I received a mass email from Ezra Levant and his Western Standard magazine this morning asking for support.
For background read my recent blog entries regarding this: here and here (with video).
I would suggest that among other things we list stores where the latest issue of Western Standard has been censored by stores and is not now for sale. And quite frankly, here on the west coast I have always had a very hard time finding it anyway. So I think we should contact our favorite stores and ask them to stock it.
They stock every other magazine in the known universe, most of which are Hollywood liberal trash mags or clearly-liberal-leaning American news mags or the likes of Rolling Stone which in their February 9 2006 issue featured hip-hop/rapper Kanye West dressed up as Jesus Christ in a sound mocking of The Passion of the Christ, and generally all that Christianity stands for.
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You groovsters will know that Kanye West is the one who informed us on national television during yet another one of those liberal-fest awards show last year, that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” and that Bush had sent soldiers to kill black people in the Katrina aftermath. “…and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us!” he said. He also said to an MTV reporter in July last year during the Philadelphia staging of the Live 8 concert that AIDS is a “man-made disease – that was placed in Africa just like crack was placed in the black community to break up the Black Panthers.”
About that cover and story, the Village Voice weekly news magazine offered this critique (I cleaned it up a bit):
Kanye’s been doing the I=Jesus thing for a while, sorta sloppily I might add but wishy-washy enough that people haven’t been able to pin down/call him out a la Voice/Public Enemy. But this cover could have been a chance to bring it all into high relief—why not commit to a real shocker? The crown of thorns is cute. But why not have Kanye on the cross, with a boner, fu**ing a bag of gay Eucharist? Why not have the cross played by Terry Schiavo, and Terry Schiavo’s life support machines played by the ghost of Hurricane Katrina? Why not have Pope John Paul II jerking off to it all?
I don’t think the Village Voice is available here because it’s more for New York liberals than Canadian liberals—though I don’t know for sure. But the Village Voice is of course the recipient of three Pulitzer prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, the George Polk Award, Front Page Awards, Deadline Club Awards and many others. In addition, the Voice’s daily-updated Web site http://www.villagevoice.com has twice been recognized as one of the nation’s premier online sites for journalistic quality and local content. The site is a past winner of both the National Press Foundation’s Online Journalism Award and the Editor and Publisher EPpy Award for Best Overall US Weekly Newspaper Online.
Duh. Like I had to tell you.
Dear Western Standard reader,
By now you have probably heard about our decision to publish the Danish cartoons—those same cartoons that have been the excuse for riots around the world.
We believe that reprinting the cartoons is essential to properly telling that news story, which is why we did it. We also published them as a symbol of our freedom of the press, and in defiance of those around the world who would censor us through threats of violence.
I’ve never been more proud of our magazine.
Not everyone is happy with us, of course. A Calgary Muslim leader has reported us to the police, trying to get them to charge me with hate crimes. He has also filed a complaint against us with the human rights commission on the same grounds. Ironically, he has called our freedom of the press “intellectual terrorism”.
Those are nuisance suits, of course. But the idea is to cost us money and time, break our spirit, erode our freedom of speech, and teach a lesson to all other media: that anyone who doesn’t censor themselves will be made to wish they did.
The threats are working. Already, many Canadian magazine retailers who normally carry the Western Standard have caved in, announcing—even before they see our new issue—that they won’t put us on their shelves. Again, the purpose of the censors is obvious: hurt our magazine economically, and make an example of us as a warning to all other media.
That’s why I’m writing to you today: to ask for your help. Please do three things:
1. Let me know how you feel.
If you support our magazine’s decision, let me know. Send me an e-mail to [email protected] and I’ll share it with the rest of our staff, to help buoy their spirits as we face this hurricane, to let them know we’re not alone.
2. Encourage your local retailer to stock the Western Standard
Magazine retailers need to know that you value freedom of the press and your freedom to make up your own mind, and to not be censored by them or anyone else. Ask them to stock the magazine, or even to order it in just for you. You’ll not only help us survive the boycott, but you’ll put some steel in the spine of your local retailer.
3. Help us out directly.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, now’s the time to sign up—a subscription is 37% cheaper than buying the magazine at the newsstand, and the money goes directly to us. If you’re already a subscriber, consider renewing your subscription today, or extending your subscription, or even joining one of our clubs for enthusiasts by becoming a Sustaining Subscriber or a member of the Publisher’s Circle.
You can find out more and do all of that right online, at http://www.westernstandard.ca/subscribe
It’s fast, easy and secure—and it helps us stay strong, and keep growing.
When we started the Western Standard nearly two years ago, I never imagined that we would have been at the center of a fight for our culture’s basic freedoms—or that the rest of Canada’s media would be so silent, leaving us to fight this fight by ourselves.
But we’re not all by ourselves. We have you.
Thank you for your help—I look forward to your e-mails.
Yours truly,
Ezra Levant Publisher
P.S. The best way to help us right now is to click on http://www.westernstandard.ca/subscribe
(And readers, if you’re feeling supportive, you could support us! Western Standard and most of the rest of the conservative-supporting universe has not yet seen fit to buy a BlogAd on our site and we’re running on fumes!)
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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