PRIME MINISTER DIPSHIT

 Yes there are some backwards ass motherfuckers at the anti-covid mandates protest in ottawa , but our smarmy little fuck of a prime minister gets it wrong when he calls everyone there nazis , racists, misogynists and other such sensationalistic labels. Fuck the racists and their shit.

There are also Indigenous protesters there , atheists and heavy duty christian types , and so many others. You know how it is, the media prefer to give the assholes and wackos more air time in order to discredit the opposing viewpoint(s) , and also people love to eat that garbage up like nothing else.

Fuck it.

In the meantime , prime minister dipshit has contracted the virus , despite his insistence on the rules and whatnot. Sad, isn't it ?

Forget about all of that, and listen to this album, as I was this morning :

Apocalypse 91. 

SHOULD HAVE BEEN

 I hadn't mentioned it before because I knew that as soon as the fucking health authority and "b.c.'s top doctor" started shitting their pants about omicron, nothing was going to happen. 

Yes, I'm talking about fucking restrictions and all the rest of it.

We were supposed to have played with DOA this past Friday, courtesy of Esther and The Phoenix , but of course everything has shut down again , because we know how well that works.

Be that as it may, we are also out of a practice spot because Subculture Club is closing , but we'll find a way to keep going and eventually play a show again one fine day.

Knife Manual were going to play also . It's been too long.

Stay tuned, fuckers......

  

HUMAN RIGHTS ARE A MYTH AND THEY DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THEM ANYWAY

 To all of those whining about the stupid fucking boring olympics being held in china and how they shouldn't be due to "human rights violations ", you can all fuck off.

The west do not care about human rights, as they didn't when latin american military death squads were throwing people out of airplanes, torturing them, raping and killing peasants who oppose their various corrupt regimes ,poisoning water supplies , burning down food crops , and the fucking filthy list goes on.

If the west cares so much about what goes on in china, then why don't they pull their tens of thousands of factories the fuck out of there and bring them back to north america , where they can treat the workers with respect and dignity and pay them decent living wages ? I answered that earlier. Because they are simply lying when they say they care, because they do not give a single fuck. 

Fuck the lying democracies, fuck the giant sweatshop that china has become , and who gives a fuck about the olympics.

FUCK NATO

 The media wants us to choose between russia and nato. How about fuck 'em both ? Russia is correct about nato ( led by the amerikkkans) wanting to surround them and "keep them in check", but russia itself is just as reactionary and fucked up . The difference is, is that nato have done far more damage to the world, and continue to be a threat to everyone's freedom and sovereignty ,all in the name of some illusory democracy. Fuck nato.

NATO is and always was a threat to African independence

Another election postponement in Libya is a reminder that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a threat to Africans.

Last month, Libyan presidential elections were postponed partly out of fear that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi would win. He is the son of former strongman Muammar Gaddafi who was overthrown and killed in the 2011 NATO-led war. Libya has yet to recover from the war that damaged infrastructure and led to slave markets.

In Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa, Concordia University professor Maximilian Forte argues the invasion of Libya was designed to eliminate an important supporter of African unity and critic of Western militarism on the continent. Gaddafi spearheaded opposition to the US Africa Command, successfully undermining Washington’s ability to gain “broad African support for basing the AFRICOM headquarters on the continent.” A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Tripoli called “the presence of non-African military elements in Libya or elsewhere on the continent” almost a “neuralgic issue” for Gaddafi.

The African Union aggressively opposed NATO’s bombing of Libya. A week before the bombing began, the African Union Peace and Security Council put forward a five-point plan to resolve the conflict. It was rejected by the NATO powers. Subsequent pleas by African Union officials were also ignored.

A Canadian general led the NATO bombing campaign; seven CF-18 fighter jets participated and two Canadian naval vessels patrolled the Libyan coast. CF-18s dropped at least 700 bombs on Libyan targets during the six-month war.

During the war a 20-ship NATO flotilla bombed Libya and enabled opposition rebels to bring in arms. Over the past 15 years NATO naval ships have maintained a patrol off the continent, particularly near the Horn of Africa. As part of what’s been dubbed Africa’s “encirclement by U.S. and NATO warships”, HMCS Athabaskan led Operation Steadfast Jaguar 06 in the Gulf of Guinea. A dozen warships and 7,000 troops participated in the exercise, the first ever carried out by NATO’s Rapid Response Force.

The next year Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 of NATO traveled 23,000 kilometres around the continent. HMCS Toronto participated in the five-month trip that was the first NATO fleet to circumnavigate Africa.

Oil largely motivated operations off Nigeria’s coast. Nigeria’s Business Day described NATO’s presence as “a show of force and a demonstration that the world powers are closely monitoring the worsening security situation in the [oil-rich] Niger Delta.” A Canadian spokesperson gave credence to this interpretation of their activities in a region long dominated by Shell and other Western oil corporations. When the Standing Naval Maritime Group 1 warships patrolled the area Canadian Lieutenant Commander Angus Topshee told the CBC that “it’s a critical area of the world because Nigeria produces a large amount of the world’s light crude oil, and so when anything happens to that area that interrupts that flow of oil, it can have repercussions for the entire global economy.”

More broadly, the objective of circumnavigating the continent was to develop situational knowledge of the various territorial waters, especially Nigeria and Somalia. How knowledge of countries’ coastlines was to be used was not made entirely clear, but it certainly wasn’t to strengthen their sovereignty. “During the voyage,” according to a story in Embassy, “the fleet sailed at a distance of 12 to 15 miles off the African coast, just beyond the limits of sovereign national waters. The NATO fleet did not inform African nations it would soon be on the horizon. This, Lt.-Cmdr. Topshee says, was an intentional move meant to ‘keep options open.’ ‘International law is built on precedent,’ he says. ‘So if NATO creates a precedent where we’re going to inform countries, we’re going to operate off their coastline, over time that precedent actually becomes a requirement’.” To help with the legal side of the operations a lawyer circumnavigated the continent with HMCS Toronto. Reportedly, the Nigerians did not appreciate NATO’s aggressive tactics. Topshee described the Nigerians as “downright irate” when the fleet approached. “There was real concern they might take action against us.”

For HMCS Toronto’s Captain Stephen Virgin, the circumnavigation was largely about preparing NATO forces for a future invasion. “These are areas that the force might have to go back to some day and we need to operate over there to get an understanding of everything from shipping patterns to how our sensors work in those climates.”

This interest in Africa is not new. NATO was birthed partly to enforce African subjugation. Established in 1949, NATO strengthened European colonial authority (and brought it under a US-led system). After Europe’s second great war, the colonial powers were economically devastated while anti-colonial movements could increasingly garner support from the Soviet Union and Mao’s China (or Egypt and Cuba, as was the case for Algeria and Angola respectively). The international balance of forces had swung away from the colonial powers. To maintain their colonies, the European powers increasingly depended on North American diplomatic, military and financial assistance.

NATO largely accepted European colonial authority and in the years just after its founding, Canadian officials repeatedly connected the North Atlantic alliance to the defence of the imperial status quo. (See my Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping for details.) In 1956 NATO established a Committee for Africa and in June 1959 NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the organization’s main political decision-making body, warned that the communists would take advantage of African independence to the detriment of Western political and economic interests. The Nigerian Labour Party’s 1964 pamphlet The NATO Conspiracy in Africa documents that organization’s military involvement on the continent from bases to naval agreements.

NATO shaped Canada’s diplomatic position towards decolonization. In 1960, leading Canada-Africa scholar Doug Anglin noted, “the fact that Canada is allied in NATO with all the great colonial powers has compelled her to consider the significance of the breakup of their empires in Africa for the strength and unity of purpose of the alliance.”

Through NATO Canada was militarily engaged on the continent. A Royal Canadian Air Force squadron operated from US bases in Morocco until just after its 1956 independence. Additionally, Canadian soldiers participated in NATO exchanges with militaries engaged in Africa.

More significantly, Canada delivered a huge amount of weaponry to the colonial powers through NATO’s Mutual Aid Program. Between 1950 and 1958, Ottawa donated $1,526,956,000 ($8 billion today) in “aid” to NATO countries. The deliveries included anti-aircraft guns, military transport vehicles, ammunition, minesweepers, communications and electronic equipment, armaments, engines and fighter jets. Three quarters of all Canadian Mutual Aid was military equipment and supplies (the rest was mainly training). The Canadian Way of War explains: “During the early 1950s, Canada outfitted several Dutch, Belgian, and Italian divisions with old British pattern equipment. Ottawa also initiated a smaller Mutual Aid program for others in Europe. This eventually included newly manufactured munitions. And there were many NATO military personnel trained in Canada.”

Through the NATO Air Training Plan, the Royal Canadian Air Force trained 5,500 pilots and navigators from ten NATO countries. It was primarily British and French pilots who received instruction over Canada’s vast terrain but there were also trainees from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and Portugal. This program was a successor to the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. During World War II, tens of thousands of British, Belgian and French pilots trained in Canada.

Canadian-trained airmen armed with Canadian weaponry likely participated in the murderous suppression of Algerian, Cameroon, Congolese and Kenyan independence movements. In the late 1960s and early 70s Portugal’s use of NATO weaponry to maintain its African colonies generated significant controversy amongst Canadian supporters of African liberation.

While militarists claim NATO is designed to defend its members, the alliance has long been a tool of colonialism and imperialism. There is no doubt it is a threat to Africans and other countries that wish to have real independence

ANYONE ELSE TIRED OF THIS SHIT ?

 Is anyone else tired of "b.c.'s top doctor" and all of the fear and bullshit this government is spreading ? And not just here of course, but all over this fucked up world.

Social distance and we'll be okay.

Wear a mask and we'll be fine.

Get the vaccine and we'll beat this thing.

Get the fucking booster and this'll be over.

Fucking bullshit.

None of their stupid shit has worked, and let's just ignore the fact that there's a 98-99% survival rate anyfuckingway.

Countries that have had very low vax rates or have not imposed lockdowns at all are doing no worse than we are.

Are you fucking over it yet ?

IS HE REALLY THAT FUCKING STUPID ?

 I don't have much respect for any politician at any fucking time, but this PM in England, can he honestly be that fucking stupid, or perhaps believe that the public are ?

This fucking asshole, Boris Johnson, attended a party at the same time the harshest lockdowns were in effect. Imagine not being able to attend a family member's funeral because of fucking covid restrictions while this piece of shit is partying , and now tells people he didn't know he was at a party. Holy fuck, you've got to be fucking joking. This shit is straight out of Benny Hill. How he's keeping his job ( or a straight face for that matter) is beyond me. Fuck him and all of the other fuckwads.

STATE

 Today I dug out an old tape that Bubba made for me back in the day, featuring the little known punk/hardcore band , State. I hadn't listened to it in so long that it felt fresh again. So fucking good. No nonsense straight to the fucking point hard driving punk and hardcore. I was in a good mood for the rest of the day after listening to this on the way to work early this morning.

Listen to STATE ! 

NOT REALLY WORTH IT

 

I just finished this book written by two tabloid style writers who claim to be 

" leading specialists on the Peruvian armed conflict". Maybe , but they certainly know nothing about ideology and have no issues with editorializing and putting a LOT of conjecture in their writing.

Don't get me wrong, I do not regret reading this semi-fictional account of the armed struggle in Peru , but unfortunately , many who do pick this up will accept the nonsense unquestioningly.

For one , they kept going on about how the rest of the world has left communism behind , with the Soviet Union and today's China as examples. The Communist Party of Peru have absolutely nothing to do with that stale horseshit that killed revolutionary ideals in their respective countries years ago . Any half-serious student of the movement in Peru knows this. This is sheer laziness, arrogance and ignorance. These "authors" clearly had their own agenda in mind when they wrote this thing.

And calling Chairman Gonzalo "the Hannibal Lecter of Peru"? Seriously ? Pathetic reactionary sensationalism.

But maybe they're right ,and the world is doing just fine the way it is.

All of the democratic countries are certainly proving that, aren't they ?

Fuck that.

Read this if you wish, but I fall short of recommending it to anyone.

Good night.

PUNK & REGGAE

 If it wasn't for punk rock, specifically The Clash , I might have never dug as deeply into reggae music as I have over the years. 

No , I'm not talking about every douchebag in the world with their Bob Marley Greatest Hits collection ( although that's fine too  ) , I'm talking about the heavy militants like Prince Far I, Peter Tosh, Linton Kwesi Johnson , and many others .

In fact I just bought yet another Prince Far I CD two weeks ago.

Listen to him here. He truly is "The Voice Of Thunder", and was uncompromising with his message and delivery. Also he was yet another victim of an unsolved murder back in 1983.

I will never tire of his heavy sound.

DESPITE THE REACTIONARY FILTH

 Despite the lies distortions and garbage heaped upon Chairman Gonzalo and the revolution he led, people around the world actually committed to fighting oppression and changing the world will find the truth because they seek it out and do not accept bourgeois lies . Fuck the mainstream media and the powers and ideology they defend.

By Jakob Stein

In December, numerous posters commemorating Chairman Gonzalo as well as red flags with hammer and sickles were documented in the popular neighborhoods of several cities around Bolivia. The photographs were published by the Communist International journal on Thursday, and are notable because they mark one of the first publicized actions for Chairman Gonzalo by revolutionaries in Bolivia in recent memory.

The recent actions contribute to the ongoing international campaign to honor Chairman Gonzalo, the great revolutionary leader of the Communist Party of Peru. Chairman Gonzalo was assassinated through medical neglect by the Peruvian State on September 11, 2021, after 29 years of solitary confinement as one the world’s most closely guarded political prisoners. In the face of such sinister attacks, the Party continues to lead an undefeated People’s War to overthrow the reactionary Peruvian State and expel US imperialism.

Chairman Gonzalo led the workers and peasants of Peru to rise up in great numbers, seizing land in the countryside and expelling police and military forces from large territories, which were subsequently put under the democratic control of the people. His leadership extends far beyond his practical leadership of the People’s War in Peru—he is the ideological leader of revolutionaries around the world because he synthesized Maoism, an undefeatable weapon in the hands of the oppressed masses.

Sharing its western border with southern Peru, Bolivia is an important location for Maoist revolutionaries, as revolutionaries there played an important part in uniting Communist Parties and organizations in Latin America with the teachings of Chairman Gonzalo.

The posters included Chairman Gonzalo’s face, as well as the slogans, “Eternal honor and glory to Chairman Gonzalo!” and “People’s War until Communism!” The number of actions in Bolivia and across the world show the strength of the campaign to defend the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo and the growing unity around Maoism on the part of revolutionaries around the world.

IS A U.S. - RUSSIA WAR INEVITABLE ?

 There has never been stability on this planet from the onset of nation states and even before . The difference now is the amassing of nuclear weapons and imperialists keeping troops everywhere , fighting over other countries' natural resources , including cheap sources of labour .

Fuck the u.s. and russia both.

UKRAINE: FLASHPOINT FOR INTER-IMPERIALIST WAR? 

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2021 AT 10:11AM

The bourgeoisie of all countries … covers its predatory aims with “national” ideology, [which] inevitably creates … revolutionary sentiments in the masses. Our duty is to help make these sentiments conscious.
--Vladimir Lenin, “Turn Imperialist War Into Civil War” (1915)

Russia’s massing of troops on the border of U.S.-backed Ukraine is one more step toward World War III. Notwithstanding the Joe Biden-Vladimir Putin video conference “in an effort to defuse a growing military crisis” (New York Times, 12/7), the U.S. and Russia are on a collision course. Politicians represent the capitalist ruling class interests behind them, the biggest banks and corporations. Since there are limited markets to control and limited resources and workers to exploit, the U.S. and Russian capitalist gangs are locked in a constant, deadly competition.
The U.S. has called the shots for the old liberal world order for the last 75 years. But with a rising China and a resurgent Russia, and U.S. rulers weakened by a deep split in their own ranks, their days of supremacy may be numbered. As in the run-up to World War I, the decay of an established order creates extreme volatility. Finance capital, the U.S. bosses’ dominant wing, has less and less control over world events. A seemingly minor confrontation could spark a bloody big-power conflict and a nuclear war.
Only a communist revolution can end these devastating imperialist rivalries by smashing nationalism and replacing it with working-class internationalism. Only a communist society, where money and profit are abolished and production is geared to workers’ needs, can serve the interests of our class.
Russia strikes back
Russia’s massing of 120,000 troops on the Ukraine border may be a warning to stop the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization from bringing Ukraine and Georgia into its military alliance. Russia is also responding to “plans by some NATO members to set up military training centers in Ukraine” (AP, 11/24) and reported U.S. military drills just 12 miles from Russia’s border (The Sun, 11/26). Ukraine is a critical export corridor into Europe for oil and gas, the main source of wealth for Russian capitalists.
After the collapse of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, U.S. rulers settled on a policy of “containment” to encircle Russia and prevent its re-emergence as a global superpower. The U.S. pushed NATO to absorb former Warsaw Pact (World War II Soviet-led, anti NATO alliance) states like Poland and Hungary, and, in 2004, the former Soviet Republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Strategically located Ukraine is a lynchpin of this U.S. strategy.
But in the name of profit, Russian imperialist rulers have struck back. Along with a series of military incursions—from Georgia and Syria to the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014—Russia has aggressively courted U.S. rivals like Iran and Venezuela. It has engineered the massive Nord Stream 2 pipeline to export its oil and gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine—so much for containment! U.S. bosses have continued to back Ukraine’s nationalist ruling class, sending $2.5 billion in military assistance since 2014, a time when Ukraine’s government was stocked with ministers from the openly Nazi Svoboda Party (Reuters, 3/18/14). Along with a dozen other NATO countries, the U.S. has significant numbers of military advisers in Ukraine.
As Russia continues to threaten an invasion, the limited U.S. response—possible economic sanctions—exposes its ever-weakening position. In their imperialist proxy war, the bosses killed tens of thousands of lives in Eastern Ukraine with Russian-backed separatists. As the conflict in this region expands, it’s the working class that will be fighting and dying for the bosses’ profits.
Nationalism: dead end for workers
 After the great communist revolutions in Russia and China, workers were freed from capitalist exploitation on one-third of the globe. At one time, the old communist movement vigorously promoted proletarian internationalism. But because of concessions to rotten capitalist ideas like higher wages for “experts” and an emphasis on production over politics, the international working class was left wide open to nationalist ideology. Nationalism is an essential tool for rulers to convince workers to be slaughtered in imperialist wars for “their country.” The world’s bosses, a tiny minority of the population, must rely on the working class to win their battles for them. Following the example of Russian soldiers in World War I, internationalist class consciousness can lead working-class soldiers and sailors to turn their guns around—and fire on the ruling-class warmakers!    
Since the end of the Cold War and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the threat of an imperialist alliance between Russia and China has petrified the U.S. ruling class. The U.S. bosses would be left at a huge numerical disadvantage in troops, tanks, and warships, as well as in nuclear weapons (Sun, 11/26). Over the last decade, China’s capitalist rulers have seen growing U.S.-Russia tensions as an opportunity to forge closer ties to Russia’s bosses. Joint air and naval exercises last month, including “bomber flights into Japanese and South Korean air defense zones,” led to “a new pact to further deepen defense ties” (Al Jazeera, 11/25). Russia is the number-two exporter of oil to China, after Saudi Arabia, while China has been a lead investor in Russian natural gas projects in Siberia (Al Jazeera, 11/25).
 U.S. ”democracy” flimflam
On December 9, Biden hosted a virtual “Summit for Democracy” to try to rally its allies against the so-called “autocracies” (or dictatorships) in Russia and China. In reality, all capitalist “democracies” are dictatorships of the capitalist bosses that will fight each other to the end for maximum profit. As the Council of Foreign Relations, the bosses’ top research and strategy institute, recently acknowledged, capitalist ruling classes “have little choice but to compete for power in what is at root a zero-sum game” (Foreign Affairs, November-December 2021).
If the past is any guide, the U.S. ruling class will deploy a media frenzy of nationalism and patriotism (and likely a 9/11-type provocation) to win workers to fight and die for JPMorgan Chase and ExxonMobil’s profits. But the U.S. bosses have an uphill battle to achieve their vision of all-class unity. The vicious split between the liberal racist Democratic bosses and the gutter racist Republicans has divided workers as well. Without a unified, multiracial armed forces and mass acceptance of a military draft, the U.S. rulers will be hard-pressed to prevail over the more disciplined rulers in Russia and China.
Communist revolution is the only solution!
 The implosion of the Soviet Union and China’s return to capitalism are both direct results of the poison of nationalism. Only with internationalism--the end of all borders, patriotism, racism, and sexism--can workers truly be freed. Progressive Labor Party needs to fight harder and more creatively to win masses of workers to our ideas on inter-imperialist rivalry and the inevitability of war under capitalism--in mass organizations, at our workplaces, with our neighbors, and especially in the military. As the ruling class prepares for World War III, we must organize to turn their imperialist wars into wars of communist liberation from capitalist savagery. Join us

SEE THROUGH THEIR SHIT

 kkkanada is and always has been against the right of survival of the Palestinian people and for the tyranny of israel over this oppressed nation. They can whine and bark about it not being the case, but facts are very stubborn things indeed.

Let us count the ways Canada supports Israel’s crimes

 

One of the most disingenuous arguments made by Canadian apologists for Israeli crimes is that it is irrelevant what transpires here. If they genuinely believed this why seek to squash support for Palestinians?

In fact, the Zionist colonization/Palestine liberation struggle plays out daily in Canadian bookstores, schools, media, diplomacy and elsewhere. But the forces of justice are up against a powerful, well-financed, state-backed movement employing all manner of slander and deception to defend Israel’s system of Jewish supremacy.

As they run roughshod, Israeli lobbyists claim it is racist to even talk about their actions. When Passage editor Davide Mastracci recently tweeted that he was setting up “a free newsletter that will track the Israel lobby’s influence on Canadian media” United Jewish Appeal of Toronto representative Noah Zatzman, former Jewish Defense League leader Meir Weinstein and others called Mastracci/the newsletter anti-Semitic. Before its first publication!

The newsletter could be an important contribution. Recently Postmedia apologized after the Montreal Gazettepublished an Amnesty International ad featuring 15-year-old Palestinian journalist Janna Jihad, who has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces. Under pressure from Honest Reporting Canada (HRC), Postmedia’s Senior Vice President Local Sales, Adrian Faull, said the “advertisement should not have been published and was a direct result of human error. Our entire Local Sales Advertising Team across Canada will be attending a mandatory training session on Thursday December 9th, to further reinforce our processes and standards.” The message delivered to the advertising employees at Canada’s biggest newspaper chain was (probably) ‘take Amnesty’s money but not if they mention Palestinians’.

In a sign of Postmedia’s complete lack of impartiality, a week Saturday the Montreal Gazette and National Post both published full page ads for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC). One read that it “trains the top pro-Israel politically engaged university students from across Canada to become the next generation of political leaders.” Incredibly, Postmedia was listed as a top sponsor of CJPAC, which organizes an annual “Israeli Wine and Canadian Cheese party” on Parliament Hill with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to “celebrate the strength of the Canada-Israel relationship.”

In October the Maple Leaf removed a story by a Canadian soldier part of Op PROTEUS, which assists Palestinian security forces to oversee Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. HRC criticized the military publication for an article by Lieutenant Colonel Len Matiowsky titled an “Artistic initiative that made a difference in Palestine”. HRC complainedthat the story employed the word “Palestine” in its title “even though official Canadian policy does not recognize ‘Palestine’ as a state as the Palestinians haven’t met the requirements for statehood.” HRC also complained about the Canadian soldier’s (innocuous) description of recent Palestinian history.

On December 20 Chapters Indigo officially banned the book Amazing Women of the Middle East: 25 Stories from Ancient Times to Present Day. Hasbara Fellowships Canada complained about a map in the book that read “Palestine” while discussing a woman born in Nazareth in 1886. Owned by a couple who’ve spent upwards of $100 millionsupporting non-Israelis who join the IDF, Chapters Indigo carries books that call the West Bank “Judea and Samaria” or deny Palestinian existence in various ways.

Zionists have sought to suppress Palestinian identity and discussion in Canada’s largest school system. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has been under intense pressure to fire educators that respect Palestinians. When students at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute held a rally last month to protest anti-Palestinian racism within the TDSB former head of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Avi Benlolo denounced their “hate”. In the National Post Benlolo concluded that “our future as a nation is at stake” if we don’t suppress high school students protesting anti-Palestinian racism.

At the federal government level Canadian diplomats make all kinds of absurd statements to favour Zionist policy. Two weeks ago Canada’s representative to the Palestinian Authority angrily criticized Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah for tweeting that Canada “arms and funds the apartheid state to murder Palestinians and steal their land.” Robin Wettlaufer responded by writing “we neither arm nor fund Israel.” After Abunimah and others provided evidence of Canada “arming and funding Israel” the Canadian diplomat blocked Abunimah on Twitter.

Recently Canada’s new ambassador to Israel, Lisa Stadelbauer praised that country for supporting a Canadian initiative against arbitrary detention. But 500 Palestinians are locked up without charge or trial by Israel in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention (more than 4,000 Palestinian political prisoners are in Israeli jails).

Over the past month Canadian officials have isolated themselves against the vast majority of the world in voting against a dozen UN resolutions upholding Palestinian rights. They voted against a series of resolutions that reflect official Canadian policy on the grounds, noted foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly, “we are opposed to any initiative, within the United Nations and other multilateral forums, that is specifically aimed at criticizing only Israel.” But what other country should be cited for denying Palestinian rights?

Notwithstanding their absurd arguments, proponents of Israeli apartheid dominate Canadian political culture and thus win most of the skirmishes. Still, the forces of justice are victorious in some battles and are increasing their ability to push back.

This month both the University of Toronto and Canadian Association of University Teachers rejected the IHRA’s anti-Palestinian definition of anti-Semitism. Also a TDSB report called for a Zionist trustee, Alexandra Lulka, to be censured for perpetuating negative stereotypes about Palestinians and Muslims. For her part, Canada’s representative to the Palestinian Authority Robin Wettlaufer was pilloried online for her ridiculous statement to Abunimah.

Even within the Liberal party MPs Salma Zaid and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith have sponsored recent parliamentary petitions supporting Palestinian rights. On December 22 new NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson released a statement urging the federal government to “end all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”. It concluded, “by failing to call out Israel for breaching international law and violating the human rights of the Palestinian people, Canada is contributing to the problem.”

The first step is knowledge. Following that comes action. That is why supporters try to shut down all criticism of Israel.