Another milestone reached! Behind us lies a week of cross-examinations of one government- and four Zundel-witnesses. These cross-examinations were performed in preparation for the upcoming judicial review of the territorial and legal jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. As you recall, the CHRT is challenging the contents of the Zundelsite as causing "hurtful feelings" to legislatively protected "victims"' groups.
We expect to materialize this important judicial review before long - despite repeated, desperate attempts on the part of Zundel-foes to delay, stall, sabotage and, the very latest twist, demand from the Federal Court of Canada to ***drop*** the judicial appeal because I was advised, earlier on, not to travel to Canada for surgery-related reasons.
Why, from her death bed Ingrid would have risen - once it was clear what played in the latest Talmudic maneuver!
As bears repeating, once Ernst can spread the whole so-called "Human Rights" schlamassel before a real court ***where rules of evidence still count*** and Truth ***is*** a defense - some things might yet change in Ernst's favor. At least that is our hope. That's what he is trying to do - to show the citizens of Canada the parasitic nature of this tentacled, highly political, predatory "Human Rights" industry that ***needs*** specifically designated, protected "victims'" groups' "hurt feelings" to justify their gravy train.
I was slated to be cross-examined July 10, on a Friday. Ernst had been cross-examined all day Thursday and, briefly, on Friday - a cross-examination described as a vicious and relentless grilling. Earlier in the week, Bernard Klatt of ftc.net and Barbara Kulaszka, one of the Zundel-team lawyers, had also been cross-examined - to our astonishment in what we thought were rather superficial and weirdly perfunctory exercises.
What did this mean? Why didn't they dig deeper?
Of course we had different and differing explanations - my explanation being that maybe, just maybe, some folks would have loved to have thrown in the towel, but realized they had unleashed a tiger, now held that tiger by the tail and could not afford to let go.
Ever more clearly, particularly with this grotesque ruling on their part that "truth is no defense", this Zundel-tribunal matter is truly a "genie-is-out-of-the-bottle" affair. It has acquired a life of its own - as became ever more evident, once Ernst and I were on.
I make no claim to having the proverbial crystal ball, but my interpretation was reinforced when Ernst's take on his cross examination was that it was rather personal, intensive and disgusting, a prelude for what I would face the next day. Practically all of the questions had focused on me and on my role and control of the Zundelsite Internet content.
The gist: Just how much influence did I exercise on my own? Where was the evidence I was acting on my own? Or, paraphrased: to what degree was I a meek, obedient "soldier" for Ernst Zundel? What about canceled checks, invoices, job descriptions? Just what ***was*** the nature of the Zundel-Rimland duo that has brought down the wrath of powerful Talmudists near and far?
Just what is it that makes them so nervous and frantic about that Zundel-Rimland combination? :)
We have an idea or two.
Ernst, who dislikes being called a "control freak" - since he is anything but that - summed up his own testimony with what came across to me as considerable glee:
"Both friend and foe were surprised at what power and independence you are exercising through the Zundelsite - and your ZGrams!" Even Ernst's lawyers seemed to be genuinely taken aback by our working relationship, which is one of ideological comfort and mutual trust. For me, it was and is an odd sensation. Have I not stood on my own feet as a respected writer for more than twenty years - and long before I met Ernst Zundel?
Therefore, I braced myself for some substantial questions.
In the room were, off and on, nine opposition lawyers, three of them Sabina Citron's and the Holocaust Remembrance Association's, along with Sol Litman of the Canadian branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. One of these attorneys, a rather pleasant-looking, slightly heavyset, respectful, decent type, mid-thirties (?) lady named Wendy Matheson was the person who had been chosen to cross-examine me.
It's strange to say, but I found the lady to be rather nice. There was none of the sneering, backstabbing, insinuating double-talk I have come to expect from what I am calling the Nizkorite Mode - where every word is twisted out of shape like a pretzel and always given a sinister meaning.
The worst that came out of that rather matronly, Aryan-looking girl was ". . . let me refresh your memory. . . " which was no great hardship on me. Certain things needed refreshing, given the bulk of some 2,000 Zundelsite posts and almost 1,000 ZGrams I have written and shot into cyberspace since January 1 of 1996. Who would have recalled every word? I gladly and gratefully allowed myself to be refreshed with the help of Sabina's attorney.
The rest of the largely kosher kollektion sat there with stony faces - with the exception of the colorful Mr. Duvall whom I had already encountered before, bow tie askew, and immortalized in one or two of my ZGrams for his flailing arms and pirouetting courtroom demeanor.
>From memory, here is the latest brief exchange during introductions:
Duvall: "Of course, you do remember ME."
Ingrid with her sunniest smile: "Yes. Oh, yes! I'll make you famous yet."
Duvall: (huffily) "I am ALREADY famous. I am the most important lawyer for the Human Rights Commission. I am almost as famous as Mr. Christie."
Becoming modesty.
Throughout my cross-examination, Duvall awarded me with several expansive smiles, which I returned to liven up the scenery - because I have to tell you, the atmosphere in that austere courtroom was surreal: an absolutely stony silence except for the rather non-aggressive, almost perfunctory and polite questions that Ms. Matheson was bravely endeavoring to put to me, and my even softer replies.
Marvin Kurz, lawyer for the B'nai Brith, kept pleading for me to speak up. I promised I would - and promptly forgot, reverting back to my very soft voice that nature has bestowed on me to underline just how benign I am - unless I am truly enraged.
Ms. Matheson kept up with her questions. What questions? Except for half a dozen surprise ones that made me raise my eyebrows because they had little if any relation to my affidavit, I would describe the cross-examination questions as non-questions - nothing they could not have known or found out on their own with very little effort on their part. And certainly nothing that would have justified ***nine*** highly powered lawyers in the room, no doubt billing hefty lawyerly fees!
One from the powerful Canadian Jewish Congress.
One from the legal department of the City of Toronto's mayor's office.
The important Mr. Duvall, for the Federal Human Rights Commission.
One for the Simon Wiesenthal Centre - with Sol Litman, chief Nazi-Hunter, hovering for reinforcement at her side.
Marvin Kurz for the B'nai Brith, who had inveigled the less-than-astute Toronto mayor, Barbara Hall, to lodge the complaint in the first place. (She was the one who insisted there was "hate" on the Zundelsite, somewhere, she was sure of it, but couldn't point to it . . . )
Mr. Kramer for the Attorney General of Canada, earring and all.
And three for Sabina and her organization.
All, no doubt, billing high fees. How much? Your guess is as good as my guess! My guess is: Easily $15,000 - $20,000, not even counting expenses such as plane fares and lodging. All this for the following questions, here summarized from memory:
Did I understand how to read URLs?
Yes, I did.
Did I write this or that ZGram?
Yes, I did.
Did I post this or that ZGram?
Yes, indeed.
Did I mean what I said in this or that ZGram?
I must have, since it was there, in front of me, and in my own words.
What did I think of Mr. Zundel?
Was he not known as the world's acknowledged Revisionist Renaissance Man?
Did I know Mr. Klatt, the owner of the embattled Oliver, B.C. server?
Yes, I did.
Marc Lemire?
Yes, I knew Marc Lemire also.
This went on for what I now estimate to have been an hour, maybe 90 minutes max. I was waiting for my chance to witness for our Cause, where I could explain and expand on what I was striving to achieve with my Zundelsite work - and have an opportunity to vent my strong displeasure at the Canadian Talmudist power grab by special interest groups.
Nada.
I asked if I could ask a thing or two.
A rather meek squeak from Ms. Matheson: I could ask - but I should not expect an answer.
Well, then. Could I say a thing or two - for the record?
Consternation and surprise all around.
Ingrid, for the record: Why was I not contacted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission and notified as to what was evolving pertaining to my website? Should I not have been told that my website and especially my copyrighted ZGrams were under scrutiny and government attack? I might have spared Canada the costs, to say nothing of the negative image of a Soviet-style Tribunal parading in the dress of "human rights", used to suppress freedom of speech! What kind of unprofessional, slip-shod conduct and non-investigation was that on the part of a tax-funded, quasi-judicial outfit?
Of course I didn't get an answer, but now it is on the record - not as strongly and expansively as it sat on my tongue and as I now record it here - but what the heck! At least I made a dent. At least I asked why I was never notified. An astute, Federal Court judge might well wonder about such unexplainable behavior by the CHRC investigator, one Mr. Goldrick, I am told - and draw the proper conclusions.
While Ms. Mattheson kept firing verbal jellybeans, I waited for some further openings to set the record straight - which, oddly, did not materialize, not then and not ever, much to my bafflement. Here I was facing a horde of lawyers to take me apart - and not much of substance was happening. Strange.
Upon reflection, I don't think that they wanted me to explain how things really worked. I believe that they knew that with every sentence elicited
>from me, their case against Ernst would grow weaker. I want to say right
here that I can't wait to give my testimony in the actual hearings, to be resumed in November, where they cannot prevent me from giving a full account of what the facts are in this disgusting travesty of justice!
Meanwhile, the questions danced around me, as we say in German: ". . . wie die Katze um den heißen Brei." Just like a cat will dance around the hot gruel!
There were a couple of brief, astonishing minutes when defense attorney, Doug Christie, who sat next to me, sprang a rather smallish challenge at Ms. Matheson. He wanted her to clarify a point.
She said she had done so already.
He said he must have missed it. Would she care to repeat?
She froze like the proverbial bambi on the road caught in the headlights of a car. She absolutely froze.
He wanted her to rephrase something she had said.
She had forgotten her own point.
He zeroed in.
Deep-freeze.
He started hammering.
Siberia. Antarctica.
I felt very sorry for Ms. Matheson. She foraged around her case, tried to collect her thoughts, asked him to be quiet so she could, couldn't find any, got up, went over and crouched at Mr. Duvall's feet, beseeching him in whispers. Then, suddenly, as if by command, they all got up and formed a protective circle around her in what I call a Hebrew Huddle.
For as long as I live, I will never forget what I saw. The opposition team was huddling like a football team - some even had their arms around each other. This kosher team surrounded Matheson in the far corner of the room, and whispered in her ear. There was fear in the room. Fear of Christie. It was palpable.
I would guess that this interlude happened about two-thirds through the cross-examination. Christie was now in full stride and started challenging the introduction of some very recent ZGrams - editorials I had written pertaining to what had transpired with Schweitzer, excerpts of defense witness testimony disallowed within the courtroom that I had subsequently hurled into cyberspace, the ZGram I had called "Gang rape of truth in a Toronto Courtroom" or some such. Ms. Matheson had a whole stack of these ZGrams, each in its own folder, clearly slated to become court exhibits. Ms. Matheson introduced maybe a dozen, maybe two dozens of those very recent ZGrams as exhibits.
Christie instructed me to acknowledge authorship - but not to say anything else in addition. Those particular ZGrams were not relevant to this judicial review proceeding, insisted Christie. He would object to every one, beyond my acknowledging authorship.
The opposition hinted darkly about getting a court order to compel me to answer their questions relating to these ZGrams.
Christie said to go ahead.
Ms. Matheson, looking flustered and almost careening: Was I the author?
I kept acknowledging that, yes, I was the author. ZGram after ZGram. Over and over again. Weird. Weird is the word.
How ***that*** was supposed to help their case remains a deep, dark mystery to me. Had I not said that all along? Had Ernst not said that all along? Had I not copyrighted all those ZGrams in my name, right from Day One? Was that not the bone of contention?
All these ZGrams will more clearly illustrate than anything I could have said in cross-examination for a reviewing Canadian judge just what went on inside those Tribunal hearings. It's all there, in those ZGrams - all their shenanigans! Talk about shooting yourself in the derriere!
Abruptly, to my shock and to Doug Christie's great surprise, the long-awaited cross-examination of Ingrid Rimland was over. And to think that I flew all the way from San Diego to Toronto for that? What a farce!
In the end, I felt thoroughly cheated. I didn't get to say what I had so desperately wanted to say already in May of 1997 and did not get a chance to say - not then, and not now. Because they chose not to ask, they did not find out. In my opinion, this cross-examination did not reveal anything of substance I had not said before in public.
What I contributed in this cross-examination could have been found out with very little effort by studying my ZGrams and other things I wrote. They could have saved the taxpayers of Canada a lot of hard-earned money - but then, is that their concern? Their aim is, crudely put, to pad their own pockets and bleed Ernst Zundel dry.
Apart from that, what does it all mean? Search me.
As I said, we have an idea or two. We know a thing or two.
When all was said and done, Ernst said to me. "Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Here are the two of us, first generation German immigrants who came here with bare hands and no English- and a horde of lawyers of the most highly paid ranks out of the strongest-moneyed cabal in the world are frantically trying to censor a website not even in their jurisdiction? Who would not conclude that we must be telling some powerful truths the moneyed interests, for whom these lawyers act, must fear!"
To which I said: "Yes, isn't it ironic? Here you are, a self-taught immigrant out of the humblest peasant stock. And here I am, having been batted about the globe and forced to live under four dictators. And it is up to you and me to teach a so-called "free" democracy called Canada what freedom of speech is about?"
Said Ernst: "Yes, and to think that a $2 phone by Goldrick to the Library of Congress Copyright Department would have saved Canada millions!"
Let that be your Thought for the Day!
Ingrid