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Anti-Semitism, Tribalism, Irrationalism & the Postal Workers Union

April 30, 2008 by  

On April 28, 2008, National Post columnist Jonathan Kay reported that:

At its national convention earlier this month, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers passed a resolution that included the following provision: “CUPW will … support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Kay now reports that he has received an e-mail from CUPW president Denis Lemelin, in which Lemelin says, in part:

CUPW has no plans to block mail to and from Israel as of yet.

I replied as follows:
At the convention where CUPE president Sid Ryan was seeking re-election, he supported (proposed?) a resolution to boycott Israel. He was re-elected.

Trade unionism’s allies in the Middle East are the anti-Semites; those who, truth be told, want the elimination of Israel. Here at home, anti-Semitism’s natural home is in socialist collectivism. To the socialist, it’s all association, not reason: “capitalism” brings to consciousness “banking” and “profit”; “banking” and “profit” bring to consciousness “usury”; “usury” brings up the most paranoid and toxic conspiracy in human history: the idea that “Jews, with the help of freemasons, are trying to take over the world through banking”.

The mentally lazy – those who wish to live life on mental auto-pilot, and who think that they can do that so long as they are part of a “tribe” that maintains old traditions and rejects innovations (innovation requires one to think and adapt) – hate that Israelis have turned a desert into a productive, relatively rational society. Seeing progress, economic growth, wealth, change etc. all as enemies, they take the side of stagnation and tribalism. Tribalists become outraged at the introduction of civility, trade, property, rights, justice and the like, all of which threaten to undermine tradition and tribalism; threaten to undermine a system of life lived on autopilot; threaten to permit competition among rational individuals, each putting his own life and happiness first. Rationality, capitalism, and the individualism implied by each, are the great enemies of the collectivist and, in the Middle East, Israel is rightly seen as the foothold both of reason and of its counterpart, capitalism.


Paul McKeever and Sid Ryan on The Michael Coren Show, a few weeks after the CUPE resolution to boycott Israel.

Comments

4 Responses to “Anti-Semitism, Tribalism, Irrationalism & the Postal Workers Union”

  1. Brad Woods on April 30th, 2008 4:30 pm

    I would like to start by saying I am a postal worker. I like most of my coworkers do not support this resolution and a lot of the “Have-to-Be-Left” actions taken by our union. The members who voted on this issue are a select group of people and are usually swept up in the Tribalistic Moment during votes like these.

    I would like to say though I don’t believe the People are Anti-Semetic. They mean well. They just Think differently than we do.

    Brad

  2. McKeever on April 30th, 2008 6:36 pm

    Thanks for that Brad. Given the mandatory nature of membership in the union for people who work for the postal service, I cannot, and would not, paint all members with the same brush.

    All the best,

    Paul

  3. Luke on May 28th, 2008 4:29 pm

    Boy if there is one argument that reveals a lot of disgusting things about someone’s ideas and psychology, it’s when someone says sarcastically, “Ohhh so you’ve got all the answers dontcha!” There are, of course, many variations of that same argument, such as (spoken with a tone of accusation), “You think you’re sooo right!” Really these kind of platitudes can’t be described as arguments, they’re more like attacks. Or, “arguments from intimidation” as Ms. Rand referred to them.

    As if there is something wrong with thinking that you are right??? As if a person should choose to believe the ideas that he thinks are wrong rather than those he thinks are right??? It’s ethical altruism pushing its way into epistemology! Or am I reversing cause and effect?

    Great job though Paul, keep it up!

    Luke

  4. Vid Kini on January 27th, 2009 3:21 pm

    Paul,

    I have watched your videos (Youtube) on Money and the finance system, and I highly respect your thoughts, however I think that you are dead wrong on Palestine-Israel issue.

    To be sure I am against Hamas. They are a despicable lot, who use terror to control their population. Somewhat reminiscent of the Taliban, the Iranian regime and plenty of other nasties out there.

    But to endorse Israeli bombing I think is a step too far.

    The real point is that has to be another solution! Or else we are truly doomed. If as a world we cannot solve the issues of ancient nomadic tribes, then what can we solve?!

    If we are to call the whole Muslim world irrational and worthy of bombing then perhaps we are truly all doomed.

    The solution (as always) in my opinion, at least, has to come from within, not from without.

    In you own words you have described this a fight between the pillars of “Collectivism and Individualism”.

    Perhaps we should redefine it as a war between those who are allowed to think and act freely and those who are forced into a position.

    I believe that in the majority of the Muslim world, that includes Pakistan, Iran, Palestine, etc… the populations are ‘forced’ into certain types of thinking and acting that perhaps we would all display should our education have been limited and the threat of violence leveled against us. And in these cases ‘democracy’ fails, it is a ‘coerced democracy’.

    Bombing everyone is the wrong solution to this problem as human lives are short and our ability to be indoctrinated, ‘infinite’.

    There has to be another way, and perhaps some smart enough can find it.

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