hought Police are
not doing much thinking

THE THOUGHT Police
sume pouring out of the bar-
racks the other day, alerted
by a report thal the Reform
party had quoted Adolf
Hitler in a newsletter.

The quotation was mundane.
The late, unlamented Chancellor of
the German Reich was commenting
on how governments benefit by
public stupidity, “What luck for
rufers that men do not think ”

Nt appeared, neither supported
nor rejected, in Okanagan Centre
MP Werner Schmidt's constituency
pubtication,

This is not one of Hitler's more
startling observations.

He also suid, “In the size of the
lie there is always contained a cer-
lain factor of credibility since the
great masses of the people ... will
more easily fall victims to a great
lic than a small one.” .

At the risk of arcusing more of
the screaming fantods trem politi-
cally correct people, there are other
memorable Hitler quotes.

When asked about the program
to annihilate all of Europe's Jews,
he said, "Who remembers the
Armenians?”, referring to the two
million Armenians who died on
forced marches in Turkey during
the First World War.

Talat. the Turkish minister in
charge of this genocide, also had a
quotation to contribute.

Asked by. one of his army offi-
cers, “What is the destination of all
these Armenians we are marching
along the roads?” he answered

- !Their destination is nowhere.”
ic. Not to. overlook Josef
Vissarionich Stalin who, in dis-
cussing the fulure of Hungary at an
Allied Summit conference, said,
““There is nothing about the
: Hungarian situation that a few Sox
‘curs can’t'salve.”

if our Thought Police want to -

» cleanse history of quotations of
unpleasant men then our Jibrarics.
as well as our understanding, are
going to get a lot smaller. ;
They might even see fit to purge.
: Lord Acton, who is best remem-
bered by most ‘people for the first-

Paul
ot. Pierre

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

half of a quotation which begins.

“ALD power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely.” and
then continues to say, “Great men
are almost always bad men.”

Some of us do not want to be
denied the words of Lord Acton or,
for that matter, of Hitler, Stalin.
Torquemeda, Vlad The Impaler, or
other scoundrels who attained high
office.

Stalin’s quotation at the summit
Meeting brought an instant condem-
nation from Winston Churchill, and
the Russian. leader spoke no more
on the matter.

Ht was valuable, however.

The true character of Stalin had
been briefly exposed to the light in
days when we saw his kindly Uncle
Joe image. The man was, almost
certainly, a criminal psychopath
and, ike most psychopaths. adept
at disguising hi§ innate savagery.
But like most psychopaths, he
tripped himself now and then.

It seems just as valid to see
Hider’s Big Lie quotation in the
context of his time and ours,

{t's cusy to forgel —. the
German nation is still trying to —
that Hitler did not seize power in
Germany in the late 1930s. He was
elected in a free national efcction.

Political correciness seems asso-

* ciated with the rewriting of history.

We must not be told that the

great Miucus ‘Tullius Cieero sid of
Kome’s dominion over other raves,
“Let them hate us, provided that
they fears.

Or that Napoleon said) he
lavared celigian ouly becuse it
was the one thing that kept the poor
from killing the ries.

He afso said dat Christ should
have been hanged, like any other
troublemaker.

Observations like these dot
human history (ike Statin’s com-
ment “How many divisions had the
Pope?") and the circumstances for
sach repetition ofter us lessons, of
we will learn them. If that is, the
Thought Folice will permit us to
read them in the first place.

Mos! of us, perhaps almost all of
us, dislike Joseph Goebbels’ doc-
trine about propaganda: “The pro-
oigandist must construct his own
truth, Whatever is tight for the
advancement of the party is truth. If
‘At should coincide with the factual
truth, so much the better.”

But it helps our thinking when
set beside the comment of Afan
Wykes, who wrote a biography of
Goebbels in the days before
Thought Police existed in Canada,
“wthe cruder the representation the
more widely it is accepted. The
same oddity fits (he sub-branch of
propaganda, advertising.”

- Yet such power is being exer-
cised by our Thought Police that a
quotation from Hitler sets half the
dogs in town howling.

Even Preston Manning, who
secks the reputation of being a man
with two feet on the ground, saw Tit
to deplore the Hitler quotation,
proving once again that once in
Ottawa. all men stfer a partial foss
of common sense.

(See Hitler, on the occasion of
his preventing the Gestapo from
sending a German artis! to the gas
chamber for signing a Communist
document: “We should never judge
artists by their political views, The
imagination they need for their
work deprives them of the ability to
think in realistic terms ... Today
they sign this. tomorrow that; they
don't look to see what it is as long
as it seems to them well-meaning.”)

Hodiss of divers recovered locally

“THE BODIES of two experi-
‘enced Canadian Forces divers
who-went missing Feb. 17
_ were retrieved from the waters
between Gibsons and Keats
Island at 9 p.m. on-Feb. 19.

: By Kate Zimmerman
News Reporter

' Autopsies will be performed on

the bovies of Acting § Sub-i.t, Nicole
Patricia Schiele, 22, and Able
Seaman Sandy Jacob Schreurs, 21.

” A coroner's report is pending. |
The two divers disappeared at
-about 5 p.m. in the waters between
Gibsons and Keats Island during a
“training dive.by the ship’s company

CINEMA 1
SEPARATE ADMISSION FEATURES
“TRON WILL,
Nightly 6:45 pm, Sat/Sun 2:35 & 4:30 pm
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THE PELICAN BRIEF |
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of HMCS Saskatchewan, The bod-
ies were found by clearance divers
using sonar and underwater cam-
eras.

Further information about the
deceased — including their home
towns — is being withheld at the
moment out of respect for their
families, said Licut. Denise
LaViolette of the Canadian Forces
public affairs office. “They would
like time to grieve in private,” she
said.

Schreurs was from B.C., but
Schiele was from out-of-province.
Their families are making funeral
arrangements.

“” BMCS Saskatchewan was one
of the units under the charge of
_ Rear Admiral Richard Waller, com-

SEPARATE ADMISSION FEATURES

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niander of Maritime Forces Pacific
Headquarters,

A board of inquiry, comprised
of the commander of a unit not
involved in the accident, medical
people and divers, will investigate
the deaths. The result of their labors
could take as long as a year.

“They'll go over every single
aspect. equipment and procedure,”
she said. “They will want to make
the proper recommendations to
avoid such a tragedy ever happen-
ing (again).

Both divers had already taken
and passed a military diving course
which LaVielctle described as
“quite rigorous and quite difficult
mentally and physically .. the most
difficult diving course in Canada.”

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