TAXATION - CORPORATE GOVERNMENT FEUDALISM

by Jeremy Lee
Two items hit the Press in the last fortnight. Commenting on the fact that the Income Tax Assessment Act is now 7,000 pages long,, Mark Davis (Australian Financial Review, 3/10/03 commented: "It's already Australia's longest, most convoluted and single most unpopular piece of legislation. But the Productivity Commission has a sobering message for taxpayers, businesses, accountants and others who love to hate the federal Income Tax Assessment Act. In a speech on the economics of regulation yesterday, commission chairman Gary Banks pointed out that at almost 7,000 pages, the Act was now nearly 60 times longer than the 120-page version that did the job when it was first introduced in 1936. If the Parliament kept adding to the act at this rate, future generations of taxpayers would have to struggle with a piece of legislation of unimaginable complexity.

"To take a fanciful turn, were this rate of growth to continue unabated, I am informed that by the end of this century the paper version of the Tax Act would amount to 830 billion pages," Mr Banks said. "It would take over 3 million years of continuous reading to assimilate and weigh the equivalent of around 30 aircraft carriers"…..

"Mr Banks, the article continued, said it was increasingly realized that government regulation generated significant costs, as well as benefits. Despite promises, the sheer volume of red tape and regulation had not slowed.: " ….At the federal level, government agencies with explicit regulatory functions alone employed about 30,000 staff and spent some $4.5 billion in 2001-02," he said. Estimates by the Attorney-General's Department suggested there were more than 1,800 commonwealth acts currently in force. About 170 new acts were promulgated last year …."

As though to reinforce the point came this news (AFR 3/10/03): "An average small business of 10-15 employees in NSW is spending as much as 200 hours a year on tax paperwork, according to the Red Tape Register released by the State Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The most time-consuming tax for small businesses was the quarterly GST return and BAS Statement - a third of businesses spend up to 60 hours a year on GST compliance …."

Perhaps we've got the wrong end of the stick in doubting the common sense of this massive array of red tape. Perhaps we haven't grasped that we should be thankful to the powers-that-be for "job creation". The more work that can be put on the backs of the population, the better the unemployment figures will look! But Mr Costello should at least come clean! He told us his plan was to simplify taxation. Obviously, that wasn't the plan at all. It was to keep more and more people happily employed filling in bits of paper.

BRACKET CREEP COMPLICATES THINGS FURTHER

A REGULATION AND MEANS TEST FREE TAX SYSTEM

Once we grasp that current tax arrangements are designed as a means of control and a way of keeping tens of thousands of people working extra hours, we can understand why the Debit Tax proposals were not even considered as a way of tax reform. Under the Debit Tax proposals, a levy of less than one percent would be applied each 24 hours on the total turnover of financial transactions through the banking system. Every transaction in Australia (other than cash) goes through a Central Clearing House, where totals between banks are sorted out and re-allocated into individual accounts.

A less-than-one-percent levy on this final total would replace every tax, whether direct or indirect, in Australia. The Tax Department as we know it would cease to exist. No individual or company would ever again have to fill in a tax return. Tens of thousands of accountants could be released from their desks to make for the Golf course. No business, large or small, would have to agonise over "Business Activity Statements" for the Goods-and-Services Tax. Petrol would be half the price. No foreign corporation could avoid tax by 'transfer pricing'. The paper war would be over. What is more, each person would pay, through the levy, an amount in keeping with his or her income. A pensioner on $300 a week would pay less than three dollars a week. Pensioners would save more than that when GST was removed from food and clothing. A corporation with a turnover of $300 million would pay less than $3 million. No department screening 'tax-deductions' would be necessary.

Could it be done? Of course! But no politician would dream of making life so easy! It would take most of the fun out of being a politician - granting favours to pressure groups in the electorate; watching the Treasurer deliver the "rewards-and-punishment" Budget speech etc. And think of the poor Commissioner for Taxation, now lording it over a Department bigger than Australia's armed forces! He'd become "plain Mr Carmody" again, instead of the most powerful bureaucrat in the land! He could go back to stamp-collecting, or growing his own vegetables!

And, finally, what would happen to the "Income Tax Assessment Act"? Its 7,000 pages would be deposited in the National Library, as a monument to the folly of a bygone age, when citizens were harried unmercifully by a feudal tax lord, whose only justification for the tyranny he exercised was to "create work". Future generations would shake their heads in wonder at the indignities foisted on their mothers and fathers in the "bad old days".

TWO GIANT SHADOWS

Car production in the world now has a 30 per cent over-capacity. Every car-producing nation is staring down the barrel of stiffer competition and stagnant markets. Australia now exports about 30 per cent of local car production. There is not really such a thing as an exclusively Australian car manufacturer. Every well-known brand coming off a production line in Australia belongs to a multinational, which repatriates part of the profits. Labor forces are Australian. Fifty percent of car content is made locally, the other 50 per cent is imported components.

If there is an advantage for Australia it is that we sit on top of some of the best iron ore and coking coal deposits in the world, and the infrastructure for exploiting these is in place. But we dissipate this advantage in giving away at rock-bottom prices huge quantities of these assets to nations now manufacturing consumer goods which threaten our own industries.

Both China and India are now competing to become the biggest and fastest-growing economies in the world, swamping the industrial west with low cost consumer goods with which we have no hope of competing.. China this year will produce about 2.7 million vehicles, of which 1.8 million will be sold on the Chinese domestic market. This leaves 900,000 for export. What brands are sold in China? They're familiar names, of which Volkswagen has the largest share General Motors are next.

As world oversupply increases, competition for markets will intensify. It was Australia, along with other industrialized nations, that welcomed China into the world of free trade via the World Trade Organisation. We are going to reap the whirlwind with a vengeance. The idea that small-capacity nations like Australia, with highly-taxed, highly paid labour forces will be able to compete with Chinese output that is rising at an astounding rate, quite capable of flooding the world market at prices no one can compete with, is an exercise in wishful thinking.

Multinationals have poured $22 billion into 600 car manufacturing ventures in China since the 1980s. Volkswagen has just committed a further $A10 billion into further expansion over the next five years. China's over-capacity in producing cars will continue to grow. There will be no compunction in exporting the surplus at a price which finally displaces our own car industry.

India's expansion is scarcely less dazzling. Its predominance in communications technology is surpassing the legendary Silicon Valley. Multinationals are pouring investments, which once went into western economies, into India. Some estimate that India may even outpace China within five years. India's largest car manufacturer, Marun Udyog, is now turning out 600,000 units annually. India is also grabbing an ever-increasing share of the pharmaceuticals industry.

What should a country like Australia do, faced with such a challenge? Firstly, we,ve got to re-think the "growth-and-exports" merrygoround, which is, traced back to basics, an attempt to catch up with a debt-based financial system. Why don't we aim to produce fewer cars, of a much higher quality? Why don't we take a lead in developing pollution-free vehicles? The technology is available. Mexico City runs its buses and taxis on compressed air engines. The use of hydrogen stations running compressors, which gave every motorist an inter-changeable compressed air tank instead of gasoline would shock the world.

New, high-quality technology and innovation is what we're best at. Why don't we open up possibilities for the thriving, largely self-sufficient towns and villages that once abounded in rural Australia? And work out a way in which young Australians can get into their own homes debt-free? Do we want young, happy and enthusiastic Australians who raise families in an environment of contentment? We could do it. Visions do not come on time-payment. Perhaps they come when everyone has had enough of what Douglas Reed called "Insanity Fair".

CRUEL MURDER HIGHLIGHTS SERIOUS DRUG PROBLEM

by Bill Daly
Two weeks ago virtually every New Zealander was shocked at the disgusting murder of a pretty little six year old girl. After days of police and community searching for the missing child, her mother's boyfriend was arrested and his confession led police to her little body. She had been severely bashed and died of head injuries. If reports are correct the murderer was a user of what is called 'P', or the 'P-drug' - methamphetamine - and that all over the country there are small illegal laboratories making the stuff.

Several methamphetamine laboratories were found earlier this year in the small North Island town of Murupara, after police had raided homes belonging to members of the "Tribesmen" and "Mongrel Mob" gangs. Since the murder, newspapers have reported on the apparent widespread use of 'P' and that it is particularly popular with the richer trendy brigade. In acute cases, some addicts will spend up to $1000 a day to support the habit. A former high-earning businessman now trying to kick the habit said that the sense of euphoria and confidence given by the drug makes it irresistible. He lost his business and income of over $250,000 a year and sold his assets to support the addiction.

Police say those on 'P' can be unpredictably violent. Demonstrating once again how far removed from reality are the liberal do-gooders, into the tense aftermath of the murder, the government announced that this deed was further evidence that parents should be banned from being able to smack their children! But, the politicians went quiet after the naturally angry backlash from the public, and the girl's family. It is beyond belief they could be so stupid as to make a comparison between the brutal murder of a child and a parent correcting a child.

On the upside, the community of Murupara has come together to clean up the town and make it safe. It's apparent that the government is not interested or even capable of doing anything useful to stem such problems. Similar developments are happening in other places, as local communities realise that only they can make better futures for themselves and their children.

PAUL HOLMES UPSETS THE POLITICALLY CORRECT

by Bill Daly
Paul Holmes is New Zealand's highest paid radio and television presenter/host. His TV-One 'Holmes Show' has been a seven-day-a-week feature every evening for over a decade. Holmes' self-created image is that of the nice guy that everyone is supposed to like - but he also slots perfectly into the category of what dissident politician Winston Peters has called 'the sickly white liberal'.

But somehow last week Mr. Holmes' heart must have gotten the better of his head and on his morning radio talkback session he repeatedly described United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a 'cheeky darkie'. Holmes had backed the US invasion of Iraq and was unhappy at the UN's reticence at supporting the military action. Holmes went further, and wound up with criticism from some callers, questioning whether the large number of women journalists made the trade 'ignorant and bitchy'. He also said he could not be likened to Hitler because he "would not keep the records, record keeping not being his thing."

Although one of the darlings of the liberal chattering-class, Holmes' 'cheeky darkie' comments have fallen into the 'unforgivable' basket. Several of his TV-One staff, beginning with a Pacific Islander, have done the 'politically correct' thing and resigned; they can now hold their heads up high amongst their other philosophically bankrupt associates.

The Prime Minister Helen Clark, a sickly white liberal supremo, whom some suspect would like the top UN job later, added her sixpence worth of criticism of Holmes, along with others such as a strange South African immigrant Joris de Bres, who has his snout deep into the public trough as Race Relations Commissar.

But, before anyone thinks that Mr. Holmes was a lost lamb now found by His Saviour, it should be noted that within hours he was grovelling so deep for forgiveness - it's a wonder he hasn't turned the colour of dirt - and reminding the country he has always supported multiculturalism, and allowing the Tampa boat people in, etc., etc., etc. It is obvious that within the media world there is a hidden reaction to political correctness and a little of it came out as humour after the Holmes' comments.

A couple of days ago the New Zealand Herald's front page showed a picture of Holmes interviewing one of the All Black rugby players, a Pacific Islander, along with the headline "Whity Meets an All Black". And the overly vulgar Maori comedian Mike King on his late-night TV show had a skit involving himself and two white women TV presenters. To his comment that he was in the mood for a white woman, one replied, "Oh, you cheeky darkie!"

TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND PAY TRIBUTE

It is the sad task of the editor of O.T. to observe the passing of outstanding League supporters and those friends whose steps, over the years, led them to the Australian League of Rights for whatever reason, before they returned once again down the road their own life took them.

Milan Voltrubec
We want to acknowledge the passing of a friend and supporter Milan Voltrubec, who passed away recently at the age of 83. He was known to the League from the very early days - I am told he and his young family spent many, many, hours letter-boxing League literature around his neighbourhood. His last words to one of our folk was: "Don't you people stop what you are doing." We won't Milan. Thank you for your support over these many years.

Geoff McDonald
Former communist, trade unionist and author, Geoff McDonald was another such person. We were sorry to learn of his death in early September. (Melbourne Age, 5/9/2003). League supporters will remember Geoff McDonald and his outstanding efforts in 'bringing to the light of day', the Communist Party's programme behind the 'aboriginal land rights' movement, and the perceived threats to Australia's security and defence. Interestingly, the writer of the Melbourne Age obituary, Malcolm McDonald, former official with the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association made no mention whatsoever of Geoff's links to the Australian League of Rights, the 'land rights' campaigns on League platforms, nor the books Geoff wrote on the 'land rights' issue. That part of his life, for them, has been swept 'down the memory hole'.
Some of those hard-line Labor unionists wouldn't want to be reminded it was Geoff McDonald who first approached Eric Butler, then National Director of the Australian League of Rights in the 1980s. At the time he couldn't get his message out. His Labor/Trade Union 'friends' didn't want to hear about the Communist's plans behind the 'land rights' push!
Through a series of meetings on League platforms across Australia and the publishing of his book "Red Over Black: Behind the Aboriginal Land Rights" by the Veritas Publishing Company, Australians were forewarned. Many Aboriginal Australians now realise they were simply 'pawns in the political game' of the push for 'land rights'. Geoff said they were "being treated as black cannon fodder by the Marxist revolutionaries." Well done Geoff McDonald, you made your contribution to this nation of both black and white Australians.

BOOKS BY GEOFF MCDONALD

"Red Over Black" by Geoff McDonald. He had a deep respect for the genuine Aboriginal people. As an industrial officer in the early seventies he made a number of visits to reserves in Central and Northern Australia and saw Marxist operators and their dupes hard at work advancing their Communist strategy.

"The Evidence" by Geoff McDonald. In this work Geoff McDonald presents revealing extracts from official Communist documents on Aboriginal 'land rights'. Both books available from all League Book Services.

BACKGROUND OF LIKELY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WESLEY CLARK

by William Blum
"In case anyone is still embracing any illusions that General Wesley Clark is likely the hero who can bring closer to fruition our belief and hope that Another World Is Possible, here are a few more items about this charming man.

At the start of the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, which he oversaw as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Clark declared: "We are going to systematically and progressively attack, disrupt, degrade, devastate and ultimately destroy these forces and their facilities and support unless President Milosevic complies with the demands of the international community." (Los Angeles Times, 26 March 1999) Clark was among 68 leaders charged with war crimes by a group of International law professionals from Canada, the United Kingdom, Greece, and the American Association of Jurists.

Among the charges filed were: "grave violations of international humanitarian law," including "willful killing, willfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and health, employment of poisonous weapons and other weapons to cause unnecessary suffering, wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, unlawful attacks on civilian objects, devastation not necessitated by military objectives, attacks on undefended buildings and dwellings, destruction and willful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences."

At one point in the bombing campaign it was reported that "[Clark] would rise out of his seat and slap the table. 'I've got to get the maximum violence out of this campaign -- now!'" (Washington Post, 21 September 1999)

And last year found our hero in New Hampshire, endorsing Democrat Katrina Swett for Congress, as reported by the local paper. "Clark, who supports a congressional resolution that would give President Bush authority to use military force against Iraq, said if Swett were in Congress this week, he would advise her to vote for the resolution, but only after vigorous debate." (The Union Leader, Manchester, NH, 10 October 2002)"
*William Blum formerly worked with the U.S. State Department.
From YellowTimes.org

IRAQ'S 'HARSH REALITY' HARD TO HIDE

by Bill Berkowitz, Workingforchange
"The harsh reality for ordinary Iraqis is hard to hide," Professor Cole, the author of Sacred Space And Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi'ite Islam and the operator of a highly intelligent Web site called Informed Comment (https://www.juancole.com/), noted: "There is still 60% unemployment and extensive poverty, electricity is chancy, hurting many businesses, no land telephone lines are functioning in Baghdad, and no 911 emergency services are available for those who fall ill.
There is a massive crime wave, with assassinations, car-jackings, burglaries and kidnappings, in Baghdad and Basra, the major cities. Few trust the banks. Women who are in any way public figures are subject to harassment, even assassination."

Prof. Cole also questioned the veracity of the so-called success stories. "Although the universities are 'open,' Basra University was completely looted and lacks basic facilities, including a proper university library (burned) or computers (stolen). I guess they are back to clay tablets. "And while it is technically true that the hospitals are open, and that large-scale looting of their medicines seems to have been halted, most of them are not operating at an acceptable level, as a number of press accounts have pointed out."

As anyone who watches the cable news channels can attest to, for the past week and a half, the networks are now running with 'good news' stories, but it's too early to know whether the administration's propaganda blitz will bear fruit with the public. The Progressive's Matthew Rothschild hopes the media will not be cowed by (negative) statements… and instead focus on the major issues:
"If the big story is that there's a guerrilla war wreaking havoc every day in Iraq, then that's the story the media should be telling, regardless of how many happy story campaigns the administration launches."

EIGHTH PILLAR OF WISDOM? IRAQ IS A DEEP MORASS

Michael Keane, LA Times, 21/9/03
That Iraq would become a troublesome source of guerrilla tactics should come as no surprise to any student of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence is considered by many strategists to be the father of guerrilla warfare. He articulated a powerful treatise on the topic in his classic book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. During World War I, Lawrence's guerrilla victories against the Turkish forces occupying the Arabian Peninsula provided a stunning contrast to the simultaneous slaughter occurring in the trenches of Europe. Although Lawrence claimed that his vision of warfare came to him as he lay dazed in a feverish state, he was actually formalizing a form of war practiced by Arab tribes for centuries.

Lawrence's thesis was that a successful rebellion required three elements.
First, the rebels must have an unassailable base, not merely a physical base of operations but also a psychological fortress in the mind of every soldier willing to die for his convictions.
Second, in what he called the "doctrine of acreage'' (what strategists now call the force-to-space ratio), Lawrence stated that an insurgent victory required that the size of the occupying force must be insufficient to pacify the contested area.
Finally, the guerrillas must have a friendly population. Although the population need not be actively friendly, it must not be hostile to the point of betraying the insurgents. This support can be generated either from fear of retaliation or sympathy for the guerrilla cause or both.

The application of Lawrence's theory to the current military situation in Iraq is not comforting. First, the rebels seem to possess an unassailable base in both physical and psychological terms. Within Iraq, hostile forces have demonstrated an ongoing ability to launch numerous daily attacks. The continuing inability to capture Saddam Hussein is the most significant evidence of this problem.

Externally, there is a base of bordering states that are failing to stop volunteers from infiltrating Iraq. American troops have found foreign passports on the bodies of enemy forces killed. Perhaps more troubling, however, is the psychological "base'' the mind of the enemy. When religious extremism is mixed with nationalistic fervor, it cements to form the bricks of unshakeable conviction. As Lawrence himself noted, "An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot.''
Then there is the force-to-space ratio of coalition forces, which is clearly inadequate. The Americans have only about 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. To match the number of soldiers per inhabitant as the United States has in Kosovo would require 526,000 troops in Iraq.

Finally, guerrilla victories can work to slowly undermine US credibility while simultaneously building support and gaining recruits for the insurgents. Over time, guerrilla tactics tend to frustrate conventional troops, which are increasingly likely to overreact by humiliating men and offending women and thereby alienating the local population. Though Iraqi guerrillas lack the necessary firepower and manpower to forcibly remove the Americans, Lawrence would argue that should not be their proper objective. Even while suffering tactical defeats, the guerrillas could erode the will of the Americans and thereby achieve a strategic victory.
As Henry Kissinger succinctly stated: "The guerrilla wins by not losing. The army loses by not winning."

After liberating the region from the Turks in World War I, Britain ruled the newly-formed country of Iraq under a mandate from the League of Nations. The population's gratitude for having been freed from 400 years of Ottoman oppression was short-lived. There were uprisings and assassinations of British soldiers and civilian administrators. Lawrence was sent back to Baghdad to report on conditions there. He wrote these haunting words:
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. ... Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. ... We are today not far from a disaster."

Michael Keane, a lecturer on strategy at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, is also a fellow of the US Department of Defense's National Security Education Program.

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

ADELAIDE CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

WHO IS ERNST ZUNDEL, AND WHY IS HE IN JAIL?

by Mark Weber, IHR
"For more than six months now, Ernst Zundel has been held without charge in solitary confinement in Canada on the pretext that he is a threat to national security. In fact, this 64-year-old German-born writer, publisher and civil rights activist is a political prisoner and a victim of great injustice.

Who is this man, and why is his case important? Zundel was arrested at his home in Tennessee on Feb. 5, where he had been living peacefully with his wife, Ingrid Rimland, on the pretext that he missed an interview date with immigration authorities. Two weeks later he was deported to Canada, even though his wife is an American citizen. Claiming that he is a national security threat, Canadian authorities have been holding Zundel since Feb. 19. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) - something like the American FBI - supports this charge by citing tenuous and years-old ties by Zundel to "white supremacist" groups. While acknowledging that he is not violent himself, CSIS also argues that material published by Zundel might cause "like-minded individuals to engage in violence."

'Holocaust denial' is against law in a number of countries
There is absolutely no basis for the "security threat" charge. Zundel's life is an open book. He is a peaceful man with no record of violence. During the 40 years he lived in Canada, he was never convicted of a crime. In fact, he has himself been a victim of hate and violence. He survived at least three attempts on his life, including a devastating arson attack against his residence. Jewish groups are demanding that Zundel be deported to Germany, where he faces years of imprisonment for the "thought crime" of "denying the Holocaust."
("Holocaust denial" is against the law in Germany, France, Switzerland and some other European countries.)

Zundel is in prison not because his views are unpopular, or because he's a "security risk." He's in prison because Jewish groups want him there. He's a prisoner because he promotes views that the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests. This lobby is the decisive, critical factor in the decades-old campaign to silence him. The only sustained and institutionalized effort to imprison him has come from this lobby, which includes the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, and the League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith (with the Anti-Defamation League, its counterpart in the US).

Veteran investigative journalist speaks out for Zundel
A few prominent Canadians have been speaking out against the unjust treatment of Ernst Zundel. One such person is Bill Dunphy, a veteran investigative journalist and editor for the daily Hamilton Spectator. He spent six years probing Canada's "white supremacist" movement, and got to know Zundel personally. Although he has no sympathy for Zundel's views, in a hard-hitting column (Hamilton Spectator, May 14) he told readers: "Our government has seized and branded Ernst Zundel, stripped him of his human rights, tried him in secret and found him wanting, and will now hand him over to a foreign government anxious to throw him in jail... Zundel - who did this country a favour by wiping off the books our disgraceful False News laws - has never once been convicted of a criminal offence in this country, never once found to have violated the hate crime laws that rest snugly around the throat of free expression in this country.
"Calculating correctly that there was no political cost, no 'down side' to slipping on the jackboots to kick a reviled old man out of our country, our government cobbled together their best insults and innuendo, and Lord knows what secret 'vidence,' and branded Ernst Zundel a threat to national security.
"I know this man, his local and international contacts and I know this movement. And after reading the 58-page 'unclassified' summary of the government's case, I can assure you there is no justice here. Their 'evidence' is riddled with errors and misinformation, hearsay and inflammatory innuendo. Dead men walk again, and the shattered bits of shoddy secret networks long since collapsed under the weight of their own ineptitude are made whole and menacing once again. It is a shameful piece of dishonest, unreliable tripe."

The trendy Toronto weekly Eye pointed out in an editorial (May 15) that "declaring Zundel a terrorist now is not the result of any startling new information," but rather "it has to do with political pressure ..."
The paper added: "The new security certificate admits Zundel has 'virtually no history of direct personal engagement in acts of serious violence.' It labels him a terrorist partly because he 'seeks to destroy the multicultural fabric and underpinnings of Canadian society.' Citing opposition to official multiculturalism as a type of terrorism risks expanding the war on terror to include everyone to the right of Pierre Trudeau.
"Anti-terrorism provisions should not be used as a catch-all solution. Misapplying terminology in this way damages its credibility, and undermines the efforts against real terrorism. It has also, of course, damaged the integrity of our refugee system."

Similar concerns have been voiced by the Daily Times Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia. In an editorial, "Even Zundel Merits Fairness" (May 9), the paper declared: "... The way the federal government is trying to get rid of Zundel is wrong - it is using law that is so sweeping in its scope that it may be, as Zundel's lawyer Doug Christie argues, unconstitutional. It would allow him to be deported on evidence that amounts to mere assumption and subject him to a kangaroo court process where no defence can be mounted.
"The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service calls Zundel the patriarch of Canada's white supremacist 'movement.' It argues he is a risk to national security - a finding essential for his deportation under this procedure - because he is trying to 'destroy the multicultural fabric and underpinnings of Canadian society.' "... Most Canadians would be surprised to learn that the country's multicultural fabric could be torn apart or society toppled by Zundel's rants which are not, in fact, broadcast widely. But this is the basis for CSIS's security certificate against Zundel."

The Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), a leading free speech advocacy group, is demanding Zundel's immediate release. "Mr. Zundel is quite literally a political prisoner," says CAFE director Paul Fromm, who has also been acting as Zundel's legal representative in his detention hearings. "He is being held in solitary confinement solely for the non-violent expression of his political views."

The allegation that Zundel might be a threat to national security "is mischievous nonsense," says Fromm. "Zundel has been politically active in Canada for 40 years. He's a public figure. His writings and speeches are available on-line. He's been investigated for years by the police. He's an open book. Zundel has never advocated or practised violence, nor have his followers," Fromm adds. "He's a pacifist and a publisher."

A Life of Struggle
Ernst Zundel, who sometimes describes himself as a "Swabian peasant," is an outgoing, good-humored man who is blessed with a rare combination of unflagging optimism and practical ability. He maintains this infectious spirit even under very trying conditions. He is an unusually alert and sensitive individual with a keen understanding of human nature. He knows how to persuade, cajole and encourage his supporters to give their best for the greater good. He inspires confidence, loyalty and affection.

Zundel's two lengthy trials - the 1985 trial lasted two months, and the 1988 trial lasted four months - have been the closest thing anywhere to full scale debates on the Holocaust issue. For the first time ever, "Holocaust survivors" and Holocaust historians were closely and critically questioned under oath about their claims and views. Zundel was found guilty in the 1985 trial, but the verdict was set aside by the provincial appeals court. It ruled that the judge in that trial had, among other things, given improper instructions to the jury, and had improperly excluded defense evidence.

In May 1988, at the conclusion of the second Zundel trial, the jury declared him guilty. A few days later, he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment. On appeal, Canada's Supreme Court threw out the conviction, declaring on August 27, 1992, that the archaic "false news" law under which he had been convicted was a violation of the country's Charter of Rights. This was not only a personal vindication by Canada's highest court; Ernst Zundel secured an important victory for the rights of all Canadians.

Zundel's next great legal battle was fought out before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto on charges, instigated by Jewish groups, of promoting "hatred or contempt" against Jews through the "Zundelsite" Internet web site (www.zundelsite.org), operated by Ingrid Rimland from the United States. In this legal action, as the Tribunal's presiding Commissioner declared, the truth or validity of the supposedly "hateful" items was not a consideration. The Tribunal ultimately ruled against Zundel, declaring the "Zundelsite" to be unlawful.

After four decades in Canada, including a failed effort to acquire Canadian citizenship, he moved to the United States, where he married Ingrid in January 2000. For two years they lived quietly in the mountain region of eastern Tennessee. Of this remarkable man, Robert Faurisson wrote in 1988: "Zundel may once again go to prison for his research and beliefs or be threatened with deportation. All this is possible. Anything may happen when there is an intellectual crisis and a realignment of historical concepts of such a dimension. Revisionism is the great intellectual adventure of the end of this century. Whatever happens, Ernst Zundel is already the victor." https://www.ihr.org/news/030923Zundel.html