Christie Blatchford cockeyed on Aleppo (too) !

   No, I am not obsessed with Christie Blatchford: I swear!  It's just that it so happened as I was busy with my Czech blog since summer, that she is the focus of my writing here back-to-back.  Something caught my eye in her writing on Friday, and I think I need to make a few points. 

   We live in parallel universes. It seems more and more self-evident. The amount of  irreducible moral values that we share has shrunk to almost nothing; critical thought has been has been banished out of almost any discourse; to demand balanced view of anything in the social or political sphere, you may as well admit that you are "in the other camp".  This is because we operate increasingly in a binary world of white against black, and most people (starting with generation  X-ers, but even more so with the millenials) no longer process the world based on what they digest by scavenging information from various sources, but simply plugging into ONE virtual reality that obsesses with a selection of real and imaginary outrages against THEM and THOSE who declare themselves believers in that virtual reality out of sense of kinship.  No dissent is allowed. If you have doubts about the basic tenets of the belief system  you are an agent of EVIL, or at best you are still in denial.

   There is no way you can convince the batshit crazy feminist troopers on campus that there is no world-wide male conspiracy against women or a culture of rape that every dick knows and lies about. There is no way one can reason with them and increasingly no way one can reason with the academia administrators who - if not in sympathy - are plainly intimidated by them. No way the famous Rolling Stone campus false rape accusation (there was a number of less-publicized similar cases before) would convince any of the troopers of the need to tone down the inane rhetoric if not to spend their creativity and energy in more useful social projects.

   Similarly, you cannot convince anti-Putin fanatics to drop their idiotic narrative in which he is a murderer of domestic political opponents, invader and oppressor of foreign countries, and a commander in chief of a grand army of hackers.  There is always the insane pitch that will sooner or later arrive in any of these virtual reality information channels.  In the campus statistical follies, it has arrived with the conviction that one in four women on campus has been sexually violated.  On the other front, this past week we learned that Putin was "personally" involved in the hacks. It could not have been otherwise; no-one in Russia could have ordered the hacks but Putin. But what is this saying?  People who don't know anything about Russia - let alone about Putin's Russia - automatically assume that this axiom must hold even though it should obvious to any modestly smart intelligence officer that someone high up might have (just might have) want to protect the boss and order the hacks to curry favours because he knew (or thought he knew) that Putin would be pleased with that sort of activity. It also would give him a way out - it's called "plausible deniability". That is a possibility, right?  But by the pedestrian logic deployed here, it must have Nicholas who ordered the assassination of Rasputin. No-one in Russia, the theory goes,  would have had the nerve to take bake cakes with potassium cyanide at the court without the express permission of the Tsar. Would he ? Vozmozhno?   But interestingly this childish assertion about Putin masterminding anything nefarious in Russia, has become a blood sport.  Kovtun and Lugovoy, the murderers of the former KGB agent Litvinenko in London in 2006 likely had had a clearance from Putin, Lord Owen concluded in a pathetic inquiry into the death of the émigré.  This of course opens the door for someone like Terence McKenna to claim there is no doubt Putin did it, and that he did it cover his tracks in the murder of Politkovskaya which Litvinenko alleged.  Our journalistic standards at work.

      With Christie Blatchford, it astonishes me to learn that she is willing to lap up much of the mainstream media garbage that one reads about Syria in general and Aleppo in particular.  It is very clear that she has no alternative source of information about the place and what is going on in there.

She excuses herself at the start of her National Post piece (Aleppo Needs Us, 16/12/2016) saying she is "certainly no foreign policy wonk".

That's Christian of you, Christie!  But what do you think you have to contribute here other than repeating the revolting and insane lies, which equate the bad things wrought by Assad  (and his friend Putin) to the monstrosities of people who massacre and terrorize civilians on grand scale.  Isn't the narrative that you and the Western media propagate the very guarantee of more death, destruction and misery, that Syria's people presently suffer?  Did you do some sanity check on some of the things you allege the government side does?  Like "chemical weapons" ?  You know that the evil Assad gave those up three years ago?  Don't you ?   (You evidently missed the Seymour Hersh's piece that no major outlet would initially publish in the U.S.) At any rate, you should know, that the only undisputed use of chemical weapons in the five-year war came from the rebel side. Very few people would argue with this on the basis of facts.  As for barrel bombs, well it's a brutal weapon and it was used by Assad, although I am still missing evidence that it was used "on civilian population" indiscriminately.  I am pretty sure that the Syrian dictator would be less generous in providing warning that hell is going to rain down on houses with people in them than the Israeli's were in Gaza.  But that the use of barrel bombs seems to have been limited to places (like the vicinity of Damascus or Homs) from which rockets were fired on civilian areas under government control.  Now, if you went as far as listening to Assad himself talking about his tactics in trying to dislodge the fanatics from heavily populated areas toward open spaces, you might have learned something. The Evil Man  has actually won a great deal of popularity in Syria as a "protector"  and in the internal dislocations over 80% of the displaced population migrates to the government-controlled areas. Now if you asked , "how much relief do these people  (over four million of them) get from the UN" you would be asking the right question.  But you are not asking that. Actually you are not asking anything (like Robert Fisk is, e.g.) You come to lecture, and lecture about something you personally have no background in, either as a first-hand experience or in absorbing some credible in-depth information on the conflict.  I am talking about judicious weighing of the alternatives, not the phoney ceasefires, peace proposals which by now everyone knows are just a smoke screen for the continued license to wage war on Syria. Boris Johnson has no solution for Syria. After he said that Russia could be guilty of war crimes in Syria, someone retorted that only "an idiot" would see the two sides of the conflict in terms of moral equivalence. And there are only two sides! The non-jihadi militants have never been a factor in the fighting!  Now what about the sudden surge of ISIS in eastern Syria after the Iraqis and the allies opened up a corridor for thousands of fighters to escape through, and the sudden reversal of Obama in signing an arms waiver for the rebels?  Any connection there, you think?


 So I would forget about getting rid of Assad!  It's not anyone's call to make but the Syrians'.  If one wants to help one should diversify a bit one's reading and seeing: try Eva Bartlett or Vanessa Beeley.  Too bad that in the English-speaking world I have not found a writer like  Tereza Spencerova who sends dispatches to the Czech weekly Literary News.  She has a great sense of what is going on on the ground and a way to make the landscape speak out in a way that is both believable and touching without melodrama. Here is an interesting excerpt from one of her blogs (translated from Czech): 

"I had the opportunity to visit one of the improvised refugee camps a few kilometers from Aleppo, on the grounds of a former textile factory. There was a  flood of women covered in black; some had their faces covered as well, except eyes. The eyes were empty. No mourning, no celebrating. One man from the Red Crescent tried to convince them over a bullhorn from a warehouse ramp that it is not against Allah's will to allow their children to be vaccinated against all manner of diseases.  Al-Qaeda forbade this as a conspiracy of the West to uproot Islam. In the meantime their men fought over unleavened bread Syrian soldiers were distributing from trucks. It was a view of human beings who have no idea what is going on around them, or what will be, humans with a single desire to survive the present, which in the shock from any radically new situation is, well, an automatic reflex.
    I tried to find out - in vain it turned out - if people from East Aleppo were more inclined to practice a very conservative form of Islam before the war or if they accepted the new ways as a part of their "Stockholm syndrome" from their captors, al-Qaeda. In any case, it was a horrific scene. In the middle of (relatively) cosmopolitan and civilized Syria, suddenly materializes a scene from Middle Ages - a Kandahar.   
    But the West does not care about these people any more - they were of interest only when they were under Russian or Syrian bombardments, and until anyone knew who they were. Now, when they are out - in the daylight, so to speak - no one can pretend they represent the masses struggling for democracy in Syria, and hence the Western humanitarian and other organizations lost their interest...but is anyone surprised?"

Team Women Rocks Means Team Men Sucks?

Oh dear, it's Christie Blatchford!  Here is a journalist whom I have long considered the voice of reason among women, one who had her female libido dominandi firmly in check. Well wouldn't you know: somewhere, at some point the FCS (female chauvinist sow) will bubble up even in her.

  To hell with you, Christie! Why does the courageous and successful showing of Canada's women's soccer team have to invite the silly "comparison" with the lack of overall medal production from men?  (Team Women Rocks, Ottawa Sun, 21/8/2016) What is to be gained by that ? It is not even that monumental battle of sexes in tennis in which a top woman professional beat the pants off a male champ, alas, twenty years after his competitive career in which time he turned pudgy and developed a heart condition.  What possible satisfaction can someone derive from the fact that one's women's Olympic team wins close to three out of four medals for the country? It is the greatest female-male disparity among nations of the developed world.  What can women possible gain from the poor showing of their male team-mates?  Another rung on the ladder of pride?

      Before Rio, I never saw Christie write on soccer. From the way she writes about the game, what she focuses on and what exercises her, it seems clear she is out of her depth and does not have a clue of what is going on.  No, the popularity of Marta is not anywhere near that of Neymar in Brazil, even though the two are soccer prodigies. Seasoned soccer fans do not compare compulsively the leading men with women in the sport or, for that matter, whether women are fairly represented among football hooligans. It's like in all other sports: people compare the competitive qualities of players in their own milieu.

       I love watching women's tennis. The idea of comparing Serena Williams with Novak Djokovic does not enter into my mind because I am sane. One heard comparisons between the "quality" of soccer during  women's world championships on US TV networks in the 1990's and the view was that women play soccer better than men. But anyone who knew the style of women's soccer then (and I played it competitively in my youth) would laugh that off.  The women's game was still in its infancy and often resembled unstructured "swarms" such as you would see on a pitch among boys under thirteen. There was no real competition because other than US colleges (under Title IX.) no-one even had a national-level soccer program.  Women's game made enormous leaps since then, and the matches are now great fun to watch even for the connoisseurs. 

    I like the Canadian women's soccer team very much. It has spunk, strong desire to win, and ability to grind out difficult matches. But let's not get carried away: the squad still punches above its weight. In team strategy and tactics, and most players' individual technique, it still has a way to go to catch up with the six top teams in the world.

    As for the men/women disparity in podium production in Rio, Christie Blatchford would do us all a great service if she looked seriously into what I suspect are great disparities in funding between the two genders that promote women's sports over men's in Canada. Google searches for sources of funding consistently find number of programs  specifically for women but none for men. I have heard from several sources that many men coaches in Canada now distinctly prefer to train women because that's where the money is and success guarantees more of it. My hunch is (based on watching CBC commercials) that the corporate sponsors also go for the brownie points in shelling more money to women's athletes.  So it looks, a least based on anecdotal evidence that men athletes chez nous are distinctly second class citizens. And one only needs to recall what Simone de Beauvoir said on the lack of women's intellectual achievements: 'The point to be grasped here is that if you are brought up as an inferior, you will become an inferior'.

       

Much to Frown Upon in the Ghomeshi Saga

        Anthony Furey (Ghomeshi not a lynch-mob victim, Ottawa Sun 1/11/2014) has a couple things right. Whatever the former CBC radio superstar could be called, victim is not one of them. At least, not as yet. He got fired for a cause which by now almost everyone in Canada knows, even people like me who never heard a single Ghomeshi interview.  He is suing the broadcaster or so the papers say.  It is known because he has become a front-page news because some people think his sex proclivities is a front-page material because he is - well I have said it - a former CBC radio superstar and he was fired because of his sexual proclivities. This naturally calls for big fat headlines where he is lambasted as Don Jian and cautioned to Put Your Hands Where We Can See Them.  As hyperboles go, a lynch-mob is probably too strong a word given that the worst that will happen to Ghomeshi is that he will not be employable in Canada in a job that has a public profile, after a media shit-storm ahead of judicial proceedings (if any) against him materialized. 

         At the moment, not much seems to be available in the gossip exchange and the kinky kangaroo court that Anthony Furey feels morally impelled to partake in.  Two women stepped forward with public accusations against the radio host.  One, an actress described some of the rough sex scenes from the first date with the radio host in 2002 but gauged them “not terrible”. Not terrible enough at any rate for her not to agree to see him again. Two, a lawyer who says only she was not raped but pillories generally the judicial system, saying it has bias which prevents sex assault victims like herself to step forward with charges. Sounds pretty self-serving if you ask me.  Other than that, we don’t know except that the business of combatting rape culture on campuses has evidently its own contingent in the melee with Carleton U. claiming multiple victims among its journalism students ready to step forward and tell tales of being groped, fondled or otherwise diminished as persons by the libertine miscreant.  In the latest twist in the bizzare web of accusations, a former girlfriend of Ghomeshi complains in The Guardian of his withholding sex and thus sparing her the martyrdom of being his lover.  Mistaken though you would be if you thought this was a positive and a defence of the beleaguered host. No, she found him weird and feels compelled to tell on him because she feels assured the other women told the truth and he was grooming her for later abuse. Evidently, in the minds of those disappointed with him, Jian must be guilty of something, even if nothing happened.    

          As I hinted, I hold no brief for Ghomeshi.  I can't do more for him that I myself would feel entitled to from him, should I by any chance be treated unfairly on account of different tastes in matters sexual. I do have concern that the complaints against his indecent outrages against his dates, coworkers (?) themselves show lack of that very quality which alone can claim a higher moral ground: yes, I am talking about decency.

         There seems to be, behind the barrage of denunciations against the celebrity an unspoken assumption that he did criminal things of the sort on which there should be no statutory limits, and that he did them knowing full well what he did was out of bounds.  Problem is, you need to prove this and the high-minded Furey and his buddies at the Sunmedia (Ezra Levant, Michael Coren)  have had difficulty with that part.  I don’t care for Furey’s description of Ghomeshi as a “self-important wanker”.  It has no significance in the issues at hand.  Worse, it is transparent painting of the radio host with the intent to deny him a defense if a criminal case against him arises.  Where is the bigger picture, Anthony Furey ?  We live in a sex culture where everything goes. Not true?  Go to a sex toy shop!  See all the ball gags, harnesses, strap-ons, nipple clamps, whips, handcuffs, bondage tape, rope, pulleys, choking manuals ?  There they are, take your pick if you are into that!  None of this is contraband, or even, if one can use George Constanza’s memorable phrase, “frowned upon” by anyone these days who does not fit the category of a sexual naif.   

         The thing that seems to be missing for nearly all the commentators (with Christie Blatchford the one honorable exception) who talk or write about Jian Ghomeshi’s sex-capades is relevant context to make the judgement call they are in a hurry to make. But, as many popular indictments from Salem, Mass. to Martensville, Sask. have proven, claims of moral certainty that his Satanic majesty was involved have been notoriously hard to sustain.  It is unseemly, almost like trying to cry hard enough at Kim Jong Il's funeral: one would not want to be suspected as one of those giving a bloody nose, fat lip or a shiner to a sex partner as regular par for the course. 

         Listen, CBC’s self-serving commission-of-inquiry-after-the-fact des not convince anyone. Sunmedia’s collective glee over CBC’s battered image as a public broadcaster in Canada are not going to prove anyone’s guilt. Ghomeshi’s political outlook is irrelevant, nor are his skills with the mike. The tweets of support to him from Margaret Atwood are not a proof of anything.  We don't know and we will not know what really happened and this is why:  whatever comes out now against the host has been tainted by a process in which a silent but diligent character assassination preceded an objective investigation, and the firing of the man by the broadcaster preceded evidence of any wrongdoing that was produced.  If there was “graphic” evidence of violent, non-consensual sex, it should have been handled by the police first.  That much decency for Jian Ghomeshi was certainly not that much to ask for.

Testament in the Throes of Death

Christie Blatchford got herself into hot water last week over her remarks on the death of Jack Layton . Her Tuesday’s (23/8) column in National Post took issue with the CBC lack of sense of measure in covering the opposition leader’s passing and the letter to Canadians composed either on Jack Layton’s deathbed by himself or near it with his collaboration and consent. Her inbox quickly became flooded by email with assorted abuse, demonization and laments from Jack’s worshippers who either never read the letter or quickly forgot what was “better” despite the Peace Tower in Ottawa chiming John Lennon’s Imagine while the great sage laid in state on the Hill.

I like Christie’s writing a lot. Like Jack, she has spunk and calls them as she sees them. And she has a keen sense in smelling humbug which of course makes her a comrade-in-arms. I agree with Christie that the letter was extraordinary sample of bad taste though the question remains on the timing of her column. My sense tells me it could have waited until Jack was in the ground. At any rate, what the column said definitely needed to be said.

Someone should have had the sense to try to talk Jack – presumably not as sharp in his dying hours - out of addressing all Canadians. It would be read as vainglory (yes, Christie is right), an essentially undemocratic pining for a one-party perfect society. What about other people, other Canadians, whose politics were not Jack’s ? Would they not feel that this upsizing of Jack post-mortem was going a tad too far and that the sense of tragic loss was being cynically misused for partisan ends ? It was poor judgment to think that perhaps all would be shamed into silence.

Stephen Lewis said in his eulogy of Jack Layton that the “testament in the throes of death” was really a manifesto for social democracy, which earned rousing applause and all the guests in Thompson Hall stood up to pay respect. One could hardly believe this was a funeral. It is sad to see the NDP so hard off it can’t think of the death of its leader in terms other than its political utility. But in one sense Lewis had it right: Jack Layton’s testament is a political manifesto. It was simply misaddressed to all Canadians instead to the rank and file of his own party, where it belongs. Surely, it would have been read by many other Canadians. Surely, some of them would have been inspired to sign up for Jack’s vision.

Of course, there is always the loony element which idealist dreamers seem to have a great success in awakening. The sad news about Jack spread fast in Ottawa last week. But one unforgettable moment that describes everything about the ueber-grief-fest for me were two well-fed women in their twenties tearing up over the letter which one of them read aloud at a local Tim Hortons. When I walked in they were in the middle even though no-one around them seemed to be interested in more than their daily dose of caffeine and sugar. But as the reciter went “love is better than anger, hope is better than fear, …..”, the manager who evidently knew the mood of the Canadians in the joint better busted the sermon “….and two donuts are better than one…..girls can you take this out some place else ?”