How many people feel like terrorists?

Official reaction to the September 11 disaster is taking us down a road where everyone who has any kind of dissenting idea from what the government and its corporate sponsors determine is acceptable can be treated as a terrorist.

The thin line that separates us from the Germans and Italians of the 1930s, the Spanish, Chileans, Argentines, Soviets and others of the more repressive regimes of the twentieth century is being eaten away with new laws that restrict civil rights and hand over greater power to bureaucrats and other government officials.

What is worse, some of these laws are being established, not to meet our own considerations, but in response to foreign treaties and agreements. Not only are our civil rights being eroded, so is our sovereignty. We are surrendering the right of self determination on domestic policy to the dictates of elitist organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and other trans-national organizations.

The Canadian Parliament is now considering Bill C-36 and other laws that will restrict or remove rights that others have fought for. Stephen Owen, Liberal Member of Parliament from Vancouver Quadra said of the bill: “We need the authority of it in order to implement twelve international treaties that Canada has entered respecting terrorism.”

Owens went on to say that, “Bill C-36 is aimed at political, ideological and religious motivations and perversions that intimidate and move governments.” All of this being sold under the guise of the threats that have become apparent from the events of September 11, but in fact claiming that this is a response to attacks on that date is nothing more than a red herring to distract from the real international agenda.

The issue here is not the occasional terrorist act by al-Qaeda, fundamentalist Christian paramilitary groups, Sikh extremists or other assorted nut bars, but growing worldwide protest against globalization as defined by the New World Order.

Hundreds of thousands — if not millions around the globe — are now protesting this undemocratic, socially regressive program that threatens human rights and the loss of local and national control over almost all aspects of society. Witness the demonstrations in Seattle, Genoa and Quebec City, and just recently in Ottawa and dozens of other cities around the world. The issue here is not to protect us from terrorism, but to crush dissent.

The events of September 11 are proving to be a handy tool, the use of which would have made Nazis like Hermann Goering proud.

The new laws that are being proposed and passed here in Canada, Britain, the United States and other countries are a regression from the principles of freedom and democracy, of civil rights and the rules of law upon which we have built our civilization.

They are indeed a return to darker times, where the presumption of guilt replaces the presumption of innocence, where the right to counsel becomes arbitrary and where rights to fair trial and other safeguards become things of the past for any act from simply speaking out to picket lines to going on strike that might be considered an act of terror. Historians one day may consider this period under these laws as the new Inquisition.

One definition of Fascism is control of government by private interests, particularly corporate interests. My father and mother’s generation made great sacrifices to combat Fascism in Europe. It is a tragedy that my generation is now engaged in re-establishing Fascism as the New World Order and reversing many of the democratic and socially progressive gains that have been fought over and died for during the past 250 years.