The Road to Totalitarianism

 Aug 2, 2021  

CJ Hopkins

People can tell themselves that they didn’t see where things have been heading for the last 17 months, but they did. They saw all the signs along the way. The signs were all written in big, bold letters, some of them in scary-looking Germanic script.

They read: THIS IS THE ROAD TO TOTALITARIANISM

I’m not going to show you all those signs out again. People like me have been pointing them out, and reading them out loud, for 17 months now. Anyone who knows anything about the history of totalitarianism, how it incrementally transforms society into a monstrous mirror image of itself, has known since the beginning what the “New Normal” is, and we have been shouting from the rooftops about it.

We have watched as the New Normal transformed our societies into paranoid, pathologized, authoritarian dystopias where people now have to show their “papers” to see a movie or get a cup of coffee and publicly display their ideological conformity to enter a supermarket and buy their groceries.

We have watched as the New Normal transformed the majority of the masses into hate-drunk, hysterical mobs that are openly persecuting “the Unvaccinated,” the official “Untermenschen” of the New Normal ideology.

We have watched as the New Normal has done precisely what every totalitarian movement in history has done before it, right by the numbers. We pointed all this out, each step of the way. I’m not going to reiterate all that again.

I am, however, going to document where we are at the moment, and how we got here … for the record, so that the people who will tell you later that they “had no clue where the trains were going” will understand why we no longer trust them, and why we regard them as cowards and collaborators, or worse.

Yes, that’s harsh, but this is not a game. It isn’t a difference of opinion. The global-capitalist ruling establishment is implementing a new, more openly totalitarian structure of society and method of rule. They are revoking our constitutional and human rights, transferring power out of sovereign governments and democratic institutions into unaccountable global entities that have no allegiance to any nation or its people.

That is what is happening … right now. It isn’t a TV show. It’s actually happening.

The time for people to “wake up” is over. At this point, you either join the fight to preserve what is left of those rights, and that sovereignty, or you surrender to the “New Normal,” to global-capitalist totalitarianism. I couldn’t care less what you believe about the virus, or its mutant variants, or the experimental “vaccines.” This isn’t an abstract argument over “the science.” It is a fight … a political, ideological fight. On one side is democracy, on the other is totalitarianism. Pick a fucking side, and live with it.

Anyway, here’s where we are at the moment, and how we got here, just the broad strokes.

It’s August 2021, and Germany has officially banned demonstrations against the “New Normal” official ideology. Other public assemblies, like the Christopher Street Day demo (pictured below), one week ago, are still allowed. The outlawing of political opposition is a classic hallmark of totalitarian systems. It’s also a classic move by the German authorities, which will give them the pretext they need to unleash the New Normal goon squads on the demonstrators tomorrow.

In Australia, the military has been deployed to enforce total compliance with government decrees … lockdowns, mandatory public obedience rituals, etc. In other words, it is de facto martial law. This is another classic hallmark of totalitarian systems.

In France, restaurant and other business owners who serve “the Unvaccinated” will now be imprisoned, as will, of course, “the Unvaccinated.” The scapegoating, demonizing, and segregating of “the Unvaccinated” is happening in countries all over the world. France is just an extreme example. The scapegoating, dehumanizing, and segregating of minorities — particularly the regime’s political opponents — is another classic hallmark of totalitarian systems.

In the UK, Italy, Greece, and numerous other countries throughout the world, this pseudo-medical social-segregation system is also being introduced, in order to divide societies into “good people” (i.e., compliant) and “bad” (i.e., non-compliant). The “good people” are being given license and encouraged by the authorities and the corporate media to unleash their rage on the “the Unvaccinated,” to demand our segregation in internment camps, to openly threaten to viciously murder us. This is also a hallmark of totalitarian systems.

And that, my friends, is where we are.

We didn’t get here overnight. Here are just a few of the unmistakable signs along the road to totalitarianism that I have pointed out over the last 17 months.

June 2020 … The New (Pathologized) Totalitarianism.

August 2020 … The Invasion of the New Normals.

October 2020 … The Covidian Cult.

November 2020 … The Germans Are Back!

March 2021 … The New Normal (Phase 2).

March 2021 … The “Unvaccinated” Question.

May 2021 … The Criminalization of Dissent.

June 2021 … Manufacturing New Normal “Reality“.

And now, here we are, where we have been heading all along, clearly, unmistakably heading… directly into The Approaching Storm, or possibly global civil war. This isn’t the end of the road to totalitarianism, but I’m pretty sure we are in the home stretch. It feels like things are about to get ugly.

Very ugly. Extremely ugly.

Those of us who are fighting to preserve our rights, and some basic semblance of democracy, are outnumbered, but we haven’t had our final say yet … and there are millions of us, and we are wide awake.

So pick a side, if you haven’t already. But, before you do, maybe look back at the history of totalitarian systems, which, for some reason, never seem to work out for the totalitarians, at least not in the long run. I’m not a professional philosopher or anything, but I suspect that might have something to do with some people’s inextinguishable desire for freedom, and our willingness to fight for it, sometimes to the death.

This kind of feels like one of those times.

Sorry for going all “Braveheart” on you, but I’m psyching myself up to go get the snot beat out of me by the New Normal goon squads tomorrow, so I’m a little … you know, overly emotional.

Seriously, though, pick a side…now…or a side will be picked for you.

The Road to Totalitarianism – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)

CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

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Joe Martin: Let Dundas Street remain Dundas Street

History needs to understand the difficulties faced by reformers who must confront political and social realitiesAuthor of the article:

Joe Martin, Special to Financial Post

Publishing date:Jul 30, 2021  

A Dundas Street West sign is shown in Toronto. PHOTO BY GIORDANO CIAMPINI /THE CANADIAN PRESS

Toronto city council’s recent decision to rename Dundas Street explained why the street was to be renamed but not why it was called Dundas Street in the first place. Why would what has become a major artery in Canada’s metropolis be named after Henry Dundas, a powerful British politician of the late 18th century, the “Uncrowned King of Scotland”?

In fact, why Dundas Street — and also the town of Dundas, near Hamilton — got its name is not hard to understand: Henry Dundas was a hero to his Canadian contemporaries.

In the 1790s, as a powerful new country consolidated itself to the south, the British colony of Upper Canada faced what today we would call an existential crisis. When John Graves Simcoe, after whom Monday’s civic holiday in Toronto is named, arrived in the colony in 1792 his over-riding concern as Lieutenant Governor was defence against the United States. He was right to be concerned. Upper Canada had a population of only 14,000 versus neighbouring New York state’s 340,000.

Simcoe’s first action was to move the capital from Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) to the new community of York (where modern-day Toronto is). That done, military roads were required: one north to connect the upper and lower Great Lakes (to be called Yonge Street) and one southwest, a great military road to connect the Port of Toronto with the Thames River and Detroit, which was still a British possession. In all these actions, Simcoe was supported by British secretary of war, Henry Dundas, right-hand-man to Prime Minister William Pitt. It was only natural that the military road to Detroit acquired the name Dundas Street, just as Yonge Street was named after his predecessor as minister of war, Sir George Yonge.

History proved that Simcoe was right to be concerned about American invasion. Less than two decades after Simcoe’s departure from muddy York the Americans invaded Upper Canada. In April 1813 a large military force landed west of York. Supported by the guns of the U.S. Navy, the enemy army pushed the outnumbered defenders eastwards to Fort York. A six-hour battle ended when the British blew up the fort’s gunpowder magazine and retreated to Kingston.

After the battle, U.S. forces occupied York for six days. Despite agreeing in the terms of capitulation to respect private property and allow the civil government to continue functioning without hindrance, the Americans looted dwellings and torched the governor’s home and the buildings where parliament met. The invaders returned in July to a defenceless York, burned military facilities they had missed in April and took flour, boats and cannon. The next year, 1814, as peace negotiations began, the British returned the favour, setting torch to both the White House and the U.S. Capitol.

Apart from organizing the defence of Upper Canada, Simcoe is probably best known for 1793 legislation outlawing further introduction of slaves into Upper Canada, a measure that reflected his personal abhorrence of slavery.

In England at the same time Hull’s William Wilberforce was leading the campaign against slavery. Like Dundas, Wilberforce was a close friend of Prime Minister Pitt. Even so, his original 1792 motion to abolish the slave trade was defeated 230 to 85 in the House of Commons. But, as amended by Dundas to include the word “gradual,” it passed 193 to 125 — the first time an abolitionist bill had passed the Commons. Today there is sharp disagreement between those who condemn Dundas for his pragmatism and those who support his gradual approach. What is completely clear, however, is that an abrupt change would not have received a majority in the Parliament of the day.

Former British foreign minister and Conservative Party leader William Hague has argued that Pitt discussed the amendment with Dundas before Dundas proposed it. Though Pitt himself argued passionately that the enormous evil of slavery had to be eradicated, that does not mean he had not suggested the word “gradual” to Dundas. In any case, the compromise allowed the abolitionist cause an opportunity to register its first winning vote in Parliament.

Martin Luther King said the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice; he didn’t say it takes a right turn toward justice – because it seldom does. History needs to understand the difficulties faced by reformers who must confront political and social realities as they persist toward their ends, albeit, in the terms of Dundas’ amendment, gradually. Given our uncertainty surrounding what went on 230 years ago and the humility and respect we should always have for our forebears, who faced challenges easily the equal of our own, the status quo for Dundas St. has a lot to recommend itself.

Joe Martin is former director of business history at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

https://financialpost.com/opinion/joe-martin-let-dundas-street-remain-dundas-street?fbclid=IwAR2jwGrWoiEZ6StL3ao7lOPjzr2c7ZGIo1mkt1aQuHBpe2ehyaez7LrBYXU