Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Still Crazy After All These Years

Canadian Dimension offers progressive Canadians a rare forum for open political debate. Four words: thoughtful, persistent, challenging, unflinching.

- New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton.

In today's Canadian Dimension, the recently-ousted Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes attempts to mount a defence of her lunacy and only manages to score several spectacular own-goals in the process. She pleads that her only transgression was to examine "evidence" that the 2001 American-led overthrow of the Taliban regime "may have been motivated by the drive for oil and drug profits." She then goes on to report some of the wilder claims of 911-Truth conspiracy theory as though they were fact. She actually concludes by accusing her detractors of hysteria.

To understand how Hughes can carry on like this with a straight face, you need to know something of the milieu in which she toils. To give you an idea:

One of her colleagues on the Canadian Dimension collective, James Petras, is the author of such classic texts as The Power of Israel and Rulers and Ruled in the U.S. Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants. Petras claims that Jewish bankers run American foreign policy, and tricked America into invading Iraq, and the culprits behind the "Mohammed cartoons" eruption of embassy-burnings and riots that left at least 139 people dead were actually Mossad agents.

Another of Hughes' Canadian Dimension colleagues is fellow editorial collective member Barrie Zwicker, Canada's high priest of 911 conspiracy theory, with whom Jack Layton routinely professes a longstanding friendship.

Thoughtful, persistent, challenging, unflinching, indeed.

5 Comments:

Blogger Mark, Ottawa said...

The fact that Ms Hughes takes the "it's all about oil" conspiracy stuff seriously is yet another reason she should not be a candidate. She simply accepts what many of the left parrot and does no research of her own--not hard in the age of Google.

"It's not all about the crude, Mr Martin "

Mark
Ottawa

1:57 PM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

Elsewhere, a raving troll objects to this post, calling it a "smear" (why is unwelcome news for that side always called a smear?):

"No doubt for Glavin the only acceptable response to Truthers is to beat them to a bloody pulp while shrieking the clauses of the Euston Manifesto."

Not the only acceptable response, but preferable to sucking up to them, allowing that you're taking their stories seriously, encouraging them in their delusions and nurturing their sick paranoia by uttering comforting noises about their pope being a friend of yours.

7:14 PM  
Blogger richard said...

I was feeling cranky that there's no party I can vote for, because of the lunacy out there, but then I felt reaffirmed that I should be voting for a person anyway. I'm in Denise Savoie's riding, so I'm planning to support her over the other choices, but the NDP's definitely not winning prizes for me lately.

11:51 AM  
Blogger SnoopyTheGoon said...

Certainly unflinching. Such people never flinch.

7:56 AM  
Blogger Mitka said...

Thought your readers would find this of interest

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/03/bernie-farber-the-wilful-blindness-of-lesley-hughes-and-her-beliefs.aspx

12:10 PM  

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