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

Hannah Arendt and the Canadian Neoconservative Movement

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

My favourite political philosopher is Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), who wrote extensively on the nature of power, politics, authority, and totalitarianism. Unlike Leo Strauss, who invokes the ancients and uses "hidden dialogue", intended to speak primarily to the intellectual elite; Arendt writes in a clearer language.

And no matter how many times I read an essay or passage that she has written, I continue to have light bulb moments.

In one chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism (my copy, 1968), she discusses Ideology as the basis of a political movement. That is a word heard often when describing Stephen Harper and indeed the neoconservative movement as a whole, and I was able to draw many parallels between her book and our current government.

We could argue that we are not really living in a true totalitarian state, but we are moving toward a form of totalitarianism, in it's broadest definition. I'll call it "Totalitarianism Lite".

Wherever it rose to power, it developed entirely new political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political traditions of the country. No matter what the specifically national tradition or the particular spiritual source of its ideology, totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system ... started to operate according to a system of values so radically different from all others, that none of our traditional legal, moral, or common sense utilitarian categories could any longer help us to come to terms with, or judge, or predict their course of action. (p. 158)

Arendt says that this is not the same as a one-party dictatorship, but is rather a mass movement. Harper MP Rob Anders refers to their brand of politics as "movement conservatism", which has taken over the Tory Party in Canada and the Republican Party in the United States.

And while the best opportunity for the success of such a movement is the 'failure of the traditional political forces—liberal or conservative, national or socialist, republican or monarchist, authoritarian or democratic' (p. 158), these failures can also be contrived.

In post-war Germany, the time was right for Nazism, because of the failure of the Weimar Republic to create order after the devastation of the Great War. Unemployment and underemployment was high and crime was escalating. But in Canada and the U.S., when neoconservatism first entered the political arena, there was no real crisis, so one had to be created. In it's early stages it was the threat of communism. Then it became "Deficits", "Taxes" and "Government" that had to be annihilated.

And they have spent several years building an infrastructure of think tanks and foundations, while taking over the bulk of the media, especially in Canada, to sell their message.

Arendt refers to ideologies as "isms", and following are a few points made in the book, and their modern manifestations.

Anti-Intellectualism

Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered ... Ideologies are known for their scientific character: they combine the scientific approach with results of philosophical relevance and pretend to be scientific philosophy. (p. 166)

It is now accepted by most, that neoconservatism is in part, an anti-intellectual movement. Things like "facts" only get in the way of the "idea". Their ruling elite has defined the premise that they will spoon feed to the masses, so "University types" are vilified and shunned.

In order to impose an ideology, transforming an idea into a premise, you must allow no contradictions or interruptions. It is a "coercion of logic" that will assume that the "idea" is "sufficient to explain everything".

Individualism

Anytime I discuss politics, whether in a group or with a friend, one of the common complaints I hear is that people are so self involved now, making mass movements difficult. Gone is the sense of community.

This is not an accident.

Though not really libertarianism, neoconservatism promotes the libertarian notion of the freedom of the individual. Everyone must take care of themselves. If the government engages in group policies, it creates collectivism which leads to socialism/communism

Individualism creates '...a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me.' (P. 172)

Terrorism

Though "terrorism" has come to define a radical Islamic movement, the definition of terrorism is simply:

- the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
- the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
- terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

In totalitarian movements, terrorism is used to keep people in line. It can be state sanctioned witch hunts, brutality and mass arrests, or something as simple as the fear of losing your job or career.

In Canada it has been called the "politics of fear".

Dictatorial terror [is] distinguished from totalitarian terror insofar as it threatens only authentic opponents, but not harmless citizens. (p.20)

Isolationism

Another important element to the success of totalitarianism/neoconservatism is a sense of isolation. Canada is gradually becoming isolated from the rest of the world. This became evident when we lost our bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Stephen Harper's neocon Reformers, always detested the United Nations, feeling that they had become too intrusive. So while he postured over the the loss of the seat, it was actually a blessing.

Isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar its power always comes from men acting together, [it] presses masses of isolated men together and supports them in a world which has become a wilderness for them. (P. 172)

Under George Bush the American people became extremely isolated, in a "you're with us or against us" climate. They soon learned that most of the world was against them, but 9/11 gave the neocons the necessary "crisis" that allowed the majority of Americans to be OK with this, at least for a while.

And it allowed them to accept unheard of measures to suspend civil liberties, creating a "fertile ground" for totalitarian measures.

It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences.

And that loneliness was filled with unbridled patriotism and an unnatural sense of superiority.

Totalitarian government does not just curtail liberties or abolish essential freedoms; nor does it, at least to our limited knowledge, succeed in eradicating the love for freedom from the hearts of man. (P. 164)

Though personal freedoms were all but abolished after 9/11, many Americans believed that it was actually their enemies: Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Islamic fundamentalists, who were trying to destroy their freedoms.

And this mindset created what columnist Dan Gardner recently called a bigger threat to liberty than terrorism.

On Sept. 12, 2001, George W. Bush said something he had avoided saying the day before. “The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror,” he told reporters. “They were acts of war.” The decision to frame the response to 9/11 as a “war” was a fateful one.

Before that moment, Western democracies would never have sent their soldiers to fight endless battles in distant and obscure deserts. Imprisonment without charge or trial would never have been advocated by leading politicians. Torture would never have been supported by much of the population. And calls for the assassination of a man who leaked documents would never have been heard from leading journalists.

This beating of the war drum became the means of isolating the American people, not only from the rest of the world, but from the truth.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist. (P. 172)

Arendt reminds us that the threat of totalitarianism as a movement, did not end with the deaths of Hitler or Stalin. It's potential is too phenomenal to ignore.

That's why it's important to recognize that this is not a traditional political party, but is a radical movement, that stands to drastically alter the traditional legal and moral foundation of our just society.

The Erosion of Public Trust Was Cold and Calculated

Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, mentions the erosion of public trust as a key element in the creation of an authoritarian state. This erosion of trust "leaves us increasingly open to dangerous manipulation by the enemies of open societies, those who disdain democracy as inherently weak and inefficient."

This erosion did not begin with Stephen Harper or the Reform/Neoconservative movement, but they have turned it turned into an art form.

And they do this in part by never taking responsibility for anything.

When caught in a sticky situation, they simply turn the tables and bring up past indiscretions of the other parties, especially the Liberals. There is never any closure. Any notion with the public that those committing sins (and sometimes crimes) were punished.

Stephen Harper ran on a fabricated notion of accountability, and yet his government has been the least accountable of any before it. However, if they cry "law-and-order" loud enough, giving the impression of being tough on crime, that's what gets our attention.

But as Bob Altemeyer reminds us: 'Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany running on a law-and-order platform just a few years after he tried to overthrow the government through an armed insurrection.' (1) A noble lie, since Hitler's "law-and-order" regimen created lawlessness, chaos and fear.

Cynicism as a Political Tool

Harper's former boss, Preston Manning, used to tell his candidates to dig up as much dirt on their political opponents as possible. Create a dossier, preparing for any debate. Policy was wrapped in ambiguity, but combativeness was carefully crafted.

And they took this with them to the House of Commons.

Obstruct, holler, chant and posture, but above all poison the well. And when all else fails, lie and lie deeply.

All of this contributes to a high degree of cynicism. As Chris Hedges says in his book Losing Moses on the Freeway:

When government and public institutions are no longer trusted, when they become engines solely for personal power and wealth at the expense of the interests and welfare of the public, it sends the message that honesty does not pay. There is a loss of faith in the structures designed to hold community together. Trust evaporates. People begin to believe nothing, or rather, they believe what they want to believe. Established media organs relay the lies of the powerful with little or no scrutiny, serving to further obscure the truth. A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom. (2)

A recent international poll concludes that the public’s faith in political parties is eroding, with "four out of five people saying they are corrupt or very corrupt."

This has been most significant with the mishandling of the financial crisis.

In Canada, the Harper government spent more time worrying about the political leverage with infrastructure spending, than job creation, and in the U.S., those taking most of the stimulus funds, used the money to better themselves.

Elizabeth MacDonald called it the: Federal Reserve’s Bailout of the Rich and Well-Connected

The conflicts of interest and policy controversies in the Federal Reserve’s bailout of the financial system now include helping out millionaires, billionaires, foreign automakers, and companies whose executives sit on the board of directors of the U.S. central bank.

How could you not become cynical?

Yet all of this cynicism and negativity is playing into the hands of the neoconservatives authoritarian agenda. In fact it is a necessity if they hope to succeed and maintain their hold on power.

As Hannah Arendt writes:

It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism—an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established, in other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth vs. falsehood as among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed. (3)

Calculated ambiguity is used to sell their message, but earning the public's distrust is actually more important, once they have gained power.

Low voter turnout always favours the incumbent and a turned off public will leave those elected alone. We have been brainwashed with cynicism and thus trust no one, so we simply retreat.

If we could find a way to get the parties in the centre and left of centre to stop nattering at each other and focus on what's important, we might be able to give some hope to the electorate that there is an alternative.

Because if we can't do that, I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with Stephen Harper for a very long time, and his threatened majority will become a horrible reality.

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

Sources:

1. The Authoritarians, By Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, 2006

2. Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2005, ISBN: 0-7432-5513-5, Pg. 133-134

3. The Origins of Totalitarianism, By Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968

Fantino's Victory Moves us Closer to a Police State

Political philosopher Hannah Arendt, in her book Totalitarianism, describes how both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks used the military and the police, combining the two to create their authoritative regimes.

I've posted a video below. At about the 5:30 mark, you'll notice on the budget projections, that the RCMP are referred to as the Royal Canadian Military Police. Did they undergo a name change or is there a new policing body?

We could ask the prime minister, but our media won't allow it.

We could ask our media but they would not be allowed to answer the question even if they knew what it was, for fear of being beaten up by the RCMP, one or two.

So we can only speculate.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair claims that one of the videos being used to show unheard of police brutality was doctored. If that's the case, why were there no convictions?

And what about the hundreds and hundreds of other videos? Were they all doctored?

A little conspiracy theory going on in your head Blair? A little tinfoil police helmet?

James Laxer tells us to Wake up: Arbitrary rule is all around us

The recent election of Julian Fantino in Rob Ford's Toronto, should be our wake up call.

If the left does not unite to bring down this regime, they might as well be holding the gun.

Hannah Arendt, once questioned whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". Good question.

"The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda - before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent any one's disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world - lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world." - Hannah Arendt

The G-20 was a test for martial law, which may be required when the Harper government releases it's austerity budget.

And we passed it.

We will now allow this government to get away with anything.

Nothing Takes Away Our Freedom Quite Like War

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

I have a confession to make. I visibly cringe every time someone in the media uses the term 'freedom' when justifying war.

Because history has proven time and again that there is nothing that destroys freedom more than the act of war.

We lose our freedom to choose our enemies. Our freedom to think rationally. Our freedom to care about those we are told we should not care about.

The Loss of Freedom as a Political Reality:

What is astounding to me is how easily people are willing to relinquish their freedoms for the sake of war. When the Bush administration first decided to invade Iraq and established the Patriot Act, the majority of Americans when polled agreed that it was “both necessary and appropriate”.

And when that same administration authorized the National Security Agency to engage in electronic spying, without warrants, on Americans suspected of supporting "terrorism", there was little public outcry. They were told that their nation's sons and daughters were killing and dying for their freedoms. The same freedoms they were in the process of willingly surrendering.

Besides only criminals and terrorists would object to having their phones tapped, so if you've got nothing to hide, why object, right? Yet the very safeguards that were put in place to protect citizens from their government, were now being used to to give the government more control over it's citizens.

And I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the people involved in the Tea Party movement with their signs demanding 'liberty', are the same ones who supported their government's removal of their most basic liberties in the name of war.

This could be attributed to propaganda and brainwashing. That's certainly true to a certain extent. However, Hannah Arendt, an authority on totalitarianism, disputes much of that claim.

She was the first after WWII, a time when the Nazis were called "monsters" by most in the press, to remark on how normal they were. "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking". And that was what she found frightening. When covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg:

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. (1)

And while many suggested that the German people were not aware of what was happening, or were simply brainwashed into complacency, Arendt writes:

No doubt, the fact that totalitarian government, its open criminality notwithstanding, rests on mass support is very disquieting. It is therefore hardly surprising that scholars as well as statesmen often refuse to recognize it, the former by believing in the magic of propaganda and brainwashing, the latter by simply denying it ... A recent publication of secret reports on German public opinion during the war (from 1939 to 1944), issued by the Security Service of the SS (Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus den Geheimen Lege-berichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1939-1944, edited by Heinz Boberach, Neuwied & Berlin, 1965), is very revealing in this respect. It shows, first, that the population was remarkably well informed about all so-called secrets—massacres of Jews in Poland, preparation of the attack on Russia, etc.—and, second, the "extent to which the victims of propaganda had remained able to form independent opinions". However, the point of the matter is that this did not in the least weaken the general support of the Hitler regime. It is quite obvious that mass support for totalitarianism comes neither from ignorance nor from brainwashing. (2)

We watched with horror the scenes from Abu Ghraib, and listened for weeks, to the accounts of the torture of Afghan detainees. But what has changed? Did we rise up? Did we demand an end to the war that resulted in such inhumanity? Do we even know if the torture has stopped?

Are we brainwashed? I don't think so. We go about our daily lives, having relinquished all authority for this war to the government.

Who Needs Totalitarianism When the Populace Restricts our Freedoms?

The other phenomenon that is disturbing to me, and perhaps the best argument for the propaganda theory, is the attitude of the populace. Our government doesn't have to restrict our freedoms, because they are being restricted by those around us.

"If you don't stand up for our troops you should stand in front of them". "Taliban dupe". "Lefties". All apparently valid arguments in challenging anyone opposing the war.

In 2006, there was a rally on Parliament Hill, sponsored of course by lobbyists for military contracts. There was a lone NDPer carrying a sign "Support our troops. Bring them home". He was knocked to the ground and his sign broken in two.

His freedom of opinion was removed by his fellow citizens.

And we see the same attitude in the House of Commons. When Michael Ignatieff asked what was being done about the detainee issue, Stephen Harper said he wished that he had as much concern for our troops as the Taliban. When Jack Layton stated that he was appalled by Rick Hillier's statement that our military were not public servants but their job was to kill people, he was dubbed "Taliban Jack".

The media ate it up.

What makes ordinary, intelligent, compassionate people accept this?

Fear, I suppose.

Fear of a Jewish Conspiracy helped to fuel Nazism. Fear of Communism allowed Americans to give up basic rights under McCarthyism. Fear of terrorism, turns citizens against each other, and allows them to accept inhumane acts.

And that fear is eating up the space necessary for compromise. You're with us or against us. All those who "support terrorism" on that side of the room.

This doesn't mean that I don't support our soldiers. They are doing a job. You can support the troops and not support the war.

And it doesn't mean that I don't respect our veterans. I very much do.

But as Ceasefire asks: Is Remembrance Day too much about war, and not enough about peace?

... this militarized focus on Remembrance Day is not shared by all. One of the most prominent examples of this is the white poppy campaign, which dates back to 1933. This poppy is meant to symbolize the need for peace and to commemorate the war-related deaths of both civilians and service men and women.

And Sharon Fraser sees Remembrance Day as a tool of propaganda:

Those of us who speak against wars are shushed, especially on November 11, or we're told that it is these wars (even the one in Afghanistan!) that have guaranteed our freedom to speak openly. As many others are, I am moved by the faces of the elderly veterans on November 11 and that's a little sentimental. I really dislike the false equivalency that tosses all the wars in the same basket and I am not at all impressed by antics such as the recent one at an Ontario Legion, which puts a bit of tarnish on the veterans' organization.

Let's just say that, to me, the observance of Remembrance Day has been appropriated and turned into a tool of propaganda and I have come to resent its tone and what it has come to represent.

How can we pay homage to those who died to protect our freedom, and then dishonour them by allowing those freedoms to be taken away?

Sources:

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

2. The Origins of Totalitarianism, By Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968, Introduction v

Did You Ever Think This Pimply Faced Nerd From Toronto Could be Such a Menace?

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

"The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda - before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent any one's disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world - lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world." - Hannah Arendt

Rick Salutin asked recently if Stephen Harper was the last Straussian, referring to followers of the German emigre and political philosopher, Leo Strauss.

People keep asking why Stephen Harper acts as he does, it looks so buttheaded. He seems to muck up his own prospects: firing decent people, lashing out, raising the partisan rhetoric, proroguing Parliament haughtily, binging on military toys, mauling the census – he’s a bright boy, it’s hard to figure.

I used to favour a theory of political Tourette’s, the kind portrayed by Robert Redford in 1972’s The Candidate. You suppress your political ideals for the sake of electability as long as you can; then the buildup leads to random outbursts. But there’s another explanation: Straussianism. (1)

Banality and True Believers

A contemporary and friend of Leo Strauss, was Hannah Arendt, herself a political philosopher. Arendt covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg, and found herself surprised that he was so banal. "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking".

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. (2)

These men were driven by pure ideology based on ignorance and the notion of superiority.

Erna Paris questioned in part the notion of banality (2) because many of the men on trial were well educated. But maybe the best example of this is Jason Lisle, who works for the Creation Museum in Philadelphia. Lisle lectures to students and teachers, providing "proof" that man walked with Dinosaurs*.

He tells the students he did not admit he was a creationist to his professors at Ohio Wesleyan, or at Colorado where he received his PhD in astrophysics. He speaks of the dilemma faced by creationists at secular schools, urging that students not "come out" until after graduate school. "Some professors will just stop you from getting your PhD if you're a creationist." (3)

Lisle has a degree in astrophysics. He can lecture as a doctor, but uses scientific jargon to sell creationism as "scientific" fact. James Dobson, the man who helped Stephen Harper's career by supporting his anti same-sex marriage tour, is a child psychologist. However, if you read his advice on child rearing, he uses terms like "original sin" to justify corporal punishment.

And this brings us to an important element of Straussian theory: Religious fervour.

Leo Strauss felt most people will never do the right thing for rational reasons; they need to be motivated by the myths and emotionality of religion. (1)

And this infallible belief system helps to create a kind of totalitarianism where lies become truth. Again using creationism as an example:

The danger of creationism is not that it allows followers to retreat into a world of certainty and magic—which it does—but that it allows all facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality-based world. Signs, miracles, and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians, but also in history, science, medicine and logic. This belief system becomes the basis for understanding the world, and random facts or data are collected and made to fit into the belief system. If facts can't be made to fit, they are discarded or treated as misguided opinions. (4)

This is why Stephen Harper ignores facts and paints the learned as "elites". He's afraid that their proofs will interfere with his ideological agenda. Or at least the ideological agenda of his infamous "base".

When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard by which to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text ... In the promulgation of the totalitarian belief system, at first we are told we all have a right to an opinion, in short, a right to believe anything. Soon, under the iron control of an empowered totalitarian movement, facts become worthless, kept or discarded according to an ideological litmus test. Lies become true. And once the totalitarians are in power, facts are ruthlessly manipulation. (5)

Puzzle Boxes and Secret Agendas

Several years ago I bought an antique puzzle box (the puzzle now is where I put it), which could only be opened through a series of intricate manipulations. I spent days trying to get into it and when I finally did, was disappointed that it was empty. If this box was supposed to contain secrets, as per Japanese custom, the secret must have been the fact that the box was empty.

And just as Salutin correctly suggests that Harper has always been a puzzle, unravelling why he acts as he does, requires work. A good puzzle box will contain many "tricks" that often lead you in the wrong direction. It's main purpose was to protect a secret.

Secretiveness, an aura of manipulation and a sense of hidden agendas. From a Straussian view, these are good things as means to noble ends. (1)

But these noble ends are not necessarily noble in any traditional sense. They are simply the fulfillment of an ideological agenda.

Stephen Harper himself is smart, but he is not brilliant. And while he is often given credit for strategic moves, those moves are being stategized by others. Because Stephen Harper is a narcissist (5)and so long as his ego is fed on a regular basis, he will consent to anything. I believe it is those pulling the strings, who follow Strauss. I don't think Harper is that deep.

All Hail (heil?) King and Country

Neoconservatism as espoused by Leo Strauss, called for unbridled patriotism, or nationalism. Stephen Harper has never been very patriotic. In fact he was always very clear how he felt about Canadians. During the 2004 election campaign he started touting a Belgian style federalism, where the country would be divided along cultural or linguistic grounds. '"He seems to want all francophones to speak with one voice, and the same for anglophones, and this is not the reality of Canada." Harper is quick to point out that his idea is still in the embryonic stage and it will be further developed before the party's policy convention next March.' (6)

Doesn't sound like a devotion to nationalism.

The PM may have shown his real feelings about Canada in 2000 when he called it “a second-tier socialistic country.” Still, for Straussians, nationalism ranks alongside religion as a way to motivate people to great things beyond the vapidity of liberalism. This may help explain the Harper Arctic sovereignty initiatives, or even his curious focus on hockey. (1)

That kind of fierce nationalism allowed the German people to accept their country's aggression. They were hypnotized with symbols and brilliant propaganda. Hannah Arendt once asked whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". (7)

What Could we Possibly be Asked to Consent to That is so Bad?

As we open the doors and find the hidden compartments of the puzzle box, they all lead to something that goes beyond this government's silencing of the press, scientists and experts.

Our foreign policy.

As Stephen Harper is being paraded about from one photo-op to the next, the men behind the curtain have been operating through American Straussians, who not only ascribe to the notions of deception, religious fervour and nationalism, but use them to carry through an aggressive imperialistic agenda.

Council for National Policy: James Dobson, mentioned above is the founder of Focus on the Family, a group with strong ties to the Harper government. Many of Harper's caucus members belong to Focus, including Maurice Vellacott and Rob Anders. Tony Perkins is an employee of Dobson and his political mentor is a man by the name of Woody Jenkins**:

Jenkins and some 50 conservative men gathered in May 1981 at the northern Virginia home of direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie to plot the growth of their movement following Ronald Reagan's presidential victory. They formed the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive, right-wing organization that brought together dominionists such as R. J. Rushdoony, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell with right-wing industrialists willing to fund them, such as Amway founder Richard DeVos Sr. and beer baron Joseph Coors. As DeVos quipped, the CNP "brings together the doers with the donors.

Jenkins, then a Louisiana state lawmaker, became the CNP'' first executive director. He told a Newsweek reporter: "One day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no president, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government."'(8)

In 1997, Stephen Harper delivered a speech (9) to the Council for National Policy, dissing this country and the Canadian people. The CNP approved. But they also approved of others who spoke later:

In 1999, Texas Governor George W. Bush addressed the group as he launched his bid for the presidency. The media were barred from the event. But those who wrote about the meeting afterward said that Bush, who refused to release a public transcript of his speech, promised to only appoint anti-abortion judges if he was elected. The group, which meets three times a year in secret, brings together radical Christian activists, right-wing Republican politicians and wealthy patrons willing to fund the movement. During Bush's presidency, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have attended CNP meetings.' (8)

The American Enterprise Institute: The American Enterprise Institute is one of a myriad of think tanks that have become part of the infrastructure of the neoconservative/Religious Right movement. The fortunes of the AEI have fluctuated depending on who was in power, enjoying their greatest success under the Bush administration. George Bush pulled 20 staffers from AEI, including David Frum ***, the person who organized the Winds of Change, dedicated to uniting the right, and is now a voice in our own neoconservative government.

Michael Novak, a prominent member of the group, is a regular speaker at the Fraser Institute and according to Lloyd Mackey has influenced the thinking of Stephen Harper. (10)Others belonging to the group are Dick Cheney, his wife Lynn Cheney, William Kristol and Richard Perle. Straussians all.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: 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. (11)

Members of this group represent the cream of the Neoconservative movement, including Richard Perle, William Kristol and New Gingrich. And while Frum was plucked from the American Enterprise Institute, to act as a speech writer for George Bush, Alykhan Velshi was plucked from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to act as legislative assistant for none other than Jason Kenney.

This should set off a lot of alarms on it's own, but there is more to this story. In December University of California professor, Michael Allen wrote for the Democracy Digest, under the title: The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians:

Canada is poised to set up a new democracy assistance organization, based on the experience and structures of existing foundations, but reflecting distinctively Canadian characteristics and priorities ... A new poll by the US-based Council on Foreign Relations suggests that supporting democracy has fallen out of favor with the US foreign policy elite. But, perhaps perversely, international commitment appears to be growing, judging by relatively recent democracy assistance initiatives. (12)

Of course spreading democracy is code for exploitation, as we've seen with Haiti and the reasons that country is so poor.

I've been watching for our media's reaction to this new initiative, under the guise of the 'D' word, and only recently found an excellent one by Gerald Caplan, who wonders why Stephen Harper is now so interested in Canada obtaining a seat on the UN Security Council, when he has always hated the UN. It's a good question.

Next week the world gathers at the United Nations ... Mr. Harper has a deep vested interested in this meeting. The ultimate fate of his under-the-radar drive to have Canada elected to a rotating seat on the mighty Security Council might well be decided there. No one is entirely sure why the Prime Minister is so anxious for his government to be represented on that august body, and he, of course, has never said. But he’s spent millions of our dollars having senior civil servants and cabinet ministers jet around the world wooing foreign leaders. (13)

Caplan does an excellent job of outlining how Canada's reputation has been destroyed by the Harper Government, so you would wonder why Harper would dare show his face. (A link is provided below. be sure to read it all. It's very revealing)

So Let's Open the Puzzle Box

1. Silencing of the press

2. Demonizing of anyone who contradicts his ideology

3. Exploiting religion

4. Using symbols like yellow ribbons and hockey to pump up nationalism

5. Cozying up to American Straussians

6. Placing American Straussians in his administration

7. Taking over the "D" word. aka: Coup business.

8. Suspending democracy.

9. Buying fighter jets

10. Testing martial law

11. Building more prisons when our crime rate is the lowest in our history. (see 2 and 10)

I think we already know what secrets were in that box. Stephen Harper is picking up where George Bush left off. And if Glen Beck's Tea Party is successful, and the Republicans again assume control after the mid-terms, Harper will have accomplices.

We need an election NOW!



Footnotes:

*Stockwell Day believes the same thing. See the Tyee: The Man Who Walks with Dinosaurs

** Perkins, like other leaders in the movement, has troubling associations with white supremacy groups. They work hard now to distance themselves from these relationships, often quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [like Glen Beck] and drawing parallels between their movement and the civil-rights movement. But during the 1996 Senate campaign of Woody Jenkins, Perkins, who was Jenkins's campaign manager, signed an $82,500 check to the head of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, to acquire Duke's phone bank list.' And as late as 2001, Perkins spoke at a fund-raiser for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist group that has called blacks "a retrograde species of humanity" on its Web site.' The ties by Christian Right leaders such as Perkins with racist groups highlight the long ties between right-wing fundamentalists and American racist organizations, including the Klan, which had a chaplain assigned to each chapter. (8)

***Frum's sister, Linda, was one of Stephen Harper partronage senate appointments.

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? This might explain why the Prime Minister acts as he does, By Rick Salutin, September 17, 2010

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

3. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 10-978-7432-8443-7, Pg. 127

4. Hedges, 2006, Pg. 114-115

5. Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless: Citizens who really want a national portrait gallery in Ottawa can rest easy. The government already has one. By The Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2008

6. Harper suggests 'Belgian-style' federalism, CBC News, October 20, 2004

7. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, By: David Welch, Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-203-93014-2

8. Hedges, 2006, Pg. 135-138

9. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, Canadian Press, December 14, 2005

10. The Pilgramage of Stephen Harper, By: Lloyd Mackey, ECW Press, 2005, ISBN: 10-1-55022-713-0 , Pg. 94 and 209

11. SourceWatch

12. The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians, By Michael Allen, Democracy Digest, December 4, 2009

13. Stephen Harper does the UN - but shouldn't: If he really wants that Security Council seat, he’d be wise to cancel lest he reveal exactly how badly Canada is failing the developing world, By Gerald Caplan, Globe and Mail, September 17, 2010

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