Faster than a dog licking up another dog’s vomit or a vulture swooping down for roadkill, Ezra Levant, Canada’s self-proclaimed professional victim, is racing to scoop up the 2008 “URQ Martyr of the Year” Golden Crown of Thorns Award from last month’s odds-on favourite, Mark Steyn.
My money’s on Ezra. I stand in honest awe of his ability to brand himself as a Free Speech Hero while raking in big bucks and accolades from the suckers credulous enough to buy his latest pitch.
A bit of history, once again (stop me if you’ve heard this before):
Several months after a series of not very witty editorial cartoons spark a furor in Europe and the Middle East, Ezra announced with great fanfare that he was going to publish them in defense of our precious Freedom of Speech.
Now, bear in mind, no-one was actually threatening Ezra’s freedom of speech at any point. But this “heroic gesture” guaranteed headlines and sales for a mediocre magazine on its last legs (it has, of course, subsequently folded). It was a good marketing ploy, eagerly swallowed by the leading URQ blogs, who urged their readers to buy multiple copies to “show we weren’t afraid”, to berate news vendors that didn’t carry Ezra’s rage, and particularly to boycott Muslim newstands that didn’t stock the issue.
It was such an embarrassingly transparent piece of opportunism that even Stephen Harper felt compelled to express “regret” that Ezra saw fit to exploit racial hatred for a buck.
The Shaidles and McMillians were practically panting in anticipation of firebombs and riots. But of course, nothing happened. The Canadian Muslim community behaved like…Canadians. They shook their head, wished the buffoon hadn’t done it, and forgot it.
Now, I’ve never read the sales figures for the “Free Speech Martyr” edition of the Western Standard. But months later, after the rag had crashed and burned, Ezra’s tearful farewell included the following astonishing admission:
“I hope that the fact that we neither suffered physical nor financial harm for doing so serves as encouragement to other media in the future to resist radical Muslim calls for censorship.”
Got it? Despite all the chest thumping, protestations of impending martyrdom, and declarations of victimhood, Ezra made money off his little ploy.
Then (enter Villain, Stage Left) a “radical imam” (Ezra’s characterization) filed a “frivolous, vexatious, infantile” complaint (Ezra’s characterization) with the Human Rights Commission. And faster than a panhandler darting for a falling quarter, Ezra begged his fans and admirers to send him yet MORE money, because he “might” incur expenses as a result of a calculated business decision to offend thousands of people by playing free speech martyr.
I asked a couple of questions about that little pitch at the time on a couple of blogs, including here. Specifically, I wanted to know:
- Incremental Sales Revenues for Ezra’s “Look At Me! I Hate Mohammed” edition
- Whether profits had been set aside as a hedge against possible legal costs
- Whether funds received from his gullible URQ blog-dupes were going to be tracked and accounted for separately; and,
- Whether these funds would be returned to the donors if the costs of any subesequent legal costs did NOT exceed profits on the “I Hate Mohammed” edition.
And you know, the strangest thing…there was no response.
And now, as the hearings begin, with the predictability of Swiss clockwork, the moronosphere is lurching into gear. The Scented One, whose hysterical ravings increasingly evoke the language of the less literate Communist cadres during the cultural revolution, writes:
The Leftist state apparatus (in the form of a so-called “human rights” commission) in Canada has finally picked the wrong man upon whose rights to stomp with its filthy, blood-caked jackboots. Ezra Levant isn’t submitting. He’s ferociously fighting for his -and all Canadians’- rights and liberties. He’s fighting for freedom of expression, for freedom of the press and more, for all of us. He stands resolutely against the forces of Left-wing oppression and tyranny.
Five Feet of Cancerous Gall Bladder manages to weave together several skeins of current URQ hysteria. Ezra is not only a free speech martyr, but is being prosecuted…because he’s Jewish! Oh, my! And so is Mark Steyn…who isn’t Jewish, but she thinks some people think he might Jewish, so that’s why they’re being victimized. Oh, and her, too.
Oh, and both the K’s (we really DO need one more) have gone the heroic route of publishing, yet again, those not very good cartoons that Ezra made so much money on, with suitably faux-bravado, self-aggrandizing captions. (Shaidle’s is “Come and Get Me, You Fairies”, once again raising interesting questions about the possibility of an individual’s ability to be both pre-pubescent and menopausal at the same time.)
To be honest, as someone with a professional interest in communications, I quite enjoy Ezra’s performance. He’s made a bunch of money on fake outrage, and cheerfully admitted it - while somehow convincing his fans that they should keep sending him more. You gotta love it.
But I do admit a bit of puzzlement vis-a-vis the Jankes, Shaidles and McMillans who perpetuate this myth. Are they really too stupid to recognize that they’re being duped? Are they getting a cut of this? Or is it just blog-fodder to them - more cheap, synthetic rage for the hate-machine?
UPDATE:
I swear to God, sometimes I think Dr. Dawg and I must have been separated at birth.
Levant is the Canadian rights P.T. Barnum.
The only thing that keeps the Levants, Coulters and Marsdens of the world in business is that the left falls for their schtyk hook line and sinker and work themselves up into a frenzy every time they open their mouths.
Ignore them and they will go away.
That being said, he shouldn’t be in front of any Human Rights Commitee for what he published.