Back to the Future to Change the Course of History

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

I was sent an article posted on Aljazeera recently: The deep roots of conservative radicalism, by Corey Robin. 

Robin is the author of the The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, and in his Aljazeera piece, he challenges Paul Klugman on his definition of a conservative. 

Klugman uses the literal meaning of the word, by suggesting that conservatives by nature should be "calm, reasonable, quiet, averse to the operatic, friendly to the familiar ..." but instead are "revolutionary and radical rather than realistic and moderate, that it's activist rather than accommodating, that it's, well … not … really … conservative."

P.M. Carpenter, takes Klugman's views further by suggesting that the media should simply stop calling them "conservatives" altogether, because it is just too confusing.  Says he, "stop calling conservative pols what they are not: conservative. They are pseudoconservatives, they are reactionaries, they are radicals, and in some instances they are merely lunatics. But they are not conservative."  I feel the same way every time our media refers to Stephen Harper's party as "Tories".  Absolutely ridiculous.

Carpenter does remind his readers that modern conservatism has its roots in the traditional conservatism of Edmund Burke and his reaction to the French Revolution, which is seen as the beginning of liberalism.  Burke felt that the upper echelon were too comfortable in their wealth and privilege to recognize the threat from within.

We know that 1789 was a turning point in history.  In fact the idea of Right vs. Left stemmed from the French Revolution when at Assemblies those rejecting change sat on the right side of the room, and those supporting radical change on the left.

The new conservative movement then is an attempt to change the results of 1789.  Edmund Burke vs. Robespierre.  The Rights of the Individual vs the Rights of Man.

So Then Were the Nazis Conservative?

In a radio broadcast on April 1, 1933, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, proclaimed it clearly : with the Nazi revolution "the year 1789 has been expunged from the records of history."  It was obvious to all why Goebbels compared 1933 to 1789.  Any contemporary, whether schooled in history or not, instinctively knew that the French Revolution was the measure of things in the modern world. "We want to eradicate the ideology of liberalism and replace it with a new sense of community" (1)

This places Goebbels and the Nazis on the "Right" side of history and in line with modern conservatism's goal of eradicating the "ideology of liberalism".

Friedrich Hayek has become the guru of Libertarianism, because he challenged the Utopian theory of socialism; but he played a more important role for the conservative movement, or fusion, as a whole.

In his new book A Generation Awakes, Wayne Thorburn says of Hayek's Road to Serfdom, that it "not only provided a comprehensive rejection of socialism but also clearly tied together all forms of collectivism - socialism, communism, and fascism - and challenged the view that Nazism and fascism were "right-wing" movements. (2)

The new right needed that argument to justify their actions, which were almost identical to those used by the Nazi party, pre-Holocaust.  If you study the rise of Hitler and his fascist Brown Shirts, the tactics they used to attack liberalism were not unlike those used by the new right.  They went after university professors, teachers, scientists, the media.  All deemed to have a left-wing bias.

We tend to think that all of this was immediate, but most was incremental.  Working through new right-wing publications, like Julius Streicher's, Der Stürmer, they attacked the Jews, and though the paper was constantly being sued, they had a smart lawyer to get them off.

And just as Ezra Levant cried "free speech" to defend the anti-Muslim Danish cartoons, take a look at the 1920s offering on the right, from Der Stürmer, with the caption  "He alone of two billion people on earth may not speak in Germany.”  Recognize the face?

When the Nazis attacked scientists, those among them believed that their protests would be heard.  Instead Bernhard Rust, Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, dismissed the scientists, literally and figuratively.

Max Planck's scientific peers made him feel that he must make a bold reply to Bernhard Rust ... at the Congress of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for Advancement of Science he made what was considered a daring speech indeed ... "History proves that the greatest and most vital discoveries were made by scientists who worked for the sake of pure science only."   Indulgently Nazi Rust did not crack down on Professor Planck, but as president of the Society Herr Planck dolefully reported that 85 scientists have sent in their resignations and are suffering "economic difficulties" under the Nazi regime.  (3)

And in a bit of deja vu:

Citing actions taken by the Conservative government since winning a minority government in 2006, 85 scientists across Canada have signed an open letter to all national party leaders calling on them to state how they will 'improve Canada’s track record' regarding the objectivity of science.(4)

[My emphasis in both excerpts.]

Instead of listening to them, Harper named Gary Goodyear, a man who does not believe in Evolution, as science minister, and Christian Paradis became our Bernhard Rust, muzzling government scientists. (5)

"Our national policies will not be revoked or modified, even for scientists." - Adolf Hitler

The socialism of the Nazis was based on race, and created to counter offers being made by the Bolsheviks to take care of the German people. But the idea of the supremacy of race came from Edmund Burke. According to Hannah Arendt:

While the seeds of German race-thinking were planted during the Napoleonic wars, the beginnings of the later English development appeared during the French Revolution and may be traced back to the man who violently denounced it as the "most astonishing [crisis] that has hitherto happened in the world"—to Edmund Burke . The tremendous influence his work has exercised not only on English but also on German political thought is well known. The fact, however, must be stressed because of resemblances between German and English race-thinking as contrasted with the French brand. These resemblances stem from the fact that both countries had defeated the Tricolor and therefore showed a certain tendency to discriminate against the ideas of Liberte-Egalite-Fraternize [Liberty, Equality and Freedom] as foreign intuitions. Social inequality being the basis of English society, British Conservatives felt not a little uncomfortable when it came to the "rights of men". (6)

As Burke said, he "preferred the rights of the Englishman to the Rights of Man."

Today that racism is shielded by words like 'multiculturalism', which the new right opposes, anti-immigration policies, or what Arendt refers to as "extermination through respectable foreign policy". Blood for oil wars are justified by the need to eradicate Islamic fundamentalists, and yet the wars drastically reduce civilian populations.

Maybe Corey Robin is Right

Robin suggests that for those who don't believe that the new right is conservative, they should not just read Edmund Burke, but READ Edmund Burke, to understand where their conservatism comes from.

I get this suggestion many times from my right-wing readers, when I make the claim that Stephen Harper is not a conservative in the Canadian tradition of people like George Grant, Diefenbaker or John A. MacDonald, and definitely not a Tory.

I might counter their argument by saying that maybe they should read Edmund Burke, since they often cite a Burke quote: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". That quote cannot be found in any of Burke's writings. The closest attribution comes from Tolstoy's War and Peace.

I might also tell the media to listen to people like Corey Robin, instead of crying foul every time the Harper government does something that goes against Canadian principles.  The Right mistakenly declares that the media has a left wing bias, but the left instead believe that the media is simply ignorant of who the new right really are.

Everyone in the Dark

What the neocons, Burkians, whatever they are;  fail to understand is that the Welfare State, FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society and Trudeau's Just Society, were necessary to avoid bloody revolutions. A well fed, well educated, well housed and healthy population, becomes a country's human capital, as important as money in the bank.

And when we are treated as human capital, not to be squandered but invested in, we will happily go about our business.

Burke once claimed of the French Revolution, that it was "more concerned with the condition of the gentleman than with the institution of a king." This fits with Herman Cain's denouncing of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as those merely jealous of the rich.

If it were that simple.

Hannah Arendt challenges Burke by saying that the revolutionaries questioned why the "gentleman" was still so rich once the king was toppled. The same question can be asked today. Why did only the 99% suffer during the economic crisis, while the 1% continued to live in splendour, and many of the institutions bailed out by the 99%, are now reporting "record profits", with unemployment still so high?

We need to make the "occupy" movement a state of mind, and start asking some of these questions.  We never resented the rich, until acquiring at least some of the wealth, became so unattainable, for so many.

Our system is broken and we can't rely on politicians to fix it, especially under a Harper majority.

Naturally, I'm not suggesting a bloody revolution or a new Reign of Terror, but just a bit of activism. They will have to listen once they realize that we are not going away.

Sources:

1. Foundational Pasts: The Holocaust as Historical Understanding, By Alon Confino, Cambridge University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-52173-632-9, p. 6

2. A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement, By Wayne Thorburn, Jameson Books, Inc., 2010, ISBN: 13-978-0-89803-168-3. p. 1

3. GERMANY: False Planck? Time Magazine, June 18, 1934

4. Canadian scientists protest Harper's attacks on science, Wikinews, October 13, 2008

5. Ottawa’s media rules muzzling federal scientists, say observers, By Margaret Munro, Postmedia News, September 12, 2010

6. The Origins of Totalitarianism, By Hannah Arendt, Harcourt Books, 1994, ISBN: 978-0-15-670153-2, p. 175

How Important is Adolf Hitler's Bloodline? We Are Missing the Real Issues of Hatred

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

News this week is that DNA samples taken from Adolf Hitler's family prove that he was of both Jewish and African descent.

Does this really matter?

I guess in some ways it might destroy the hero worship of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups, though I'm sure many will deny that the findings are true.

What is more important about this story, however, is the fact that Hitler is still given so much importance in world history. Because if we continue to believe that he alone engineered the Holocaust, or even instigated the Holocaust, there is a mistaken belief that now that he is gone, that evil has gone with him.

Political scientist and one time girlfriend of Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, covered the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann for the New Yorker, and surprised everyone, including herself, when she did not find an "exception to humanity". She wrote to her husband that Eichmann was "not even sinister". Instead she called him banal, "unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking".

Hannah Arendt's conclusions about Adolf Eichmann's banality crystallized into enduring controversy. Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis (however, if banal meant "common," there was much to argue with: among the defendants at Nuremberg were eight jurists and a university professor). (1)

Arendt was not the first to refer to the Nazis as banal or common. In fact the name Nazi was coined by journalist Konrad Heiden in the 1920's. He would often march with the "fascist brown shirts" to get his story and dubbed them 'Nazis', a Bavarian term meaning "country bumpkin" (2). He did not see evil then either, but a group of uneducated street thugs.

What eventually gave them legitimacy was the enormous amount of money and power that backed them up. The Nazis were free marketeers who supported top down commercialism. They were also in support of the monarchy and believed in the supremacy of the German race. Not just the white race as a whole, but the Germanic races, as defined by Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

And they would eventually tap into the pan-German sentiment, or nationalism, to gain support for their wars. But the man Adolf Hitler had very little to do with any of it. He was a narcissist who believed in his own greatness, and fed off the illusion.

An illusion originally created by the German Workers Party to draw in the occultist and monied Thule Society, who had been running seances to conjure up the Antichrist, to help Germany out of the dark post-war years. And the Antichrist of their vision was that described by Vladimir Solovyov, and found as the forward to some copies of the fraudulent Elders of Zion. Members of the party were drawn to Hitler when he showed up at one of their rallies, sporting the most unusual mustache. From Solovyov's image: "He is an absolute genius, and he may wear a small mustache." (3)

When Adolf Hitler joined the German Army, he wore a large mustache. But later, when the German troops were provided with respirator masks, in response to the use of mustard gas by the British, he was told to shave it, so that the mask could be worn properly. (4) Instead he trimmed it back, and that trimmed mustache became his trademark.

Thule member and playwright Dietrich Eckart, directed Hitler's character, and drew out his seductive power of speech. Thule member Rudolf Hess helped him to write Mein Kampf, and a former university professor of Hess's Karl Ernst Haushofer, is credited with the development of Hitler's expansionist strategies. "While Hess and Hitler were imprisoned after the Munich Putsch in 1923, Haushofer spent six hours visiting the two, bringing along a copy of Friedrich Ratzel's Political Geography and Clausewitz's On War." (5) The Thule Society would also be responsible for the Nazi flag, the Swastika, 'Sieg Heil', the Nazi salute and their anthem.

Hitler himself was not a member of the Thule Society because he did not have the pedigree.

And in 1930, when members of the Fascist Brown Shirts (Nazis) finally had a strong showing in Parliament or the Reichstag, they were not interested in working with the other parties, but instead made a mockery of the entire process.

In mass formation, with military tread, eyes front, the 107 new Fascist Deputies entered the Reichstag. When it last met they numbered twelve. Flushed with their great election victory they marched in coatless, each swelling out his Fascist "brown shirt," each flaunting the Fascist swastika on his left arm, each in khaki flare-pants, swank black leather boots—all proud that they had flagrantly, successfully broken the Prussian State ordinance forbidding "public appearance in political costume." Saluting the Reichstag and each other, the Browns roared: "Hail, Hitler! Wake up Germany! Down with the Young Plan." (6)

This prompted a response by the Communist Party and there "... were times when everyone seemed to be yelling .... "Is there anybody older than I in this house?" shrilled 82-year-old Deputy Karl Herold above the tumult."

At women's names the Brown Shirts crowed. "Kikeriki! Kikeriki! Kikeriki!" —German equivalent to Cockadoodle-doo! (Fascists both German and Italian, hold that women are respect worthy as hens, jeer worthy when by entering politics they try t0 be roosters.) On the first day of the Reichstag session absolutely nothing was done except to call and jeer the roll. (6)

And when Hitler came to power in 1933, any notion of democracy was gone, as Nazism and the German state became one.

Who Benefited?

Despite the illusion of Hitler as being the supreme power of Germany during those years, the truth is that the industrialists and the bourgeoisie, directed the actions of the Nazi Party, from the Holocaust to the World War. And a lot of people became filthy rich because of both.

It is already common knowledge that the Bush family made their fortune when Prescott Bush financed the Nazis, but there were many others in the Corporate world who gained, including IBM who wrote the program for annihilation.

IBM’s machines were used at all stages of the persecution of the Jews. They collected the necessary information to identify the Nazis’ victims, first to enforce the bar on Jews working in certain academic, professional and government jobs and later to carry out mass evictions from their homes and into the ghettoes. IBM technology was used to organise the railways, so that millions of Nazi’ victims could be transported to the concentration camps, where they were immediately led into the gas chambers .... IBM was involved in virtually every aspect of the Third Reich’s operations. (7)

After taking over the punch card technology from Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, in 1922, IBM monopolized the industry, and "... when Hitler came to power, [Thomas] Watson had transformed the formerly ailing German company into IBM’s flag ship—producing more than three times above its quota."

Watson was not a fascist, but a ruthless profiteer. The strong German state under an authoritarian leader offered great potential for moneymaking, and that was what Watson identified with. In fact, as the chairman of IBM, one of the most prestigious companies in the USA, Watson was a well-respected businessman, a supporter of Roosevelt and special advisor to the president. Watson was elected chairman of the Foreign Department that also made him chairman of the American section of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

This, in essence, made Watson America’s official businessman to the rest of the world. He became installed as president of the entire ICC in 1937 and arranged the organisation’s next conference in Berlin. Right from the start, IBM developed business solutions for the Third Reich. (7)

But not only corporations benefited from their alliance with the Nazis. Many of the German middle class also prospered. According to Gotz Aly, when discussing the initiatives of Stuart E. Eizenstat, to recover damages from the Swiss and German governments on behalf of victims of persecution during World War II.

Eizenstat was, of course, entirely right to demand compensation for the stolen gold and confiscated bank accounts of those murdered in the Holocaust, as well as for the slave labor performed by survivors. Nonetheless, his highly public negotiations gave rise to a distorted picture of history. The fact that the names of large Swiss and German banks—together with those of world-famous companies like Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Allianz Insurance, Krupp, the Bertelsmann publishing group, and BMW—were constantly in the news gave the impression that prominent German capitalists, occasionally in alliance with major Swiss banks, were the main culprits behind the terrible crimes of Nazi Germany.

There is no question that many leading German industrialists and financiers were complicit in Hitler's regime. But it would be wrong to conclude that primary responsibility for the Holocaust or other Nazi crimes lay with the elite of the German bourgeoisie. Eizenstat's efforts, as well as those of the Jewish Claims Conference, indirectly, if unintentionally, encouraged such a conclusion. And indeed many Germans had a stake in seeing the public's attention focused on the captains of industry and finance, since it shifted the burden of blame for Nazi barbarism to a handful of individuals. (8)

There was also an epidemic of widespread satisfaction:

Precisely because so many Germans did in fact benefit from Nazi Germany's campaigns of plunder, only marginal resistance arose. Content as most Germans were, there was little chance for a domestic movement that would have halted Nazi crimes. This new perspective on the Nazi regime as a kind of racist-totalitarian welfare state allows us to understand the connection between the Nazi policies of racial genocide and the countless, seemingly benign family anecdotes about how a generation of German citizens "got through" World War II ... "We were well off during the war ... Food deliveries always went smoothly." (8)

And being constantly told that they were only doing better because the government was eradicating the country of Jews, who they believed had been the source of all their problems, why would they protest?

So You Don't Think it Could Happen Again, Huh?

When I compare Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler, it is not because of the Holocaust, but because they are both "images" of a political leader. Hitler made few decisions, but was presented to the German people as a Messiah. They adored him. Or I should say they adored who they thought he was.

Had they known the real Adolf Hitler at the time, they might not have been so smitten. He was a bully, and while called a dog lover, actually beat his dogs mercilessly. He was not a vegetarian as suggested, but loved sausages and cavier. He was not a strong leader but was actually a coward. His best friend during his Vienna days said that when he was in their room, raising his voice over some political matter, the landlord would bang on the wall and Adolf would cower into a corner.

After the Beer Hall Putsch, he wanted to commit suicide, and the wife of a friend who was hiding him, had to talk him out of it. And he was also a sexual deviant. But so long as they could keep his ego fed, he would behave.

And I don't think I need to go into 'Mr. Photo-op", and the illusion of strong leader, who actually hides whenever his government is receiving bad press, allowing others to take the fall.

But more importantly, we have to look at who is now being blamed for all of our ills. Not the Jewish people, but the Muslims.

Look at the uproar over the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque‘.

Islamic investors want to build a community centre for Manhattan Muslims in a derelict coat factory two blocks from the site of the World Trade Centre. This community centre is intended to be a bit like a YMCA – containing an auditorium, a gym, a swimming pool, a basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions, a bookstore, a culinary school and a food court serving halal dishes, as well as some prayer space. It is to be run by a famed moderate – Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – a Kuwaiti cleric who has written about how to integrate Islam with the West.

It should be nothing more than a local zoning issue, and not a problem. Not a problem, that is, until a few prominent far-right demagogues noticed it and seized upon it. Sarah Palin tweeted about it to her hundreds of thousands of followers and then the usual cavalcade of Teabaggers, opportunist election hopefuls and Fox pundits dogpiled the issue.

Suddenly, the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ is no longer a local zoning issue; it’s a ‘desecration’ of ‘hallowed ground’, a slight to the heroes and victims of 9/11. The ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ label makes it sound to the public like the place is being built at the actual Ground Zero – which could maybe be construed as insensitivity. This is not the case: it is to be built hundreds of metres away in a damaged, vacant building on a dilapidated side street.

Fox News went nuts, and polls were everywhere, suggesting that Obama was a Muslim, like it was some kind of disease. He's not. He's a Christian, but should that matter? He did not blow up the World Trade Center, nor would he or the vast majority of Muslims ever condone such a thing. The issue was Western aggression, not religion.

I watched a bit of CNN (before I started screaming and shut it off), and one of their media people asked if, since Tim McVeigh was Catholic, would it be appropriate to build a Catholic church two blocks from the site of the Oklahoma bombing? He was besieged with emails accusing him of being anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.

And even those defending Obama, made it about the religious issue, and defending his Christianity. It should have been a non-issue, but it shows how low the Republicans have sunk.

One of my favourite columnists, Haroon Siddiqui, wrote a great piece: American anti-Muslim prejudice goes mainstream.

Gingrich equates the proposed Islamic centre there to a Nazi display next to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. or a Japanese warrior monument at Pearl Harbor. (The analogy would be fine if Osama bin Laden was the one building a mosque at the World Trade Center and not a Manhattan couple, devoted to interfaith work, proposing a Muslim Y.)

“Gingrich is too smart to be that stupid,” says John Esposito, professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., by way of illustrating how anti-Muslim bigotry has become so acceptable that “mainstream politicians, including two potential Republican presidential candidates (Gingrich and Sarah Palin), media commentators, hardline Christian Zionists and a large number of Americans feel that they can say anything about Islam and Muslims with impunity.

We wince at the things said about Jewish people back in the day, and yet barely bat an eye, when we hear the same things said about the Islamic World. They are all 'Taliban' or 'Al Qaeda', despite the fact that the majority are not. They are ordinary people who want the same things that we do for ourselves and our families.

We are no better than the Nazis, if we are not appalled by this. And remember the words of Hannah Arendt, when covering the trial of the Holocaust organizer, Adolf Eichmann. "... the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal."

Antisemitism is horrific, but so is this, and when left unchecked, can result in the unimaginable.



Sources:

1. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, Pg. 318

2. Books: Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 7, 1944

3. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 100

4. Total Power: A Footnote to History, By: Edmund A. Walsh, Doubleday & Company, 1949, Pg. 14-15

5. The Unknown Private - Personal Memories of Hitler, By: Alexander Moritz Frey

6. GERMANY: Br, Time Magazine, October 27, 1930

7. IBM and the Holocaust, By Edwin Black, Little Brown, 2001, ISBN 0-316-85769-6

8. Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, By Gotz Aly, Metropolitan Books, 2005, ISBN: 10-0-8050-7926-2, Pg. 1-2

A Deceptive Democracy: Stephen Harper and the F-Word

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"We stand for the maintenance of private property ... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order." - Adolph Hitler

In David McGowan's book; American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion, he claims:

The current political system in place in the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century is fascism. Of course, we don't like to call it that. We like to call it democracy. Nonetheless, it looks an awful lot like fascism, though to understand how this is so requires an awareness of what fascism actually is.

We don't like to use the f-word at all. It tends to conjure up unpleasant images. Our perceptions of fascism are shaped both by the very real horrors of the Holocaust, and by the fictional worlds created by writers with British and American intelligence connections like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. These are the images that our schools and our media provide for us.

So when we think of fascism, we think of concentration camps filled with corpses and horribly decimated walking skeletons. We think of a stiflingly regimented society in which 'Big Brother' watches our every move. We think of brutal pogroms by jackbooted thugs, and violent repression of dissenting views.

These images are so far removed from the world that we live in that we cannot conceive that our system of governance could have the remotest resemblance to that which was in place in Nazi Germany. The problem is that fascism, viewed from the inside through a veil of propaganda, rarely looks the same as it does when viewed from the outside with the benefit of historical hindsight. (1)

So how will historians view this period in Canadian history from the outside, with the benefit of hindsight?

McGowan wrote when George W. Bush was in the White House, but he felt that his country had been drifting toward fascism for some time, under the guise of anti-Communism and 'Western Democracy'.

And as he suggests, to really understand you have to remember what fascism really is. Adolf Hitler was a fascist. But he was not deemed a fascist throughout most of his political career because of the Holocaust or any notion that such an atrocity was possible. He was a fascist because he was a capitalist who believed in an authoritarian style of government to prevent Germany from drifting into Communism or socialism, the two things he detested the most.

And he didn't feel that a Liberal Democracy was capable of fending off the threat.

He was not really anti-Semitic until he believed the claims that the Jews were working with the Communists. In his early life, his roommates were Jewish, including his best friend. Much of what was in Mein Kampf was fabricated to create a persona.

And in what McGowan calls the 'Politics of Illusion', Adolf Hitler the man did not have as much power as history has given him. Most of the major decisions were out of his hands.

In 1936, American columnist Heywood Broun wrote:

"Fascism is a dictatorship from the extreme Right, or to put it a little more closely into our local idiom, a government which is run by a small group of large industrialists and financial lords ... I am going to ask latitude to insist that we might have Fascism even though we maintained the pretense of democratic machinery. The mere presence of a Supreme Court, a House of Representatives, a Senate and a President would not be sufficient protection against the utter centralization of power in the hands of a few men who might hold no office at all. Even in the case of Hitler, many shrewd observers feel that he is no more than a front man and that his power is derived from the large munitions and steel barons of Germany."

Ian Kershaw in his book, Hitler: Profiles in Power (2), agrees. And he states that if you read articles of the day, especially coming from the Soviets, they refer to him as a 'Capitalist'. And all of the real power in Nazi Germany was in the hands of the boys in the backroom. "... in the hands of a few men who might hold no office at all."

Who Are You Calling a Fascist?

To prove his theory, McGowan points to several aspects of American politics that define fascism, and we have comparisons here under Stephen Harper. And remember, this is based on the definition of political fascism and has nothing to do with the Holocaust. And as McGowan says: "To most of those living in Germany during the reign of the Third Reich, fascism didn't look the way that we think it is supposed to look either."

We could argue that the two most common descriptions of fascism: one-party dictatorship and forcible suppression of opposition, are a bit difficult to prove. However, Harper has certainly blurred the lines between party and state, and has suppressed opposition by making Parliament toxic, and shutting it down when he's losing control.

But we can't argue the third point: 'Private economic enterprise under centralized government control'. Guy Giorno, the man with more power than Stephen Harper, is a lobbyist. In fact, he's one of the top lobbyists in Canada. And he is the one deciding who gets what. He has centralized power to the PMO and every decision made is based on what's good for "free enterprise", or what Hitler himself called "the sole possible economic order".

In theory, at least, there is supposed to be centralized control over private enterprise, to enforce such concepts as fair labor standards, environmental protections, and anti-trust legislation. In truth, however, the heads of corporate America are also its heads of state, and are essentially regulating themselves. Or, more accurately, failing to do so.

But the point is that the way the system is supposed to work is for private enterprise to be under federal regulation. The federal government is supposed to rein in monopoly corporate power and guarantee that workers and the environment get a fair shake, in addition to setting monetary policy. (3)

The latest Omnibus bill removes all environmental standards and our safety standards were already traded away at Montebello.

The next point validating fascism that McGowan points to is "belligerent nationalism". Leo Strauss, the father of neoconservatism, to which Stephen Harper prescribes, calls for three main components. Deception, Religious Fervour and unbridled patriotism through perpetual war.

The main deception, I suppose, is the illusion of democracy and the religious fervour was well outlined in Marci McDonald's Armageddon Factor. Frank Lutz, the Republican pollster who has helped Stephen Harper along the way, suggested that he tap into Canadian symbols, like hockey. You'll notice that he does that every chance he gets.

But belligerent nationalism, fuelled by unbridled patriotism, is what can bring a nation to accept extreme acts of inhumanity, when it's wrapped up in God and Country. As McGowan relates before the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I think of belligerent nationalism, I think back to early 1991, a time when it was not possible to drive even a few blocks to the local video store without passing a stream of American flags and yellow ribbons flapping in the wind. A time when one couldn't turn on the television without seeing a mob of people in a field somewhere creating a giant human American flag. I think of the pompous theme music and 'Desert Storm' miniseries style graphics on CNN, and the relentless braying of military and government hacks as they barely contained their exuberance while discussing 'sorties,' 'air supremacy,' and 'smart bombs.' I think of a nation so inflated with its own sense of self-importance and self-righteousness that it openly cheered each airing of sanitized video footage of bombing attacks on largely defenseless civilian targets.

And then I think that while America was busy patting itself on the back and beating its chest, the conditions were being created that would result in the deaths of as many as 2,000,000 Iraqis, over 60% of them children under the age of ten. That's over a million children, for anyone who's counting. And not one of them had anything to do with the planning or execution of the annexation of Kuwait. Nor were any of them involved in the building of any 'weapons of mass destruction,' or the oppression of the Kurdish people of Iraq. But they're all dead now.

And then I think back to December of 1998, and recall how the press whipped the people into a frenzy by literally demanding the further mass bombing of Iraq. Saddam had not learned his lesson, we were told, and needed a further show of America's resolve to enforce 'humanitarian' standards and the 'rule of law.' And so a nation that had just a decade before been the most socially advanced in the Middle East, with the highest literacy rate and the best schools, the best healthcare and quality of life, and the most advanced civilian infrastructure—and which now was reduced to abject poverty and rampant disease—would once again be bombed.

Once again toxic agents such as depleted uranium would be rained down indiscriminately. And once again chemical sites on the ground would be targeted, poisoning the land and the air, threatening food and water supplies, and killing the hopes and dreams of the Iraqi people that their children wouldn't be joining their friends and classmates who had already perished. And, sadly, once again the American people would cheer. That, my friends, is what you would call belligerent nationalism. (5)

In Canada we have our own "yellow ribbon" campaign, which not surprisingly came from the same ad firm, Hill and Knowlton. And we have our own chest thumping and cheering, forgetting that most of the people killed are civilians, many of them children.

When Rick Hiller said that they were "not civil servants but were trained to kill people", Jack Layton said that he was offended. From that day on he has been dubbed "Taliban Jack", in a you're with us, or against us mentality. "That, my friends, is what you would call belligerent nationalism".

McGowan next mentions racism, including "immigrant bashing." The Reform Party was notorious for racist comments, but under their new name, the Conservative party of Canada, they've toned it down, though mainly because they've been completely muzzled. But we are starting to see the signs, especially recently, with Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day threatening to put an end to affirmative action.

But perhaps the most compelling of McGowan's arguments, that is now becoming the norm in a country not know for such tactics, is the "militarization of the police" and the accelerated use of "Paramilitary police squads."

That one should hit you right between the eyes. It started at Montebello, with the use of tear gas and rubber bullets, after police provocateurs provided reasons to use them. And they got away with it.

Now they no longer need a reason.

The security at the Vancouver Olympics was described as "one of the largest security operations taking place on Canadian soil." In fact, it ended up being the largest to date of any Olympics anywhere. It was said that there were so many police along the fence that they totally blocked the view. Total cost was 900 million dollars.

And then there was the G-20, where the police were told to leave vandals alone and instead targeted civilians, even in the designated protest zones. And they used provocateurs. Total cost 1.3 billion dollars.

And most recently in Kingston when protesters tried to block the sale of the cattle from the prison farms. We have never seen this many police officers in one place, since the prison riots, decades ago. Even an 87-year-old woman was hauled off by police.

There is a clear message here. This is not a government that allows dissent.

Now you might not want to call it the F-Word, but it sure as HELL IS NOT DEMOCRACY!!!!

Sources:

1. Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion, By David McGowan, Writers Club Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-595-18640-8, Pg. 3

2. Hitler: Profiles in Power, by: Ian Kershaw, Longman House UK, 1991, ISBN: 0-582-08053-3

3. McGowan, 2001, Pg. 8

4. McGowan, 2001, Pg. 10-11

I Too am Profoundly Worried About the Absence and Erosion of Democracy in Canada

"His full conquest of the masses came only after [he] had silenced oppositional opinion and had acquired total control of the media." Konrad Heiden on Adolf Hitler

There is a very enlightening and terrifying article in the Ottawa Citizen today: A less proud country

I have written extensively about the similarities between what is happening in Canada today and what was taking place in Germany, as a man named Adolf Hitler was first entering the political scene.

So when I read the comments of a woman who lived in a Nazi death camp, it was like a bolt of lightening:

Ursula Franklin -- the celebrated physicist, pacifist, author and Companion of the Order of Canada -- recently spoke to CBC Radio's The Current. She had survived a Nazi death camp and come to Canada hoping for better. Now 88, Franklin is "profoundly worried about the absence and erosion of democracy in Canada."

I can share old articles from Times Magazine, but this woman was there. And she is likening Harper's Canada to Germany under the Nazis.

A journalist by the name of Ruth Andreas-Friedrich kept a journal during the days of the Holocaust that was published after the war. Ruth spent the time helping Jews escape and after it was over and Hitler was dead, she asked a woman in the street why she did not try to do something when she knew what was going on.

And the woman shrugged.

When are Canadians going to stop shrugging?

Our democracy that was so hard fought for, is slipping away, in a methodical and coldly calculated movement called neoconservatism.

I've mentioned before of a comment made by political philosopher, and one time girlfriend of Leo Strauss (who is deemed to be the father of the neoconservative movement), Hannah Arendt, who once questioned whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus".

Hitler's chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels mastered it, by studying the work of Gustave Le Bon, a French social psychologist, sociologist and author of A Study of the Popular Mind. Mussolini is said to have kept a copy of this book on his bedside table, and read from it every night.

This book takes mob control to a scientific level and when Le Bon wrote it in 1896, he said that he was afraid that if this information got into the wrong hands it could be dangerous. And he was right.

Leo Strauss considered controlling the populace to be essential for success. He referred to us as the "ignorant masses". Friedrich Von Hayek, another man who inspired Harper and neocons everywhere, called us "the wandering herd".

This is why Stephen Harper doesn't speak to us. This is why our media isn't allowed to ask him questions or they get beat up. We are spoon fed photographs, and videos and carefully scripted press releases. That is how we are being governed, and if we don't wake up it's only going to get worse.

The G-20 was a screeching alarm that should have awoken every Canadian citizen. And yet most slept through it. And when they did awake they were lulled back to sleep by a media that blamed the terror on the peaceful protesters.

A German reporter here to cover the G20 summit likened Toronto's walls to the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. I was just in Berlin and the checkpoint these days comprises a few sandbags and two "soldiers" in Second World War American uniforms posing for tourists' cameras. Walls fall in one place, rise up in another. But surely not here?

The Berlin Wall, Canadian style. I am so proud.

The Real Stephen Harper

There was another story in the article that we need to pay attention to, because it speaks of the real Stephen Harper, before our image consultants worked to make him look prime ministerial.

The annual gathering of the Writers' Union of Canada took place in Ottawa in June, with many former chairs on hand to offer memories of their time in office. Susan Crean remembered encountering a young, blue-eyed politico at a constitutional conference in Calgary in 1992. When the man learned that she had co-authored a certain book about American domination of Canadian and Quebec politicians, the man responded: "You should not have been allowed to write that book."

The man: Stephen Harper. Crean never forgot his words, but especially the word allowed. The room full of writers in Ottawa issued a gasp. Crean later elaborated on the encounter. "Harper spoke to me first and asked if I had written 'that book.' I asked which one, and he mentioned Two Nations, which I wrote with Quebec activist/sociologist and well known independentiste Marcel Rioux. ... Harper was clearly still angry about having had to read it at university. In his view, I took it, the book was treasonous. I was so shaken by his words, and his open hostility, that I immediately left the dining room."

There is a petition going around that includes 150 organizations, that begins - "Since 2006 the Government of Canada has systematically undermined democratic institutions and practices, and has eroded the protection of free speech, and other fundamental human rights. It has deliberately set out to silence the voices of organizations or individuals who raise concerns about government policies or disagree with government positions. ... Organizations that disagree with the Government's positions and/or engage in advocacy have had their mandates criticized and their funding threatened, reduced or discontinued."

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. At the G-20 journalists and advocacy groups were specifically targeted. That is a very dangerous thing. We have got to start paying attention, because that angry young man who believed that books should be censored, is now an angry older man with far to much power, and it's more than books that are being censored.

It is us.

Stephen Harper, Leo Strauss and Reductio ad Hitlerum

What do close advisers to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement." Donald Gutstein (1)

Those words are certainly true but I would also ask another question. What does Leo Strauss and the advisers to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing philosophy of Joseph Goebbels. And most of Joseph Goebbels brilliance as a propagandist came from reading Gustave Le Bon, and exploiting his study of mass mentality.

Gustave points out that individuals in a crowd may range in intellect, but when presented as a mass to a common cause they become homogenized: In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals, and in consequence their individuality, are weakened. The heterogeneous is swamped by the homogeneous, and the unconscious qualities obtain the upper hand ... This very fact that crowds possess in common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence ... In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated. (2)

Hence the notion of not just the "masses" but the "ignorant masses", reduced to ignorance by a common agitator.

Leo Strauss would develop a philosophical argument which he called Reductio ad Hitlerum which included playing the Hitler card. But Strauss also contends that not everything Adolf Hitler did was bad, so it would be wrong to conclude that something is bad just because Hitler did it. Actions can become "darkened by the shadow of Hitler" he warned.

So when neoconservative philosophy is attributed to Strauss, it's OK. He taught at American universities, and no matter what he taught it is legitimized. But as soon as you compare neoconservative principles to Joesph Goebbels, they cry foul, despite the fact that much of what Strauss taught is pure Nazi propaganda, that has been "darkened by the shadow of Hitler". And of course also darkened by the shadow of the Holocaust.

I'm not going to deny that Leo Strauss was a brilliant man, but I believe that in many ways he was simply the conduit for Goebbels, which is why so many legitimate followers of Strauss will question much of what has been attributed to him, especially when it comes to the actions of the Bush administration.

So I'm going to remove the shadow of Hitler and the Holocaust and outline the techniques used by the ultimate propagandist, Joseph Paul Goebbels. The similarities between him and the advisers of most neoconservative politicians are simply too vast to ignore.

This will be the first of a series.

Phenomena of a Hypnotic Order

The difference between Leo Strauss and Joseph Goebbels, is that Strauss's theories were philosophic, while Goebbels were scientific. Strauss was inspired by other philosophers, while Goebbels was inspired by a scientist, Gustave Le Bons.

As Le Bons himself states: I have endeavoured to examine the difficult problem presented by crowds in a purely scientific manner—that is, by making an effort to proceed with method, and without being influenced by opinions, theories, and doctrines. (2)

So scientifically speaking, when discussing crowd mentality, he suggests that individuals in the crowd are rendered unconscious, and it is this unconsciousness that becomes their collective strength. They are now devoid of reason and this is the best state for a skillful orator to do their work. Le Bons refers to this as the 'phenomena of hypnotic order'.

So ideally when trying to stir up the masses, you need to get them into an hypnotic state, and one way of doing this is with hand gestures. In the "mesmerizing trade" it's referred to as Covert Hypnotism. Goebbels mastered it. Look at his rhythmic hand gestures in the following video. Very unusual.

Of course Goebbels would say that the power comes from the "harmony of word, facial expressions and gestures", but at this particular rally he speaks of the mass as being in a state of "total spiritual mobilization". Aka: hypnotized.



Now watch Adolf Hitler, doing the same thing. He starts out in a humble stance and then builds up the momentum. But again watch his hands (Not too closely though. I wouldn't want you to start clucking like a chicken or anything)



The gravelly voice was the result of mustard gas during the war and Hitler's first handler, Dietrich Eckart taught him how to use it to his advantage. But every now and then he has to stop to cough. Eckart was a playwright and stage director, so gave him a flair for the dramatic.

Now just as kind of a funny aside, following is a video of Stephen Harper. I don't really know what his oratory style is because he rarely speaks to us, and certainly would not speak to us in this manner if he thought we were listening. This video was shot on the QT. But watch his hands and yes I am LMAO.



Sources:

1. Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy. The Tyee, Donald Gutstein, November 29, 2009

2. A Study of the Popular Mind, By: Gustave Le Bon, Book One: The Mind of Crowds

Happy Shoppers and True Nazis

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In July of 1941, Latvia became a part of Nazi Germany as German troops moved in to occupy the country. (Photo above captures scene at Riga)

Anyone who opposed the German occupation , as well as those who had cooperated with the previous Soviet Union, were killed or sent to concentration camps.

But the Jewish and Gypsy population was also exterminated by Latvian Nazi collaborators.

The Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS, between 1941 and 1943, murdered most of Latvia’s 70'000 Jews and thousands more who had been deported from other parts of Europe. (1)

The most predominant group the Arājs Commando, alone killed about 26,000 Jews.

According to Wikipedia, the extermination included:

About 66,000 Latvian Jews, 19,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jews, unknown numbers of Lithuanian and Hungarian Jews; unknown but substantial number of Gypsies, Communists, and mentally-disabled persons; unknown number of non-Jewish Latvians shot or imprisoned in reprisals and so-called "anti-partisan" activities. (2)

Into this atmosphere, Armand Siksna was born.

Born in 1944 in Riga, Latvia, Siksna was raised by parents he described as "anti-communist conservatives". His father owned two turpentine refineries and supplied the Germans during the war; Siksna's uncle had a stake in two banks and belonged "to a right-wing fascist-inclined organization"... (3)

Was this organization the Arājs Commando?

A True Nazi

In the year of Armand's birth, the Soviets would once again occupy Latvia, after driving out the Germans, and most resistance groups were forced underground. After the war a massive influx of labourers, administrators, military personnel and their dependents from Russia and other Soviet republics began. The ethnic Latvian population felt threatened as a programme to impose bilingualism was initiated.

Many fled the country, including Armand's family, who arrived in Canada in 1957. To a thirteen-year-old boy, whose opinions were already formed, not even Canada was safe from Soviet expansion.

When an adult, calling himself a "true Nazi", he joined the Edmund Burke Society and later the Western Guard, where he would influence, and be influenced by people like Alex McQuirter, Wolfgang Droege and Don Andrews.

A confirmed anti-communist, he joined the Progressive Conservative party but soon found it "was not really right-wing enough for me." He eventually joined the Edmund Burke Society and then the Guard when he "started to realize the importance of racism — the preservation of our race." Siksna recalls: "I had come to the conclusion that I am a true Nazi — and that is the most beautiful and the most noble philosophy of all the political philosophies that have ever existed on this earth."- Siksna was on the executive of the Western Guard and he ran in several municipal and provincial elections. His main contribution seemed to be constant run-ins with the law. As a Guard member, he faced charges for the defacement of property by affixing hate posters. He was accused of the theft of a typewriter when he worked as a security guard at a warehouse, and when police raided his apartment for evidence he was charged with violating the propaganda law because Nazi and Klan material was found there. (3)

The cache included: "swastika flags, boxes of KKK propaganda and several copies of Mein Kampf." (4)

Siksna would spend a great deal of time behind bars for a variety of crimes, including the plot to kill a fellow Klansman, but his most comical, if we can find anything humorous about his activities, took place in 1980, when he was convicted of the fraudulent misuse of a credit card. Apparently he found the credit card on the floor of a store and attempted to use it. Unfortunately for him the card was a demo made out to "Mrs. Happy Shopper". (3)

On February 22, the Toronto Sun reported that Armand Siksna had joined the Reform Party. As always, Preston Manning revoked the membership, but only after media exposure. However, though not following the violence of the Klan and other hate groups, Manning's Reform Party ideology was not unlike theirs. Pro-Anglo, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-feminism, the list goes on. The only difference was that they were legitimate.

Aftermath

According to Michael Faulkner in Letters from the UK, the British Tory Party, is becoming friendly with the old Latvian anti-Communist movement, now headed by Roberts Zile.

More alarming is the alliance the Tories have struck in the EU with some of Europe’s most unsavory people – Polish and Latvian ultra-nationalist parties with strong anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi associations. And perhaps most alarming of all is the fact that the Tories and many others seem to find this quite acceptable. Where one might have expected outrage, instead there have been indignant attacks on critics of the ultra-nationalists, who are accused of maligning honorable men and repeating “Soviet era” slanders against them. At the centre of this controversy are two parties belonging to the new right-wing grouping, the European Conservatives and Reformists, with which the Tories have chosen to ally themselves. They are The Polish Law and Justice Party and the Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom party. (1)

And in Canada there is some concern with Jason Kenney's plan to build a monument to the victims of communism:

According to an Oct. 14 commentary by Efraim Zuroff in The Guardian newspaper, "if anyone needed additional proof of the unsuitability of the Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom party as a partner for the British Conservatives, their response to a ceremony held yesterday in Riga to honour the Soviet soldiers who liberated the city in 1944 should be a stark reminder of the lack of shared values between the two parties." For Fatherland and Freedom condemned Riga mayor Nils Usakovs for placing a wreath at the Victory Monument which commemorates the liberation of Riga from Nazi occupation, and for taking part in a rally to mark the event. The party called Usakovs' presence at these events "an insult to the victims of Communist terror and a glorification of the Soviet troops." However, For Fatherland and Freedom is well known for honouring Latvia's Waffen-SS veterans who fought for Third Reich and Nazi domination of Europe. As Usakovs stated, "had Riga not been liberated from the Nazis in 1944, there would be no independent Latvia today [and therefore] it is our duty to thank those who fought against the Nazis." In Zuroff's view, the positions taken by the Fatherland and Freedom leader Roberts Zile and other ultra-right politicians "are hardly exceptional in their home countries...

... By joining forces with Fatherland and Freedom and Poland's Law and Justice, says Zuroff, "the Conservatives are granting important legitimacy to a false narrative that seeks to whitewash war crimes and erase the heroic victory of those who saved the world from Hitler and the Nazis." The UK-Latvia link is not an isolated phenomenon in Europe, where right-wing forces in many countries are pressing for bans against Communist political activity.

Here in Canada, the federal Conservatives have hitched their wagon to a similar attempt to falsify history. Stephen Harper and Tory cabinet minister Jason Kenney have both encouraged the groups which initiated the proposal for a "monument to the victims of communism" on the grounds of the National Capital Commission. (5)

We have got to start paying attention.

Sources:

1. ULTRA-NATIONALISTS AND ANTI-SEMITES: The Tories’ Latvian and Polish Friends,
By Michael Faulkner, TPJ Magazine, November 08, 2009

2. The Holocaust in Latvia, Wikipedia

3. White Hoods, By Julian Sher, New Star Books, 1983, ISBN 0-919573-13-4, Pg. 83-84

4. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, 1994, Harper Collins, pg. 215

5. UK TORIES LINKED TO LATVIAN FASCISTS, The People's Voice, November 2009