Taking Pride on an Anti-Israel Journey of Rejection

"The focus today is to show our love, to show our solidarity and our support to a community that needs it. The message here is that everybody is welcome, everybody is included and there's so much that we can learn from each other."

"For the youth to see so many groups, so may organizations and so many people being here to support this community, it gives that sense of validation that is so important -- to make people feel they are welcome and validated."

"This community is all about love, solidarity and support."

Mr. Capital Pride 2024

 

"All of the organizations and institutions that have pulled out have done so without consultation with their workers."

"This was top bosses and employers or boards of directors making decisions without consulting the people who work there or the people they actually serve." 

Emily Quaile, Community Solidarity Ottawa

Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. (Chris Tanouye/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Inclusion, love, solidarity and support? Not quite. As it happens Capital Pride organizers conferred among themselves -- without taking a poll among their members, in fact -- to reach a consensus of opinion that inclusion would mean the Palestinian community of the Ottawa region, not merely those who qualify as 2SLGBTQIA+, but they and their sympathizers in general. The very groups that have celebrated the October 7 Palestinian terrorism butchery in Israel where 1,200 mostly civilians were left dead, girls and women raped and tortured, entire families put to the torch, children, women and the elderly taken hostage into Gaza.

 

Gaza, the stronghold of the Hamas terrorist organization; considered by the government of Canada to be terrorists just as they are in most Western countries, for their unabashed and straightforward dedication to the destruction of the world's only Jewish state, in an ancestral geography, an Israel reborn for the singular purpose of offering safe haven to Jews in a hostile world that continually reverts to a state of viral antisemitism, just as we now see in Europe, North America and elsewhere, boosted by the slanderous propaganda of the Palestinian agenda to discredit and demonize Israel and Jews everywhere. 

Palestinian organizations and sympathetic groups have organized raucous, threatening rallies in cities across Europe and North America from October 8 onward, funded by foreign organizations and Islamist countries like Qatar and Iran who have also supplied organizers for these pro-Hamas protests as well as the encampments on university grounds demanding that university administrators and corporations and business leaders as well as Western governments condemn Israel for its response to the mass rape, mutilations and bloodletting by Hamas when the Israeli military embarked on a campaign to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the PLFP and Hezbollah.

The declaration of 'principles' and alliances expressed by Capital Pride prior to embarkation on its annual Capital Pride parade effectively raised the level of antisemitism in and among the LGBTQ community in favour of supporting a death cult that aims its poisoned arrows at Jews everywhere, extending its campaign in less visible but rising campaign against Western 'imperialism' inimical to Palestinian aspirations and extended Islamist jihadist goals.

"Part of the growing Islamophobic sentiment we are witnessing is fuelled by the pink-washing of the war in Gaza and racist notions that all Palestinians are homophobic and transphobic. By portraying itself as a protector of the rights of queer and trans people in the Middle East, Israel seeks to draw attention away from its abhorrent human rights abuses against Palestinians. We refuse to be complicit in this violence. Indeed, to withhold our solidarity from Palestinians in the name of upholding 2SLGBTQIA+ rights betrays the promise of liberation that guides our work. We join our voice to the calls for greater protection of civilians and reject any attempts to use a devastating conflict as a pretext to advance hate."

"To breathe life into our sincere hope for an end to this war and justice for all its victims, we commit to the following actions:

• Integrating resources such as the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s boycott list in our existing review process of current and future sponsorship agreements;
• Hosting Zaffa: A Queer Arab Showcase, a Signature Event as part of the 2024 Capital Pride Festival that features discussions about ongoing issues facing LGBTQIA+ Arabs locally and abroad;
• Recognizing the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in opening remarks at 2024 Capital Pride Festival Signature Events; and
• Working with all our partners, both public and private, to push for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, increased access to humanitarian aid, and more accessible pathways for refugees."

Capital Pride Statement in Solidarity with Palestine, August 8, 2024, Ottawa, Ontario

Replete with the slanderous calculated falsehoods of the Palestinian propaganda, the Capital Pride Statement is a document of ignorance and antisemitism combined in a lethal cauldron of pure hate. Israel is a defender of alternate gender human rights which are legally protected in Israel; its Pride Parades are open and respectful. Whereas on the other hand, in the Palestinian Territories gays risk their very lives if their sexual orientation becomes public knowledge. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as in Iran, death stalks members of the Palestinian  LGBTQ community.

There is no 'genocide' against Palestinians at the hands of Israel; there IS a military campaign to expunge the presence of lethal Islamist Palestinian attackers of Jews/Israelis from the territories. The founding charters of Fatah, Hamas and other such internationally recognized terrorist groups identify their purpose as the elimination of Israel from its ancestral soil. Deadly attacks against Jews have been the Palestinian formula since 1948 with the declaration of the State of Israel. Existential threats against Israel and world Jewry emanate from the Palestinians whom LGBTQ groups lionize.

In Ottawa, reaction to the Capital Pride position statement was clear and it was a denunciation of all that it alleges in demonizing Israel while supporting Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The city's mayor began the response of rejecting the Pride position when the City of Ottawa's Mayor Mark Sutcliffe let it be known with regret, that he would not be attending the parade. Followed by the Liberal Party of Canada, the Ontario Liberal Party the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, The Ottawa Hospital, the Montfort Hospital, Ottawa Tourism, the Bank of Canada, Giant Tiger, Loblaw, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the University of Ottawa, the U.S. Embassy, the Public Service Pride Network, Conseil des ecoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario, Conseil des ecoles catholiques du centre-Est, and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

They did so in sympathy and agreement with the Ottawa Jewish community which felt excluded and isolated as a result of the Capital Pride statement and position taken on the Israel-Gaza conflict, repeating the slanderous accusation of Israel committing 'genocide' against the Palestinians. Ottawa's situation is not a unique one, as it happens, since Pride parades in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver have been disrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Hate-mongering against Jews resulted in over 100 synagogues, hospitals and Jewish community centres receiving bomb threats.

As for the Pride commitment to integrate the BDS boycott list into its review of sponsorship agreements, that remains to be seen. The TD Bank is Pride's major 'presenting' sponsor and right behind it as a sponsor is Loblaws, and the LCBO followed by the province of Ontario, all of which are listed on the BDS Coalition's "Boycott List of Shame". Shame, in very point of fact, has settled itself squarely on the Pride community for its unabashed antisemitism cloaked unbecomingly under the banner of anti-Zionism, anti-Israel provocations.

Members of the OCDSB carry a giant pride flag during the Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Tanouye

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

F1 driver Sebastian Vettel -- Getty Images

"I think what happens in Alberta is a crime because you chop down a lot of trees and you basically destroy the place just to extract oil, and the manner of doing it with the tarsands, oilsands mining, is horrible for nature."

"There's so much science around the topic that fossil fuels are going to end, and living in a time that we do now, these things shouldn't be allowed anymore, and they shouldn't happen."

"It's just to think about future generations and the world we leave in their hands ... I think it's only fair to look after it and not destroy it."

Sebastian Vettel, German Formula One driver

 

"A race car driver sponsored by Aston Martin, with financing from Saudi Aramco, complaining about the oilsands."

"Rather than demonizing the oilsands, which is on a path to net-zero, people could look to lowering their own personal carbon footprint."

"Perhaps a pedal-car for Formula 1?"

Sonya Savage, Alberta energy minister

Germany's vital energy dependency on Russian oil and gas has vastly complicated its reaction and that of other Western European nations all hugely in debt to Moscow, paying the Kremlin the rubles for its natural resources that enable it to continue pounding Ukraine into the ground. While castigating Vladimir Putin for his 'special operation', with the Russian military tasked to bring Ukraine to its knees, destroying towns and villages, killing thousands of civilians, sustaining huge military personnel and munitions losses on both sides, a German national finds it prudent to criticize Canadian oil extraction in Alberta.

 

The Formula One driver is struggling with his environmental demons, looking for some entity to blame for his future environmental fears revolving around Climate Change. Like others before him he has found it useful not to question his own country's dependence on fossil fuels that creates an indebtedness of necessity between it and a country whose political-military ideology it abhors and focuses instead on natural resource extraction in a country whose leaders have strangled their own industry, even as that industry is itself committed to cleaner, less polluting extraction methods.

 

Sebastian Vettel's commitment was front row and central when he arrived, as a driver for Aston Martin, on a bicycle at the site of the Montreal Grand Prix with a T-shirt featuring an anti-oilsands slogan. With absurd optics, given that he did not bicycle to Canada from Germany, but picked up his bicycle after flying from Germany to Canada wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed "Stop mining Tar Sands", below which was a picture of a pipeline with the title "Canada's Climate Crime".

In a later interview the Formula One driver wore a green team T-shirt which across from the Aston Martin label on his chest bore the word Aramco, representing the state-owned oil giant owned by Saudi Arabia. Known as Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team, in February motorsport.com reported that Vettel's team had signed a deal with Aramco.

The team owner had explained that the sponsorship would "showcase the sustainability and performance of Aramco's products". The team, in other words, acts as a giant approving billboard featuring its sponsor, an oil producer that ships its product all over the world, including to Canada and the United States. Early in 2022 Sebastian Vettel mused during a BBC interview, Question Time, whether he should be travelling the world to race cars, in view of the global energy crisis prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Every time I step in the car, I love it. When I get out of the car, of course I'm thinking as well: 'Is this something we should do, travel the world, wasting resources'?" Arriving at the Miami Grand Prix a week earlier, he wore a shirt that captioned: Miami 2050 - 1st Grand Prix Underwater -- Act Now or Swim Later. His is an ultimate level of hypocrisy; forgiving his own gas-guzzling choices to further his career, while attacking one source of energy supply, effectively approving another.

France's Sebastien Loeb, left, celebrates with Germany's Sebastian Vettel after winning the world final of The Race of Champions on ice, in Pite Havsbad, Sweden, Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022. (Par Backstroem/TT via AP)

What's Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander

[His statement was not sexual in nature, it was] intended to convey that the Duchess [of Sussex] possessed charm and beauty and was a suitable match for her fiancee, who has a reputation of possessing charm and handsome looks." 
"No reasonable woman would consider his remark to be a sexual comment about the Duchess."
"[He] felt this over-policing of his innocently intended remark, and its being twisted into an accusation of sexual harassment, was unduly punitive and said so."
"[Two female colleagues] had been looking at a picture of a man, specifically, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, and stated that he is 'hot' intended as a reference to Mr. Trudeau's sex appeal. [His employer] took no action on this complaint, undertook no investigation and imposed no discipline on the female employee."
"Defendants enforced their policies regarding sexual harassment in a manner that was discriminatory, specifically that they dismissed a male employee with no investigation within two days but took no action when placed on notice of a similar remark by female employees in the presence of witnesses."
Complaint, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

Meghan Markle and Justin Trudeau.  Chris Jackson/Getty Images; Chris Young/The Canadian Press

Yet another tediously tiresome and reputation-destructive, employment-ending fallout of the #MeToo movement that has long outlived its temporary usefulness in calling to account genuine instances where men at all levels of society have been brought to task over their treatment of women, from violent rapes to social harassment to careless insults, for too long tolerated by society and by women too subconsciously bludgeoned into acceptance of the 'inevitability' of fallout from accusations.

There is little doubt that many men, empowered by a general laxity in social mores and acceptable and sensitive respect for their opposite gender casually humiliated women they were in contact with as a male entitlement. They are now more conscious of what constitutes acceptable manners and have been newly acquainted with that quaint old notion of peer- and gender-respect. As for the authentic criminal violators of the social compact of violence against women they too are paying their belated dues.

Feminists, intoxicated with the heady brew of finally achieving a good measure of notice and overdue attention to the fact that being male is no entitlement to belittling females, and seeing powerful men brought to the level of social and legal condemnation they finally deserve have dug in their heels to pursue any possible perceived albeit innocent-of-intent assaults against female dignity. Off-colour jokes no longer permitted, no big loss. Courtly gestures or 'implied' inferiority, or simple assertions of admiration have now been placed squarely in the box of the forbidden.

General society has become so cowed by the vehemence with which women on social media 'gang up' to decry male attitudes and behaviour that sensible women tolerate it as too long in coming but with a growing look askance the madness, sensible men head for the hills, no longer willing to risk their reputations by having anything to do with women. Leading women professionals to decry the distance their male counterparts are now leaving between themselves and young women whose careers could be advanced through mentorship....
Former PBS journalist Hugh Heckman is suing the news station for wrongful termination after he was fired for calling Meghan Markle, 'not bad' 

Hugh Heckman, 72, a former editor for PBS NewsHour was working on a story relating to Britain's Prince Harry and then-fiancee Meghan Markle on November 25, 2017. He was overheard to have remarked to a male colleague, both studying a photograph of the two now-royals, the expression "not bad". A woman sitting six metres off to whom the photograph was unseen, commented that his comment was in contravention of company sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace training. "Haven't you learned?", chastized another. 

They then went on to lodge a formal complaint to CBS authorities about his sexist behaviour. Two days later he was fired. Mr. Heckman obtained the services of a lawyer. And with the help of his lawyer has set out to change PBS practices and training to "provide equal employment opportunities for employees based on sex", along with an unspecified compensation for lost earnings, for humiliation, and for loss of professional reputation.

"There are many serious cases of sexual harassment going on, as we know from the #MeToo  movement, and then we have this one."

"That makes people question the seriousness of these issues."
Jillian T. Weiss, lawyer for Mr. Heckman

The Scent of Blatantly Sinister Hypocrisy

"It was a very conscious strategy. HIV ... was legitimately so terrifying that it was also a good health issue to put up and say, 'Wait, this has to be the urgent priority, as opposed to looking at tobacco control."
"Any partnership with a tobacco company [charitable groups accepting funding from tobacco interests], does provide that company and that industry with legitimacy."
Julia Smith, post-doctoral fellow, Global Tobacco Control program, Simon Fraser Health Sciences faculty, British Columbia

"Being the disease of the century and a preventive disease, AIDS should be 'public enemy No. 1' because of its terminal consequences at every age."
British American Tobacco (BAT) official in Argentina

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg   “The tobacco industry is very sophisticated at protecting its sales, whether in Canada or globally,” a Canadian Cancer Society policy analyst said.

 

That kind of sanctimony sits ill with anyone cognizant of the destructiveness to human health posed by the tobacco industry. And for one of its representatives to  slyly attribute to other health-impairing agents the role of absolutely most dangerous to human health, hoping that no one notices that the statement emanates from the hypocritical mouth of a tobacco-pusher is like an illicit drug seller tut-tutting people jaywalking.

The tobacco industry has gone through a very trying time in the past several decades. Shown by investigators to have known very well how tobacco use endangers human life, the industry kept that knowledge, gained through their own research and never publicly disclosed, to themselves. They have been shameless in their skilled use of public relations and advertising to convince vulnerable people that smoking is cool and sophisticated as a lifestyle habit.

Knowing the deleterious effects on heart and lungs of nicotine as a cancer agent and an addictive substance, the industry geared its advertising to entrap people from a young age. When governments began to realize that public health costs were skyrocketing as a result of runaway cancer rates attributable to nicotine in all its nefarious forms, legislation at every government level, from mandating warnings on cigarette packages to outlawing smoking in public places put a dent in tobacco use, as did raising the taxation rate to discourage smokers.

The trauma of lung cancer and prematurely lost lives led people to finally withdraw from tobacco use in large numbers. And that's when the tobacco manufacturers turned their malicious attention to third world countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Their public relations manipulation of the public never did cease, however, and over the past 25 years the industry paired its financial resources with the cause of battling AIDS and HIV, and funding other look-good charitable causes.

As good corporate citizens what was there not to like in the industry supporting research and support for the battle against AIDS? So donations to HIV/AIDS groups was embraced, along with activism on the part of big tobacco to call on government for greater action to battle the disease. At the same time, downplaying the scourge of tobacco on societal health as nothing compared to the destructiveness of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Millions of internal company documents formed the basis of a study that led to a recognition of a surreptitious campaign to white-wash tobacco by focusing on concern for HIV. Philip Morris International sponsored a tennis tour in support of HIV groups, British American Tobacco brought a conference on HIV to Nigeria, while one BAT official responded to a major anti-smoking conference by arguing that it is AIDS, not tobacco, that should be recognized as "public enemy No.1".

Fotolia     One HIV advocate called the former financial links between AIDS groups and tobacco companies a “pact with the devil.”

AIDS groups have, for the most part, decided to reject continued tobacco-sourced funding, a practise characterized by one anti-HIV advocate as making a "pact with the devil", in agreeing to accept that tainted funding. The situation prevails and remains particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa. Even high-profile public groups who should know better, though, still accept that tainted funding: Philip Morris has given donations of over $100,000 yearly to the United Way of Toronto.

The study out of Simon Fraser University used data from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library representing over 14 million internal industry records on file and used to prosecute lawsuits against tobacco corporations in the United States. Philip Morris, the study points out, donated to a number of American AIDS groups, sponsoring a patient meal program to the value of $3 million, as an example, through the Virginia Slims Legends tennis and music tour.

As the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was being put into place the tobacco industry attempted to divert public attention away from simple realities and took to questioning the priorities of the World Health Organization in condemning tobacco use as the vector of a world-wide lung cancer epidemic. Concerts and soccer matches spotlighting AIDS prevention and care was sponsored by British American Tobacco in Argentina at the very time that a major international tobacco conference was taking place there.

It took some time, but eventually HIV/AIDS groups globally understood how they were being manipulated, and spurned further tainting by funding from big tobacco. Even so, their campaign continues in the expanding African market. Tobacco consumption in Africa doubled to 80 billion cigarettes per year, from 1990 to 2010. BAT is listed by South Africa's Centre for HIV/AIDS as one of six "partners", alongside the United Nations and American-government agencies, even while BAT supplies 90 percent of South Africa's adult smokers.

The Health Benefits and Environmental Impacts of Bottled Water

"It's not a question of whether but when it will happen. We see it happening [bottled water eclipsing bottled soft drinks in consumer popularity] in about two years."
"Consumers see it [bottled water] as a healthy beverage alternative. If you grew up in the 70s and you wanted something cold and refreshing to drink, you would have a carbonated soft drink because there really weren't very many other options. But now there are tons, and bottled water is kind of at the centre."
Gary Hemphill, managing director of research, Beverage Marketing, Corp.

Flicker -- Irargerich

"The bottled-water industry says correctly, but misleadingly, that the plastic the water comes in is recyclable. It's misleading because recyclable is not the same thing as recycled."
"It is remarkable to me that sales of bottled water are continuing to rise in a country where we have cheap, incredibly safe, incredibly reliable tap water that's available to basically everyone."
Peter Gleick, president, Pacific Institute

Only an estimated 12 percent of the bottles used in bottled water get recycled, the rest is trashed. At one time Americans thought of Coca-cola as a suitable breakfast-time beverage. Given that little absurdity, perhaps it's a step up when bottled water is now outranking all other bottled beverages for use at any given time to hydrate the human body. Yet given the fact that fifty percent of all bottled water is actually taken from a tap, running the kitchen tap to enjoy a glass of water is a lot cheaper and easier on the environment.

The great American free enterprise system, however, will always think up brilliant ideas how entrepreneurs can present their money-making ideas to a gullible public. And public relations and advertising companies are always willing and eager to use their expertise in manipulating public opinion, convincing the appetites of consumers that these bold new initiatives to overtake customary, ordinary methods are brighter, nicer, healthier.

Advertising through all manner of social media that enter people's homes, their minds and their inclinations are pervasive, pernicious influences on society. And people succumb to the blandishments; no one wants to be left out of the loop of doing things that become socially acceptable and considered desirable, even if the arguments used to validate the claims are themselves so porous anyone with half a brain could work them out for themselves if they'd a mind to.

In wealthy countries of the world the use of bottled water has steadily grown in popularity. Advocates of bottled water, who just happen to be those in the industry, advance health and sanitary, arguments; convenience and hygiene as powerful stimulants to convince people that ordinary tap water is so -- yesterday. Bottled water is something of a status symbol, like the ubiquitous cellphone; everyone has to have them And if consumers do indeed see bottled water as a healthy beverage alternative it's because bottlers' claims have convinced them.

Consumers are bombarded with clever campaigns where scenes of pristine lakes and waterfalls, mountains and sparkling streams of natural water entice the viewers to believe that what they'll be drinking when they purchase bottled water is nature's purest form of hydration. Since the public is besotted with convenience, in food preparation, in the purchase of pre-prepared convenience foods and processed edibles that resemble natural food, why not the convenience of bottled water? People don't need too much convincing. And it's available everywhere.

People have developed an irrational suspicion about the water that comes out of their kitchen taps. The average consumer in the United States consumes over 132 litres of bottled water annually, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. That represents 270 bottles. And by 2017 that is expected to rise to the average American using almost 300 bottles on an annual basis. That's an estimated 30 billion bottles being used every year, and if that isn't an example of wasteful excess, what is?

As for the safety of tap water as opposed to bottled water, that's yet another story. By law, tap water must undergo tests for the presence of e.coli while bottled water is not subject to any tests before circulation. There is less frequent bacteria testing, no mandatory reports of violations to federal officials, and no filtration or disinfection requirements required for bottled water in the United States. According to the National Resources Defense Council, most bottled water is of good quality.

On the other hand, the most recent tests undertaken by the National Resources Defense Council themselves on bottled water where 103 bottled waters were tested, the following showed up:

• Nearly one in five tested waters contained, in at least one sample, more bacteria than allowed under microbiological-purity "guidelines"
  
• Four waters (4 percent) violated the generally weak federal bottled water standards (two for excessive fluoride and two for excessive coliform bacteria
  
• In eight cases arsenic was found in at least one test at a level of potential health concern.
  

Leading to the obvious conclusion: "...there is no assurance that bottled water is any safer than tap water."

And then, of course, there's the issue of all that waste plastic. It shows up all over the world, and all over the oceans of the world. And it finds its way into the beaks of seabirds, and from there into their stomachs. Recent research has highlighted that far more seabirds are deleteriously impacted by plastics than previously thought. The new finding is that 90 percent of seabirds eat plastics. 

"That was shocking. Essentially, the number of species and number of individuals within species that you find plastic in is going up fairly rapidly by a couple percent every year", said Chris Wilcox, a research scientist with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and lead author of the study.

Juvenile Herring Gull, Larus Argentatus with plastic rubbish in its beak, Newquay, Cornwall, UK.

Photograph by Education Images, UIG/Getty

Corporate Conscience? Oxymoron

"Coca-Cola, the world's largest producers of sugary beverages, is backing a new 'science-based solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories ...."
"The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social media. to help the scientists get the word out, Coke has provided financial and logistical support to a new non-profit organization called the Global Energy Balance Network, which promotes the argument that weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise."
The New York Times

"Most of the focus in the popular media and in the scientific press is, 'Oh they’re eating too much, eating too much, eating too much’ - blaming fast food, blaming sugary drinks and so on."
"And there’s really virtually no compelling evidence that that, in fact, is the cause."
Steven N. Blair, exercise scientist, vice president, Global Energy Balance Network

File Photo/The Associated Press

Coca-Cola is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories. Health experts say this message is misleading and part of an effort by Coke to deflect criticism about the role sugary drinks have played in the spread of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

Kraft Foods, McDonald's, PepsiCo and Hershey's, along with Coca-Cola are all implicated as corporate malefactors capable of manipulating public opinion. Well, certainly people are hugely suggestible. And people love to eat, particularly food and drink that appeal to their taste buds, high in sugar, fat, salt, all of which in abundant amounts in any diet speak to excess. Moderation may be the key to the golden mean, but it isn't in most people's characters to cling to moderation.

We enjoy excess. If something seems like a good thing, tastes good, makes us feel good, we automatically think: why not more? And so, we indulge. And we super-indulge. Not just intermittently, but constantly. And manufacturers of quasi food that has been processed beyond its natural state to present as taste-pleasing products rife with sugar, fat and salt, see no reason why they have to restrain their acquisitive impulse in sales and profit.

After all, people are imbued with free will and people have the capacity to make discriminatory, intelligent choices in their lives. And as free individuals able to do as they wish when they wish, why should it be the responsibility of food processors to be concerned about health matters on the part of the public? Government agencies, on the other hand, are concerned, they're concerned about the growing menace of population obesity, because ill-health takes its toll on a health-care system.

So government-employed scientists study the issues, do their research, conduct their investigations and come to conclusions in line with government's concern; people are eating too much and too much of the wrong food. So the corporate food-processing interests are responding. They're hiring their own scientists and medical investigators to come up with academic conclusions that all would be well if only people used the energy they derive from questionable food sources, to balance intake with output.

In the annals of all's fair in public relations if it profits the bottom line, the food processing giants have taken to hiring scientists to come up with findings that match the interests of processors. Now, the question might be a standoff between ethical corruption versus personal restraint. Consider this: the president of the Global Energy Balance Network is none other than University of Colorado School of Medicine Professor James O. Hill, a past chair of the National Institute of Health Nutrition Study Section.

Reputation, global respect as a nutrition scientist and medical researcher? The man has it all. He was a member of the Expert Panel on Obesity of the National Institutes of Health, developing American guidelines for the treatment and prevention of obesity. Dr Hill is thought of as "a leader in the fight against the global obesity epidemic", celebrated by the American Society for Nutrition. He is also Director of the Center for Human Nutrition, co-founder of the National Weight Control Registry.

That this man of great repute in nutritional science has chosen employment with corporate food interests to aid them in advancing the theory that it doesn't matter what you eat or drink as long as you correspondingly exercise to match the energy consumed and thus stave off excess weight gain is breathtakingly puzzling. The simple reality being, needless to say, that sound nutritional intake itself is an imperative, one matched with a regime of bodily exercise for greatest health impact.

All else is commentary, and for the most part uninformed and untrustworthy evasion of reality.

It's Called Criminal Medical Quackery

"We never said we were curing people and we never admitted to curing people, because we haven't."
"We don't believe that. We have an educational program here."
Brian Clement, co-director, Hippocrates Health Institute

Brian and Anna Maria Clement are co-directors of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida. (Hippocrates Health Institute)

In the opinion of Mr. Clement, his institute, licensed by the State of Florida as a massage parlour, is once again being unfairly scrutinized, found wanting, and penalized by their free-enterprise rights guaranteed under the U.S. first amendment being violated; in short they are being hounded unnecessarily and just because of some critics refusing to recognize the superior health opportunities his health team is offering to people, to take control of the quality of their lives and take responsibility for the state of their health.

So, the Florida health department has fined Mr. Clement as head of an alternative health clinic for practising, as they put it, medicine without a licence. As proof they cite his "unproven and possibly dangerous" treatment of two 11-year old girls from Ontario, diagnosed with childhood leukemia whose First-Nations rights were undermined when they were forced to under conventional medical treatment to cure that malady. What doubtless brought the situation to the attention of state licensing authorities was the investigative journalism reportage from Canada.

Not only do Canadians flock to the state during the winter months bestowing the largess of their vacation dollars, but the clinic itself sees Canadians representative of a high proportion of their client base. Florida does not appreciate its reputation being besmirched, and no doubt saw fit to react to what can only be termed negative publicity arising out of the reported operations of a charlatan claiming to have a medical degree enabling him to prescribe appropriate therapies for various diseases.

In its original Boston location, the Hippocrates Institute was 'persecuted and prosecuted' by the state of Massachusetts as well. Over claims they were capable of curing deadly diseases with wheat grass and additional alternative therapies to remedy and cure dread diseases. In the early 1980s its founder and president "unequivocally stated that her diet would make terminal cancer patients, diabetics and burn victims well", according to a state prosecutor at the time that Mr. Clement was the institute's director.

Of the two young aboriginal girls whose parents raised the $18,000 required to have them undergo a three-week assessment, indoctrination and introduction to the institute's personalized therapy designed to cure their leukemia, one little girl has died, the other, claimed her mother, is now cancer-free. The little girl has not been identified by name, only through the initials "J.J.", unlike Makayla Sault whose odyssey with traditional aboriginal medicine and the institutes's alternative medicine hastened her death.

"(J.J.'s) mom is very strong. She doesn't want her daughter to relapse in any way", said a self-styled wellness advocate from Ontario, Jane Schweitzer, who personally considers the Hippocrates Institute a superb healing clinic. As for J.J.'s mother, in an earlier interview she spoke of the place with wonder: "It's like a resort". She spoke admiringly of Mr. Clement: "What struck me most was he was not afraid of cancer. Cancer didn't shake him like it shook me", she said; little wonder, it wasn't he struggling with a cancer diagnosis.

Brian Clement, the owner and director of the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Fla., tells CBC News's Connie Walker to get off his property. Licensed as a health spa and massage facility, the institute treated the two First Nations girls with leukemia. (CBC)

When J.J.'s mother was referred to the Hippocrates Health Institute, she telephoned him from McMaster Medical Centre, where she found his words reassuring, so much so she was convinced to take her daughter off the chemotherapy which medical science had proven had a 70% to 90% percent chance of successfully curing her child's cancer. When he assured her that leukemia was "not difficult for them to deal with", she was convinced. "By him saying, ‘Oh yes, no problem we can help her,’ that's the day I stopped the chemo."

Makayla Sault's parents are both pastors in an evangelical Christian church. Their preferred method of treatment for their child was traditional, a treatment called "Ongwehowe Onongwatri: yo". Sounds arcanely obscure, and it is that, perhaps impressive but it appears it is beyond explanation; not even the Institute of Aboriginal People's Health was able to clarify what it was, how it worked, other than faith in aboriginal tradition. But it, and the power of Jesus, and a stint at the institute would cure Makayla.

J.J. prepares a 'green drink' of wheatgrass and juiced raw vegetables, part of the diet recommended by the Hippocrates Health Institute. (CBC)

Except that it did nothing of the kind. J.J.'s mother too believes wholeheartedly in traditional aboriginal medicine, yet even so, she took her daughter to the 'alternative cancer treatment facility' in West Palm Beach whose license is for a "massage establishment", though its website declares its function is "to assist people in taking responsibility for their lives and to help them internalize and actualize an existence free from premature aging, disease and needless pain." This, then, is the 'educational program' that Mr. Clement speaks of.

He has, however, when his guard is down and his boastful rhetoric is most extravagantly useful -- when addressing a gullible audience of people afflicted with dire disease, persuading them that conventional medical treatment has failed them but his institute will heal them -- repeatedly claimed that his institute helped "thousands and thousands" of advanced-cancer patients heal themselves, even though their prognosis and their state of debilitation due to cancer's advance left them without hope.

His cure consists of a raw-food, vegan diet, high-dose Vitamin C, stress-relief exercises and other useful remedies to help his clients live a long and healthy life. The Florida Health Department has ordered Mr. Clement, nonetheless, to "cease and desist", levying a fine of $3,738, which certainly won't do too much damage to his bank account reflecting the $1-million combined salary in 2014 earned by himself and his co-director wife at the Hippocrates Health Institute.

In response to Florida's move, an institute spokeswoman, Vicki Johnson, stated that the citation and order were based on "hearsay allegations" extracted from derogatory investigative media reports. "We deny these allegations in their entirety and will vigorously contest these allegations through the administrative process."

And the aboriginal community in Ontario which has placed such faith in the alternative-type "natural" response through the institute? They continue to have faith in its purpose and promise, and will continue to seek out its curing therapies, alongside traditional aboriginal healing methods. In a public relations video Mr. Clement claims his institute teaches people to "heal themselves" from cancer. 

"We've had more people reverse cancer than any institute in the history of health care. So when McGill fails or Toronto hospital fails, they come to us. Stage 4 (cancer), and they reverse it."

Beware Health Charlatans Vultures

Screenshot from the website of the Hippocrates Health Institute

"The program is designed to sell high-priced, controversial medical treatments and holistic spa services to a captive audience of sick (often terminally) individuals who believe they have come to a world renowned medical spa."
Virginia resident complaint

"We have ... the longest history on the planet Earth, the highest success rate on the planet Earth of people healing cancer."
"We have dealt with mostly stage-three, stage-four catastrophic cancers -- a big percentage of them, probably 25 percent, have been told they're going to die. We have seen thousands and thousands of those people recover."
Brian Clement, co-director, Hippocrates Health Institute, Florida

Hippocrates Health InstituteVideo grab of Brian Clement, of the Hippocrates Health Institute

"Patients told me directly of selling everything they had to come there as a last-hope treatment."
"I would get emails occasionally from a family member saying a patient had succumbed to cancer."
Steven Pugh, former director of nursing, Hippocrates Health Institute

"At the end of the three weeks, she started to really blossom, she looked healthy."
"I recommend everybody to go to Hippocrates."
Jane Schweitzer, wellness advocate, Hamilton, Ontario

Mass hysteria of belief by the health-compromised, vulnerable to promises of a cure?

Two First Nations girls from Canada, both diagnosed with childhood leukemia, both eleven years old, from different reserves in Ontario, refused conventional chemotherapy with its 80% to 90% success rate in hospital, administered and overseen by pediatric oncologists, to pursue alternative and aboriginal therapies. One little girl has since died. The mother of the second has declared her daughter 'cured'.

Their loving parents took these children out of conventional treatment; instead to be treated at the Hippocrates Health Institute, a Florida business that is state-licensed as a massage treatment centre. Their reserve had been visited by Mr. Clement who often travels widely in North America to spread the good news that his institute is a godsend to those suffering from incurable maladies; capable of curing diseases that medical science cannot.

Of course this is also a business. And the families of the two little girls were charged a fee of $18,000 to have a special diet prescribed for their children afflicted with leukemia along with the holistic spa services. The girls were put on a raw-food, vegan diet with an especial emphasis on wheat grass. "Their anti-cancer treatments are totally bogus and not backed by any evidence", according to Dr. Stephen Sagar, radiation oncologist at McMaster University.

Mr. Clement and his wife Anna Maria, co-directors of the institute, earn a fairly hefty salary each from their enterprise. Filings to the Internal Revenue Service reveal together they earned close to a million dollars in 2013, from their resort-clinic in West Palm Beach, classified by the IRS as a non-profit, exempt from tax. As many as one in three of the average number of 100 "guests" that assemble at the facility weekly arrive from Canada.

Many of these guests are cancer patients who sacrifice financially to attend the institute having given up on conventional medical treatment. Others are faithful clients who gather there to experience and learn about the raw-food vegan lifestyle. Jane Schweitzer from Hamilton, a wellness advocate, claims to know personally of many Canadians with cancer, and among them she includes doctors, who have been clients of the institute, who have moved on to life rather than succumbing to death.

She had taken her fifteen-year-old daughter there in 2012 to help with the girl's depression. At first her daughter shunned the special diet, but since then she has cleaved to the vegan lifestyle, and according to her mother has become much improved psychologically. In an interview that took place in 2011, Mr. Clement was asked "What ailments have you cured by putting your patients on a vegan diet?"

He responded with confidence by saying: "Every known disease." Cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's, according to Mr. Clement, all respond to the treatments his institute recommends, because they are all "correctable". Clearly, the public is responsive to the public relations that spin out of the Florida establishment. It earned $17.5 million in revenue in 2013. The two principals are registered by the state as nutrition counsellors.

Samantha Young, a Canadian, claims she was given mere months to live once she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After treatment at the Hippocrates Health Institute, she said, the disease simply disappeared. The power of suggestion? Who knows? There can be nothing bad about teaching people a healthy lifestyle, how to look after themselves, to eat nutritiously, eschewing convenience foods, exercising, respecting their bodies.

There is something egregiously awry when people believe, because they have been convinced by the promises of a smooth talker, to shun conventional medicine for the allure of alternative, holistic treatments with no foundation for their claims that they can produce health outcomes far superior to that of conventional medical science whose rigour of empirical evidence leaves no doubt that one is a sham, the other a trusted intervention.

European Boycotts of West Bank Products Based on Faulty Premises

by Timon Dias
March 28, 2014 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4227/european-boycott-west-bank

If the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and the "settlements" from 1967 on, are the root cause of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, then why does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO Charter call for the destruction of all of Israel?
Because Judea and Samaria had no recognized sovereign, apart from the Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal Jordanian occupation, the current Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria cannot possibly be designated as illegal.
It seems therefore that nothing Israel offers that is less than 100% of its entire land -- in other words if Israel agrees not to exist -- will affect the Palestinian Authority's willingness to make peace.

In a world ablaze, European governments and companies still see fit to boycott Israeli companies and products from the so called West Bank. The boycotting parties claim to base their actions on the fact that the West Bank is occupied territory and that the Israeli presence in the West Bank is the one true obstacle to durable peace.

It is apparently unbeknownst to them that both premises are entirely false.

In the West, the so-called "Green Line" is usually referred to when the "peace process" is being evaluated. Someone usually states that Israel should retreat behind this Green Line in order to maintain legitimacy and legality. The Green Line is allegedly synonymous with "the Borders of 1967." This is a highly misleading semantic trick. By asserting the Green Line as the borders of 1967, the case is made to sound as if this is the border from whence the Israelis started an aggressive expansion. The truth is the opposite. The Green Line is in reality the armistice line of 1949: the border where the Arab war of extermination was halted and where the Israelis finally prevented the attempted genocide of their people.

The term "occupied territories," even if not correct, is enough to nonplus the average Israel supporter and send left-wing and Muslim front groups into a twist. It is probably worthwhile to examine the legal accuracy of the term "occupied" as it is applied to the West Bank.

First, it is important to realize that the West Bank had no legally recognized sovereign prior to 1948. After the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948, which then counted a scarce 660,920 Jewish inhabitants, Israel, literally on the day of its birth, was immediately faced with a war of extermination launched by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, complemented by Saudi Arabian forces fighting under Egyptian command and a Yemeni contingent.

During this effort to obliterate the nascent state, Jordanian forces took control of the area that had, from biblical times, been known as Judea and Samaria. The Jordanians, in 1950, changed this name to the "West Bank" [of the Jordan River], apparently in an attempt to semantically strengthen their case of "occupation" by making the territory sound as if it were a legitimate part of their East Bank. The move also appears to be an attempt to delegitimize Israel's claim to the area by de-Judaizing its name[1] -- a strategy first adopted by Roman emperor Hadrian, when he changed the country's name from Judea to Palestine, after a nomadic maritime people, the Philistines, who had been in constant armed conflict with the Jews.

Moreover, only Britain, Iraq and Pakistan recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria. The rest of the world, including Jordan's Arab allies, never recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria as legitimate, let alone legal. The same goes for the Gaza Strip, only there, it was the Egyptians who ended up illegally occupying the area after the 1948 war of extermination.

During the Six Day War of 1967, Israel was faced with another war of extermination launched by its Arab neighbors. To survive yet another attempted genocide, Israeli forces conducted, in response, a war of defense in which the Israel Air Force destroyed Egyptian aircraft before enemy troops could reach Israel's fragile borders. In the process of this defensive war, the Israelis ended up expelling the Jordanians from the part of Jerusalem they occupied and the West Bank of the Jordan River: Judea and Samaria.

Because Judea and Samaria had no recognized sovereign, apart from the Ottoman Empire, prior to the illegal Jordanian occupation, the current Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria cannot possibly be designated as illegal. After all, from whom are they occupying the area, save from the former Ottoman Empire? The area can only be correctly designated as "disputed" territories, just like Kashmir, the Western Sahara, Zubarah, Thumbs Island, and a lengthy parchment of other disputed territories.

It has been alleged -- originally by diplomats of the Arab and Muslim world, and later parroted by a gullible European political elite -- that to leave this dispute unresolved blocks not only the peace process but also the general stability of the region. Any impartial examination of facts, however, shows that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria has no significant relationship to either the "peace process" or regional stability. It is probably just irresistibly convenient for autocrats to keep telling diplomats to focus on Israel and the Palestinian problem to throw them -- as well as their own people -- off the scent of their own questionable governance.

If the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and the "settlements" from 1967 on, are the root cause of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, then why does Article 14 of the 1964 PLO charter call for the destruction of all of Israel? "The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty. Its responsibilities fall upon the entire Arab nation, governments and peoples, the Palestinian peoples being in the forefront. For this purpose, the Arab nation must mobilize its military, spiritual and material potentialities; specifically, it must give to the Palestinian Arab people all possible support and backing and place at its disposal all opportunities and means to enable them to perform their role in liberating their homeland."

In 1964, there was not a single Israeli in Judea and Samaria, nevertheless the PLO called for the obliteration of Israel. It is this '64 PLO mentality that has pervaded the upper echelons of Palestinian administration ever since. With the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, although PLO leader Yasser Arafat said 'yes' to peace, in the period following his actions led to the first massive wave of terror attacks, known as the "Second Intifada." In 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made Arafat an offer that shocked the world. Barak offered the PLO nearly everything it demanded, including a state with its capital in Jerusalem; control of the Temple Mount; the return of approximately 97% of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, and a $30 billion compensation package for the 1948 refugees.[2] Arafat turned this deal down. In 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas almost 98% of the West Bank, and again accepted nearly all Palestinian demands. Olmert too, was turned down.

It seems therefore that nothing Israel offers that is less than 100% of its entire land -- in other words, if Israel agrees not to exist -- will affect the Palestinian Authority's [PA] willingness to make peace. The Arabs rejected a plan to partition the land, they did not want peace when there were no Israelis in Gaza, the West Bank or the Jordanian-occupied eastern part Jerusalem, and have repeatedly turned down generous peace offers.

Judea and Samaria are not occupied territories, and the Israeli presence there has no relationship to the PA's willingness to make peace.

Why then would European governments and companies boycott the region? They do not boycott other comparable regions. Even more revealingly, in 2006, the EU even actively aided an occupying power, Turkey, by approving a $259 million aid package for Turkish occupied Northern Cyprus.

Anti-Israel protestors in Melbourne, Australia in June 2010. (Image source: Wikimedia/Takver)

Why these double standards and what do they tell us about the morality -- or lack thereof -- of the people who hold them?

As Thomas Friedman once wrote "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."

---

[1] Wim Kortenoeven, De Kern van de zaak

UN WATCH

Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions of 2013

Published on December 31, 2013 in Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 

 
1. The UN Human Rights Council elected Hezbollah supporter Jean Ziegler, founder and recipient of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, as a top advisor.

2. The UN General Assembly adopted 21 condemnatory resolutions against Israel, compared to 4 on the rest of the world combined.

3. The same UN General Assembly elected China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council. The dictatorships will take their new seats on January 1, 2014.

4. UN Human Rights Council official Richard Falk blamed the Boston Marathon terror bombings on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.” Shortly thereafter he was praised by the council.

5. The UN Special Committee on Decolonization, charged with upholding fundamental human rights and opposing the subjugation of peoples, elected the murderous Syrian regime to a senior post.

6. The UN Conference on Disarmament in May 2013 made Iran its president.

7. The UN Economic and Social Council, which oversees the UN women’s rights commission, elected genocidal Sudan as its vice-president.

8. The UN Human Rights Council elected slave-holding Mauritania to be its vice-president.

9. The UN chose Zimbabwe, a regime that systematically violates human rights, to host its world tourism summit.

10. UNESCO, which condemned no other country but Israel, and which was silent as Hamas bulldozed a world heritage site to make a terrorist training camp, allowed Syria to sit as a judge on UNESCO’s human rights committee.

A Life of Inspiration

One doesn't think of a sermon coming from a Pope as symbolizing fire and brimstone. Yet how else to consider Pope Francis's sermon against corruption delivered on Monday in which he quoted a Biblical passage of the New Testament where Jesus is said to have claimed some sinners deserved to be weighted down and thrown into the sea. Jesus said that? Oh my, oh my. Pope Francis most certainly did. My, oh my.

Like the Christ figure, Pope Francis is a humble man of peerless devotion to the core tenets of his faith. He has embarked, like the son of God whom he worships on the emulation of the act of cleansing the moneylenders from the Temple. Ejecting vice, avarice and Mammon, to make full unobstructed room for the sacredness of the Omniscient Spirit and the injunction to be just and holy in one's treatment of others.

It's enough to make a non-believer weep in gratitude.

"Jesus says: It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea", quoted the Pope from the Gospel of St. Luke. People, he railed, who led "a double life", giving money to the Roman Catholic Church that they had stolen from the state or from others were undoubtedly sinners, deserving the wrathful punishment of just desserts.

People involved in corrupt acts were "white-washed tombs", he thundered; "they appear beautiful from the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones and putrefaction." Corruption produces a life that equates with "varnished putrefaction". Can't get much clearer in his purple-prose condemnation of hypocrisy and vice than that, can he?

The man who has chosen personally to bypass all vestiges of grandeur and sumptuous display in his role as Pope has chastised members of his own gatherings for their pride and their inability to be honest brokers. Those who, while professing goodness as priests but whose acts belie their profession have obviously caused him anguish and pain, and it is his intention, it seems, to remove them from authority.

His passion is to give succour to the needy, the impoverished, to welcome into the comfort of the church all those without hope. He represents an amazing contrast to his predecessors. He has emerged as a living, breathing embodiment of all that the writings of the church, quoting Jesus Christ, profess is important; no amount of cautious praise can fully capture the elemental goodness and decency of the man.

Speaking forthrightly of the deficits in human nature and the failures of the institution he represents, he is admirable in his passion. Can he possibly clean up the church he now heads? His lecture to the Church said it all:

"Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry. We all have to think if we can become a little poorer, all of us have to do this. How can I become a little poorer in order to be more like Jesus, who was the poor Teacher? First of all I want to tell you something, tell all you young persons: don't let yourselves be robbed of hope. Please, don't let it be stolen from you. The worldly spirit, wealth, the spirit of vanity, arrogance, and pride ... all these things steal hope. Where do I find hope? In the poor Jesus, Jesus who made himself poor for us. And you spoke of poverty. Poverty calls us to sow hope. ..."

L'Osservatore Romano / AP

Hercules cleaned the Aegean stables, as one of the immense tasks that challenged that super-human character of Greek fable. Pope Francis faces the Herculean task of clearing out the stables of the Vatican and the long reach of the holy Roman Catholic Church and its fallible priests.

More power to him.