Alarming story
Having satisfied them he was genuine, Thorpe was invited to meet their local recruiter. In the radio interview this is what he said about that first contact. "As he approached me and we began speaking with one another, the thing that really struck me was, that if I was meeting him under any other circumstances, I would never have thought that he had such violent and abhorrent world views. And the thing that's scary about that is, it means these people are able, to some extent, to fly under the radar." Quick realisationThorpe told how, as he got to know the recruiter, he quickly realised that Base was a neo-nazi para military group. He also found that his contact man was a Canadian Army Reserve member, an engineer, who had specialised in bombs and explosives! Things saidOnce accepted into the group Thorpe had access to encrypted emails that members sent to each other. In one of his revealing Winnipeg Free Press articles he writes this: "On Tuesday evening, one member posted photos of a handwritten letter received in the mail from Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant, who is imprisoned and awaiting trial for allegedly killing 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in March. "Letter from Saint Tarrant," the member wrote. When it comes to extremist violence, members of The Base explicitly call for high body counts. "If you do it, do it (expletive) right, high casualties or go home... Breivik*, Tarrant and McVeigh** are the gold standard. If you can’t keep up, don’t bother," posted one member." Because of Thorpe's courageous infiltration and his newspaper's publications, Patrik, the Base's recruiter, was investigated by the RCMP but then fled to the USA. He was traced by the FBI and now faces a massive prison sentence if convicted. The UN viewOn 18 June 2019 Secretary-General Antonio Gutterres launched the UN's Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech. This is the beginning of the foreword.
Chilling"Around the world, we are seeing a disturbing groundswell of xenophobia, racism and intolerance" says the UN Secretary General. I think he's right. I worked on this post earlier this week, particularly Wednesday. That day just after I'd copied in the quote about 'Saint Tarrant', I heard on an hourly radio news-bite that a New Zealand person – only the second ever – had been arrested for terrorism. By 4 pm Friday I'd heard no further details. Could it be something like the Winnipeg situation? Hate or ?I'm sure the UN is right to launch a plan against hate speech, but people's hearts will have to change won't they, if hate, hate speech, and whatever they accelerate into, are going to cease? If hate, which generates hate speech, hate acts and terrorism, is to diminish. I think we have to find some spiritual base of love that we can all feel part of. So we may need to discover the philosophia perennis, a shared universal truth, which lies at the heart of all religious faiths. And the heart of all of them is love. Perhaps we all need to become a bit more mystical, think nondually, and be more contemplative. Is that the way to more love, less hate, less terrorism? □ References : Please click anywhere on one of the labels. Interview with Ryan Thorpe Winnipeg Free Press article by Ryan Thorpe UN launch against hate speech *Timothy McVeigh 1995 Oklahoma City bombing 168 killed hundreds injured. **Anders Behring Brevik Norway 2011 77 killed John McInnes Friday 28 February 2020 ##########
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