By Dr David Laing Dawson
Chaos begets tyranny. Tyranny begets violence. Violence longs for the security of tyranny. Tyranny provokes violent reaction. Back to chaos.
America is in a downward spiral to its own destruction. Is there any peaceful way out of this spiral?
Canada needs to be prepared for the worst. At this point it seems inevitable that we will soon (if not already) be living above a country with a Fascist central government, pockets of resistance, provocations, increasing violence, some states attempting to secede, others building “detention” centers, a country now more openly aligned with totalitarian countries around the world, more openly a police state, collapsing economically, corrupted elections, more openly white supremacist, and increasingly hostile to its neighbours. And increasingly desperate.
During the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, government at every level—Reich, state and municipal—adopted hundreds of laws, decrees, directives, guidelines, and regulations that increasingly restricted the civil and human rights of Jews in Germany. That takes us from 1933 to 1939. We know what happened next.
History does not exactly repeat itself, but the same human forces, traits, tendencies – unleashed – tend to repeat old patterns, but they are now modified by the new technologies, new institutions, new forms of communication, new scapegoats, new lies, new preoccupations, new weapons, new oligarchy, gun culture….
I find it very difficult to imagine a peaceful turnaround. Maybe in a smaller country with a single large city, a fascist movement could get this far and be stopped by demonstrations, strikes, refusals and a sufficient number of politicians and leaders finding the courage to say no. But I can’t see it happening in America. Not without some equivalent of a civil war.
And at some point the fascist leaders of the U.S. will have to look north. And not just tease about it. They will need a war and they will need our resources.
To survive we will need unity, other strong alliances, a formidable modern armed force complete with all the new technologies, and whenever and wherever possible, alliances with the remaining sane, democratic State leaders who are standing up to Trump.
And I think, today, this is all moving faster than it did in the 1930’s.
