Recently I had the opportunity to watch a documentary series on the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. What was most terrifying was to see wave after wave of goose stepping soldiers cheered by crowds mesmerized by an ultra-nationalist fervor that was nothing less than mass dementia. Once Hitler managed to have democracy suspended and himself declared supreme ruler he quickly and ruthlessly established a one party state. Dissenters became the “disappeared.” Rivals were assassinated. Newspapers that didn’t tow the party line were shut down. Existing law was thrown out and the Nazi party set new laws in service to its agenda.
Hitler’s tyranny was of course two fold not only did he want global domination he wanted to establish the Aryans as the master race and thus we had the horrific Holocaust.
Hitler’s Germany is an ever present and pungent reminder of how easily democracy can slide into fascism.
It is nothing new to claim that our time and Hitler’s have alarming similarities. Once vigorous democracies are decaying into single party states (our own included), government more and more operates in secrecy, the disparity between public opinion and government policy is huge. Newspapers have long ago ceased to practice critical journalism. Orwellian thought control has replaced vigorous policy debates, and the corporate welfare state has displaced the social welfare state.
As a minor foot note in the collapse of Western civilization, Tom Flanagan,friend, mentor, advisor and biographer to our current prime minister appeared on national television and called for the assassination of Julian Assange, Director of Wikileaks ( http://tv.globalresearch.ca/ ).
Why Flanagan, a political scientist, would make such an irresponsible declaration on the public air waves leads one to the immediate conclusion he is a bit of a Mad Hatter. Then too, there is the distinct possibility that being a political insider with the Harper government he is merely reflecting this government’s sentiments and has immunity in making such a statement. It is odd that so far the prime minister has made no attempt to distance himself from Flanagan or his sordid declaration.
If you or I were to make such a declaration against a political or controversial figure the RCMP would be on our door step in a minute.
When program host Evan Solomon challenged Flanagan on his remark Flanagan’s reply was that he was, “feeling very manly today”- a rather quaint expression of manhood when it appears he is just clinging to the skirts of his political protégé and the likes of Sarah Palin who has also called for Assange’s demise.
Flanagan issued his personal version of a fatwa- a Muslim declaration calling followers to action. Usually a fatwa must come from a holy man so no doubt Flanagan was also feeling holier than thou on that fateful day of November 10th 2010.
Muslims have been roundly condemned for issuing fatwas, too often in response to the plundering of their populations, now Flanagan some how feels it necessary to set up his own franchise. We should now all go on stand by as too who is next on his hit list.
Flanagan’s asinine comment is reminiscent of the days when Reform and Alliance MP’s could be counted on to put their foot in their mouths on a regular basis. Now Flanagan has delivered the grand whopper.
As to the activities and controversy surrounding one Julian Assange he has with great courage undertaken to restore some semblance of accountability with governments that have for too long gutted freedom of information legislation by sending journalists and researchers reams of blacked out documents in response to their requests. He is also holding to account governments that have all too often invoked “for reasons of national security.” His release of documents has also shown that “national security” has become a phobic activity of crazed bureaucrats pandering to corrupted policy.
Among documents released by Wikileaks were memo’s from former CSIS Director Jim Judd. Judd complains that Canadian courts were tying his agency “in knots” as it tried to prevent terrorist attacks. Canadians, like Americans must be ever thankful our courts are putting up resistance to determined political efforts to undermine the rule of law, civil liberties, human and legal rights as we gracelessly into police security states.
Judd claims that Canadians live in an “Alice in Wonderland” so be it, as he is but an assembly line Mad Hatter in a grand subterfuge that refuses to recognize that the terrorist threat has been “grotesquely and deliberately exaggerated”(historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer, Future: Tense ). CSIS and Judd end up looking like the Keystone Kops chasing a terrorist threat fabricated to serve an evil and war mongering political agenda that is utterly ruinous to Western democracies.
From the article in the National Post of November 29th Judd appears to be a “swivel chair bureaucrat.” Most likely a Harper appointee he swiveled to Harper to tell him what he wanted to hear, then swiveled southward to tell the Americans what they wanted to hear.
Where presidents and prime ministers have felt free to defy the rule of law, commit war crimes, condone torture and then slide into ignominious retirement Julian Assange has been so audacious as to initiate his own vigilante justice. Just as violence begets violence, so too does anarchy beget more anarchy.
When political leaders are contemptuous of the rule of law and common decency it becomes an invitation for others to follow suit.
Assange’s activities might go a very long way to restoring many democracies to their long lost vigor and integrity. He might, if Tom Flanagan gets his wish, pay with his life. But the martyrdom of Julian Assange might just rouse an indifferent public to finally rise up against the betrayal and ineptitude of our political elites.
As Dan Gardner, columnist with the National Post asks: Why should Assange be punished when Bush walks free?
Maybe Flanagan and others who have been so quick to vilify Assange, calling for his assassination, would like to address this question.
The atrocities of Blair and Bush have to be the driving force behind Assange’s viligante ad hoc war tribunals.
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