Veteran rock poet Leonard Cohen has begun a major tour with an impressive troupe of fellow musicians. He’s singing in Canada at present.

Leonard Cohen: will he end his career as a toady for Jewish supremacists?

It’s a powerful show – perhaps the finale to a lifetime of live perfomances that have held a generation spellbound. Watch the Hamilton concert on U-Tube. If, like me, you enjoy Cohen’s music, it’s nectar.

The tour moves down to the USA, crossing the Atlantic in early June for a long summer meander through Europe. The penultimate concert is scheduled for Barcelona on September 21st.

At present, Cohen’s program includes a final concert in Jerusalem on September 24th.

Don't do it Leonard

Why a self-proclaimed Buddhist would even consider performing in an Apartheid State, singing about peace and love while the local indigenous people are excluded by a monstrous concrete wall, is a question Cohen should be asked, again and again – until he drops the disgusting idea.

In New York, some spirited activists and musicians have made a start…

More Links:

• Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East: Leonard Cohen: Don’t Play Israel
• US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel): Songsters Call On Leonard Cohen and Fans to Honor Nakba, Boycott Israel
• Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: Healing Israeli Apartheid, not its Victims?
• Leonardcohenforum.com: Should artists boycott Israel?

Here’s an important message from Ottawa, March 15th 2008.

Not a photograph you are likely to have seen in your ‘mainstream’ newspaper or on TV, but you can see it on the YayaCanada website.

In Ottawa, they've had enough!

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Other articles in this blog about: [cattagart photography]

His Master's Voice

Now here’s a question…

Back in March 2003, did Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper plagiarize a speech made by Australian PM John Howard two days previously?

Both speeches were made at a crucial time, when each of the former British domininions was justifying participation in the invasion of Iraq

‘Harper as Plagiarizer’ is the thesis of this rather clever video put together by the Liberal Party of Canada:

But there’s at least one other plausible hypothesis.

Perhaps BOTH Prime Ministers were reading texts drafted by the SAME third party?

Some comments below the YouTube copy of Stephen Harper copies Australian Prime Minister John Howard make this suggestion. One speculates Howard and Harper read scripts prepared in the White House.

It’s conceivable. But more likely, I think, that all the colluding  ‘Anglo-Saxon’ national leaders – from London to Ottawa, Washington to Canberra – were following the same direction.

If cantral casting wasn’t actually located in Tel Aviv, it might as well have been.

A trial is underway in Canada.

It’s a most curious trial. Or perhaps it’s just ‘normal’, in this phase of human history that just gets “curiouser and curiouser“.

The defendant is David Ahenakew, a 75 year-old First Nation leader, previously honoured with the Order of Canada for his service over many decades to his people and Canada as a whole. In Australia, the word ‘Aboriginal’ is typically used for our indigenous people. In Australian lingo, David Ahenakew is a respected Aboriginal elder and leader.

He is on trial for “willfully promoting hatred”.

What did he say? Did he, perhaps, offend the millions of mainly fair-skinned invaders of his land, who over the last few hundred years pushed his people to cultural extinction in many parts of Canada? Did he call for a war of extinguishment against the invaders? Did he incite a First Nation attack on Ottawa?

No. His alleged offense is more specific. He is accused of willfully promoting hatred against ‘the Jews’. He stands accused of breaching Canadian laws that criminalize ‘hate speech’. In effect, this Aboriginal leader is accused of persecuting other people – with his words (not deeds) – even though he’s a survivor of the shattered remnants of the original Canadians who has put in a lifetime’s effort into remedying disadvantages still suffered by his own disposessed community.

It’s difficult not to wince at the irony.

To be precise, the trial currently underway is Ahenakew’s second trial – for the same offense. He was found guilty in 2005. The Chronicle-Herald reports: