For many of our French and bilingual readers, vigile.net is an interesting cesspool web site that provides us with hours of reading entertainment, a place where all the crackpots of the nationalist movement are conveniently grouped. Like a car accident, we are mesmerized.
Ex-terrorists, fantasists, racists, antisemites, anglo-bashers and xenophobes are all given a tribune to spout their various philosophies, some of the articles being incredibly funny, in a sad and perverse sort of way.
This week Premier Charest went off on the web-site in the National Assembly in the debate over Bill 115;
"Premier Jean Charest accused Ms. Marois of “radicalizing” the debate and of sympathizing with groups that include a former member of the 1970s terrorist group Front de Libération du Québec who are calling for the legislation’s withdrawal.“She takes the advice of a former FLQ sentenced for murder and sentenced for detonating bombs in 2001 and accepts that members of her own caucus gives money to people who encourage violence in Quebec,” Mr. Charest charged.Mr. Charest was attempting to link the PQ to a former FLQ member, Rhéal Mathieu, who has taken part in a poster campaign underscoring “Liberal corruption.” Mr. Mathieu has written articles that appeared on the non-profit website Vigile.net which has received funding from PQ members." -Globe And Mail
Vigile.net, is a leftist/sovereingist website run by one Bernard Frappier, that reposts published articles of interest, mostly concerning Quebec politics and independence issues.
The site has a unique formula, reprinting articles from mainstream media sources which provides cover and legitimacy for the the other extremist articles that it publishes.
Typical of the nonsense is a fantasist article that I recently translated on this blog entitled Quebec in 2020.
The few international stories that web site publishes are dominated by virulently anti-Israel articles.
When I say dominated, I mean obsession. Mr. Frappier may or may not be an anti-semite, but he certainly has a hate-on for Israel, a trait that he shares with a great many of the web-site's constituents.
(that was a neat trick!...cough....cough...)
The editor particularly enjoys printing articles by Jews who oppose Israeli policy, as if it somehow underscores the illegitimacy of the Israeli state.
Newsflash for Mr. Frappier, it's really no big deal for a Jew or an Israeli to oppose Israeli policy. Just as it's no big deal when a Canadian criticizes his own government. It's called democracy and free speech.
What would be news is an Iranian, Syrian or Egyptian citizen, criticizing his government in a newspaper or magazine published in one of those countries, but I digress.......
Until now, these anti-Israel articles were culled from mainstream media which never rose to the level of antisemitism.
This all changed when vigile.net reprinted one the vilest of antisemtic/anti-Israel articles that I have ever seen reproduced in the Quebec media.
At a certain point, fair criticism of Israel turns into antisemitism. It usually happens when the mythical international Jewish conspiracy becomes the focus of an article. In this respect, the article republished by vigile.net fits the bill to a tee.
The antisemitic blog piece is prefaced by an odious cartoon depicting three rats abandoning a sinking ship named 'Obama,' carrying away booty in treasure chests, representing the three Jews who have recently resigned from the Obama team.
This article makes the following claims;
- It was a Jewish plot that killed John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy
- Jews control the world and wrecked the U.S economy on purpose.
- Israel was the author of the 9/11 bombing and that 'warnings' were issued not to go to work that morning.
- Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli secret agent
- The couple that crashed the White House dinner, Tareq Salahi (a Palestinian Arab) along with his wife, were on a mission for Israeli intelligence demonstrating that they could 'get to' the President any time they wanted.
- Rahm Emmanuel is a Mossad agent and left the White House along with other Jews because Israel intends on bombing the Oval office to kill Obama.
Keep up the good work Mr. Frappier!
Where is the B'nai Brith when there is a real case of antisemitism?
PS-
BTW......Who's you're favourite vigile.net crackpot?
Woo-hoo... First comment!
ReplyDeleteCome one, Editor. We all love Vigile.net. But why you attack it on its stance against Jews and Israel? I for one never care about the international stuff. It is the rantings from the separatists that make up my mornings. I do not read the news clipings, I just go to Tribune libre. That where the gems are.
My favorite posters:
George Le Gal (can also be found at Mouvement Montreal francais)
Richard Le Hir
Jacques Noel, the mad statistician
Caroline Moreno, the extremist on paper only.
What does the fake Anglo rights "former" PQ minister Lehir write on Vigile? I bet he never mentions anything about his appearance on the "Angryphone" documentary...
ReplyDeleteMy favorite hillbilly is Caroline Moreno living in her miserable, petty, KKK-style fantasy world.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks to all petits insignifiants kébékuà for existing and amusing us everyday...
Allophone++
I have to agree with Troy. Given that vigle.net's focus is mostly the English-French situation, I'm not sure why Editor made it about Israel.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in agreement with Allophone (7:53AM), I have to admit to having a weak spot for Caroline Moreno. Maybe it's the fact that she's an allo herself (unless her name is a pseudonym), trying so hard to outdo her nationalist francophone co-writers. I tend to find the "try too hard" types very interesting study cases. Although pretty much everyone who writes on vigile would be a good study case at Douglas Hospital.
Adski et al. more to show how extremist and what type of crowd post there, and in fact you can link to what every nationalist try to portray, i.e. that nationalist where no worse anti semite than the rest of canada. which these type of post tend to show their true colour.
ReplyDeleteTo anon@9:55AM
ReplyDeleteI admire your attempt to post in English, but it would be perhaps more useful to write in French. The comment is not understandable as written.
The best way to stop this nonsense is to expose it. And also expose the parties that are helping finance it.
ReplyDelete"The best way to stop this nonsense is to expose it..."
ReplyDeleteVous avez raison et les électeurs jugeront eux-mêmes de ce qui a du sens ou non.
"And also expose the parties that are helping finance it."
La grande majorité des dons proviennent du Public (particulier).Devrions-nous mettre la GRC sur ces cas?Plus qu'a 700$ de l'objectif annuel.Vigile devrait défoncer ses coffres d'ici Noel.
On continu...
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteA lie repeated enough times becomes accepted as reality. That is what has allowed the separatist movement to mushroom from its legitimate French rights movement to an institution hellbent on promoting itself by extinguishing the rights of anyone else who doesn't willingly submit to their warped homogenizing version of "diversity, so long as it's in French".
Canada's much-vilified "multiculturalism" policy has nothing to say about the language group into which immigrants assimilate. Smart immigrants know they have a sharp hill to climb and are at a distinct disadvantage from the get-go. That's why most of them (including those of my ancestors who weren't in this country from the start) saw fit to learn both. Especially in Quebec, where you'll find few allos who aren't at least functional French AND English speakers. Their children become multilinguals. Non-French speakers, despite 101, are the exception.
Alas, too many lies about the Quebec nationalist struggle have been allowed to live on.
Quebec and Canada both need serious fixing, and dishonest generalizations by both sides in this debate will get us nowhere.
Apparatchik: "Quebec and Canada both need serious fixing, and dishonest generalizations by both sides in this debate will get us nowhere. "
ReplyDeleteDon't you think that at this point in time Canada's only "crime" towards Quebec is merely indifference? Is indifference really such a bad thing? Is it worth it to resort to such drastic measures as secession over indifference? How childish is that?
What fixing does Canada really need, other than possibly dropping Quebec and moving on with its life?
@ Editor
ReplyDeleteI need my bullshit meter in good working
order (for business). Wading through vignale.net
threatened to through it permanently out of
kilter.
Seriously though, ugly little site for an
ugly (in thought) "little" (ask Marois)
people.
DD
ow why did you bring that Cow elephant into this story, because we have not heard about her in a long while!
DeleteAdski i meant that the post on vigile.net re-affirms the anti semitic nature of Quebec nationalist, and it's ihnerent racism. They allways claim that lionel groulx was no different than the anti semite in the rest of canada at the time. The nationalist movement of the 30's was allways racist in it's roots. That we have a metro station named, after that man Lionel-groulx is flabbergasting.
ReplyDelete"...after that man Lionel-groulx is flabbergasting."
ReplyDeleteQue dire de la rue Amherst et de tout ce qui porte ce nom au Québec,un individu totalement sanguinaire.Lionel Groulx n'a jamais massacré personne.Nous sommes dans un pays libre ou nous avons le droit de s'exprimer et de s'affirmer.
As if Jean Charest read that stuff anyways.
ReplyDeleteCome on that moron, lame duck prime minister never reads anything besides the stuff he is told to say from his scripts.
Just like some very unpopular dude these days in the States, Barack Hussein Obama.
Lit ton histoire un peu plus, tu ne semble pas savior beaucoup sur Amherst. Groulx represente le pire du nationalisme québécois, typique d'un apologiste nationaliste de répondre par une un autre exemple a coter de la traque.
ReplyDelete“Don't you think that at this point in time Canada's only "crime" towards Quebec is merely indifference?”
ReplyDeleteAre you asking me to be indifferent to English Canadian indifference?! Part of our problem is that beyond those of us who willingly integrate both solitudes into our daily lives on an individual level, our national consciousness, both English and French, doesn’t account much for the existence of the other. I think English Canada is just as much to blame for its indifference toward Quebec’s uniqueness as Quebec is for folding in on itself and thrusting its best assets toward the confederation.
“Is indifference really such a bad thing?”
Indifference isn’t just bad. It’s the enemy. Especially when it affects something as important as our own political geography.
Indifference is what led to the “two solitudes” paradigm in the first place. I do my thing, you do your thing, and we stay out of each other’s hair might be good when I want you out of my hair after a really long day. It’s a bit embarrassing to say I’ve lived on my metaphorical street for decades and still haven’t spoken to my next door neighbor. Even if it sounds like I’m talking in highly abstract or idealistic terms, my point is that if we don’t willingly get involved - “integrate” if you will - in each other’s cultures and lives, we might as well be separate countries as the separatists have been advocating all along.
A country in its simplest expression is a collection of people who share a willingness to live together in a certain place. People. Willing. Together. Place. You need all four elements. Indifference, as I see it, erodes willingness first and all the other elements not long afterward.
A good start, I think, accomplishes two things at a time. It aspires to world citizenship, as well belonging to a tightly knit community at once. And in the course of an individual’s life, both notions of citizenship are joined. It helps to be aware that my home community is far from being the only one and that I had better get used to the fact that a majority of the world ISN’T like me, or like you. Let natural curiosity take it from there.
“Is it worth it to resort to such drastic measures as secession over indifference? How childish is that?”
ReplyDeleteAnybody who’s read even just one of my postings will know I’m strongly against secession unless it’s absolutely obvious that groups can’t live together.
And I don’t mean “creative differences”. I mean serious differences that include military-level hostilities, oppression (as defined by bodies like the U.N. and not by upstart secessionist movements), pillaging, raping, and a chaotic breakdown of civil rights and institutions.
I also believe that many soft nationalists realize that francophone Quebecers, once you factor out language and a slight penchant for socialist tendencies, aren’t much different from a good portion of other Canadians. Soft nationalists who vote NON are at least secure and mature enough to understand that there is more to (self) preservation than what the anthropologists will one day find.
“What fixing does Canada really need, other than possibly dropping Quebec and moving on with its life?”
What a boring country both would be.
As I said above, both Canada as a whole and Quebec in particular need to foster better cultural integration strategies. I reiterate passionately that integration doesn’t have to mean assimilation. I am living proof of this and probably would think it were an unachievable dream if I didn’t know my own case so well. And reasonable accommodation debate and sensationalist burqa media storms aside, I think the immigrants seem to be doing a better job at attempting to integrate and reconcile French and English culture in Montreal better than the native French and English people themselves. With the proportion of allophones and their (even partial) descendants set to increase, this encouraging to me.
Anonymous at 17:20 wrote:
ReplyDelete"Que dire de la rue Amherst et de tout ce qui porte ce nom au Québec,un individu totalement sanguinaire.Lionel Groulx n'a jamais massacré personne.Nous sommes dans un pays libre ou nous avons le droit de s'exprimer et de s'affirmer."
Oh yeah? You want to go there? What about de Maisonneuve? He found Ville-Marie on the blood of the Iroquois. So much so that the scene of him shooting the Iroquois chief dead is depicted at the monument at Place d'Armes.
Apparatchik, I didn't mean you specifically when I asked whether indifference is sufficient grounds for secession. However, you probably know that many people base their support for secession on that. There is no more discrimination of Francophones in Quebec, so people step up theit demands and now ask that Quebec be loved all over the RoC. But that isn’t the case, and will never be. Quebec will never get anything beyond indifference.
ReplyDeleteI have met Francophones who said something along the lines: "I believed in a united Canada, I worked hard to learn English, then I went on a trip to BC/ON/AB and I found out that these people don't care for Quebec or the French language. So I have become a separatist". To me, that is a really childish, even infantile, attitude. To these people, I say: fine, separate. And don’t expect us to indulge you in your childish demands.
What you call indifference is actually people getting on with their lives. Do we in Quebec ever think about how things are in another province? Of course not we are busy living our lives here just as they do in the rest of our country. A website called Verdun Connections consists hugely of Verdun Quebecers who left here in the seventies to start new lives in the rest of Canada and the states. These people do think aboput Quebec because they have reason to. People with no connection to us think about those they have a connection to. edbrown@bell.net
ReplyDeleteThis site is reserved for the brainless Kebekois to gripe all their hatreds and think that they are being listened to. So I call it Kebek's window on the world. But in reality it is the best comedy show in Canada, if you really want a laugh, id is even better than the debates at the National Assembly of Kebek, where no one knows what they are discussing, and the Speaker is at a loss for words.
ReplyDeleteVigile show in print is the only Franco-Amerindian comedy that has all the laughs that we get for free. After , it has such comedians as Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau, Bernard Landry and Frappier, who once tangled with me and got a blck eye for s gift. But then Frappier is a hay-seed (un vrai fou the village) with plenty of piss and wind, but lacks common sense. These people are qualified idiots, without a brain in their skulls.
ReplyDelete