Some Blogs Are More Equal Than Others

"All blogs are equal, but some blogs are more equal than others."

It appears that the Tories and Liberals are leaking information to their favorite blogs, a case in point;

I received the following just a while ago from one of my contacts in the government. It's the transcript of Stephen Harper's comments that preceded his speech on accountibility. The original speech on accountibility (prepared before the hostages were released)... Stephen Taylor - Conservative Party of Canada Pundit

This puts the Blogging Tories in the same catagory as those conservative bloggers who publish Wal-Mart PR on their blogs.

Also see:

Blogging Capitalism

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Canadian Troops In Iraq

So says the CBC. A tip o the blog to Vive Le Canada for pointing this out.

Members of Canada's top secret commando unit, Joint Task Force 2, had been in Iraq working in tandem with British troops, said officials. It's not clear how many were in Iraq, but they have been in the country for some time.

RCMP, Canadian military involved?

Straw said the military operation that led to the release of the hostages occurred after "weeks and weeks" of careful preparation and involved military and civilian personnel, including the RCMP.

"The operation included representatives from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, other agencies from Canada – and they did a terrific job – as well as the Americans and British staff and those from Iraq," said Straw.

DID HARPER SEND CANADIAN SOLDIERS TO IRAQ? asks My Blahg. Probably not since the super secret commando unit JTF2 has been working with the US Special forces since 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Which makes this a continuation of Liberal Government policy. And another reason for full disclosure of all military operations to Parliament. So can we debate the issue NOW!

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They haven't killed us yet.

The Russian Mushroom is a great site for news about the current protests in Belarus over the phony election of their prison guard President

A small protest camp was set up in Minsk since Sunday night, while the State Police cracked down on protests across the country. Last night the police raided the camp.

So ends people power in Belarus. Swept up in the back of a police van. Please turn off your cellphones.

Belarus Protesters Hauled Off to Jail

Milinkevich's spokesman, Sergei Voznyak, said the opposition leader had been at the camp earlier but left before the crackdown, which occurred about 3 a.m. He estimated the number of detained at 400 to 600. He said they would most likely face 10 to 15 days in prison.

Voznyak said he was not sure whether Saturday's rally would proceed as planned. "Obviously, the people arrested today would make the core of that rally Saturday, and now they're all in prison," he said.

As she was transported toward the Okrestina detention center on the southwest outskirts of Minsk, Vanina said it appeared that authorities "ran out of patience" and moved to end the protests.

"They announced to the world that the Belarus people are all united in their love for Lukashenko. And they didn't want us to sit there and show the rest of the country that there is another Belarus, which is not afraid, which is not prepared to live in lies," she said.

Shortly after that, the truck stopped and she whispered that she would leave the telephone on as she and the others filed out. "Our conversation is coming to an end," she whispered. "Listen to whatever is about to happen. Farewell."

A harsh male voice could be heard soon thereafter. "Listen here, all of you!" it said. "Switch off your phones and get out, one by one."

And then the phone went dead.

They haven't killed us yet.

We are not panicking Radio Svaboda's correspondent quotes an arrested girl, Taciana Snitko, as transcribed by LJ user alteaenerle (RUS)

We didn't resist the crackdown. First we sat on the ground chanting "Police with the people," then we stopped chanting. We just silently held each other's hands. We weren't afraid, because we were anticipating this.

Now we are being taken by a truck outside the city. Through a tony window we can see something and figure out where we're being taken. Somebody said Cimiriazeva street, then Arlowskaya. Looks like we've left the city already.

Some guys got beaten up. They have blood on their faces. In our truck, girls didn't get beaten.

They haven't shot us down yet. We are not panicking.



Belarussian Anarchists Call for Solidarity!

In Minsk, Belarus, a tent camp was set up in the central October Square to protest against election fraud. Last night, this camp was brutally evicted with about 500 arrests. One of the evicted tents was the indymedia tent. Belarussian Anarchists are asking for solidarity. Belarussian anarchists call for solidarity!


In Minsk, Belarus, a tent camp has been set up in the central October Square, to protest against election fraud. Last night, this camp was brutally evicted with about 500 arrests. One of the evicted tents was the indymedia tent. Belarussian Anarchists are asking for solidarity.

Minsk. This morning, Belarussian anarchists distributed information: Last night, 23 March 06, 3:30 AM, the Belarussian riot police (OMON) started to destroy the tent camp that has been put up in October Square in the city center to protest against the fraud elections in Belarus.

30 to 40 tents were trashed, around 500 people arrested. Among the destroyed tents was a tent of the Belarussian Indymedia. Among the arrested are many known anarchists, such as members of anarcho-punk band Deviation (singer Stas Pochyobut) and editors of the banned satirical anarchist paper Navinki.

Anarchists were constantly present in the tent camp with a few dozen people. Yesterday, the United Civil Party reported that all internet cafes in the area were closed to complicate reporting.

The people arrested were heavily brutalized. As all the police stations in the city are full of people who were arrested during the last 10 days (opposition groups estimate the number of people arrested all over Belarus at 5000), those who were arrested at the tent camp were taken to unknown destinations off the city limits. Their location, condition and charges pressed against them are currently unknown.

Belarussian anarchists also ask for any kind of solidarity actions at Belarussian embassies around the world!

Follow belarus.indymedia.org for updates and video footage coming up.


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Iraq History

As America reconstructs Iraq in the image of Halliburton, we should perhaps review the history of the cradle of civilization that is currently being divided into sectarian states in preparation for becoming a Market State.

Iraq three years later: A glance back -- from the 19th century until today
Laurie King-Irani, Electronic Iraq (22 March 2006)
"Although Iraq is often described as separable into three distinct geographic and ethno-religious zones, the actual sociopolitical situation on the ground has always been more complex and heterogeneous due to extensive intermarriage, joint entrepreneurial projects, and consecutive waves of rural-to-urban migration over the last century. It is neither possible nor useful to correlate Iraq’s ethno-religious diversity with geography, class, or political ideology. Identity categories are not fixed, constant, and inevitable, but responsive to and shaped by administrative contexts of authority, resource allocation, and the codification of rights and duties. Apparently, no one told the Bush Administration about this basic anthropological tenet." An historical and anthropological overview of Iraq's history and current crises by Laurie King-Irani, an Electronic Iraq co-founder and social anthropologist.


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No Free Speech Here

They want free speech, they want the right to protests,they want to meet the PM. And they lie. Tearful Bardot appeals for end to seal hunt

Paul Watson of Sea Shepard lies. He claims he is arrested every time he gets on an ice flow. He forgets to say thats because he is interfering in the seal hunt. He demands free speech and the right to protest on the ice.

He says that Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette who opposes him is a liar. The DFO are liars, and the Inuit are liars.

He lies in a press conference when he tells reporters that this isn't about the Inuit hunt. Then on Mike Duffy Live he brags that his Sea Shepard society have gotten quotas imposed on native seal hunting around the world. And of course he wants it to stop. He lies when he says they use the White Coat seal photos for propaganda PR cause they are not allowed to photograph other seals.

Paul McCartney was on the ice with both new born white coats and more mature baby seals, and for propaganda purposes he was photographed with the white coats.

Mr. Watson called the seal hunt "barbarous," saying he has witnessed seals kicked in the face and skinned alive, something Ottawa insist does not take place.

Sure that was thirty years ago when the hunt began. When Greenpeace and the Sealers were cooperating, trying to only reduce the quota's. When the Green NGO's were being reasonable. Now they want a complete ban. period. No quota's not even on Inuit hunts.

Which is why Paul Watson and Bridgette Bardot denied these folks their right to be heard.

Outside the hotel, a group of high school students from Nunavut, some wearing seal boots, demonstrated. They banged drums and waved placards with the words "seals are part of our economy." They were told they were not allowed in.

Nunavut's Education Minister, Edward Picco, who was in Ottawa for meetings, joined the students.

"Students want to show there is another side to the issue," he said, wearing his harp seal coat. The "Brigitte Bardots of this world" have no idea about sealing, he added

“The only cruelty here is the cruelty being inflicted on aboriginal Canadians.”

Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette accused Bardot of being dishonest in her crusade. Bardot’s website denounces the hunt, using the image of a baby seal with its blood spreading over the snow. But Hervieux-Payette noted that, since 1987, Canada has banned the hunting of seal pups while they still have their white coats

In fact it was three Liberal Senators including Hervieux-Payette who defended the Inuit and the Sealers and, gasp, the Harper government in a counter press conference yesterday. Since Harper and his Ministers refused to meet Watson or Bardot.

The cone of silence on the seal hunt is business as usual for Harper. But the Liberal Senators who said he was too busy conducting business of state to respond to Bardots publicity stunt still get dissed by the right wing and the Blogging Tories.

Watson doesn't lie when he says he is opposed to all hunting of all animals. He is a vegetarian. Better a billion carrots die than a 325,000 seals.

Though it is the history of humans as agriculturalists, not humans the hunter gatherer, that has created modern civilization and its resulting industrialization and capitalism. Opps forgot about that did we Paul?

Finally lets accept the fact that little white coat seals are still cuter than a faded sobbing starlet. And the Green NGO's will contiue to milk this image for all the $$$$ they can get from the gullible public. And that's what this whole campaign against Canada's seal hunt is about.





Click here for my Seal Hunt Articles




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Good News From Iraq

Canadian hostages in Iraq freed Three western aid workers -- including two Canadians --kidnapped in Iraq last has year have been freed. Christian Peacemaker Teams confirmed Thursday that Torontonian James Loney and former Montrealer Harmeet Singh Sooden.

Special forces free Iraq hostages

Christian Peacemaker Teams posted a statement on its Web site expressing joy in the hostages' release but also criticizing the U.S.-led operation in Iraq. "We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq," the statement said. "The occupation must end.

And Ihtisham Hibatullah, of the Muslim Association of Britain, said the group was "greatly relieved" by the news. Speaking about moves to secure their release, he said: "The hostage takers were ruthless and did not heed this call. Now we all feel that this should be the last time in Iraq that anyone should be taken and put through this kind of trauma."

See my Blog articles on Peacemakers



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Anti-War Demonstrations

Last weekend Anti-War demonstrations marked the begining of the 4th year of Bush's War on Iraq.

In Edmonton 100 marchers braved a record breaking snow storm to march. Pictures from that march are here.



Pictures from Toronto march are here

Here are the numbers from around the world.

Tokyo 2,000 1st day

800 2nd day

Sydney, Australia 500

Stockholm 1,000

Montreal 2,000

Chicago 7,000

Turkey 2,000

Seattle 2,000

San Francisco 25,000

Pakistan 2,000

Los Angeles 20,000

Korea 1-2,000

Seoul 3,000

New York, Times Square 1,000

Copenhagen 2,000

Vancouver 1,000

Toronto 2,000

London 15,000

Fort Bragg 1,200

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Red Baiting Chomsky

Yesterday the National Pest featured a right wing attack on Noam Chomsky. It is bylined by Peter Schweizer, National Post.

No attribution is given to who Peter Schweizer is. He is a right wing policy wonk with the Hoover Institute.

Nor does the Pest bother to say that this is an exerpt from his book; Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

Actually the Pest should be ashamed of itself, but it won't be of course, for publishing this piece of red baiting hysteria without attribution. And copywriting it like it was an original article.

Luckily for us its on one of their comment pages so please feel free to go there and let them know that Noam is ok and Peter is a dweeb.

Given the fact that Chomsky is a libertarian and a public intellectual Schweizer's attack on him is the same he uses on Michael Moore, he looks at their private lives and condemns them for, shudder, making money. In effect publishing books, giving lectures, producing DVD's, and a movie with the National Film Board of course, which is all apparently verboten for the Left, but ok for hypocrite Schweizer. You see he makes his money as a policy wonk, a red baiter of the old anti-communist school of James Burnham.

Whats ok for Peter of course is not ok for Noam. Apparently Left wing Intellectuals must wear sack clothe and ashes, in order to live up to their ideals, while champagne and caviar are fine for the right.

I think the Russians fought a revolution to over come than kind of aristocratic thinking. Indeed for two weeks during the October Revolution the vodka and booze literally flowed out of the Winter Palace until the Bolsheviks were forced to put armed guard units in charge of the wine cellar. Mind you they soon succumbed to temptation too. This is what happens when you have been denied the simple pleasures in life.

In Peters world such pleasures only are afforded to the cheerleaders of capitalism. For the critics of capitalism well they should be ashamed of themselves.

Peter began his red baiting, anti-communism waaay back. He is dyed in the wool Reaganite. One of the Neo-Cons that urged and cheered on Reagan as he challenged the Soviet Union with his Apocalpyse Now politics.

Along with Paul G. Kengor, Ph.D. Executive Director, The Center for Vision & Values Fellow, Faith and the Presidency, Peter is co-editor of Assessing the Reagan Presidency (Rowman-Littlefield, 2005). He is also author of Disney: The Mouse Betrayed, is a media fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University) and a former consultant to NBC News. His previous works, The Next War (coauthored with Caspar Weinberger), Victory, and Friendly Spies, have been translated into nine languages. A graduate of Oxford University, his journalism appears in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

He is in effect a wannabe public intellectual, when he is nothing of the sort. He is a policy wonk journalist, and at best a policy advisor. Chomsky is a Phd. A professor, who teaches in university, and uses his academic and intellectual position within the capitalist state to criticize that state.

Like most neo-cons, Peter licks the hand that feeds him and snarls like their pet pitbull when intellectuals dare to bite that hand. It is not Chomsky who suffers from being hypocritical it's Peter.

For instance in an interview Peter is exposed for what he is an old fashioned red baiting (there are commies under the bed) conspiracy nut. Just like Uncle Joe, McCarthy not Stalin. This comes from an interview not from 1962 or even 1982 but from 2002. Seriously.

Peter Schweizer: They did. You know, there was certainly an anti-nuclear sentiment in Western Europe and in the United States and there were people, you know, lots of people that had that sincere belief, but what the KGB and the Soviet bloc intelligence did was give that movement meaning, like setting up organizations, by organizing protests. They wanted to try to make those protesters as politically relevant as possible.

So we know, for example, that one of the top people in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, which was the largest anti-nuclear group in Great Britain, was actually on the payroll of East German intelligence. We know that one of the largest peace movements in Germany was funded by East German intelligence and we know from KGB files that the KGB provided funding and helped organize protest movements in the United States. So it was a very elaborate campaign effort and very significant in importance to that movement growing and having a political voice in the United States and Western Europe.

Once the Soviet Union fell well what was a Cold Warrior like Peter to do? No more reds under the bed, so the espionage and terror network had be......


COUNTERING INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE IN THE POST-COLD-WAR ERA
(Senate - June 24, 1992)

The Growth of Economic Espionage: America Is Target Number One
Peter Schweizer
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1996


Yep cyberwarfare, became his next ballywick. When that declined as the world of cyberspace became more and more public and the Zapatista's used it for creating a very real public world of protest, not darkened corners of ex-KGB spy networks, well Peter was out of work again as a policy wonk.

So what does he do? Write a paen of glorious praise to his hero Ronald Reagan; the former communist turned anti-communist, former Hollywood union leaders, turned union buster.

Peter Schweizer: I just think Reagan was a wonderful leader. He demonstrated the power of courage and I think he was right and it applies to the war on terrorism today; you know, evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. I think that's a philosophy that we can carry to the war on terrorism. I think that's a philosophy that we can carry forward in any battles we are facing in our lives.

Well do ya think this guy has a bias? And since Chomsky spent so many years attacking the maniac regime of Reagans Secret Wars do ya think he has an axe to grind? Well do ya?

Once again we find ourselves confronting the fact that the old communist left including the Trotskyist mileu in the United States confronted with the dominance of America after the war and the faliure of Bolshevism and consequently its defeat at the hands of Stalin, they retreat to the right.

Peter is of the neo-con school that arose from the defeated Trotskists like Max Schactman, and James Burnham. Indeed so is Fukuyama, David Horowitz, and those who see themselves as heirs of the NYC Trotskyist Intellectuals that turned to the right in the 1960's.

But Emma Goldman had already predicted the decline of the Russian Revolution into a Bonapartist regime in the 1920's. The Anarchists saw the Russian Revolution as only one attempt at revolution one that was doomed to failure because of its authoritarian Lenninst orgranization. Kropotkin did, and died fighting for Anarchist minority rights against Bolshevik poltical control.

Emma lectured around the world, exiled from the US, denouncing the Bolsheviks for failing the peoples revolution. She and the Anarchist left embraced the Spanish Civil War as the next peoples revolution, in a series that would confront capitalism in order to bring forth the new world.

That struggle continues today and we see it in the Post Reagan world, the Zapatista revolts, the anti-globalization movement, the left surge in Latin America. This is a very different dialectic than the one that occured in the eighties as America dominated geo-politics.

America has fought two wars in Iraq, the first a pyrichic victory, where before they could really defeat Saddam they left. Then the Balkan failure, unless breaking up the Balkans is what you want to do, which some of us suspect. The failure of democracy to arise in Russia and Eastern Europe while mafia capitalism runs rampant only to give way once again to old Tsarist politics of Putin. I looked into his eyes and saw his soul says King George the II. And he saw the soul of neo-conservative politics. Real Politick, Power Poltics, the politics of Empire.

Chomsky was the left intellectual who was outspoken for all that time, sometimes a lone voice as the neo-cons gained ascendency in the public and media during the Reagan, Bush era. A lone voice. One who must now be ridiculed and attacked by red baiting syncophants like Peter Schweizer, in order to write their revisionist history of American Empire.

Like old battles on the left where the Anarchists are attacked by the Communists and Trots, the right also hates the Anarchists. We fought against both the authoritarians, left and right. Reagan and Lenin, Bush II and Stalin. We did not betray our revolutionary traditions, we continue them today. As does Chomsky.

Unlike Burnham whom of course neo-cons like Peter Schwiezer and David Horowitz owe their existance to. Not Regan, not Hayek, not even Rothbard, but to Burnham, the old Trot who betrayed the left to suck up to the right. It is the old left, of Stalin and Trotsky, whose Bolshevism was that Revolution was Immanent, that their revolutionary movement was the Eschaton, its existence was predetermined, milliarian, and thus always about to happen. Thus Reganism, Bushism and the neo-con ideology of America Truimphant ironically has its foundation in Bolshevism. And Bolshevism and Anarchism are old enemies.

Burnham’s relations with his colleagues on the non-communist Left suffered as a result of his Cold War trilogy. Where once there was widespread acclaim for The Managerial Revolution, now his colleagues on the Left disdained him as a warmonger who advocated atomic war. For many liberals (and some conservatives) Burnham’s geopolitical vision was too sweeping and apocalyptic. To many, a policy of “liberation” was simply too dangerous in the nuclear age. The non-communist Left sought, at most, to contain the Soviet Union while searching for areas of accommodation. Burnham did not think that accommodation with communism was a long-term possibility. For Burnham, the Cold War was a systemic conflict that would only end when one or the other system changed or was defeated.

His final and lasting break with the non-communist Left, however, resulted not from his proposed strategy of “liberation,” but from his views toward domestic communism and what came to be known as “McCarthyism.” Burnham, unlike many intellectuals of the time, believed the testimony of Whittaker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, and other ex-communists who identified and described the activities of a Soviet espionage apparatus that operated in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. He supported the congressional investigations of domestic communism and even testified before investigating committees. He also called for outlawing the Communist Party of the United States.

During the 1980s, as Peter Schweizer, Jay Winik, Andrew Busch, and others have described, the Reagan Administration formulated and implemented an offensive geopolitical strategy designed to undermine Soviet power.37 While there is no evidence that Reagan or his advisers consciously sought to apply Burnham’s precise strategy of “liberation,” Reagan’s strategy consisted of policies that in a fundamental sense were remarkably similar to Burnham’s proposals. Reagan launched a vigorous ideological and propaganda offensive against the Soviets, calling Soviet leaders liars and cheats, predicting the Soviets’ near-term demise, and daring its leader to tear down the Berlin Wall. Reagan provided aid and encouragement to Poland’s Solidarity movement and the Afghan rebels, two resistance movements within the Soviet Empire. Reagan built up U.S. military forces, deployed intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe, and announced the plan to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), thus putting additional pressure on the already strained Soviet economy, thus serving to convince the Soviets that they could not win an arms race with the United States.

The so-called “Reagan Doctrine” placed the Soviets on the geopolitical defensive throughout the world. Less than a year after Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall came down, the enslaved nations of Eastern Europe revolted, and the Soviet Empire was on its way to dissolution. Burnham, it turns out, was right all along. Containment was not enough to win the Cold War. It took an offensive geopolitical strategy to undermine Soviet power. And, as Burnham had argued, Eastern Europe was the key to victory.

Burnham had little confidence that such a strategy as his would ever be implemented by the United States. His pessimism in this regard was most profoundly expressed in his 1964 book, Suicide of the West. Burnham argued that since reaching the apex of its power in 1914, Western civilization had been contracting, most obviously in a geographical sense. Burnham described the contraction in terms of “effective political control over acreage.” Because the West continued to possess more than sufficient relative economic, political, and military power to maintain its ascendancy, the only explanation for the contraction was an internal lack of will to use that power. Hence, the West was in the process of committing “suicide.” In the book he was highly critical of modern liberalism, but the author did not claim, as some have stated, that liberalism caused or was responsible for the West’s contraction. “The cause or causes,” he wrote, “have something to do…with the decay of religion and with an excess of material luxury; and…with getting tired, worn out as all things temporal do.” Liberalism, instead, was “the ideology of Western suicide.” It “motivates and justifies the contraction, and reconciles us to it.” He expressed his belief that the collapse of the West was probable, although not inevitable. He acknowledged the possibility of a “decisive change” resulting in a reversal of the West’s contraction.

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Better Balanced Budget

Yep that was C-48 the Federal Budget amendment brought in by the NDP last June. And it is the budget the NDP in Alberta is proposing as an alternative to the Klein Stay The Course Budget.Which is par for the course, seeing as King Ralph likes to make spending announcements between budgets, without consulting his cabinet or the Legislature. Which is why he sticking around for another year and a half.

Ordinary Albertans will get only minor relief from the budget. Exemption levels for personal, spousal and dependent deductions will be increased by $100, expected to save taxpayers affected by the change an average of $35 a year.Businesses will save a total of $300 million from a reduction in the corporate income tax rate to 10 per cent from 11.5 per cent.

The New Democrats tabled their own budget to reporters yesterday, one that pledged $1.5 billion from adjusted oil and gas royalties for a new green fund to help Albertans use energy more efficiently.

It also called for the establishment of a new pharmaceutical savings agency the party claims would save the province $75 million in its first year.

The NDP said they would reduce health-care wait times in the public system, scrap health-care premiums, reduce the education portion of municipal property taxes and establish kindergarten and junior kindergarten in Alberta schools.

They said they would also implement the auditor general's recommendations to improve the quality of long-term care in the province.

Mason said his party would kill the new ministry of restructuring and government efficiency, saving taxpayers $30 million annually.

"It's almost an oxymoron," he said. "It is itself a prime example of waste."

The NDP would also cut back the province's $14 million public affairs bureau, phase out private school funding, scrap the royalty tax credit, eliminate a $45 million horse racing subsidy and put the brakes on cuts to corporate taxes, Mason said.

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Which Is It?

A classic case of is the glass is half full Anti-Semitic incidents fell slightly in 2005, group says or half empty 'Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada are on the rise'
And just to be "fair and balanced" are they including incidents of attacks on Arabs who are also semites or just Jews?




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