During the Haiti earthquake relief mission, columnist Carol Goar wrote of a disturbing practice by the Harper government, when it came to charitable organizations.
We had already seen funding slashed to KAIROS, a Religious organization that advocated for the poor and disenfranchised, because they spoke out against Israeli aggression in Palestine.
But they were not the only group in Stephen Harper's crosshairs, brought to light during the Haiti crisis. Said Goar:
A shadow hangs over Canada's exemplary earthquake relief mission in Haiti. Several of the charities working heroically to deliver food, clean water, health care and shelter to the victims of the disaster fear their federal funding will be cut.
As long as they stick to pure humanitarian assistance, they'll be fine. But the moment they take a public stand – criticizing the government's decision to shift its foreign aid focus from Africa to Latin America, or its inaction on climate change, or its militant pro-Israel stance or its refusal to include contraceptives in its new campaign to improve maternal health – they risk losing access to taxpayers' dollars.
Several organizations had already received warnings.
One of Canada’s largest charities has found itself on the defensive after being singled out by a federal Conservative cabinet minister over its opposition to Israeli settlements. The apparent flap between Employment Minister Jason Kenneyand international development group Oxfam Canada is noteworthy because the Conservative government has previously cut funding to other charities that spoke out against the settlements.
Enter Kerry-Lynn Findlay
Bev Oda, the shrew behind the KAIROS defunding, may be out of politics, after scandals finally caught up with her, but not to worry. A new she-devil has taken her place: Kerry-Lynn Findlay, who is already outpacing Oda for controversy, opportunism, and pure malice.
Her riding of Delta-Richmond East has been a Reform Party stronghold since 1993, so Findlay only had to win the nomination to be assured of her position. Delta-Richmond is being split as part of the Conservative gerrymandering, and the new riding will no doubt go the Party, so we can expect another Neocon clone to join her in the House.
Although, Findlay herself may be vulnerable. Protestors opposed to the (un)Fair Elections Act, delivered a petition with 80,000 signatures to her office.
There was also a scathing letter in the Richmond News, drawing attention to a "ridiculously childish" notice she was sending to her constituents, in an obvious attempt to identify supporters; part of their taxpayer funded "patriotism" contest.
Findlay was not in her office to accept the petition. She was too busy sticking pins in the dolls of Canadian charity leaders, vowing to outdo Kenney and Oda, in her sweep of those who oppose her tyrannical leader and his policies.
No one is safe.
On her list of subversive activities: animal welfare, poverty, education, anti-Israeli sentiment, environment, healthcare, and human rights.
So don't even think of advocating for the poor. You will probably end up on a list and risk a tax audit.
The current crop of political-activity audits has prompted a sharp rebuke from the Canadian Council of Churches, which in April wrote directly to the prime minister about the "chilling effect of threats to revoke the charitable status of organizations that draw attention to policies that harm our world."
Similarly, Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada wrote to a United Nations group about what it calls the "shrinking space for dissent in Canada."
We do need more women in politics, but Findlay and many of her female colleagues, are not so much women in politics as soft touches who just happen to be in politics. What a fine example she sets.
Besides, how did she qualify to run Revenue Canada anyway? In 2001 she declared bankruptcy, leaving her creditors on the hook for $382,000. Maybe she needs a little audit.
Or maybe the Fraser Institute that shills for tobacco companies, foreign and domestic. Of course, it's more likely that the Canadian Cancer Society would be scrutinized for opposing the Fraser Institute.
Remind me again why Canadians still believe they live in a democracy. If this isn't fascism, than nothing is.
Time magazine found Harper's actions so disturbing that they published an article on it: Controlling the Message. In the piece, Alasdair Roberts, a Syracuse University public-policy professor, asks, "How can the average Canadian make a judgment about whether their government is being well run if they don't have access to the information?"
A very good question, but what Roberts may not know is that since that time, things have only gotten worse.
Harper's office has been taking their own press photos, creating their own videos (Taxpayers on hook for $1.7-million as PMO rolls out video, By Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press, December 08, 2009), and have made most media events by "invitation only".
They scripted their response to accusations of detainee abuse as early as 2007, causing one NATO official to suggest that Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial process. Canada became the only country with troops in Afghanistan, not to have an independent media, and all news of the war, was directed from the PMO.
They have created a 200 page manual that caucus members must use to disrupt Parliamentary committees and a Purple File where embarrassing information requests are kept and dealt with directly by Harper's team.
None of this is surprising to those of us who have tracked Stephen Harper's career from Reform Party policy wonk to leading the National Citizens Coalition.
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." (A less proud country, By Lawrence Scanlan, Straightgoods, August 9, 2010)
We recently learned that Harper has added another very disturbing element to his message control. He will now be censoring the RCMP.Our RCMP.
The Star obtained a copy of a new communications protocol that requires the RCMP to flag anything that might “garner national media attention” to Public Safety Canada. Everything from “media advisories, news releases, background info, media lines and talking points for spokespersons and senior officials/members” must be vetted.
Statements by RCMP members who appear before parliamentary committees would likely be massaged by the federal government beforehand, as the document clearly defines a “major event” as “an incident, event, announcement, and/or speaking engagement likely to garner national media attention.”
Is there anything left that would make Canada not a totalitarian country? If you know of something please share it with me, because this is very frightening.
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." (Scanlan 2010)
Whenever I call Stephen Harper a "dictator" in a posting, I get emails from people telling me that I am wrong and that I don't know what a dictator is.
So I turned to the dictionary, which defines a dictator as "a leader with absolute, imperious, or overbearing power or control." And a dictatorship, as "a country, government, or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator".
Jack Layton bragged today that he resides over the largest official opposition party in 31 years. But it is also the most powerless.
Harper has Parliament, the Senate and the Governor General was a Brian Mulroney insider. He has the media and will soon control the Supreme Court.
And if that isn't bad enough, we learn today, that he will also soon control the Ontario Court of Appeals. How long before other provinces fall under his sway?
So please don't tell me that I don't know what a dictatorship is, or that Stephen Harper does not currently have dictatorial powers.
It's important for us to realize this, because we are the ones who allowed a single man to take absolute control of our country.
And while you might say that we are still a democracy, given that he was elected, even if it was with less than 40% of the popular vote, another man became a dictator when he was elected with just 43.9% of the popular vote.
When the Reform movement first began in Canada in 1987, everyone knew what it was and no one was shy about reporting on it.
It was neoconservatism.
And the Reform Party was not the only one embracing it's political theories. Ralph Klein's Alberta, Mike Harris's Ontario, Bill Van Der Zahn's British Columbia and Grant Devine's Saskatchewan. All neoconservatives and all called neoconservative by the press of the day.
So what has changed?
The party that Stephen Harper heads up, that is now governing our country, is the same neoconservative Reform Party. Their ideology has not changed. They are still the party representing big business. The same party espousing the neocon principles of smaller government, privatization and destruction of the social safety net, including the end to things like Canada Pension, EI, Old Age Security and public healthcare.
In fact Stephen Harper won applause, and his speech at a Reform convention, declared the best; when he avowed that Reform would indeed end, or at least privatize, those things.
He has not changed, only our media has. They no longer remind us that Harper represents neoconservatism. Something that was simply matter of fact back then, is now taboo. "He is a Tory" they cry. How utterly ridiculous.
The biggest fear that many in the press may have, is that once you call it what it is, too many people are now aware that neoconservatism is the brainchild of Leo Strauss, and its success depends on the implementation of Strauss's theories.
Rick Salutin went out on a limb, in a column he wrote for the Globe and Mail: Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? He was fired for his efforts. But Salutin reminded us of the ingredients Strauss suggested to achieve and hold onto power: Secretiveness, fierce nationalism using symbols (like yellow ribbons and hockey), exploiting religion, creating false populism to stop the spread of too much democracy. Says Salutin:
Leo Strauss (like his man, Plato) never liked democracy much but his disciples are ready to use it against the real villain, liberalism. To this end, they appeal to the “anti-liberal” impulses of ordinary folk against the “liberal elites,” via “wedge issues” like gun control, abortion or attacks on high art. (That one was especially self-destructive in Quebec.)
Brooke Jeffrey in her book, Hard-Right Turn, says:
Canada's neo-conservatives have relied heavily on their ability to manipulate a disgruntled and fearful middle class. The brilliance of their strategy .. has been their ability "to convince the working majority that their fate lies with the wealthy and not with the vulnerable." Overturning the liberal ethic of community and collective responsibility, they have persuaded the middle class that they can survive only by saving themselves and throwing in their lot with the best interests of corporate Canada and the global business elites. (1)
And she's right. It's brilliant.
This philosophy is now being represented by the Tea Party movement south of the border. Though it has been revealed that their financing comes from the corporate world, those marching and chanting and carrying anti-Obama signs, have been fired up, believing that they represent the first revolutionaries. And they are using religion and symbols and fierce nationalism to achieve their goals.
And considering that the media will no longer use 'neoconservative' and definitely no longer use 'Straussian', they will never reveal what neoconservatism actually is. But I will. Or at least an Italian by the name of Giovanni Gentile, who created the basis for the movement will. From the grave.
A Doctrine of Fascism
Giovanni Gentile was the Minister of Public Education for the government of Benito Mussolini. He was a political philosopher who ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism in 1932, a treatise credited to Mussolini himself.
Leo Strauss believed that the "truth" should be confined to an elite few, while the "ignorant masses" only needed to be manipulated. But his theory was not original. It came from Giovanni Gentile.
Gentile promoted a system of government that ran somewhere between philosophy and politics, that only the "elite" would understand. He was the first to coin the term 'fascism'.
And by his own description, the traits characteristic of fascism, were compulsory state corporatism, Philosopher Kings, the abolition of the parliamentary system, and autarky, which is the quality of being self-sufficient. Strauss tweaked this a bit, but the principles are the same.
And to control those "ignorant masses" they used the techniques of the same man that Joseph Goebbels would tap into, to create probably the best propaganda machine in modern history: Gustave Le Bon, a French social psychologist, sociologist and author of A Study of the Popular Mind.
He brought crowd mentality to a scientific level. Joseph Goebbels used his book religiously and Mussolini kept a copy of it beside his bed. Says Le Bon: "In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals, and in consequence their individuality, are weakened."
And this is why the Tea Party rallies are so successful. Le Bon suggests that in a crowd the prevailing thoughts will belong to least intellectual among them, and everyone in the crowd is then brought down to the level of the things they have in common.
This very fact that crowds possess in common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence. The decisions affecting matters of general interest come to by an assembly of men of distinction, but specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in common on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated.
And with mass media, crowds are no longer necessary to accomplish a collective mind.
Just keep hammering the same message: "not a leader", "just visiting", "Obama is a socialist". It doesn't have to be logical.
Neoconservatism was first articulated by the Italian, Giovanni Gentile who called it 'Fascism'. The science of propaganda by a French sociologist, Gustave le Bons. So will the media feel better if they can instead of fascism or neoconservatism, or Straussian, refer to Stephen Harper as a Gentilist? No. That sounds too elite. How about Giovannist?
But then wouldn't it be simpler to use the original term 'fascist'?
I know that Lebonaga doesn't roll off the tongue like propaganda, but then Harper prefers "communication", a misnomer since he doesn't communicate.
Still not convinced?
In 1944, Henry Wallace when asked about fascism in America, said that:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.
And
"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity ... They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."
But if you don't want to listen to Gentile, Le Bon, Wallace or Salutin, then at least listen to that little voice in your head that is now screaming "This is not democracy!"
Sources:
1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, By Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 442
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
Jan Brown was a Reform MP when Preston Manning was the party leader. She was smart, urban and moderate, best remembered for putting a rose on the empty chair of Lucien Bouchard when he was recovering from "flesh-eating disease", that resulted in his losing a leg.
She was a refreshing contradiction to a party well known for it's racist and sexist views.
So when Reform MP Rob Ringma suggested that business owners should be allowed to demand that gays and ethnics move to the back of the store, if it meant that they could lose business otherwise; she spoke up. And when at about the same time, Reform MP Dave Chatters suggested that schools should be allowed to fire gay teachers, she again protested. But when Reform MP Art Hanger planned a trip to Singapore to investigate 'caning' as a form of youth punishment, she'd had enough, and went public, speaking out against the rampant racism of the party's 'God squad'. (1)
At the next caucus meeting, while Ringma got a standing ovation, Brown was ostracized and suspended. She quit. And Manning allowed her to quit, because he would gain far more political leverage from the 'God Squad', than he would from what Stephen Harper would call a "pink Liberal" or Margaret Thatcher a "wet". Moderates were welcome but radicals were courted.
Scott Brison
When Stephen Harper's Alliance Party swallowed up the few remaining Progressive Conservatives, he had a meeting with PCer Scott Brison. He told him that he was impressed with his economic skills and wanted him to play a prominent role in the new party. But Brison, who had already been ridiculed by the Alliance gang because of his sexual orientation, asked Harper where he would fit. He was told that a large part of their base was social conservative, and he would not change that. Brison got the message and crossed the floor to the Liberals. (2)
Instead we got stuck with Jim Flaherty as finance minister, a man who was deemed too right-wing to head up the Ontario PC party.
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht
On August 24, 1935; the Canadian Press ran a story of internal conflict that was threatening the Nazi Party.
The smoldering conflict between Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, minister of national economy, and Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, appeared today to have attained a crisis in the Nazi hierarchy. Dr. Schacht's Koenigsberg speech, which was censored drastically by the propaganda minister, suddenly appeared today throughout the Reich in important places in its full version, sent out personally by its author.
The minister of economy and president of the Reichsbank Bank seemed to be in open conflict with the extremists of the Nazi party, whose anti-Jewish anti-Catholic violence, the Reichsbank director said last Sunday, is gradually forcing trade away from Germany to the point where the Reich is insolvent, if not bankrupt. (3)
And despite the fact that he was a brilliant economist, Schacht was eventually forced out of the party, because they needed the radicals more. Although, I think it's telling that seeing as how Schacht was Jewish, he wasn't exterminated. But then according to Social Creditor Réal Caouette*, 'Hitler exterminated only "useless Jews."' (4)
Why is it then that when any of us liberals or progressives remind people that neoconservatism is fascism, we're dismissed as alarmists? And yet the right-wing paints all of us with a communist/socialist brush. I'm not a communist or a socialist, nor are most Canadians.
If we support social programs, we're dismissed as left-wing fringe groups, and yet the success of the Reform movement was due in a large part by their embracing right-wing fringe groups. The Alliance for the Preservation of English, the Northern Foundation, C-Far, the National Firearms Associations, the pro-white South Africa crowd, and of course the Religious Right. (6 and 7)
All brought something necessary for the success of this movement: passion based on dogma. And while Leo Strauss, the father of neoconservatism, promotes the exploitation of religious fervour, not all dogma is religious.
Dogmatism's Bark
Judy Johnson, professor of psychology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, wrote a piece for the Edmonton Journal recently: Much to gain from tempering dogmatism's bark. She says 'There's a lot wrong with being absolutely right,' especially in politics.
Quoting Winston Churchill describing people who believe in absolutes, absolutely: "They won't change their minds and they won't change the topic."
Zealous political ideologues, religious fundamentalists who would merge the secular with the sacred, and bigots who vent their views on talk shows and the Internet all undermine social stability. There is, however, a greater, unspoken peril. Altering the best intentions of politics, science, economics and religion, it endangers the course of history, yet seldom makes media headlines, not even during political elections, when we should be most vigilant of its presence. Perhaps that's because up until 2009, no social scientist had developed a comprehensive theory of its nature and manifestations. (8)
Dogma does not have to be based on ancient religious texts. It can also include the views of free marketeers, libertarians, pro-lifers, et al. All those who lack the ability to see the grey. There is no in between.
Former Harper insider, Tom Flanagan, in his book Waiting for the Wave, describes Stephen Harper as an ideologue. His ideology is based on a fear of socialism and communism, and the passion for top down commercialism (9), where the corporate sector calls the shots.
And of course the social conservatives, who Harper admits make up the largest part of his base, view the world through the belief in the infallibility of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. This is especially evident with people like Jason Kenney, Stockwell Day and Maurice Vellacott, though they are certainly not alone.
It's why they don't allow fact to cloud their issues, and as Johnson reminds us, this is dangerous.
But what's even more dangerous is the policy of Obscurantism, that not only rejects facts, but distorts them, using rhetoric and slick "words that work". What Lawrence Martin once called "a bumper sticker mentality".
In a lecture at the University of Toronto in 1998, Michael Ignatieff stated of neoconservatism: "Nothing has done the electoral and moral credibility of liberalism more harm than the failure to take this attack seriously" (10)
And as Judy Johnson reminds us, we must be more vigilant. We need to get our heads out the sand, and stop being so skiddish about discussing the destructive Religious Right. It does not make us anti-Christian, only pro-Canadian. And we have to recognize that neoconservatism is fascism, and if we want an understanding of how it works in a modern context, read anything you can find on pre-war, pre-Holocaust, Nazism. It's familiarity is uncanny.
Footnotes:
*Social Credit formed the basis of the Reform Party ... Preston Manning being the son of Social Credit premier Ernest Manning. According to Janine Stingle they were the only party [SC] based on the notion of a Jewish conspiracy. (4)
In 1962, Social Credit entered into a coalition with the Quebec nationalist party, the Ralliement des créditistes, led by David Réal Caouette. "In the 1962 federal election, Caouette linked his Ralliement des Creditistes with the national Social Credit party and, by invoking Social Credit's traditional bogeys of an anti-Christian conspiracy and the plot of the "moneyed interests," helped twenty-six Quebec Social Credit MPs (out of a national total of thirty) get elected." [only four from outside Quebec](4) In an interview with MacLeans magazine, Caouette was quoted as saying:
"Who are your political heroes in history?" he was asked. Caouette's brisk rejoinder: "Mussolini and Hitler." The storm broke, and it wasn't helped any by what Caouette had gone on to say in the magazine: "I admire Mussolini's qualities as a leader and I regret that he was a fascist. I admire in Hitler his economic reforms and I consider that he brought his people out of misery. I regret that he employed for war instead of for peace the ideas which he had." (5)
To his surprise, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht sent him a letter lauding his brave remarks.
"I am very pleased to read in our press about your courageous statements and laudable opinion about the ideas of Adolf Hitler. I was happy to have served under his leadership in one of the key positions in our economy before the war and owing to that I had an opportunity to become acquainted with his greatness." (4)
Schacht did not see Hitler as anti-semitic despite the Holocaust, only as a free market economist, who allowed Capitalism free rein.
1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 318-320
2. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 2
3. Nazi Hierarchy Splits Wide Open as Dr. Schacht Defies Order Banning His Speech, The Canadian Press, August 24, 1935
4. Beyond the Purge: Reviewing the social credit movement's legacy of intolerance, By Janine Stingel, Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, Summer, 1999
5. Canada: Hitler, Mussolini & Caouette, Time Magazine, August 31, 1962
6. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6 3
7. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7
8. Much to gain from tempering dogmatism's bark: 'There's a lot wrong with being absolutely right,' especially in politics, By Judy Johnson, Edmonton Journal, September 23, 2010
9. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9
10. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of neo-Conservatism in Canada, by: Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 443
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of 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 (1)
The next component of Obscurantism, a concept that a friend suggested I explore, is message control. I've covered most of these things before but was amazed at how well they fit with this definition. So if you feel uncomfortable calling Stephen Harper a Fascist, call him an Obscurantist. Both fit.
In the pragmatic exposé of Stephen Harper, in his new book Harperland, Lawrence Martin devotes a chapter to Harper's "control fixation". But control is a key element of neoconservatism, as espoused by Leo Strauss.
According to Martin:
The PMO was in the course of putting in place a message-control system, a vetting operation unlike anything ever seen in the capital. No other government had even come close to such a system of oversight.
The new regimen called for all public pronouncements by civil servants, diplomats, the military, cabinet members, and Conservative MPs to be approved by the Prime Minister's Office or its bureaucratic arm, the Privy Council Office (PCO). The vetting was by no means a quick rubber-stamping procedure. If a government official or a caucus member wanted to say something publicly, he or she would first have to fill out a Message Event Proposal (MEP) and submit it to central command. This form had sections with such titles as Desired Headline, Strategic Objective, Desired Sound Bite, and the like. It also had areas for supplying details on the speaking backdrop, the ideal event photograph, and even the speaker's wardrobe.
Once submitted, the MEP was studied by PMO and PCO officials, often bouncing back and forth between apparatchiks before getting final approval. Some MEPs required less vetting than others, but the massive centralization caused logjams, delays, and in some cases, cancellation of planned events because the requester never heard back in time. Keith Beardsley recalled even events for cabinet ministers being derailed. "Every communications director for every minister was trying to get stuff through. Their ministers wanted to do things," he said. But "because of the backlog [sometimes an event] got delayed and delayed and it was cancelled." In the past, while there was sonic vetting, departments produced their own news releases and scheduled events for ministers independently. Under Harper, such freedom was not allowed. (2)
Time Magazine 1936:
Because Adolf Hitler's speeches may be used to prove almost anything, the Nazi Commission of Inspection of Nazi Literature announced that Hitler's speeches may not be quoted in print hereafter without the Commission's express permission. Hearing that the rebellious pastors of the German Evangelical [Lutheran] Church plan to print and circulate privately their unanswered protest to the Reichsführer against practically everything going on in Nazi Germany, the Gestapo (secret police) raided Confessional Synod offices, lugged off typewriters, mimeograph and printing machines. (3)
"Such freedom was not allowed".
The German version of the "Message Event proposal" was handled by Philipp Bouhler, who was "the Chairman of the Official Party Inspection Commission for the Protection of National Socialist Literature, which determined what writings were suitable for Nazi society, and which were not." (4)
Before you can even hope to set up a system of obscuring the message, you have to be able to control the message. And Stephen Harper incrementally created a system whereby he controls every word that comes out of the mouths of not only his caucus, especially his ministers, but the public service as well.
And the media has become so conditioned to this, that they rarely question it. Matthew Brett wrote recently for Global Research:
Not surprisingly, the Globe and Mail and other news organizations ran a press release from the PMO's office verbatim, with no critical commentary, analysis or insight. The state of media today is such that copy-pasting a press release from the PMO and slapping it on the front page of a national daily newspaper is accepted practice. Indeed, Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan writes that “compared to most countries with which I have any familiarity, the Conservatives in Canada actually have friendly media to work with.” The ‘Propaganda Model’ is more than alive and well, but sometimes without even bothering to ‘filter’ news content. (5)
The Conservatives in Canada have friendly media to work with, or just lazy media. Either way they should be ashamed. And this certainly contradicts their stance that the media is out to get them.
But besides just writing their own copy, the Conservatives now also take their own photos. After an image was published and incorrectly labelled as an actual event, Steven Chase wrote:
Since the spring [of 2009], the PMO has effectively set up its own picture service, e-mailing photos to Canadian media almost daily in an effort to find a market for publicity shots of Mr. Harper's activities. It's a service that ultimately competes with the work of photojournalists, but one, they argue, that should not be relied upon as a record of events. (6)
And they didn't stop at providing photos, but now also provide videos.
Taxpayers are being asked to pay an extra $1.7-million this fiscal year to help bolster Stephen Harper's communications support services – just as the Prime Minister's Office begins distributing government videos of Harper to the news media. Supplementary estimates tabled last month by the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's bureaucratic back office, boosted internal operational spending by almost $7.3-million for 2009-10. That's on top of existing budgets. (7)
By doing things in small steps, the public remains mostly unaware that everything they see and hear from our government, as reported by the press, is staged for our amusement. But when you look at the big picture, that's when it becomes frightening.
Sometimes the media, and pundits, must feel the hairs on the back of their necks stand up, so they will dismiss it by suggesting that other prime ministers have done this. But as Lawrence Martin says, it's: "... a vetting operation unlike anything ever seen in the capital. No other government had even come close to such a system of oversight."
"No other government had even come close." Worth repeating.
By dismissing this, journalists and columnists are only creating an enabling condition that further threatens our democracy, which is already hanging on by a thread.
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
"If international Jewry should succeed, in Europe or elsewhere, in precipitating nations into a world war, the result will not be the bolshevization of Europe and a victory of Judaism, but the extermination of the Jewish race." Adolf Hitler, January 3, 1939
Those words are shocking to us now, with the value of hindsight. But why weren't they shocking to German citizens who listened to that speech in 1939? Their leader was promoting the possible "necessity" of eliminating an entire people. Millions and millions of human beings.
It was because his party was suggesting that their planned military campaigns were an act of defense, not aggression. A necessary defense against both socialism and Judaism.
Fast forward to January of 2006, when senior Canadian military officers, soldiers, defence analysts and lobbyists gathered together to listen to American Lt.-Gen. Thomas Metz, then commanding general of Fort Hood, Texas.
[Metz] presents the audience with "a quick trip around the world." Using slides, he flashes a series of maps that highlight, one at a time, India, China, the Pacific Rim, the Western Hemisphere, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Then he comes to his final map, the one that really matters. Unlike all the others, this isn't just a map of a geographic area. It's a map of a religion: the Islamic World.
The Islamic faith is not evil," says the general, then quickly adds. "but it's been hijacked by thugs ... He then shows a chart depicting the military challenges America faces, measured in terms of level of danger and level of likelihood. At the very apex—the most dangerous and the most likely—sits just one: radical Islamic terrorism. "Radical Islam wants to reestablish the Caliphate," says Metz. "Just as Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, you can read what they want to do." (1)
But if you wonder why the invited guests included corporate lobbyists, Metz continues.
In his southern drawl, the general notes how much oil the U.S. consumes—roughly 25 per cent of the world's consumption, even though Americans make up only 5 per cent of the world's population—and how central this is to the country's high standard of living. To dramatize the importance of energy, the general points out that one can put a pint of gasoline into a chainsaw and then go out and cut a huge amount of wood before the gasoline runs out. The next day, he says, one could feed a big, strong man an enormous breakfast and send him out to cut wood—and he'd be able to cut only a fraction of what the gasoline-fired chainsaw had been able to cut in far less time. The lesson from this little fable is clear: America needs oil to go on being the rich, advanced society that it enjoys being. Without oil, Americans would be like that big strong man with the big breakfast—with only a tiny pile of wood to show for it.
The general's little discourse on the importance of energy to America is certainly interesting. But what is it doing in a speech about military threats to the United States? The connection between America's voracious oil consumption and the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism are never explicitly stated by Lt.-Gen. Metz; he simply notes that the Islamic world has a lot of oil and what happens there has an impact on energy markets. But an important element has clearly been added to the picture: the U.S. needs what lies under the ground in the Islamic world if Americans are to go on living the bounteous life that lies at the heart of the American dream—a life that has them devouring the lion's share of the world's energy. (1)
So the threat is not Radical Islam so much as the threat that the people of the Islamic world would like to control their own natural resources.
The lobbyists in the room were salivating. Not only would they continue to cash in on huge military contracts, but in the end would control the mineral wealth of the Middle East.
But how could they sell this to the Canadian people, who were already weary of the war in Afghanistan, and wanted to bring our soldiers home?
They wrapped it up in a yellow ribbon, sprinkled it with a dose of religious fervour and instilled fear that we are threatened with attack. "They hate our freedoms" says Stephen Harper. They hate Christians and they hate God. They couldn't possibly hate the fact that they were invaded and forced into a war they didn't want, under the guise of "fighting terror" and chasing ghosts.
What Will Precipitate the Next Holocaust?
Canada has long been a nation that promoted peace. We never waged war and when we entered war, it was deemed to be a matter of principle. But that has changed. Canadians may still consider themselves to be peace loving, but our government no longer reflects that image.
We are not peacekeepers, we are warriors. Rick Hillier stated that "We are not the public service of Canada. We are not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people." And said of the perceived enemy "These are detestable murderers and scumbags." (2)
Why were we not shocked by that?
For the same reason that the German people were not shocked when Hitler promoted "the extermination of the Jewish race." We were led to believe that they threatened our way of life. He wouldn't dare suggest that it was a depletion of oil that threatened us, so we must take it by force, as Metz did. The job of armed forces was to kill people. But not to worry because the only people they killed were "murderers and scumbags." Our magical weapons that were coated with fairy dust, knew the difference.
And for anyone who doesn't believe that this new target of hatred, Islam, could ever result in another Holocaust, guess again. And I'm not talking about the thousands and thousands of Muslims killed in the Middle East already, but those who promote the annihilation of a people, wrapped up in their "love of Israel". Israel with nuclear weapons, that is positioned to use them, with the full support of Canada.
Our new foreign policy is to not only allow, but encourage Israel to launch a nuclear war. A Holocaust.
And the two people promoting this the most, are from the extremist group: Christians United For Israel. John Hagee and his Canadian partner Charles McVety. Two very dangerous men. (You can hear them speak in the videos that follow.)
It is Charles McVety who put a stop to to the Imam speaking to our military, calling it a threat to national security".
Defence Minister Peter MacKay has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which is worrisome for someone who oversees the Canadian Armed Forces. By cancelling an invitation to Imam Zijad Delic of the Canadian Islamic Congress to speak at a defence department conference, MacKay has sent a signal of intolerance to the country’s growing Muslim community, estimated to number 1 million people. That’s precisely the opposite of what organizers of the forum had intended.
MacKay’s last-minute order to disinvite Delic, the CIC’s executive director, came as Christian evangelical groups were campaigning against the presence of the Muslim cleric. MacKay insists he made the decision on his own, but his motives remain murky. (3)
Mackay has marginalized an entire segment of our population, based on the rantings of Christian extremists. What next will the Harper government agree to? Internment camps? Will they have to wear crescents? Abide by curfews? How far will this government take this to appease the religious right to avoid breaking the ties of their purse strings?
According to news reports, MacKay was going on information provided by two Christian evangelical groups. These groups must have placed considerable pressure on the minister, because he cancelled Imam Delic's speech hastily, and apparently without consultation with other government agencies.
Had the minister consulted other agencies, he would have discovered that Imam Delic presents to numerous federal departments, including RCMP national security agents. He is well-liked and well-respected among officials, as well as the Muslim community. He is highly regarded by numerous faith groups for his outreach work. Last Sunday, I sat next to Imam Delic at a youth conference where we were both invited to speak. He has been heavily involved with the event for the last few years, and encouraged me to come out to at least one of the events. As he presented his talk, it was clear that this man, who came from war-torn Bosnia as a refugee, had proudly made Canada, a place of safety, his home. He stood smiling, and preached about how important it was to be an engaged citizen, and a progressive one.
When MacKay allowed himself to be led by pressure groups, he not only shattered the delusions we all had that day when we listened to Imam Delic speak to youth about how Canada is a free country that allows us to express ourselves, he also shattered any hopes we had in our political process. (4)
We know that Stephen Harper will do anything to stay in power. Anything. And he and his government are using the same tactics that the Nazis used to prepare a nation for an unspeakable solution.
They do it by comparing a peaceful demonstration against Israeli Apartheid, to a pogrom.
They do it by hand picking Alykhan Velshi to act as Jason Kenney's aide. Velshi was the Manager of Research for a group called the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. According to Sourcewatch:
In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.
This creates an atmosphere of fear, where the only thing we're afraid of is crossing our government.
The Globe and Mail with it's new neoconservative format is suggesting that Canadians should forget about being defined as Peacekeepers. We must instead take pride in our military might. Forget health care. Shift our adoration to fighter jets.
Forget responsible government. Stick with Harper and his vision for Canada. A nation that we no longer recognize.
4. Politicians on the run: By hastily cancelling a speech by Imam Zijad Delic, Peter MacKay has shattered the faith of Muslims in our political process, By Aisha Sherazi, Citizen Special, October 5, 2010
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
With a possible election on the horizon, and a new Governor General at Rideau Hall, it's important to review what happened during the 2008 coalition attempt; a perfectly acceptable and legal alternative in a Parliamentary democracy.
It's also important to understand how Stephen Harper operates, so we can prepare ourselves for the next campaign.
Canadian journalist Michael Valpy has referred to the Harper government as the "most pugnacious" in memory, but I think he was too kind.
From manuals on how to disrupt committees to attack ads outside of an election, Mr. Harper came to Ottawa ready for a fight. He never intended to work with opposition, only to make it go away.
In other words, he never intended that 2/3 of Canadians, speaking through their elected MPs, would have a voice. And yet almost five years later he is still there. And in fact, has only gotten worse. How is that possible?
There are a lot of reasons I suppose. A corporate media and a disinterested public would certainly be near the top of the list. Photo-ops instead of taking questions, allows him to control the message and his image. That would also be up there.
But I see something else.
Laura K on her blog American by Birth, Canadian by Choice, posted a piece: Canada for the people, not the conservative party. It was originally going to appear in the Mark News as part of a series, "Who owns Canada?" but too many edits prompted her to instead post it on her blog.
It is excellent and everyone should read it. Well researched and to the point.
But I had one criticism found in this comment.
"A majority of Canadians did not vote for Stephen Harper's Conservatives. Yet we are held hostage to his anti-democratic agenda because he has so successfully exploited an antiquated, first-past-the-post electoral system and a pitifully weak opposition."
Every time a progressive journalist claims that we have a "weak opposition", Harper's polling numbers rise and more and more Canadians are turned off the political process. Because the piece that gives all the right reasons for getting rid of the wrong government, bursts into flames. The message to readers is "what's the point?"
We'll go with the devil we know, or just stay home, and continue to be "held hostage to his anti-democratic agenda." We have to call out all journalists who continue to resort to the theory of a weak opposition. They are weakened after a full frontal assault on the democratic process, but they are far from weak or unworthy. In fact in 2008, they were stronger than ever. As Elizabeth May reminds us:
Great moments of flux and crisis allow innovations to occur. The fact is that the prime minister lost the confidence of the House in December 2008, whether or not the matter was put to a vote. His spectacular miscalculation led to something that would have been impossible to imagine even weeks earlier. Arch-enemies put aside their distrust and ancient hatreds. The Bloc has an intense dislike for Stephane Dion, who, as champion of federalism, was the author of the Clarity Act. Stephane Dion has always been similarly hostile to the Bloc .... Now, here was Dion ready to work with Duceppe. And more amazing, Jack Layton was prepared to assist a Liberal to become prime minister. The NDP's hatred of Liberals was once described to me by an NDP friend who labels himself as a "fundamentalist." No matter how much it might make sense to cooperate, he assured me, NDPers could never and would never cooperate with Liberals. A coalition was simply the stuff of fantasy only days before it became a reality. (1)
I remember reading one comment that said Stephen Harper had not only united the right, but also united the left. Not exactly true because the PCs were never really that right-wing. However, semantics aside, the opposition was ready to forget their differences and work for the common good.
But I don't think they anticipated what happened next, as even the media started referring to it as a "crisis".
The Invisible Hand of Karl Rove
Michael Valpy has called the 2008 election campaign "one of the most uncivil in modern Canadian history." It was pure Karl Rove. And while the mud slinging dirtied the political landscape, Stephen Harper kept his hands clean, more or less. And that's because he was never in the trenches. His entire campaign was in a bubble.
No handshakes on street corners or rallies in the parks. Only highly staged backdrops for his daily political message, and assemblies where Tory staffers and security officers closely monitor the crowds ... The Harper campaign keeps a short leash on national and local media, limiting questions and access to local candidates, sometimes calling on RCMP security to block reporters from doing their jobs. Harper "hides from Canadians. He lives in a bubble." (2)
This allowed him to avoid having any of the ugliness pinned on him. The only exception was when cohorts Steve Murphy and Mike Duffy helped to engineer Dion's demise.
And when Stephen Harper realized that he had failed to get his majority, he promised to play nice.
In his election-night victory statement in Calgary, he pledged to fulfil his party's election platform, but also to govern for Canadians who had voted for other parties. And he offered cooperation with opposition MPs. 'This is a time,' he said, 'for us all to put aside political differences and partisan considerations and to work cooperatively for the benefit of Canada. We have shown that minority government can work, and at this time of global economic instability we owe it to Canadians to demonstrate this once again. We stretch out a hand to all members of all parties, asking them to join together to protect the economy and weather this world financial crisis. (3)
And the same conciliatory tone was reflected in the throne speech. But then all hell broke loose.
Seeing an opportunity to crush the opposition, Stephen Harper again went on the attack, gambling on what he perceived as a weakened opposition: "The government's plans to suspend women's rights to seek legal redress on pay-equity issues and the right of federal civil servants' to strike were seen as unalloyed ideological actions ..." and "The plan to eliminate parties' vote subsidy was labelled provocative and a partisan attack aimed primarily at the money-straitened Liberals." And all of these changes "were concocted in the Prime Minister's Office, sent over to the Finance Department at the last moment, and not presented to the Conservative cabinet or parliamentary caucus for prior discussion." (3)
And in the ensuing uproar Jim Flaherty challenged the opposition to "Bring it on" while Peter Mackay "boasted to the Halifax Chronicle-Herald on Thursday that, when the subsidy measure came before Parliament, the opposition would blink. 'When they play chicken,' he said, 'they wind up looking like chickens."' Except they didn't." (3)
Then when the coalition was presented, Stephen Harper and a compliant media turned it into a "crisis", and when things heated up, rather than assuming the role of prime minister, asking that calmer heads should prevail, Harper continued to fan the flames.
Dennis Pilon, a political scientist at the University of Victoria, stated that : "I do not mean to be an alarmist in suggesting that we may be heading for violence. But the actions of this prime minister are coming dangerously close to inciting mob rule." (4)
All of this speaks to the lengths that this man will go, just to hold onto power, and they speak to the fact that he cannot be trusted.
This book, Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis is a warning to us, that we are indeed in crisis. Every action of this prime minister is moving us closer to a dictatorship.
That is not hyperbole but fact. He has challenged the supremacy of Parliament more than once, and even threatened to go to the Queen if he didn't get his way. These are not the actions of a sane person.
And if we exercise our democratic rights and vote him out, we can be sure of one thing. He will not go quietly.
1. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 233
2. Harper a man who 'lives in a bubble': Tory campaign goes to extraordinary lengths keeping him from public, By Richard Brennan, Tonda McCharles and Joanna Smith, The Toronto Star, September 25, 2008
3. Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis, By Peter H. Russell and Lorne Sossin, University of Toronto Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-4426-1014-9, Pg. 6-11
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
They claim to be superpatriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjugation. (1)
Those words were published in the New York Times on April 9, 1944, in response to a question posed to then American vice president Henry Wallace: What is a fascist?
I used to get angry with the media when they would question Stephen Harper's moves, suggesting that they did not reflect conservative values. The reason of course, is that Stephen Harper is not a conservative. He's a neoconservative, and there's a vast difference.
Rick Salutin got it and posted a column in the Globe recently: Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? Referring of course, to the father of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss. Salutin highlights the basic characteristics of neoconservatism, including secretiveness, religion, nationalism, populism and contempt. All of the ingredients, Strauss believed, to keep the "ignorant masses" in line.
Elizabeth Littlejohn understands what all of that really means.
Historically, when a society's parliamentary process is suspended and disrupted, trade unions undermined, and people of property, such as the rightwing press, banks and big business, are privileged, these policies are the precursors to a fascist state. I use this term with full cognizance of its weight and implication. (2)
Smart girl that Elizabeth. Because neoconservatism is just a fancy word for Fascism. It is a country run by corporations, that uses religious fervour, deceit, military tactics, secretiveness and fierce nationalism to control it's citizens and keep them, as former VP Wallace said "in eternal subjugation".
I'm currently reading American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, By Chris Hedges, and it's been like an awakening. He lays out the Harper agenda succinctly, though he never mentions our prime minister. But this is a blueprint for a fascist nation first visualized by Wallace in 1944. It's neoconservatism.
And Hedges is a religious man, graduating from the seminary at Harvard Divinity School. He was also a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for almost twenty years, so he speaks from experience and with a knowledge of the subject.
The Gospel of Prosperity
... the gospel of prosperity—which preaches that Jesus wants us all to be rich and powerful and the government to get out of the way—has formulated a belief system that delights corporate America. Corporations such as Tyson Foods—which has placed 128 part-time chaplains, nearly all evangelicals or fundamentalists, in 78 plants across the country—along with Purdue, Wal-Mart, and Sam's Wholesale, to name a few, are huge financial backers of the [Religious Right] movement. (3)
This concept is not new, nor is it confined to corporate America. Ernest Manning held the same beliefs when he headed the Social Credit party of Alberta. "... a free-enterprise party extolling the virtues of individual liberty, the traditional family, and the supremacy of God." (4)
And the supremacy of God got all twisted up in the supremacy of the corporate world. And Preston Manning followed in his father's footsteps when he started the Reform Party:
" Don't like Big Government? Try corporate government instead, they seem to say, reiterating the sort of do-as-we-say mentality that flourished under the likes of Aberhart, Manning Sr. and W. A. C. Bennett. It's a woefully limited conception of democratic freedom, where free-market worship is offered up as a surrogate for genuine political engagement. (5)
The exploitation of workers, suspension of human rights, removal of social programs like health care and pensions, are simply part of our "democratic freedoms". We are free to die in poverty, after all.
The good union jobs are disappearing and the newest growth industry is the working poor. And this has not been by accident but by design. Since NAFTA was signed the loss of manufacturing jobs have been astronomical and “The Conservative government has overseen the greatest loss of manufacturing jobs in Canadian history.” (6) Most of these were good union jobs.
And according to Littlejohn, things are only going to get worse.
Harper deliberately prorogued parliament a second time to enact a bill, more powerful than NAFTA to undercut our sovereignty, the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This far reaching bill will provide sub-national access to municipal services, and undermine the public sector even further, losing thousands of good, Canadian jobs to international outsourcing. Put it together. Civil society is no longer prioritized by our government, our country is being sold off to corporations and banks, enabled by a newly armed police state, and expanding prison system, and jobs in our public sector are about to be slashed for international corporations to profit through CETA. (2)
Hallelujah and Amen.
Privatizing Morality
Hedges also points out that morality has become privatized, as the Religious Right have thrown their lot in with the Corporate world. It's like a modern day Soddom and Gomorrah, where greed is the new sensuality and our nation has become the victim of gang rape.
And instead of charging the greedy, who have created an age of greater and greater inequality, the self-righteous turn their anger toward "welfare bums" and "sinners". If they find themselves down on their luck, they don't look at the record profits of the corporate sector, but blame their troubles on those "feeding from the public trough". And for those able to afford to be charitable, it's a charity not born of goodness, but judgement, and "carries with it a condemnation." (Hedges)
And when a member of the Religious Right becomes wealthy, they flaunt their wealth like a halo to their goodness. They are the favoured ones. God chose them.
What a screwed up belief system.
In November of 2006, Arnie Seipel, an American journalist visited Canada, and already noticed the change. Harper had been in office for less than a year, but the signs were already there. Writing for CBS, Siepel stated:
When things get bad in the United States, it is reassuring to turn to Canada, a country with a high standard of living, a small military and a national health care plan. Canada always seemed to be, if a bit duller than America, also a bit saner. But this is changing. The new Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, inspired by the neocons to the south, appears determined to visit the worst excesses of George Bush's presidency on his own country.... Harper is rapidly building an alliance with the worst elements of the U.S. Christian right. [He] has spent the past three years methodically knitting a coalition of social conservatives and evangelicals that looks ominously similar to the American model. (7)
And Siepel asks himself:
"As I walk the windy streets of Toronto I wonder if those who push past me will wake up and see in Harper's government our own malaise or watch passively as Canada becomes a demented reflection of George Bush's America." (7)
"A demented reflection of George Bush's America." He saw that in the first year, and where are we now?
Littlejohn laments: "I have never been so concerned about the future of Canada ..." (2) I share her concern, as do many others. This next election may be the most important election in the history of this country. It won't be good enough to simply be concerned, but we have got to take action, by voting and making sure that everyone we know votes.
Because we will not just be voting for a political party or leader, but will be voting for our democracy. The Fascist Neocons and the Christian Right have also waged war on Canada, and advocacy or protest will not be enough. If we give Harper another mandate, or worse still, a majority, it will render it all useless. There will be no one to listen.
Sources:
1. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 10-978-7432-8443-7, Pg. 199
2. Stiffed with the bill: A private banquet at civil society's expense, By Elizabeth Littlejohn, Rabble News, September 22, 2010
3. Hedges, 2006, Pg. 22
4. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, Pg. 1
5. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pg. 55
Stephen Harper has eroded our democracy to the point where we are now officially more of a fascist nation than anything even resembling a free country.
...what Amnesty International's new secretary general has to say about the human rights approach of Harper's government is sobering for those who support such fundamental rights as freedom of opinion and respect for democratic principles.
Amnesty International's new leader, 49-year-old Salil Shetty, told delegates attending the Aug. 23 CIVICUS World Assembly meeting held in Montreal on citizen participation in society that his organization was worried about human rights in Canada.
Shetty stated: "Amnesty International is more and more concerned about the serious worsening of the human rights approach of this government.
During the G-20, signs with our name and web address mysteriously appeared, and the front page of MacLeans showed a man wearing a gas mask, predominantly displaying one of them, walking away from a burning car. We have no idea who he is or where the signs came from. The photo looked very professionally staged. Our group's budget is small and we could never have afforded anything like that.
Our administrators posted a disclaimer, but we did not close up, the way they no doubt hoped we would. I am so proud of them.
But there was a message there. A week or so before Dimitri Soudas had denounced us as radicals. I can assure you we are anything but. We are a group of ordinary Canadians, from all walks of life, committed to restoring democracy to this country.
We collect a bit of money and puts ads in newspapers when we can afford them. We share links, quotes and stories. I get a lot of information there that I use on my blog.
We have got to start taking this seriously. And we have also got to start demanding that our media do a better job of keeping us informed. They have allowed this man to operate in almost total secrecy, and now as the secrets are being revealed, what we've learned is the stuff of spy novels.
Did you ever honestly believe that an international organization would accuse Canada of being undemocratic? CANADA? What has he done to us?
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.
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.
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.
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
