Is It ‘Reporting’ or ‘Creative Writing’ in the province of Alberta?
Written by Robin Mathews, August 2018
Looking at the article “Freedom and Loathing in Lethbridge” by Tadzio Richards for Alberta Views is a depressing undertaking. Dressed, apparently, in the clothing of serious investigation – the reality of its sham nature is disappointing … for there is no question that clear light needs to be shone on the Court of Star Chamber rape of procedure, fairness, and natural justice in the University of Lethbridge Academic Freedom case now nearly two years in operation.
As in many Mainstream Media pieces, this one seems – on the surface – to be written by someone wishing seriously to consider the long two years at the University of Lethbridge. But, writing from an Establishment point of view, the writer can only produce material which, in my judgement, violates fairness, balance, and an attempt at exact reporting. The article, in short, is - to me - hugely embarrassing.
Mr. Richards leap-frogs basic and fundamental material embarrassing to president Mahon and the University of Lethbridge Board of Governors.
The Academic Freedom case was propelled into prominence by a vicious, brutal, anti-semitic cartoon posted on the Facebook Page of a University of Lethbridge professor who was out of the country and unaware of the posting. That very strange action might be seen as a kind of fully-intended, mini-False Flag. Surprising, violent, apparently coming out of nowhere, immediately attributed to a false source, then falsely investigated … but, in fact, absolutely uninvestigated by primary authorities … the event was used as a basis, in effect (among other things) to vilify a professor, to further anti-Islamic propaganda, and to provide a basis to work for the suffocation of Freedom of Expression….
As if well prepared in advance, Israel government-connected organizations and people leapt on the August 26, 2016 event and they fell upon University of Lethbridge president Michael Mahon (if they were not already collaborating with him), and they fell upon every government office they could discover in order to vilify the absent (and innocent) professor and demand severe action against him … without a shred of evidence that he was involved. University officialdom became immediately involved as did the Police of Lethbridge who, apparently, had been contacted by B’nai Brith the day before the vicious posting and who set about “investigating” (without, apparently contacting Facebook authorities) Anthony Hall to learn if he had posted the evil cartoon.
That was August 26, 2016. One might be certain that within days president Mahon would have met and asked the returned University of Lethbridge senior Professor for his account – especially since he knew nothing of the vicious posting.
President Mahon did no such thing. But what did happen is that claims were made at the University against Professor Anthony Hall for anti-semitism. One was made by faculty member Goldie Morgentaler. It was made, apparently, after she met and spent time consulting with president Mahon.
The time in Lethbridge between the foul (August 26) posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page and the October 4 letter from president Mahon to Professor Hall asking Hall to meet and to hear why Hall shouldn’t be peremptorily, without any due process, suspended and removed from University of Lethbridge property… the time was full of (largely) invalid accusations from non-University organizations, an ostensible Lethbridge Police investigation of Hall’s role in the Facebook Posting, and other such negative ‘noise’ about which no action whatever has been taken and which Tadzio Richards treats (conveniently) as, apparently, not having existed.
He ignores all of those key happenings. And he accepts that the president of the University of Lethbridge suspending Professor Hall, terminating his salary, ordering him away from any University of Lethbridge property, even forbidding him to have access to his own office (without due process) could be described as “a precautionary” measure not a disciplinary or punitive one. Richards does not ask why the University of Lethbridge president, the Board of Governors, and Alberta government officials failed to ask Facebook who it was that posted the vicious cartoon. Instead, he opens his “story” with total Establishment “charm”. As follows …
The marvelously human, very acceptable president, Michael Mahon, is in his office wondering what to do about the totally savage and procedurally improper letter he sent to Professor Hall asking him to appear and say why he shouldn’t be treated contemptuously, viciously, and outside all university agreements and without regard to fundamental processes insuring justice. Hall did not appear. And so reasonable, thoughtful, sensitive Michael Mahon writes a letter unilaterally and improperly pitching Hall out of the University of Lethbridge [pending “a review of the matter”]. To that letter, as Tadzio Richards writes: “Mahon signed his name”.
Richards goes on to say what fine things Mahon has done for the University of Lethbridge. And he airs (at some length) the often unspoken differences about Freedom of Expression held by faculty through their Associations and the national Canadian Association of University Teachers and those held by presidents and the Presidents’ Club, called Universities Canada.
Presidents are frequently more dictatorially inclined than faculty are because presidents are chosen by Boards of Governors often staffed by self-made, no-nonsense, bullying Capitalists, and their like, who expect little back-chat from their inferiors. As one presidential candidate told me openness to ideas and to student action were not evident in any of the questions put by members of the Board to the candidate … who confided in me … and later became a celebrated university president.
The screaming, incendiary fact that Tadzio Richards appears to avoid at all cost to fair reporting and judicious commentary is that Rachel Notley, premier of Alberta, was drawn into the dispute with (embarrassingly) powerful members of Israel government-connected organizations involved; one was even standing by her side when she made her most outrageous [and ill-informed, I say] attack on Anthony Hall.
Indeed, at no point does Tadzio Richards so much as introduce the huge and heavy-handed involvement of Israel government-connected organizations in the whole story! But, on the other hand, he writes a great deal about Monika Schaefer and her brother – questioners of the Holocaust. And he dramatizes, in a way that almost ridicules, Anthony Hall’s questioning of attitudes to the murdered during and after the Second World War (and elsewhere in history). Who is it okay to murder … who not? What does the “selected” building of memorials to the dead mean?
Hall’s insistence upon many Holocausts (not the least being the extinction of whole bands and communities of Native Peoples in North America) appears (by the author’s style used) to amuse Tadzio Richards, and Richards’ style may well be intended to ridicule professor Hall – unless I cannot read what is printed in front of me.
Tadzio Richards finds nothing, ever, wrong with the actions of president Michael Mahon, and Richards does nothing whatever (that he makes evident) to learn of Mahon’s connections and meetings and deliberations with outside-University of Lethbridge forces determined to destroy Anthony Hall. The image of Michael Mahon is sacred, not to be questioned, even if fact has to be twisted and falsified. Even if the screaming failure of Alberta power to ask Facebook Authorities who posted the vicious, anti-semitic cartoon on Hall’s Facebook Page is an admission that Alberta power does not want known who did it (in typical False Flag fashion).
Tadzio Richards shows he has taken a side in his article – and no more clearly than when he ignores the central act: the vicious anti-semitic posting placed on Anthony Hall’s Facebook Page to launch the still unended attack upon him … and the strange and improper actions that have followed that event. To suggest that Michael Mahon’s outrageous actions taken to drive Professor Hall from the University Campus without a shred of acceptable process could be “cautionary” reveals (at least to me) that the writer has given up all independent thought and reasonable judgement ... and will write down anything.
And… I would say … he does write down anything, anything that supports a fundamentally false picture of the real events and the real history of betrayal of the finest values that mark excellent universities. The effects of that betrayal will not easily pass, and the University of Lethbridge will become legendary as the University that seeks revenge before excellence, loyalty before truth, and brainless kow-towing to empty, Orwellian ‘authority’ before anything like bold and spirited investigation and research….
The University of Lethbridge will, I think, possess all the excellence that can be bestowed upon it by flashy Public Relations pamphlets… and by articles of the kind published in Alberta Views by Tadzio Richards......
Written by Robin Mathews
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Justice is blind, and at times, willfully Blind..........Grant G
The Straight Gooods
Cheers Eyes Wide Open
