Dear editor,
Whether right wing or left, dictatorships have more in common than not.
Chief among these is the fear of their own people and truth.
Ann Andrews likened Stephen Harper to the rise of Naziism while I had been comparing him to the Chinese and thinking how fitting it was that he would willingly give up Canada's sovereignty over our environmental resources to the Chinese.
I lived and taught in China and while I like the people and made friends, the fist of censorship is fierce. Just as Harper fears scientific research reaching the public, open questions from the media and a free press, so does the government of China.
Meanwhile, in both countries, much of the populace is bought off by fear of joblessness and access to consumer goods. We are complacent.
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination by ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." — Robert M. Hutchins, born 1899. And, "Tyranny happens when good people do nothing."
Kay Kennedy,
Comox