and their property, public safety and public order in the face of tyranny.

Most individuals tend not to think of political scrutiny and public influence on the ability of our law enforcement officials to properly execute their jobs and keep the public safe. While many front line officers are anxious to be able to do their jobs, many senior officers and politicians are just as anxious to have them “stand down” so as to avoid confrontation and/or any scrutiny which may reflect poorly on their service or department.

On March 20, 2010 I was hired as part of a Protective Detail team of 4, for IFPS Canada’s free speech event at the University of Calgary.  This event came on the heels of a similar event at Ottawa University, an event that was cancelled due to lack of safe conduct for the main speaker Ann Coulter. IFPS Canada and its President, Bjorn Larsen, had decided to take extra precautions after the Ottawa event, where lack of a secure location made it unsafe to continue the event.

Our task should have been a simple one. We were there for the purpose of protecting the principal speakers and organizers from any physical harm.

Close to 1,000 individuals poured into a lecture hall where University Campus Security watched over them with the assistance of the Calgary Police Service. Outside the hall, there remained a few more “supporters” of the event, clad in KKK garb, as well as an angry crowd of protesters who were clad in a mixed array of attire – niqabs, balaclavas, and other similar articles of clothing, donned it seems, to mask their identities/hide their faces while they shouted and chanted threats, denouncing the event.

We, the Protective Detail, attended the University of Calgary shortly before noon to meet with the directors of Campus Security. Both individuals we met with were very professional and kindly showed us around the entire facility at our request. In fact, pretty much every request we made was graciously accommodated. It was when we started discussing the “what if” scenarios of the evening program that really gave insight as to what we were going to be up against.

It was explained to us in no uncertain terms, that Campus Security personnel could not and would not, remove any unruly patrons or spectators from the event unless they displayed obvious signs of violent behaviour – holding a chair over one’s head threatening to throw it was simply not enough…  Worse, this protocol was supported by the Crisis Management Team that was also in attendance while we conducted our fact finding mission in order to implement a security plan. In my opinion I liken this to closing the barn door after the horse has left. Good luck on getting the horse back into the barn!

Because the number of individuals planning on attending the event had skyrocketed from 450 registrants to 900 and knowing full well that the event had the potential to “go wrong”, the next obvious line of questioning asked by us was regarding the “screening process” for entrants coming into the hall. What did they have in place? Would they be conducting bag searches, pat downs, wanding the individuals for weapons search? We were looked at with incredulous faces and received the answer “no” to every question asked.  We were told that actions such as these would infringe upon the attendees rights (mostly students of the University), and certainly also go against the grain of privacy laws; therefore we were informed that no screening would take place at all.

Even after a careful explanation of our concerns for the safety of the people we were there to protect, they would not be swayed in the decision. They absolutely would not interfere with the rights of their students attending the event.  What about the safety of the others who would be attending the event? What about the rights of those who didn’t plan on inciting violent behaviour? Wouldn’t a proactive approach be much better than a reactive one?  To make matters worse were told that if any of our people laid a hand on anyone at the event, for any reason, we would be charged and face criminal prosecution.

It was clear to us, from the way the message was relayed, that the directive was coming from a much greater power than that of those who were delivering the message; Senior Police Officials, Senior Campus Officials, or maybe even Senior Politicians… No one really knew quite where the message was coming from but the end result was clear – hands off at any cost or face criminal prosecution should you challenge the directive.

It became very clear that we, the Protective Detail, would have our hands full at this event. We would have to balance political correctness with the preservation of our clients’ safety.  Now armed with a clear understanding of where we stood on all counts; building layout/rules/regulations etc., we set out from the campus, reconvened elsewhere and put a plan into place.

Our arrival to the event surprised the patrons and protesters alike as we pulled up, swiftly exited our vehicles and entered the building through less obvious means (than the main entrance door), thus avoiding contact with the public altogether.  Our vehicles were positioned behind barricades which were being guarded by Campus Security personnel and we were assured that our vehicles would be safe and looked after as we hustled towards our entranceway.

The tampering of vehicles, malicious damage, or even a planned attack around the principals’ vehicle is always a concern for any Protective Detail, so just to make absolute certain that our vehicles were safe, the topic was discussed with the Officer in Charge.  He too assured us that our vehicles would be taken care of and kept safe.

He was correct! Our vehicles were looked after alright, by about 50 “battle ready” protesters who had surrounded our vehicles circling about them plotting and planning their mode of attack for when we should return to our SUVs.

During the Q&A session which was towards the end of the evening, a note was passed to the Protective Detail explaining the potentially explosive situation that was brewing outside. Attack plans were overheard by people who were milling about outside amongst the protestors.  Not to worry however, we were advised that a plan had been formulated, and they would be able to safely move the main principal out of the event hall.

The first problem with this note was that although there was indeed one main principal (Ann Coulter), we had three other principals that were under our protection. The second problem was that “the plan” was only a partial plan.  Once the main principal was moved out of the event hall, they were still at a loss as to how they going to get her (never mind the rest of us waiting in limbo!) to her vehicle without confrontation with the protestors outside.

The intended plan of the Campus Security and the Calgary Police Service was this.  Their recommendation was to move the main principal out of the hall, under Police guard, to an alternate location near the main venue, while two members of our detail obtained the principal vehicles (meaning they would have to “make their way” through the crowd of protestors), and make their way back (seemingly undetected?), to the alternate location.
When I read their plan I felt as though we were being set up to fail. I reminded Calgary Police Service and Campus Security that we had been instructed on what would happen should any of our Team Members lay a hand on anyone; engage in physical confrontation with anyone – we would be the ones arrested and charged. In the plan they gave us we would have walked right into a volatile situation had we retrieved our cars in the midst of all the protestors.

The Calgary Police and the Campus Security personnel refused to move the protestors away from our vehicles.

I submit that by planning an attack against us and surrounding our vehicles, violence was imminent and the Calgary Police and Campus Security should have cleared our vehicles, so that we could make safe passage.  However they did not, so we decided to move the principals (all of them), into a safe room to formulate a better plan than the one that was given to us. This tactic worked well because during the wait of our deliberation, most of the protesters grew bored and left the vicinity of the vehicles.  That being the case, our Protective Detail decided the best course of action was to move all the principals to the vehicles (where we had left them upon arrival), by a swift and direct path thus avoiding the previously suggested splitting up of principals and as well the secondary location.

When we made our exit, only a handful of protestors remained. Calgary Police and Campus Security personnel stood on a nearby hill and watched as we exited the building and entered into our vehicles. We were able to drive away without any altercation.

The officers on the ground were governed by politics; told not to get involved, unless acts of violence and or property damage were actually witnessed.

I submit again that a reactive response is much more detrimental that a proactive response. Law enforcement officials need to be proactive in situations such as these to make the experience much safer for all involved – speakers and attendees alike.

National Post
__________

[Ed. notes: Like so many articles, especially about freedom, rights and political correctness, the validation of the points made lie in the comments. While I haven’t read through all of the comments posted to this article, one thing is clear – those who speak to represent the “left of centre” in Canada tend to write angry, bigoted, slurs loaded with innuendo. A reasoned, thoughtful response is rare from Canada’s political left. Someone in another post far, far away observed that modern Liberalism could be defined as “post-modern egalitarianism”. I think they were essentially correct. The benchmarks for the modern liberal appear to be condescension and distain, especially for all things conservative, with nary a thought or reasonable discussion about subject content. Michael Ignatief epitomises this in his public harangues of the Harper Conservatives. Lord knows, the CPC is not perfect, but denizens of the Liberal glass house are hardly fit to criticise. MPs and bureaucrats are people too. Newsflash to the Liberals, people screw up. Get over it. But I’m digressing…

I won’t reproduce the comments to the article, but one. Go to the website to surf them on your own for the context, there are many excellent and topical comments there.

by Mambo Bananapatch
Apr 10 2010
9:15 AM

> Is this the kind of free speech you people want?

I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to understand this. Maybe a vitamin deficiency?

Free speech means being able to say things that make other people angry, or that offends them.

As for the dance show situation, well, death threats are actionable. Either you are being dishonest about this situation, or you don’t understand it. (I suppose it’s possible that the FBI is incompetent, but I’ve seen enough of your comments that I suspect the first or second.)

Anyway, death threats do not fall under the category of freedom of speech. No “free speecher” I know of would argue otherwise.

Free speech is the most basic human right there is. From this right all other human rights descend; without it, there are no other human rights worth having.

I support your right to post silly comments, or even to stand on a street corner shouting them. I support Barneyrubble’s right to propagate idiotic 9/11 conspiracy theories. I support Ann Coulter’s right to demand that the Muslim world be subjugated by Christians. I support tenni’s right to humiliate him/herself by calling her a “terrorist”. (tenni, just because you’re afraid of somebody doesn’t make them a terrorist.)

Here’s the part I think you’re having trouble with. And this is important, so pay close attention if you really want to understand:

I don’t agree with any of the people I mentioned above. I think they are offensive, stupid, sometimes hateful, sometimes despicable, always wrong.

But I would not want to live in a country where you could be punished by the state for your thoughts and opinions.

As far as I can tell, you want freedom of speech for yourself, but not for people you don’t like. I suspect that if you were to find yourself being shouted down by a mob of neo-cons you’d begin to understand.

Bumped: Greenpeace India: “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.”

Bottom line, Gene Hashmi (“Gene from Greenpeace India is known around the Greenpeace world for stating his opinion loud and clear, and not being a diplomat. He wrote this blog, showing the links, tight and loose, between the various player in the industry of climate inaction.”) believes that it is now time for Greenpeace to engage in eco-terrorism.

Having failed to convince the world that Climategate is false (or conversely, that AGW is true), he is now exhorting the worldwide membership to take matters into their own hands, and become, in his adopted words, climate outlaws.

The quotation below is from part 2 of his rant trying to tie climate change skepticism to, well, just about everybody but enlightened folk. (see part1). If you have followed any of the Climategate stories, website, books and writings, it will obvious to you that Hashmi is in massive denial, perhaps even blinded by irrational hate, still denying the massive fraud that anthropogenic climate change has been shown to be; he now resorts to issuing threats on a global scale:

[...].

Three months ago, in an unprecedented move that could have far-reaching effects, the small Pacific island nation of Micronesia wrote to the Czech Environment Ministry challenging the expansion of Prunerov 2, the Czech Republic’s most polluting coal power plant. Their case? The effect of CO2 emissions from Prunerov and plants like it would eventually see low-lying Pacific islands — even those that didn’t share a border with the polluting country — submerged due to rising sea levels.

This could have been climate cause-and-effect finally meeting face to face across a crowded courtroom. But that didn’t happen.

When Environment Minister Dusik told his Prime Minister he intended to reject Prunerov’s expansion plans, he was told that was impossible. Rather than do the bidding of fossil fuel corporations, Dusik resigned. While stepping down, he mentioned that the pressure from lobby groups and big business was too much to bear.

So that’s what it’s come down to. This could have become the first case of a climate-vulnerable country challenging coal power plants beyond its own borders and, in doing so, challenging everyone’s right to pollute. This could have put climate justice through its first stress-test. Instead, this has revealed that a watertight legal case, a high moral ground and a credible support base are no match for infinitely-resourced and well-muscled think-tanks.

This Prague Spring has revealed, above all, that the “proper channels” for righting historical wrongs have failed.

The [r]evolution won’t be televised.

What do you do when patient petitioning, protest marches and court orders fail? What do you do when all the protocols and cheat codes of democracy fail? This is what you do: you reclaim the language of democracy from the twisted bunch that have hijacked, cannibalized and subverted it.

Pressuring politicians on climate change is not working. We saw that in Copenhagen. Three months later, we also know why. Which is why the global climate movement now must do course-correction. We need to shift targets and go after the real termites that hollowed out and imploded Copenhagen.

Not Barosso, Obama or Wen Jiabao, but the real obstacles to the climate deal this planet deserves and demands. The oil and gas mafia running loose in New Delhi. The coal magnates that have Canberra by the short and curlies. The petrochemical giants that have placed a firm jackboot on the EU’s throat. The fossil fools and nuclear lobbyists that have Washington DC on speed-dial.

We need to hit them where it hurts most, by any means necessary: through the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets, and more.

We need to be inclusive. We need to join forces with those within the climate movement that are taking direct action to disrupt the CO2 supply chain. We need to embrace the conservatives too, the ones that choose scientific rigour and court injunctions as their weapons.

And we need to inspire, engage and empower everyone in between… from the AirPlotters stopping the expansion of Heathrow by purchasing bits of the proposed runway to the volunteer activists that have been making life hell for fossil fuel lobbyists in the US.

Finally, we need to prove repeatedly, consistently, doggedly, that our alternative vision of a world that runs on clean energy isn’t just a prototype, it’s already in production.

Emerging battle-bruised from the disaster zone of Copenhagen, but ever-hopeful, a rider on horseback brought news of darkness and light: “The politicians have failed. Now it’s up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It’s not working. We need an army of climate outlaws.“

The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.

If you’re one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few.

Always viewed as a shadowy, self-serving, militant rag-tag collection of pseudo-intellectuals, Greenpeace has now apparently come fully out of the closet as the misanthropes they always appeared to be. Anti-earth, anti-human, anti-life, Greenpeace apparently is poised to follow the lead set by former Greenpeacer and avowed eco-terrorist Patrick Watson.

While his words may be dismissed as the passion of a warmist, make no mistake: these will be the rallying cries of legions of lesser souls within the organization, Greenpeacers who would like nothing better than to see modern civilization fail. They are the grassroots of the modern organization. Once upon a time Greenpeace stood for rational reverence and preservation of the natural world. That hasn’t been true for forty years.

Its time to recognize Greenpeace for what it is, a multinational entity bent on forcing its mis-beliefs and its version of social order on the world, by any means, and that apparently includes terrorism, domestic and international. Time for nations to declare and treat Greenpeace as such.

Update: 2010-04-06

Apparently Greenpeace is feeling the heat about this. They have posted the following today:

Will the real ClimateGate please stand up? (part 2)

Statement from Ananth, International Programme Director:

You’ve probably come here to read a blog post written by our colleague Gene, in which he addresses climate sceptics by saying:

“Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.”If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.”

Well, we’ve taken down that post from our website. It’s very easy to misconstrue that line, take it out of context and suggest it means something wholly different from the practice of peaceful civil disobedience, which is what the post was about. Anyone who knows Gene knows he’s an entirely peaceful guy. In the interest of transparency we have moved it off site to this location, where you can read the offending quotes in context and judge for yourself:

We got this one wrong, no doubt about it. I’m holding up my hands on behalf of the organisation and saying sorry for that. Peaceful action is at the very core of what we do, so any language that even comes close to suggesting that’s not the case is something we cannot support.

Do read the entire response at the statement link.

However, “Ananth” hardly comes across as sincere. His response is more about petulance at being called out then sincerity about what Gene Hashmi has said.

Quoting from his response:

“Well, we’ve taken down that post from our website. It’s very easy to misconstrue that line, take it out of context and suggest it means something wholly different from the practice of peaceful civil disobedience, which is what the post was about. Anyone who knows Gene knows he’s an entirely peaceful guy. In the interest of transparency we have moved it off site to this location, where you can read the offending quotes in context and judge for yourself:”

Well, if he believed in the “sincerity” claimed above, why didn’t he just delete it?
Why would he move it, and then link to it? Why not have the author re-write it? I don’t believe “Ananth” when he says, “We got this one wrong, no doubt about it. I’m holding up my hands on behalf of the organisation and saying sorry for that.”
The message is still there for the party faithful to take from it what they will. The international attention pretty much guarantees they will.

“Ananth” goers on further in his response to say:

Of course the anti-science brigade on the web has seized on the line in Gene’s post and run with it (and will run and run and run), taken it out of context and run with it some more – it’s what the climate contrarians exist to do.

This individual simply doesn’t get it, and why Greenpeace, as a steward of anything but eco-lunacy, is so yesterday’s news. No mistake was made in the interpretation of Gene Hashimi’s post. No real apology is forthcoming in “Ananth’s” rebuttal. It was real science that put the boots to AGW and fueled the worldwide realization of massive fraud that has evolved from Climategate. “Ananth’s” petulant arrogance belies the fundamental lack of understanding of science and the real world that has characterized Greenpeace from its very inception.

Greenpeace, we too, “know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.” No more will you get to hoodwink the world. We are watching now, too.

Journo-Politico Violence: Deadly Threat or Menacing Trend?

Journo-Politico Violence: Deadly Threat or Menacing Trend?

by Iowahawk Apr 3rd 2010

A Public Safety Alert from David Burge
Executive Director and Chief Research Officer
The Media Violence Project / Center for the Study of Politician Sociopathy

At the Media Violence Project, our charter is to protect public safety by researching, documenting and raising awareness about the ever-increasing wave of violent, disgusting crimes perpetrated by members of the American news media. It is a largely thankless task — often requiring a cast iron stomach — but if our work has prevented one more American child from falling victim to a criminally insane anchorman or newspaper reporter, it will all have been worth it.

Every day at the MVP we receive emails from concerned citizens, such as this:

Dear Mr. Burge:

I have read with increasing alarm new reports of violence erupting around our country. For example, the recent rampaging campus murderer in Huntsville, Alabama; the Austin, Texas man who flew his plane into an office building; and the unhinged shooter at the Pentagon. Do you suspect these people may have been journalists? Also, what can I do to prevent my family from falling victim to these violent journalists?

Please do not print my name, as I live near a journalist and am concerned about my safety.

Name Withheld By Request

Read the rest of this delicious bit of satire (yes ,hmm, maybe not…) by Iowahawk.

Steyn: “It wasn’t the “reset” button President Obama hit; it was the ejector-seat button.”

Parochially Post-American

by Mark Steyn, April 3, 2010

It wasn’t the “reset” button President Obama hit; it was the ejector-seat button.

Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries. These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war, but, with such a full plate over at the State Department, it’s no wonder that peripheral matters like Iranian nuclear deadlines seem to fall by the wayside.

Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada, took U.S. criticisms in his stride. “Whether it comes to our role in Afghanistan, our sovereignty over our Arctic, or ultimately our foreign aid priorities, it is Canada and Canadians who will make Canadian decisions,” he said. Judging from the chill in the room at his and the secretary of state’s joint photo-op, the Canadian Arctic now extends pretty much to the U.S. border.

The Obama administration came into office promising to press the “reset” button with the rest of the world after eight years of the so-called arrogant, swaggering Texan cowboy blundering his way around the planet offending peoples from many lands. Instead, Obama pressed the ejector-seat button: Brits, Czechs, Israelis, Indians found themselves given the brush. I gather the Queen was “amused” by the president’s thoughtful gift of an iPod preloaded with Obama speeches — and, fortunately for Her Majesty, the 160GB model only has storage capacity for two of them, or three if you include one of his shorter perorations. But Gordon Brown would like to be liked by Barack Obama, and can’t understand why he isn’t.

There is much speculation on the “root cause” of presidential antipathy to America’s formerly closest ally. It is said his grandfather was ill treated by the authorities in colonial Kenya in the 1940s, which seems as good a basis as any on which to reorder 21st century bilateral relations, or at any rate as good as the proportion of the Canadian overseas-aid budget devoted to abortion promotion. But I doubt insensitive British policing two-thirds of a century ago weighs that heavy on the president. After all, his brother back in Kenya lives on twelve bucks a year, and that doesn’t seem to bother him, so it’s hard to see why ancient slights to his grandfather would — except insofar as they confirm the general biases of his collegiate-Left worldview.

In that sense, those who argue that, having been born in Hawaii and been at grade school in Indonesia, he lacks the instinctive Atlanticism of his predecessors are missing the point. Yes, he has no instinctive Atlanticism. But that’s not because of a childhood spent in the Pacific but because of an adulthood spent among the campus Left from Bill Ayers to Van Jones, not to mention Jeremiah Wright. That also conveniently explains not just the anti-Atlanticism but the anti-Zionism, at least until the scholars uncover some sinister Jewish banker in Nairobi who seized the family home after the braying Brit-imperialist toff tossed Grampa Obama behind bars. Perhaps a singing Mountie yodeling selections from Rose-Marie beneath his jailhouse window all night explains the president’s revulsion to Canadian Arctic policy. Perhaps the Gujarati fakir sharing his cell and keeping Grampa up all night with his snake charming accounts for Obama’s 18-month cold shoulder to India. And you can hardly blame him postponing his trip to Australia given the lingering resentments after Grampa was bitten by a rabid wombat down by the billabong who then ran off with his didgeridoo.

Fascinating as these psychological speculations are, we may be overthinking the situation. It’s not just the president. The entire administration suffers, to put it at its mildest, from systemic indifference to American allies. It wasn’t Obama but a mere aide who sneered to Fleet Street reporters that Britain was merely one of 200 countries in the world and shouldn’t expect any better treatment than any of the others. It wasn’t Obama but the State Department that leaked Hillary Clinton’s dressing down of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Ally-belittling comes so reflexively to this administration that it’s now doing drive-by bird-flipping. I doubt Secretary Clinton intended to change American policy when she was down in Argentina the other day and out of the blue demanded negotiations on the Falkland Islands. I would imagine she is entirely ignorant and indifferent on the subject, and calling for negotiations seemed the easy option — works for Iran and North Korea, right?

As to Canadian funding of Third World abortion, the secretary of state was simply defaulting to her own tropes: If she sounds more like the chair of Planned Parenthood than the principal spokesman for American foreign policy, well, hasn’t she always? In a 2003 autobiography almost as long and as unreadable as the health-care bill, she offered little on world affairs other than the following insights: France’s Bernadette Chirac is “an elegant, cultured woman.” Nicaragua’s Violeta Chamorro is “an elegant, striking woman.” Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto is “a brilliant and striking woman.” Canada’s Aline Chrétien is “intelligent, sharply observant and elegant.” But Russia’s Naina Yeltsin is merely “personable and articulate.” Alas, since taking office, the Obama administration hasn’t found Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper, Binyamin Netanyahu, Nicolas Sarkozy, Václav Klaus, or Manmohan Singh the least bit elegant, cultured, striking, elegant, brilliant, elegant, striking, elegant, sharply observant, elegant, or even personable and articulate.

One of the oddest features of the scene is attributed to the president’s “cool,” which seems to be the euphemism of choice for what, in less stellar executives, would be regarded as an unappealing combination of coldness and self-absorption. I forget which long-ago foreign minister responded to an invitation to lunch with an adversary by saying “I’m not hungry,” but Obama seems to reserve the line for his “friends.” Visiting France, he declined to dine with the Sarkozys. Visiting Norway, he declined to dine with the king at a banquet thrown explicitly in Obama’s honor. The other day, the president declined to dine with Netanyahu even though the Israeli prime minister was his guest in the White House at the time. The British prime minister, five times rebuffed in his attempt to book a date, had to make do with a perfunctory walk ’n’ talk through the kitchens of the U.N. Obama’s shtick as a candidate was that he was the guy who’d talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Instead, he recoils from all but the most minimal contact with the world.

John Bolton calls him “the first post-American president” and is punctilious enough to add that he doesn’t mean “un-American” or “anti-American.” In his Berlin speech, he presented himself as a “citizen of the world,” which, whatever else it means, suggests an indifference to America’s role as guarantor of the global order. The postponement of his Australian trip in order to ram health care down the throats of the American people was a neat distillation of the reality of his priorities: A transformative domestic agenda must necessarily come at the price of America’s global role. One-worldism is often a convenient cover for ignorance: You’d be hard pressed to find a self-proclaimed “multiculturalist” who can tell you the capital of Lesotho or the principal exports of Bhutan. And so it is with liberal internationalism: The citoyen du monde is the most parochial president of modern times.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2010 Mark Steyn.

[Ed.note: The National Review Online, from which this article is excerpted. would like your assistance to continue bringing the conservative voice to America.  Go to the EMERGENCY NRO WEBATHON Help Us Fight Back! campaign, and do what you should.]