I've had an on-going debate with a colleague at work about the reality of a number of massive 'conspiracies' that, he says, breach the sovereignty of individual countries, enslave the populace to the banking powers and promise to reduce us all to economic slavery.
Broad claims, I know, but he's a great fellow and a smart guy, despite often sounding like some LaRouche wannabe. The trouble (for me) is that tomorrow, I just might have to eat crow and 'fess up that he may be closer to the truth than I've ever really thought.
Read On.
Today, Ann Wright, publishing on Common Dreams, reports that the Canadian authorities now have access to the U.S. FBI database listing felons, terrorists, violent criminals and, oh yeah, political dissenters. But the uses they are putting it to resemble those of the US Transportation Security Administration. Not only are they using it to protect themselves from violent criminals, but to insulate themselves from political discussion.
Apparently, this is part of a world-wide initiative by the Bush administration to identify and track everyone in the world who might, well, be a source of irritation for the powers that be. To prove the point, she presents her own experience as illustrative.
She was invited to Canada by members of the Canadian Parliament, to be part of a hearing and panel terrorism and peace. However, before going to Canada, she visited the United States capitol for a peaceful protest against the war in Iraq. Like other times in Washington, she was arrested on misdemeanor charges, charged a fine and set free. But when she tried to enter Canada, these arrests were cited as reason to bar her from the country by immigration authorities. She’s been banned from Canada for at least a year, and will only be readmitted if she can present police reports that she has been a good citizen, free of crime for five years and is ‘rehabilitated’.
Notice, this is not unlike the experience of the United States, where executive authority seems constantly to be permitted to trump the will of the legislature, and that is precisely the point. Rather than legislate draconian requirements for travel documents, permissions and the ability to prevent the free flow and expression of ideas, the Bush administration is taking an altogether beauracratic approach.
By secretly marshalling the executive arms of other governments, it appears the administration is attempting to put in place a global network of requirements and restrictions that would inhibit not just the movement of terrorists or dangerous criminals, but the identification and corralling of refusniks as well.
By working under the guise of such 'economic' agreements as NAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the World Trade Organization and the G8, the effort escapes legislative review or public discussion. It enables the development of a grid of surveillance that may soon embrace the entire Western World and a good bit of the developing world as well.
As a student of history, I know that protectionist measures never work very well. The general knowledge of this truth, by deflecting even legitimate criticism, has sped the approval of bi-lateral trade agreements with little discussion and no after-thought as to what the enabling regulations or regulatory framework for them might be. This makes these agreement frameworks ripe for those in power to bend them to the task of stifling criticism and political dissent.
If, as the evidence indicates, this is true, then we are facing more than just the usurpation of the United States Constitution; we are facing the erosion of the entire Western tradition of liberal democracy, individual rights and judicial review.
Such a network, once in place, will not be easily legislated away, for it is a shadow government that no longer holds itself accountable to the law. Nor could one or two democratic or progressive presidents undo it. Such regimes, as we saw all to well in the 20th century, tend to take on a life of their own. They survive well beyond the point at which they lose legitimacy with the population, simply by inertia, fear and the cycle of violece they perpetuate.
Indeed, this could be the beginning of an age of darkness for us all.
I believe my friend has a point.