Halifax offers last stand for Harper’s war machine
For what it’s worth, Adolf Hitler kicked off the 7th annual Halifax International Security Forum.
The lights in the amphitheater dimmed, and the packed room in the Westin Hotel turned its collective attention to the three big screen TVs on the walls.
There was the Fuhrer in grainy black and white — and that barking, ferocious voice cracking with hatred and belligerence. The images of the Nazi leader were deftly intercut with ISIS beheadings, shots of a smouldering Pearl Harbour, destruction in Syria, Eichmann’s hideous death camps, the huge Swastika being blown up above the Nazi parade square in Nuremberg in 1945 — even a haunting image of Anne Frank.
It was an unsubtle, no-heart-strings-left-untugged curtain-raiser for the some of the political and military elites present, a kind of Two Minutes of Hate for the “good guys”. International security is a huge industry and these were its captains, colonels, generals and political back-scratchers, there to justify their enormous power and budgets — and, of course, to keep everyone safe. There was more gold braid and medals on display than at a Coronation or a royal funeral.
Words boomed from the movie-theatre sound system, playing a supporting role in this visceral video collage of war and remembrance. “Never have so many owed so much to so few” — “whatever the cost may be, we will never surrender.”
The iconic words carried resonances into the heart as well as the head — as all good propaganda does. Thoughts quickly give way to feelings. Just as the video, with its booming soundtrack, came to an end, the screen lit up with a giant picture of Justin Trudeau and the words “Better is always possible.” Better war-making against the evil ones, what?
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/11/22/halifax-offers-a-last-stand-for-harpers-war-machine/
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