But What About “Canadian,” You Ask?

Subject: Poisonous insults. They’re used both to signal to your own ideological troops or to tar your critics with an invidious brush. If you can tell me what the hierarchy of venom, let me know. (Whatever the ranking, I think the whole world needs to take a freakin’ time out, or their mothers will be called.) Here are some options:

“Zionist neoconservative cabal” [Pat Buchanan, in the American Conservative, via robot wisdom] *

“Jewish leaders” [Rep. James Moran of Va., via Slate] *

“Anti-semitic” [Pat again. What the neocons call critics of its Israel-positive positions. cf., to Mickey Kaus] *

“Terrorist” [what Richard Perle called Seymour Hersh for busting him on his blatant conflict of interest dealings with Adnan Khashoggi )

“Communist” [Hersh’s retort, given at Harvard: “Forty years ago I would have been called a Communist…”

“Jew” [ibid., “…and 70 years ago I would have been called a Jew…”]

“French” [I think this has been covered enough. Ditto, “American.”]

“Canadian” [I think I have covered this enough**.]
* Nick Denton has been writing more about this (pretty serious, considering weblogs apparently “are not media“).
** One summer, Katie, a girl at college with me, worked at Nordstrom in DC. She said at that store, the salespeople used “Canadian” in place of “Jew,” (specifically, “Potomac Jew”) so that they could “make fun of ‘them'” without getting in trouble. So. Whether we’re repeating 1991, 1941, or 1914, it’s a cold freakin’ bucket of water in the face of anyone who thinks we’ve made any progress as human beings in the last 100 years…