Canadian Prosecution of George W. Bush

The following are some brief excerpts from a longish article on the subject published by the Toronto Star.

Fascism then. Fascism now?

Observing political and economic discourse in North America since the 1970s leads to an inescapable conclusion: The vast bulk of legislative activity favours the interests of large commercial enterprises. Big business is very well off, and successive Canadian and U.S. governments, of whatever political stripe, have made this their primary objective for at least the past 25 years.

Digging deeper into 20th century history, one finds the exaltation of big business at the expense of the citizen was a central characteristic of government policy in Germany and Italy in the years before those countries were chewed to bits and spat out by fascism. Fascist dictatorships were borne to power in each of these countries by big business, and they served the interests of big business with remarkable ferocity.

These facts have been lost to the popular consciousness in North America. Fascism could therefore return to us, and we will not even recognize it. Indeed, Huey Long, one of America's most brilliant and most corrupt politicians, was once asked if America would ever see fascism. "Yes," he replied, "but we will call it anti-fascism". ...

People today are quite certain that they know what fascism is. When I ask people to define it, they typically tell me what it was, the assumption being that it no longer exists. Most people associate fascism with concentration camps and rows of storm troopers, yet they know nothing of the political and economic processes that led to these horrible end results.

Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from another planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of political and economic changes these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany.

Business tightened its grip on the state in both Italy and Germany by means of intricate webs of cartels and business associations. These associations exercised a high degree of control over the businesses of their members. They frequently controlled pricing, supply and the licensing of patented technology. These associations were private but were entirely legal. Neither Germany nor Italy had effective antitrust laws, and the proliferation of business associations was generally encouraged by government.

This was an era eerily like our own, insofar as economists and businessmen constantly clamoured for self-regulation in business. By the mid 1920s, however, self-regulation had become self-imposed regimentation. By means of monopoly and cartel, the businessmen had wrought for themselves a "command and control" economy that replaced the free market. The business associations of Italy and Germany at this time are perhaps history's most perfect illustration of Adam Smith's famous dictum: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices". ...

It was the liberals of that era who clamoured for unfettered personal and economic freedom, no matter what the cost to society. Such untrammelled freedom is not suitable to civilized humans. It is the freedom of the jungle. In other words, the strong have more of it than the weak. It is a notion of freedom that is inherently violent, because it is enjoyed at the expense of others. Such a notion of freedom legitimizes each and every increase in the wealth and power of those who are already powerful, regardless of the misery that will be suffered by others as a result. The use of the state to limit such "freedom" was denounced by the laissez-faire liberals of the early 20th century. The use of the state to protect such "freedom" was fascism. Just as monopoly is the ruin of the free market, fascism is the ultimate degradation of liberal capitalism.

In the post-war period, this flawed notion of freedom has been perpetuated by the neo-liberal school of thought. The neo-liberals denounce any regulation of the marketplace. In so doing, they mimic the posture of big business in the pre-fascist period. Under the sway of neo-liberalism, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney and George W. Bush have decimated labour and exalted capital. (At present, only 7.8 per cent of workers in the U.S. private sector are unionized — about the same percentage as in the early 1900s.)

Neo-liberals call relentlessly for tax cuts, which, in a previously progressive system, disproportionately favour the wealthy. Regarding the distribution of wealth, the neo-liberals have nothing to say. In the end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As in Weimar Germany, the function of the state is being reduced to that of a steward for the interests of the moneyed elite. All that would be required now for a more rapid descent into fascism are a few reasons for the average person to forget he is being ripped off. Hatred of Arabs, fundamentalist Christianity or an illusory sense of perpetual war may well be taking the place of Hitler's hatred for communists and Jews.

Neo-liberal intellectuals often recognize the need for violence to protect what they regard as freedom. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has written enthusiastically that "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist," and that "McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15." As in pre-fascist Germany and Italy, the laissez-faire businessmen call for the state to do their bidding even as they insist that the state should stay out of the marketplace. Put plainly, neo-liberals advocate the use of the state's military force for the sake of private gain. Their view of the state's role in society is identical to that of the businessmen and intellectuals who supported Hitler and Mussolini. There is no fear of the big state here. There is only the desire to wield its power. Neo-liberalism is thus fertile soil for fascism to grow again into an outright threat to our democracy.

Having said that fascism is the result of a flawed notion of freedom, we need to re-examine what we mean when we throw around the word. We must conceive of freedom in a more enlightened way.

Indeed, it was the thinkers of the Enlightenment who imagined a balanced and civilized freedom that did not impinge upon the freedom of one's neighbour. Put in the simplest terms, my right to life means that you must give up your freedom to kill me. This may seem terribly obvious to decent people. Unfortunately, in our neo-liberal era, this civilized sense of freedom has, like the dangers of fascism, been all but forgotten.
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“Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake!

The canadians are right to fear this country. Though it's far from 'too late' for us (many of us would take up arms against THEM and not allow them to totally take the country over, if necessary), we are teetering amazingly close to being the first THEOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP that this country has ever had in power in modern times. We have a very large number of very corrupt and ineffective representatives in our government who's only job has been to line their own wallets and to aid in the plundering and the destruction of our civil rights and our privacy here.
We once had the world's sympathy and compassion on the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, but those were quickly squandered when the world figured out what the Bush mis-administration really had in mind, going back way before the attacks. The torture is one CLARION CALL to everyone that this nation is way off track and way out of control, with mal-intent and very very wrong-minded and vile people justifying the gulags and the extraordinary renditions to torture prisons set up by our government over here. Though most of our population now is clearly NOT FOR THIS ILLEGAL WAR, there are still many very sad excuses for human beings in our government who are hell bent for leather to continue the war, the murder, and the plundering of Iraq and any other country they can manage to get their P.N.A.C. cabal to rape and murder and plunder.

Yes, Canada, be very afraid. you could easily be next....unless a whole lot of people in that country south of you finally 'wake up' and demand the entire government change and demand that new laws are passed to make it not only ILLEGAL to do this 'pre-emptive' illegal war again, but to make it most assuredly a CRIME OF TREASON punishable by HANGING BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD.

in the meantime, one can only hope that someday that the International Community will seek to extradite and prosecute U.S. War Criminals (the entire Bush/Cheney cabal, inclusive of those who jumped ship, such as Douglas Feith). They need to stand trial in the Hague, and they need to face lengthy prison sentences if the Hague won't impose the death penalty on these criminals in this government here.

It is SEDITION AND TREASON for sure if any member of this government proceeds to UNDERMINE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES and there can be no question whatsoever that Canada has a very real right to be fearful and afraid of what may come if this country continues to run amok, out of control, with nuclear weapons in it's possession to, in-effect, extort and bribe the rest of the world with.