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Rabble blog by Pierre Beaudet about Mulcair
February 29, 2012 - 2:57pm
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Here it is:
What English Canadians need to understand about Quebec, the NDP and Thomas Mulcair
I've opened this thread because I couldn't find a "FLAG AS OFFENSIVE" button after this article.
First there's this:
Then this:
Of course, only about 10% of Outremont riding identify as Jewish, and very far from 10% are "orthodox", whatever that means. The balance of the paragraph is just plain anti-semitic hatemongering.
It is always amazing to observe the ignorance of Pierre Beaudet when it comes to anything left-wing.
Anti-Semitic hatemongering? Where?
Ok, josh. First - his statement that the "orthodox Jewish community", which he depicts as being about six (6) times bigger than it actually is, votes for Mulcair. Second - his cute little innuendo that they do so for some unnamed reason that has nothing to do with "anti-racist and anti-discrimination battles", which must be in his theology the only motives that "orthodox Jews" can legitimately have to vote en bloc.
ETA: Ok, maybe "anti-semitic" is a bit harsh - would you settle for dangerously stupid, lazy (won't look up stats), and racial-religious stereotyping?
Lazy, perhaps. I'd need more proof to go beyond that.
I'd call it "anti-Semitic". Maybe it was unintentional, but it was. I'm shocked and disappointed that Rabble would publish trash like this.
Cool. Let me exemplify for you:
NOTE: I got the "12 percent" figure by multiplying the actual Muslim population of Toronto by 2, just as Beaudet did, and by pretending that all of them are "orthodox", just as Beaudet did, and then by concocting the thesis that they voted en bloc for one person based on zero evidence - just as Beaudet did. The rest is unchanged.
Does my rewording sound savoury to you?
It's not anti-Semitic. Intentionally or unintentionally (how can one be unintentionally anti-Semitic? Isn't that sort of an oxymoron?). That's a very serious charge. And it doesn't rise, or fall, to that level.
Calling an entire Jewish community "orthodox", and making up a story that they support Mulcair, and for unstated non-progressive reasons?
How about, "the Jews run Hollywood"? I can find more evidence for that trope.
And by the way, I didn't say it was "unintentionally" anti-semitic. I think this character Beaudet very intentionally decided to show his scorn for an entire community that he knows absolutely nothing about. Being lazy and stupid doesn't prevent one from being bigoted.
I was referring to Mr. Tea with the unintentional reference.
Being mistaken, or careless, when remarking on the voting habits of a group, or a sect of that group, does not make one anti anything. It just makes one mistaken or careless.
People can certainly be unintelntionally anti-Semitic, just as they can be unintentionally racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
An editor at ESPN was recently fired for using the headline "Chink in the Armor" to describe a bad game by Asian-American basketball sensation Jeremy Lin. Whether he deliberately set out to use a racial slur, the EFFECT was a racist pun in the headline. Asian-Americans were offended.
This blogger may not be deliberately intending to be anti-Semitic, but it has that effect anyway. As a Jew, I'm offended. His creepy pouring over of the Jewish vote in Outrement, his absurd (and un-knowable) pronouncement as to what motivated their votes and his presumptions to be able to dictate what OUGHT to motivate their votes is rather anti-Semitic in book. As is his linking to another article, supposedly about Bay Street backing Mulcair which offers a disclaimer that it was "not a comprehensive analysis of donor's to the campaign" and names 5 Bay Street donors, 4 of whom have distinctly Jewish last names, then quickly seguing into a digression about Mulcair's support for Israel. As you're probably aware, there are well-known and long-standing anti-Semitic tropes about Jews controlling Wall Street / Bay Street as well as ideas about them using their wealth to control the government, dual loyalty towards their countries of citizenship, etc. etc. etc.
It's anti-semitic in my opinion. Shades of the Protocols.
Did you read my piece on orthodox Muslims supporting Rob Ford? Please give me your feeling about that.
Mr. Tea, a remark can be taken one or two ways. But the person who spoke, or wrote, it either did so with a prejudicial intent or did not.
And once again, a totally valid and accepted sociological or political observation is being turned into something that it is not. If you went by the standards of some on here, political scientists and sociologists would be out of business.
What sociological or political observation was he offering?
I actually find the article he linked about "Bay Street" backing Mulcair to be even more offensive since it seems pretty obvious that "Bay Street" was actually code for "Jews".
What sociological or political observation was he offering?
The voting habits and pattern of the Orthodox communnity.
I'm not so into participating in the Rob Ford comparisons or the current discussion going on in this thread.
Besides all of that though--I do respect your opinion. Are you saying that your opinion about Beaudet is that he's ignorant when it comes to anything left wing? I mean besides all the stuff about Mulcair and Outremont.
I read his articles about Mulcair a while ago (he hasn't been a fan for a while) and not knowing of Beaudet in any other context I'm finding it hard to appraise what he's saying.
What the hell is the "Orthodox community"?
We have sizeable Hassidic communities in Montréal, inside and outside Outremont. One of them is ideologically Zionist, the others non- or anti-Zionist (which would come as a shock to our pseudo-scholar Beaudet, I'm quite sure). We also have self-identified orthodox Jews who have nothing whatsoever to do with any Hassidic sect. Then of course we have the majority of Jews, who would not identify as either orthodox or Hassidic. Some are of European ancestry, and more than 25% here are of French-speaking North African ("Sephardic") ancestry.
Beaudet obviously thinks all Jews are "orthodox" (he puts them at 20%!), and that we all support Mulcair. I would be very surprised if even a majority of Jews in my part of the city voted for Mulcair. But that's an anecdotal observation. Beaudet condemns the "orthodox Jewish community" for voting for Mulcair for non-progressive motives. Really.
I have no idea. I've read a couple of his blogs, which seem to be remarkably obtuse (such as his total inability to see any change coming on May 2). But the only reason I wrote that sentence was pure sarcasm, to highlight his opening sentence (a blanket condemnation of the "Canadian left" as being ignorant about Québec). So, I paid him back with a blanket condemnation of my own.
I'm dealing with this article on its own face. Lots of people ridiculed his foolishness in the comments following the blog itself. If he wants to get into the discussion here and: (1) explain how 10% gets converted into 20%; (2) explain who the orthodox Jews are; (3) cite his source for how they voted in Outremont since 2007 (Mulcair's first campaign); and (4) explain why he thinks they don't vote for progressive motives, then we can see whether there's anything to judge him by other than the printed word.
A) There is no unified "Orthodox community"; it's a pretty diverse group, whether in Montreal, Brooklyn or Jerusalem and you'll find all sorts of political ideologies within it. Outsiders to the community may see similar beards and hats and assume they're all the same, but it's hardly the case.
B) Orthodox Jews, like most voters, are not strictly loyal to any party but are "swing voters" who will vote based on all sorts of issues, the record of the current government, etc. etc. Just like pretty much every other "community" tends to do. I mean how does the "Sikh community" vote?
Beaudet may well have confused statistics pertaining to the Borough of Outremont with statistics pertaining to the federal electoral district of Outremont. That's an error, but it's not evidence of anti-semitism.
There seems to be some evidence, if this article from 2½ years ago is anything to go by - that the Hasidic Jewish population of the Borough of Outremont has increased dramatically since the 2001 census, eleven years ago. According to the 2001 census, the Borough had 3,430 Jews, which was about 15% of the population. According to the same census figures, the Jewish population of the Outremont Riding was said to be 10.2%.
But the above-linked article put the number of Hasidic Jews alone at 6,000 in 2009, and said it was "more than 25 percent of Outremont's population" - again, apparently referring to the Borough, not the electoral district. If that statistic was valid in 2009, the proportion of all types of Jews in the population of Outremont borough would then have been somewhat higher than 25 percent.
So I don't know how accurate Beaudet's figure is, but it seems one can no longer assume the census figures from 2001 represent today's reality.
As to the political views of the Jews of Outremont riding, I have no information.
As to the ignorance of the Canadian left about Quebec, Beaudet is right on the money.
Who said it was? The anti-semitism is the stereotyping of Jews as "orthodox", as supporting Mulcair, and as having non-progressive motives. What's your problem - you're usually a careful reader?
You're saying this ignoramus, who doesn't know the difference between Outremont riding and Outremont borough, might be accidentally close to the truth?
You are right up there with Beaudet in that respect. The difference is that you had enough integrity not to make shit up about the subject.
How about the ignorance of Beaudet about Québec? Right on the money?
Actually, why are you even trying to defend such a useless blog?
ETA: Forgot to mention - your facts and figures are mostly from Outremont borough (as is obviously Beaudet's lazy percentage). For those who may not know, the population of Outremont borough (which has a high concentration of Hassidic Jewish sects) is about 23,000. The population of Outremont riding is closer to 100,000. Hope that gives you some notion of the scope of Beaudet's error.
But that numerical error is far from the main point I was making, as must be obvious. That's why his article is stupid. It's not why it's offensive.
I think M. Beaudet's problem with M. Mulcair is quite clearly identified in the second paragraph of his screed where he wrote:
I take this to be in reference to M. Mulcair's having had a staff position with Alliance Quebec in the early 1980s, and the parenthetical comment is for the benefit of us ignorant anglos.
Of course there is the the little matter of M. Mulcair being the one to have tabled, in 2009, the private member's bill (C-455) that appears to be an attempt to codify provisions protecting the absolute right of Francophones working in federally regulated industries in Quebec to communicate in French. But of course this doesn't go quite so far as extending all the provisions of Bill 101 into the federal sphere (it would not, for example, actually prohibit the use of English) and therefore constitutes an existential threat to the French language.
But I guess when your primary purpose is to make sure no shadow ever falls across the adoring light illuminating your shibboleth, any evolution a former opponent may have gone through over a thirty period period must be conveniently ignored if not actively belittled.
I am really left feeling that we really need an equivalent expression to go along with "angryphones" to describe their polar opposites.
[ETA... well actually edited to remove, a surplus "L" in M. Mulcair's name in the first line]
I've never understood any reference to Bay Street as an anti-Semitic code, any more than Wall St. I think you're way off base.
He accused "Bay Street" of backing Mulcair. Of the five "Bay Street" examples he gave, four of them had distinctly Jewish names. He then used that as a segue to talk about Mulcair's "support" for Israel. Get it yet?
I assume that literally hundreds, if not thousands, of indivduals have donated to Mulcair`s campaign. The author chooses to specifically highlight 4 Jewish donors out of these hundreds or thousands of people. How about now?
He uses it as a segue to invoke a commo anti-Semitic stereotype of wealthy Jews controlling the government. Make sense?
Finally, the idea that "supporting Israel" is inherently a negative thing. As far as I can tell, Mulcair's "staunch support" for Israel consists of his hesitancy to see Israel (and the six millions Jews who inhabit it) driven into the sea. This is apparently controversial. I'm trying to think of another country in the world in which the mere support of their right to exist is somehow worth discussing. I presume that Mulcari is also against Japan, Mexico and Argentina (to pick 3 countries at random) being destroyed and their populations killed, but that is apparently common sense, whereas with Israel it's contentious.
No I don't get it. Did they really have distinctive Jewish names? If so, the author of the column never mentioned that. You are the first person to do so.
That column has already been the subject of a two-part thread. Further discussion of it here is thread drift.
The observation from the opening post was convincing enough for me, but this 'Life of Brian' explanation seals it.
So why does Rabble publish this crap?
Lord knows, I don't support Mulcair. But I agree with Unionist about the way the blogger pigeonholed and generalized about Jews in Outremont not supporting Mulcair for progressive or anti-racist reasons. There are all sorts of reasons why people support or don't support a candidate, and no religious or ethnic group is a monolith.
Very sloppy, and that's putting it very lightly.
Caissa, this is a blogger, and blog content is not edited by rabble before the blogger posts it.
Thanks, Michelle. I figured they didn't edit bloggers post. My question should have been a better one. Why does Rabble allow this blogger to post to it?