Prof. Anthony Hall - Hate Speech as Political Rhetoric: Stephen Harper and 911 in the Canadian Election of 2008
Stephen Harper and 911 in the Canadian Election of 2008
By Anthony J. Hall
Founding Coordinator and Professor of Globalization Studies
University of Lethbridge
Stephen Harper’s campaign has been so unrelenting in its undifferentiated smearing of the entire international movement seeking 911 Truth that it has extended the frontiers of hate speech as political rhetoric. So ruthless has the Harper Team been on this theme that it can henceforth be identified as one of the world’s foremost agencies in the ongoing 911 Cover Up.
Harper’s campaign applied a variation of the tactics employed during the Cold War by Joseph McCarthy’s infamous Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities. In late September the Harper Team’s news releases went ballistic in its McCarthyesque push to characterize as un-Canadian each and every citizen who calls attention to the simple fact that the Bush-led War on Terror rests on nothing but an unproven conspiracy theory.That untenable official conspiracy theory begins with the premise that 19 Saudi high jackers armed with nothing but box cutters, a smattering of flight training and jihadist zeal succeeded in executing the most devastating attack on the continental United States since the War of 1812.
Harper’s Team leaped to the head of the 911 Cover Up Movement when it attempted to exploit for political gain a factually incorrect point included in a paper written in 2002 by the former Liberal candidate in Winnipeg, Lesley Hughes. While Hughes was wrong in her details, she is far from alone in her more general position that many intelligence services had prior knowledge that something very drastic was about to happen in the days and weeks leading up to 911. One of those intelligence services was indeed that of Israel. The Israeli government’s understanding of the situation was almost certainly connected to the activities of an Israeli spy ring posing as art students especially in the Hollywood Florida region. If I’m inaccurate on the issues of Israeli spies inside the United States prior to 911, then so are the reports I have been reading about it in many mainstream media venues including those of Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, CounterPunch, Intelligence.online, BBC, Fox News, the Sunday Herald in Scotland and the Sunday Telegraph in Great Britain to mention only a few. Will the Harperites and their operates in the right-wing blogosphere insist I am un-Canadian and a bigot for reporting what I have seen in these mainstream media vehicles? Are the sources I have read to be scorched from the record in a book burning campaign of information cleansing?
The Harper team crossed the line into lunatic hate talk in its effort to stamp out a citizens’ campaign aimed at securing commitment from politicians that, if elected, they will push for a Canadian investigation into the Canadian angle on the events of 911, including the death of two dozen of our citizens in the Twin Towers. Rather than deal with the nuances and complexities of the 911 issues on their merit, the Harper Team went into high witch hunt mode. It acted more like the thuggish storm troopers of Crown thought police rather than the brain trust of a mainstream Canadian political party.
In the initial Conservative press release on 911 the Harper Team quoted Conservative candidate Peter Kent. Kent collectively slandered all those many individuals seeking 911 Truth as “one of Canada’s most notorious hate mongering fringe movements.” What a self-incriminating slur to fall from the lips of the Scud Stud’s news reading brother. The subsequent Conservative press releases continued to follow this hysterical line labeling all those seeking 911 truth as “fanatics,” “incoherent,” “hateful,” “discredited” “offensive” and “repugnant.” According to the would-be thought police of the 911 Cover Up Party, the movement composed of those seeking 911 truth “is notorious for holding anti-Semitic views.”
Excuse me! Who here is carrying the most heavy burden of the legacy of anti-Jewish barbarity? It needs to be remembered that the terrible genocide of the Holocaust was initiated on the political right, not the social democratic middle; that George Bush’s grandfather was far from alone among US and British investment bankers in siding with Hitler rather than Roosevelt. It need to be remembered that Harper’s right-wing heartland of Alberta was until fairly recently the home of some of the notorious anti-Semites in Canadian history.
Harper’s disinformation and smear campaign lies well outside the sphere of legitimate political debate at this election time. This hate-inspired, hate-generating language is directed not at an individual. Like a carpet bomb, rather, it is calculated to maim indiscriminately a whole group made up of many people of varying ages, backgrounds, abilities and ideologies. We 911 truthers disagree on many things except one. Almost all us who have decided to think independently rather than to accept at face value the public mythology of 911 agree on one thing. In all our diversity, with all our warts and halos, we basically agree on the necessity of a credible investigation conducted by a distinguished panel of disinterested jurists informed by the ideals of genuine third-party adjudication. Only in this way can we overcome the impediments to 911 Truth put in place by the likes of political appointee Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director and primary author of the discredited 9/11 Commission’s report. But don’t take my word for it. Break free from the information monopoly of the media conglomerates . Google the subject and explore the facts, arguments and opinions for yourself.
The Conservative Party hate speech was directed in the first instance at the Liberal Party, who gave in to the shameful rhetorical blackmail. Then the witch hunters turned their attention to the NDP. Although Jack Layton has yet to explain where he agrees or disagrees with his friend Barrie Zwicker, the NDP leader chose not to go along with the Inquisition by pulling the plug on Bev Collins.
While the Harper Team’s first target was the political parties, I believe the larger agenda is to prevent the Canadian public from listening to the growing chorus calling attention to the growing litany of lies and crimes embedded at the origins of George Bush’s phony War on Terror. The hate speech of the Harper Conservatives is constructed by design to harm the quality of relations between 911 truthers and their communities, associates and loved ones. The hate speech is so extreme that it effectively attacks the very life support systems of those who proudly proclaim the need for 911 truth. Isn’t the Prime Minister attempting to isolate and stigmatize the 911 truthers in the conduct of our relations with all kinds of authorities, from police officers, to teachers, to employers, to social service agencies. In this way the brutal hate language of the Conservative campaign resembles racist campaigns of other places and times. But instead of targeting the members of a race, Harper’s hate speech operatives target a vast array of ideas and information as if it is all unified by some racist content and inspiration. That is outrageous! The silence has been deafening as the chilling effect has set in.
Rather than ethnic cleansing, the Harper Conservatives have engaged in a concerted attempt of intellectual cleansing aimed at stopping the fast unraveling of the 911 Cover Up. A shared interest in maintaining the 911 Cover Up has long united Bush and Harper. If these like-minded lobbyists for the oil industry had nothing to hide, wouldn’t they be happy to encourage those of us seeking a real investigation into the many documented features of the 911 saga that do not conform with the interpretations we were given just as the Great Shock was beginning to sink in during September of 2001?
The editors of the annual publication listing the top censored stories of 2009 have just included in their most current list the failure of the North American media to report on the inroads of the 911 Truth Movement into the parliamentary proceedings of the Japanese government. Are the decisions of those editors and the viewpoints of Japanese 911 truthers like House of Councillors representative, Yukihisa Fujita, to be explained away by the likes of Stephen Harper as the demented hate mongering of crazed anti-Semites?
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Nice to hear some truth for a change
It is inspiring to see people like Anthony J. Hall step up to the plate and explain so well what many of us are feeling.
Thank you!
CasaZaza
http://casazaza.blogspot.com/
Canada and 9/11.
Canadians deserve answers to questions regarding the Canadian military's roll in the events of 9/11/2001. A Canadian was in charge at NORAD Colorado Springs. Canadian air units were involved in the war games going on that morning. Games gone live into a false flag terror attack involved Canadians. We think they do protest too much. Wake up Canada, Wake up America!
Bullseye! Could be shortened for all those with attention ...
... deficits to improve its impact.
Mr Cheney,
"Do the orders still stand?"
The NORAD Papers Have Already Proved That 9/11 Was An Inside Job
All one has to do is show any article from The NORAD Papers series ( www.DNotice.org ) to Harper and his like, and then watch them run for cover!
The NORAD Papers use quotes from articles and government reports, published before September 11, 2001, that all say that NORAD's first mission (NORAD has three missions) was "monitoring and controlling the territorial airspace of the United States and Canada". Hit bastards like Harper with the PROVEN facts of 9/11 Truth.
Regards,
Dean Jackson, Webmaster of DNotice.org
Washington, DC