REAL Women, Promise Keepers and the Promotion of Violence

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

It is a massive masculine shadow,
in a hall or crowded room,
lifting something indistinct up into the resonating night.
ROBERT BLY, "FIFTY MALES SITTING TOGETHER"

Robert Bly is an American author and poet who became the inspiration for the Mytho-poetic men's movement.

Fearing that the women's movement was turning men into "yogurt-eaters", Bly was determined to instead create a cabal of "wild men", who would seek traditional roles for the male species, many based on, believe it or not, Grimm's Fairy Tales.

The tales that portray the powerful king, the handsome prince, the beautiful maiden, and of course the witch determined to destroy them all. (He must have some mother issues)

No "round shouldered" men need apply.

Author Susan Faludi attended one of his few retreats that were open to women and asked why everyone was told in advance to bring a large stone. Bly's spokesperson explained that they were to build a monument to Hermes, but didn't want to go into too much detail, with women present.

An Olympic god. Of course. Patron of shepherds and cowherds. In fact, the spokesman, Walter Bliss, had legally changed his name to Shepherd Bliss, and his profession from army officer to psychologist.

Bly made his appearance to the sound of conga drums, and with the stance of a Viking, reminded those in the audience that he is Norse.

We no longer have images of "real men," Bly says, as the men continue the drum beat. Stereotypical sissies have replaced macho men. "Woody Allen is just as bad—a negative John Wayne," he says, raising his voice to a nasal squeak in imitation. "Men used to make models for what a man is from the Iliad and the Odyssey and places like that."

On the all-male weekend, he promises, he will bring back these role models for male edification: "One of the things we do is go back to the very old stories, five thousand years ago, where the view of a man, what a man is, is more healthy."(1)

A former peace activist, and strong opponent to the Vietnam war, Bly needed a new cause and found it in male bonding.

By the early '80s, he was, he confessed, starting to feel less than manly. "I began to feel diminished," Bly writes, "by my lack of embodiment of the fruitful male—or the moist male." It wasn't his loss of early prominence, however, that he identified as the problem. It was his "missing contact with men" and his overexposure to strong and angry women, including his own mother. (told 'ya)

He feared that he and men like him had allied them­selves too closely with such women, and consequently taken "a female view" of their fathers and their own masculinity. He de­cided he'd made a mistake with his earlier recommendation: "If someone says to me now, 'There is something missing on your feminine side,' I say, `No, what is missing is the masculine,' " Bly told Whole Earth magazine in 1988. He worried that he was only "superficially" manly. Men had awakened their feminine princi­ple only to be consumed by it. They had gone "soft." (1)

So he began running all-male workshops to reintroduce men to "the deep masculine."

This led to wilderness weekend retreats where men dressed in tribal masks and wild-animal costumes, beat drums and rediscov­ered "the beast within." His success inspired scores of imitators, creating a "cottage industry" for the men's movement.

And one of those "imitators" was the Promise Keepers. A New Age Journal article noted that Promise Keepers combined the secular men’s movement (founded by New Age poet Robert Bly) with the political evangelicalism of Pat Robertson. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution stated that: "Promise Keepers combines the Jesus Saves preaching of Billy Graham with the male-bonding message of Robert Bly.

Promise Keepers was brought to Canada by Conservative MP David Sweet. In 2004, when he ran, he posted on his website, the fact that he had been instrumental in creating the Northern chapter.

Women read that, reminded us of what PK stood for, and he lost the election.

In 2006, he got smarter, and removed all mention of the "wildmen" club, only saying that he ran a non-profit organization. He continues to represent Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough- Westdale.

Bly's teachings also fit well with the anti-feminist groups, like REAL Women of Canada, who promoted so-called "family values". Bly attacked not only domineering women, but single mothers.

In short, the Great Mother's authority has become too great. "Men's societies are disappearing, partly under pressure from women with hurt feelings," he writes. Too many women are "raising boys with no man in the house." The single mother's son has become "a nice boy who now not only pleases his mother but also the young woman he is living with."

To restore the nice boy's male identity, Bly proposes, he must quit taking cues from mother and "go down into the psyche and accept what's dark down there." As a key guide to the journey, Bly offers "The Story of Iron John," borrowed from a Grimm's Brothers' fairy tale. In the story, a hairy "wild man" is locked up in an iron cage near the royal castle; the key to the cage is under the queen's pillow. One day the young prince loses his prized "golden ball" when it rolls into an abandoned pond, and he can only relieve it by stealing the key from mother and freeing the wild man. The young man, in the words of Bly's sidekick Keith Thompson, has to take back the power he has given to his mother and get away from the force field of her bed. He must direct his energies away from pleasing Mommy." (1)

At Bly's all-male weekends, the "wildmen" build lairs with plastic chairs, grunting and groaning, and whatever other male sounds they can muster.

Journalist Jon Tevlin, attended a weekend of frolic and fun, run by Bly, at a Bible camp in Mound, Minnesota. On the first night, Tevlin reports that Shepherd Bliss, dropped to his knees.

"Some of you may want to temporarily leave the world of the two-leggeds, and 'Join me in the world of the four-leggeds," he said. One by one, we slid from our orange Naugahyde chairs onto an orange shag carpet ripped straight out of the 1960s. "You may find yourself behaving like these four-leggeds; you may be scratching the earth, getting in contact with the dirt and the world around you."

As he spoke, people began pawing at the ground. . . . "You may find yourself behaving like the most masculine of all animals—the ram," Shepherd said in a coaxing voice. . . . "You may find unfamiliar noises emerging from your throats!" . . . There were gurgles and bleats, a few wolf calls. . .. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shepherd coming toward me, head down, tufts of white hair ringing a bald spot. . . . Meanwhile, I felt a slight presence at my rear, and turned to see a man beginning to sniff my buttocks. "Woof!" he said. (1)

"Woof" indeed!

How to Handle Your Women

As men are given instruction on how to find their "beast within", they are also told how to treat their women, and "wrest the power from their hands".

Inspiration came from objects they were asked to bring from home, including a .380-caliber automatic pistol. A rather odd trophy for what was called a "battle on the domestic front".

And what if women are not so enthused with their new butt sniffing menfolk?

Promise Keeper's Tony Evans says “I am not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I am urging you to take it back. There can be no compromise here.” .

Robert Bly is not so subtle.

At one seminar, with more than a thousand men in attendance, a man in the audience told Bly, "Robert, when we tell women our desires, they tell us we're wrong." To which Bly responded: "So, then you bust them in the mouth." (1)

People are not taking this movement seriously enough. Stephen Harper is tearing down the Status for Women, and reversing gains made over the past decades.

But the media look at all the women in his caucus, and determine that he is not a misogynist.

If we had to select one photo that would define this period in our history, the following would definitely be in the running.

A frightened Diane Finlay making an announcement, with Pierre Poilievre in a Gestapo style stance, watching on. Women in Harper's party are mere window dressing. They have no power.

When Jason Kenney rewrote the citizenship guide, he all but excluded any contributions made by women.

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa ... It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s, ... It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men."

We are being written out, reduced to the "witches" in Grimms Fairy Tales.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 304-312

Debt Ceiling Crisis? Obama Should Just do What Reagan and Bush Did

Ronald Reagan incurred more debt than all previous presidents combined, and was forced to raise the debt ceiling 17 times. No trumpets blared.

George H.W. Bush, inherited this massive debt and was forced to raise the debt ceiling 7 times. No beating of drums.

Bill Clinton inherited this massive debt, raised the debt ceiling 4 times, but raised taxes on the top 2%, and balanced the books.

George W. Bush cut taxes on the rich and waged wars on the credit card, leaving Obama with the biggest mess of all. Yet the first time he wants to raise the debt ceiling, so that the Nation can conduct business, the Tea Party Republicans pitch a childish fit.

Creating a catastrophe, where none existed, literally holding the country at ransom.

All for political showmanship.

What are they hoping will happen here? That they will be deemed to be the party worried that their country is going into debt, hoping that people will forget who got the U.S. into this mess?

Republican debt ceiling lift: 29 times

Democrats (including Obama): 5 times.

You do the math.

Libya in Turmoil as Top Military Rebel Leader is Assassinated

Rebel military leader Abdul Fatah Younis has been killed, possibly by his own soldiers. Younis was called before a tribunal, after rumours circulated that he had maintained his connections with Gadhafi.

However, he was shot dead before he had a chance for a hearing.

Some are now saying that his murder was at the hands of one of the militia forces, that has ties to Al Qaeda.

After 24 hours of confusion, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni has declared that Gen Younes was killed by members of the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, a militia allied to the rebels and named after one of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad, suggesting that Islamist elements were involved.

The assassination of Gen Younes, apparently by his own side, has hurt the opposition just as it was winning broader international recognition and launching an offensive against Gaddafi forces in the west of the country.

The revelation that the militia responsible has Islamist leanings, and had been allowed to operate in the east of the country with apparent impunity, is a serious blow to the credibility of the rebel government, based in Benghazi, which Britain formally recognised last week as the legitimate leadership of Libya.

Their ties with Al Qaeda is not news.

Westpoint had made those connections several years ago.

According to the UK Telegraph:

The result of the present inquiry is that the Libyan branch of Al Qaeda represents a continuum with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group centered in Darnah and Benghazi. The ethnic base of the Libyan Islamic fighting group is apparently to be found in the anti-Qaddafi Harabi tribe, the tribe which makes up the vast majority of the rebel council including the two dominant rebel leaders, Abdul Fatah Younis [my emphasis] and Mustafa Abdul Jalil. The evidence thus suggests that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the elite of the Harabi tribe, and the rebel council supported by Obama all overlap for all practical purposes.

According to journalist and peace activist, Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley:

The specific institutional basis for the recruitment of guerrilla fighters in northeastern Libya is associated with an organization which previously called itself the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). During the course of 2007, the LIFG declared itself an official subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). As a result of this 2007 merger, an increased number of guerrilla fighters arrived in Iraq from Libya. According to Felter and Fishman, “The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaeda, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda on November 3, 2007.”8 This merger is confirmed by other sources: A 2008 statement attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group has joined al-Qaeda

MacKay and Harper are so out of their league, but unfortunately, now have permission to continue the "mission" until there is a "regime change".

It would appear that we are getting involved in another tribal war, choosing our side poorly, by supporting a branch of Al Qaeda.

What a mess.

Mea Culpa: Thank You Reader for the Correction

On March 12, 2000; Pope John Paul II called for A Day of Pardon:

Let us forgive and ask forgiveness! While we praise God who, in his merciful love, has produced in the Church a wonderful harvest of holiness, missionary zeal, total dedication to Christ and neighbour, we cannot fail to recognize the infidelities to the Gospel committed by some of our brethren, especially during the second millennium. Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken towards the followers of other religions.

I recently posted on the connections between the English Defence League, the Patriot Movement, that includes the Tea Party Express and Anders Behring Breivik.

I suggested that the media should not make this about religion, but hate.

However, one of my readers corrected me, by saying that it was very much about religion. An extension of the Clash of Civilizations, embraced by the Harper government and the neoconservative movement as a whole.

Because, while the Pope's confession did not specifically apologize for The Crusades, it was clear to most that that was his intent.

Political journalist Jacob Weisberg was invited to an event at the American Enterprise Institute, where Bernard Lewis was being given an award for articulating the 'The Clash" for the AEI.

Jason Kenney's former "assistant", Alykhan Velshi, was plucked from AEI, to make sure that Kenney stayed on track with immigration policies. He co-authored this piece with Andrew C. McCarthy, yet another advisor to the International Free Press.

Says Weisberg:

The term neoconservative has many meanings, including "former liberal" and "Jewish conservative." In recent years, however, it has taken on clearer definition as a philosophy of aggressive unilateralism and the effort to impose democratic ideas, especially in the Arab world. The neoconservatives are also a distinct group in and around the Bush administration, which includes Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense, and Scooter Libby, the former aide to the vice president who was convicted last week on multiple counts of perjury. These men pushed for the invasion of Iraq and remain identified with hard-line positions on Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

This group of neocons were not impressed with the Pope's apology, choosing instead to rewrite history, by erasing a century of two, and laying all of the blame on Islam.

In his address, the 90-year-old Lewis ... spoke at length about the millennial struggle between Christianity and Islam. Lewis argues that Muslims have adopted migration, along with terror, as the latest strategy in their "cosmic struggle for world domination." This is a familiar framework from the original author of the phrase "the clash of civilizations"—made more famous by Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington.

I've never read Lewis's interpretation, but I would imagine it reads much like the Protocols of Zion, that predicted it was the Jews who were in a "cosmic struggle for world domination".

In fact Weisberg found it odd that the Jewish Bernard Lewis, would be opposed to the Pope's message, since it included Christian atrocities against Jews, during the Crusades.

The preaching of the First Crusade inspired an outbreak of anti-Semitism. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much an enemy as Muslims: they were held responsible for the crucifixion, and they were more immediately visible than the distant Muslims. Many people wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home.

There had not been so broad a movement against Jews by Christians since the seventh century's mass expulsions and forced conversions. While there had been a number of regional persecutions of Jews by Christians, such as the one in Metz in 888, a plot against Jews in Limoges in 992, a wave of anti-Jewish persecution by Christian millenniary movements (who believed that Jesus was set to descend from Heaven) in the year 1000.

Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon, wrote: “... to go on this journey only after avenging the blood of the crucified one by shedding Jewish blood and completely eradicating any trace of those bearing the name 'Jew,' thus assuaging his own burning wrath.”

But Lewis wanted none of this. The Pope was wrong. The Muslims are to blame, Period!

The reader who corrected me, pointed out that the English Defence League "does battle", under the red and white flag of the Crusades, eventually claimed by England as the St. George's Cross.

And those in the the movement that is sweeping Europe, claim to belong to the PCCT Knights Templar. (the legitimate Knights Templar have no affiliation and have denounced the EDL and Breivik)

This modern adaptation was created by EDL founder, Paul Ray, who calls himself the "Lionheart of England".

Ray is a religious skinhead who formed the EDL, but who now lives in exile in Malta where he leads an anti-Muslim group called The Ancient Order of the Templar Knights. If you’ve been following the news recently, the name of Ray’s organisation should ring a few bells.

When the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik’s 1,500-page ‘manifesto’ went public yesterday, it was full of the same Holy War rhetoric favoured by Ray. Amongst its hubris was the claim that “God will revive the ancient order of the Knights Templar”. Eerily similar, especially when you think about the claims Breivik has made about his close relationship with the EDL

A "religious skinhead". What an apt description.

My reader was right and I was wrong. This is a religious movement. The PCCT states that other religions and cultures can reside with Christians, but that they must follow Christian principles. No other churches. No other religious celebrations.

On the other hand, 'Christian' atheists and 'Christian 'agnostics' are OK. Breivik was not a Christian fundamentalist but apparently a Christian agnostic.

Ezra Levant, in his dismissing the Norwegian terrorist as a nut, wants it to end there. We're on a need to know basis.

And what we don't need to know is his close relationship with Geert Wilders, a hero to both the EDL and Anders Behring Breivik.

I spent several hours yesterday, researching, and have filled half a notebook. My stomach was a bit too queasy to blog on it yesterday, but I'm going to organize my research and continue the story.

This was not an isolated case. The actions of one "nut". It is huge. And it is the return of fascism.

Who said this?:

"By its decision to carry out the political and moral cleansing of our public life, the Government is creating and securing the conditions for a really deep and inner religious life. The advantages for the individual which may be derived from compromises with atheistic organizations do not compare in any way with the consequences which are visible in the destruction of our common religious and ethical values. The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society".

Paul Weyrich?

Nope.

Stephen Harper?

Nope? Though it wasn't unlike his "theocon" speech to the Civitas Society, when he claimed they had to shift their focus to the social conservatives.

George W. Bush?

Nope.

It was Adolf Hitler.

A Closer look at Geert Wilders

The American Enterprise Institute is not the only group attempting to rewrite history. Harper government pal Geert Wilders, tells quite a fairy tale, in his speeches.

In Rome, on the invitation of yet another anti-Islamic group: The Magna Carta Foundation, he tells the adoring crowd:

Together with Jerusalem and Athens, Rome is the cradle of our Western civilization – the most advanced and superior civilization the world has ever known.

As Westerners, we share the same Judeo-Christian culture. I am from the Netherlands and you are from Italy. Our national cultures are branches of the same tree. We do not belong to multiple cultures, but to different branches of one single culture. This is why when we come to Rome, we all come home in a sense. We belong here, as we also belong in Athens and in Jerusalem.

I guess Egypt, the Incas, Mesopotamia, etc., were rank amateurs.

A continuation of the erasure of the contributions of ancient cultures, choosing only those of white skin.

And it is not just talk.

On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, a group calling themselves the American Council for Cultural Policy, met with George Bush and the Pentagon, with the request that they be allowed to have the ancient treasures housed in the museums. What couldn't be taken was destroyed.

It's as though Iraq had no history at all.

Wilders continues his blas-tory.

I am here today to talk about multiculturalism. This term has a number of different meanings. I use the term to refer to a specific political ideology. It advocates that all cultures are equal. If they are equal it follows that the state is not allowed to promote any specific cultural values as central and dominant. In other words: multiculturalism holds that the state should not promote a leitkultur, which immigrants have to accept if they want to live in our midst ... My friends, I dare say that we have known this all along. Indeed, the premise of the multiculturalist ideology is wrong. Cultures are not equal. They are different, because their roots are different. That is why the multiculturalists try to destroy our roots..

Again playing the victim. They are being persecuted simply because they belong to "the most advanced and superior civilization the world has ever known".

If these guys represent that "superior civilization", it clearly has "root rot".

Here's another group burning an anti-Nazi flag. Yep. The lost tribe of the superior intellects.



The Magna Carta Foundation even blame the Muslims for the right's denying Patriot Act.

All European countries have the equivalent of the ‘U.S. Patriot Act’, ours is ‘The Civil Contingencies Act 2004.’ Which allows the PM, or whoever happens to be in charge at the time to declare ‘Martial Law’ if they think Civil Unrest will, or might occur. When ‘Martial Law’ is declared we will be living in a Dictatorship and totalitarian rule will have been achieved, we will never get out from under it.

Islam is the virus they are using to bring the Act into force. It is deliberate and pernicious gerrymandering for the benefit of an agenda that has been hidden from us for many years.

Islam "is a virus". An "evil religion". Read the Old Testament lately?

The sad thing is that most Christians don't feel this way, and most Muslims are just as afraid of terrorism as anyone else. But a multicultural society that allows all faiths and cultures to live in peace, is being destroyed by this noisy and dangerous movement, in the name of "patriotism".

Just what the American founding fathers were afraid of, which is why they called for the separation of church and state.

Not to worry though. The neocons have that one covered too. They are rewriting textbooks, to remove Thomas Jefferson, replacing him with Billy Graham.

Did you ever think you would be seeing this in your lifetime? It's like the world has gone mad.

The difference is that in Europe and the United States you can read daily about the Tea Party movement, and the rise of fascism (especially in Europe).

All we get are photo-ops.

I have a few more postings on this 'Patriot' game, involving the Tea Party, Fox News, North and South, the Religious Right, the EDL, the Neoconservatives, and the Harper government.

I thank my reader for steering me in this direction, though I may never sleep again.

Because not only Muslims are on their radar.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The multiculturalist Left is facilitating islamization. Leftist multiculturalists are cheering for every new shariah bank, for every new islamic school, for every new mosque. Multiculturalists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.  Geert Wilders

The national Government will allow and confirm to the Christian denominations the enjoyment of their due influence in schools and education. And it will be concerned for the sincere cooperation between Church and State. The struggle against the materialistic ideology and for the erection of a true people's community (Volksgemeinschaft) serves as much the interests of the German nation as of our Christian faith. ...The national Government, seeing in Christianity the unshakable foundation of the moral and ethical life of our people ... Adolf Hitler

What Sun Media Doesn't Want You to Know About Anders Behring Breivik

When Ann Coulter came to Canada to speak, and fabricate a threat to free speech, her visit was sponsored by two right-wing organizations: The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and the International Free Press.

Clare Booth Luce is a conservative women's "think tank" with ties to the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation.

It's very feminine, with lots of pink, and has little groups like 'Liberty Belles' and 'Luce Ladies', not to be confused with 'loose ladies', which is a different institution.

The International Free Press was created in 2009, as an extension of the Free Press Society in Denmark. It's founder, Lars Hedegaard, is constantly challenging Denmark's hate laws, to play himself as the victim of oppression.

IFPS has expanded internationally, hence the title, and even has a branch in Canada.

Their advisory board includes both Ezra Levant and Geert Wilders.

The IFPS is not really about "freedom of the press" or "free speech". It's only about the freedom to bash Muslims and multiculturalism (immigration).

If you stand on the street corner and claim that the Holocaust was a hoax, don't expect them to come to your rescue. Because they know that making such a false statement could incite hatred, just as most of their questionable statements about Islam do.

Breivik's manifesto was filled with diatribes against Islam and multiculturalism, the new catch phrase for "non-white".

Why has this become the rallying cry of the far right?

According to Harvard's Dr. John Trumpbour, it is part of the new right-wing foreign policy initiative: The Clash of Civilizations, which, as Lawrence Martin reveals in Harperland, is a philosophy that Stephen Harper prefers to peacekeeping.

As the cold war ended, the neoconservative movement, without an internal communist threat to combat, found a new enemy within, “multiculturalism.” The shifting of immigration patterns and the articulation of U.S. culture as diverse and contested created a backlash with a reified Western, Nordic, or “Judeo-Christian” culture threatened by allegedly unassimilable emigrants from alien civilizations. In a subtle and wide-ranging exploration of the use and abuse of theories of civilizational clash in U.S. society and politics, Trumpbour holds up the construction of the Muslim enemy as a mirror of our own society’s anxieties and fears.

Our "Judeo-Christian" heritage.

Since when?

Four hundred years ago when Samuel De Champain was residing at Port Royal, a companion, Marc Lescarbot, wrote in his journal of their little club, where men took turns hunting and preparing feasts. But he said "not the artisans because they were of a different sort".

They were from the Jewish ghetto at Pons.

The Social Credit Party, the forerunner to Reform-Alliance-Conservative, was based solely on the notion of a Jewish Conspiracy, not unlike the new Islamic conspiracy. They were going to take over the world.

When Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, sent the SS St. Louis adrift, knowing that those countries who condemned Germany's antisemitism, would prove to be hypocritical, Canada was one of the countries who turned the doomed ship away.

Instead of rewriting history, we should try to learn from it.

Geert Wilders, has become the new face of hatred. He has inspired the English Defence League, part of the new right-wing "patriot" movement. In this video they wait to meet their hero (poor quality).

They claim not to be racist, but refer to all from the Middle East as "Pakis" and use the old "they're breeding like rabbits" line, used throughout history, whenever a new group arrives "threatening to ruin western civilisation".

In researching my own Irish heritage, I found many old newspaper accounts suggesting that the Irish "bred like rabbits" and would soon be taking over.

It's odd that when rabbits "breed like rabbits" they create more rabbits. But when people "breed like rabbits", they cease to be human.

The language of hatred.

The English Defence League has since been linked to Anders Behring Breivik:

British police are investigating links between Anders Breivik and the English Defence League, a group the gunman described as a ‘blessing’ in an online forum.

But is the nationalist group no more than a blip on the fringes of society, or is it part of a larger movement threatening to destabilise multiculturalism in Europe?

... ethnic minorities, are increasingly becoming targets of hateful ideologies as fascist movements such as the EDL gain momentum across Europe. And it is these movements Breivik is said to have been associated with. Dr Robert Lambert, co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre at Exeter University says Breivik’s target was a multicultural society. He shot Labour party activists and targeted the prime minister because they represented what he despised.

It doesn't matter whether Geert Wilders ever heard of the EDL or the EDL of Breivik. This is part of a larger movement, operating under the guise of "free speech" and opposition to "multiculturalism", instead of what we used to call them: white supremacists.

In the following video, Ezra Levant justifies the appearance of Geert Wilders at the National Arts Centre, by claiming that the federal government owns the building. But it does not.

We own the building, and we were not consulted. The Harper government approved and so it was done.



Levant interviews Wilders here and squeals when the Islamophobe is acquitted of hate crimes.

Now Levant wants us to believe that Breivik is just a nut and that his actions had nothing to do with the toxic atmosphere created by the neoconservative movement and their 'Clash of Civilizations'.

We are watching these civilizations clash, and it won't end well if we don't stop this now.

Many European nations are investigating this new radical right. The Obama administration tried early on, but were shot down by the GOP. They can't afford an investigation into the radical right, because all roads lead right back to them.

If Harper wants to investigate the radical right in Canada, he only needs to hold a caucus meeting.

The big news stories in the past week or so, are not unrelated. Rupert Murdoch's media empire that includes Fox News and their spawn, Fox News North (not owned by Murdoch but he helped to create it), inflames these movements. They provide validation. "We're on your side" they say.

Instead of denouncing their actions, people like Glenn Beck attack the victims, and Levant the media, who he sees dancing with joy that the latest terrorist attack was not perpetrated by Muslims.

How did we get to this point?

Hopefully, this will inspire a dialogue, that includes the influence of Canada's Religious Right (Jim Flaherty's pal Charles McVety also invited Wilders to speak at his Christian College), and this government's policies, that reflect those of the U.S. Neoconservative movement.

We are charting a very dangerous course.

Sorry Ezra. You Don't Get Off That Easily

Given that Ezra Levant attacks Muslims at every opportunity, I was curious what he would have to say about the Norwegian disaster, and he didn't disappoint.

First off, he's right to say that this was not a religious issue. Anders Breivik was not a Christian fundamentalist, but part of a "Patriot" movement, promoting the idea that multiculturalism is destroying western civilization.

However, Levant suggests that CBC "and their kind" are "positively relieved, even thrilled, the mass murder here was done by someone who wasn’t Muslim".

He's creating an "us vs them" mentality, where the left hate Christians, and will take the Muslims side over them every time.

The Patriot movement is not concerned with religion, though some will invoke God. They are concerned with color. The English Defence League calls them all "Pakis".

This is not a holy war, but a race war.

The Watchmen of the Patriot Action Network focuses on things like immigration, "commies", and "lefties", and the Tea Party Express is part of the Network.

The media needs to avoid making this about religion. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with hate.

Glenn Beck didn't play the religious card this time, but the poltical one. The "leftie" labour party, running youth camps, he compared to the "Hitler youth".

Speaking on his radio programme yesterday, he said the teenagers attending the Labour youth camp on the idyllic island were like the Nazi leader's infamous young followers, and branded any kind of political trip for youngsters as 'disturbing'.

He failed to mention that he himself runs right-wing indoctrination camps for youth, across the U.S., called the 9/12 Project.

Now that's disturbing!

From Archie Bunker to Don Cherry: Why Words Matter

One of my favourite episodes of All in the Family was the one where Archie Bunker is singled out by a group of "concerned Americans" and asked to join their club. At his first meeting he has a rude awakening, when they all put on white sheets.

For several seasons we heard him use terms like "Japs", "Chinks", "Hebes", "Pinkos", Dagos", "Polacks" and "Coons". Hurtful words that made us cringe, but we accepted them, because they came from Archie Bunker.

However, in the above episode, Archie finally realizes that words do matter, because they can and often do, turn into something more. The local chapter of the KKK was planning to burn a cross on his son-in-law's lawn because of a letter Mike Stivic had published in the paper, that painted him as a "commie".

Hatred hit home, and it was only then that Archie took notice.

For years we listened to the rantings against foreigners taking over hockey from Don Cherry, and again we laughed. After all, it was Don Cherry. Making bombastic statements was his shtick.

But then he entered the political arena, campaigning for Rob Ford and denouncing progressives as "pinkos". On Fox News North he tells Brian Lilley that he appreciates what "yous guys" were doing, trying to take the country back to the 1950s, and Lilley refers to him as a true Canadian "patriot".

Cherry didn't disappoint the audience and you could almost hear the cheers when he used the term "multiculturalism baloney".

It should come as no surprise that Anders Breivik, the Norwegian home-grown terrorist, uses the same language, protesting against immigration and multiculturalism.

And just as we knew that the right-wing would spin this, far right Swedish politician, Erik Hellsborn, writes on his blog:

What was it that really drove Behring Breivik? In the manifesto, he says very clearly: anxiety. Concern that multiculturalism and Islamisation threaten the Christian West's existence. In a Norwegian Norway, where the Left's preposterous dreams of a multicultural society had not taken root, this tragedy would never have happened. If there was no Islamisation and mass immigration, there would have been nothing to trigger Behring Breivik to do what he did.

Stephen Harper refers to multiculturalism as a "weak nation strategy", despite the fact that most Canadians like the fact that we are that kind of society.

Archie: I'm gonna go into town and get me a good Jew lawyer.
Mike Stivic: Do you always have to label people? Why can't you just get a lawyer. Why does it have to be a Jewish lawyer?
Archie: Because if I'm going to sue an "A-rab," I want a guy that's full o' hate!

I doubt Breivik ever listened to Don Cherry or watched All in the Family, but his "manifesto" can be found everywhere. On right-wing stations like Fox News, north and south, and even in government parlance.

He did not act alone but had millions of people behind him.

Don Cherry, I know, would never attempt to justify this man's actions, but let's hope it's his wake-up call. He has a huge following, and those who don't wince at his words, hang on to every one of them.

This has certainly been Norway's wake-up call, as they are now planning to investigate all of these right-wing "patriot" groups.

And I believe that Breivik's actions may have a different affect on the populace. The crowd of mourners included people from all cultures and religions, and one young man made an impassioned plea to the nation that they not abandon democracy because of this.

The judge in the case, is wisely refusing to give oxygen to this young man to spew his hatred in a courtroom, barring the media from what would surely be a sensational event.

I posted recently on a group in Great Britain, the English Defence League, another in the "Patriot Action Network". It has since been learned that they have connections with this Norwegian.

EDL warns that the Muslims "are breeding like rabbits". Where have I heard that before?

Different era. Different vctims.

Harper's National Citizens Coalition created an anti "Boat People" campaign, doing all the math, if Canada allowed those fleeing Vietnam to settle in Canada. One "man of the cloth" even referred to it as "ethnic indigestion".

But guess what? Their numbers were a little off. Go figure.

Mike Stivic: Why couldn't they say "Buddha, bless you" in Chinese?
Archie Bunker: Because they don't say that, that's why. If they say... Well, if they say anything at all, it's "Sayonara".
Mike Stivic: That's Japanese.
Archie Bunker: Same thing.
Mike Stivic: It's not the same thing!
Archie Bunker: What are you talking about? You put a Jap and a Chink together, you gonna tell me which is which?
Mike Stivic: That's right, because I find out about them. I talk to them as individuals.
Archie Bunker: Sure you talk to them. You say, "Which one of you guys is the Chink?"
Mike Stivic: [yells] I don't believe this. He's making me crazy!

I know the feeling, though not the kind of crazy that inspires bombings and mass murders.

Yesterday, when the Toronto Sun revealed that Jack Layton was once again battling cancer, they were forced to close down the comments section, but not before one reader posted this:

"Who couldn’t help but rejoice in NDP leader Jack Layton’s devastating news"

Why would the Sun be shocked by this? The same paper that compared Layton to Lenin.

If the Neoconservatives want to take us back to the 1950s, they've already accomplished a return to the 1960s, Cold War mentality, when everything was a "commie plot".

Breivik speaks of "cultural Marxism", a term used by Harper's buddy Paul Weyrich, and countless others in the new right-wing movement.

What now passes for conservatism.

Weyrich and his flock want to return to the 1950s, before the Civil Rights movement, when segregation was legal and acceptable. Others want to go back to the 1950s, when white women were churning out those white babies, in the post-war "baby boom".

But I'm not going anywhere with these guys.

I'm No Soothsayer But I Warned You

It doesn't take a genius to predict what will happen when hatred becomes policy. After the Norway attack became public, Peter MacKay suggested that it is still a volatile world.

It has been, and always will be, a volatile world, which is why it's the responsibility of governments to try to keep the peace. Unfortunately, the success of the neoconservative movement demands that people are kept riled.

I've been posting a bit on Fox News North/Sun TV, and how they use language, not to inform or inspire, but to incite. And while Harper will again stand back from this, remember, he was the one who went to Rupert Murdoch, with Kory Teneycke in tow, begging for our own Fox News.

And it was his government that allowed the Islamophobic Geert Wilders (above right with Anders Behring Breivik) to speak at the Tulip Festival. The Tulip Festival? I still can't wrap my head around that, because the last place you would expect to encounter hate speech is at a bloody flower show.

I'm not sure how the right-wing noise machine will spin this, but be sure that they will.

Terrorists? But They Aren't Islamic Fundamentalists!

On April 19, 1995, an explosion destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injuring more than 680. And while the media immediately began to suggest that it was the work of Arab terrorists, an FBI profiler, Clinton Van Zandt, knew better.

He said that the perpetrator would be a white male, in his twenties, probably a military man and possibly a member of a fringe militia group. He took note of the date of the attack, coinciding with the Waco tragedy two years before, and occurring on Patriot's Day, the anniversary of the Revolutionary War Battle of Concord, which is revered by the militia movement. He was right and that is how they were able to catch Tim McVeigh, who was already in custody over a traffic violation.

So had Van Zandt immediately gone to believing that the bombing was perpetrated by an Islamic terrorist, McVeigh may never have been caught, and who knows what his next target might have been.

In fact, it is believed by many, that the biggest domestic threat in the United States, comes from these right-wing militia groups, which grew by 40% in 2009 and another 22% in 2010.

... by far the most dramatic growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy — which gained more than 300 new groups, a jump of over 60%.

Watch some of those Tea Party rallies, and see for yourself. Did the Koch Brothers know what they would be unleashing when they created this nationalism on steroids movement?

Maybe they did.

It's all about lowering corporate taxes (Stephen Harper wants to erase them), and getting government out of corporations' business, by ending demands that they protect the environment and not create dangerous products.

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian "terrorist", belonged to the Patriot Action Network, which has branches around the world, including the U.S.

The Tea Party Express is listed as a partner, as well as "Commiebuster".

They also link to Concerned Women for America, the sister group of REAL Women of Canada.

(CWA) is the nation's largest public policy women's organization with a rich 30-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy. There's a cultural battle raging across this country and CWA is on the frontline protecting those values through prayer and action.

Anders Behring Breivik, has made public a manifesto. A game plan for getting rid of Muslims and Marxists.

So far, I've only read the highlights, but I've been researching the neoconservative movement for several years, and I've found the same language in almost all of the writings of neocons, and their many organizations.

Neoconservatism is fascism, and Islamophobia, the new anti-semitism.

The anger toward, and hatred of, Jews in Germany, did not take place overnight. It started with cartoons and hate speech in newspapers, and public gatherings.

The perpetrators were taken to court, but a clever and expensive lawyer had all charges dismissed. They got away with it so pushed the boundaries further.


One cartoon from the 1920s, showed a silenced Hitler, above the caption "He alone of two billion people on earth may not speak in Germany.”

He too cited the lack of "freedom of speech".

I keep asking myself what it's going to take to wake Canadians up. Will it be this? Or will the right-wing media spin the story so much, that it only again creates "shrugitis"?

Not in Canada you say?

Among those who saw a pattern of discrimination in the actions of the [Harper] government was Gar Pardy, the former head of the consular services section of the foreign affairs department. Opposition MPs were suspicious as well. Charlie Angus, an NDP MP from Northern Ontario, said he was told by an immigration official of discriminatory practices by his department. The department would periodically post photos of newcomers on advertising displays to promote immigration. "They identified who gets in these photos in terms of what ethnic groups they were interested in," said Angus. But one group, he was told, was deliberately left out of the promotion materials. "They said, 'No Muslims.' This came down from government orders."

(Harperland, Martin, Pg. 201)

Gary Bauer's Focus is the Harper Government's Vision

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

Another soldier in the war against American women, who helped to the launch a similar war against Canadian women, is Gary Bauer.

Bauer was with the Moral Majority/Religious Right political movement, that helped to run Ronald Reagan's campaign for President. As reward, he was appointed to the Education Department, as the "family policy" czar, and his first order of business was to "usurp the feminists" (1).

With that accomplished, the Department of Education, then directed the effort to crown the fathers. As Susan Faludi said, "If the "pro-family" movement was "pro" anything, it was paternal power". The same has been said of REAL Women of Canada. (2)

To many, the creation of a "family policy" office would suggest an office committed to helping families with things like financial aid, and medical or legal assistance, but that was not the case. Instead they churned out lectures on how the American family should "behave".

And in a further attack against the Civil Rights movement, Bauer told civil-rights leaders: "The values taught on the `Cosby' show would do more to help low-income and minority children than a bevy of new federal programs. . . . a lot of research indicates that values are much more important, say, than the level of welfare payments."

Not everyone could accomplish what the Huxtables accomplished, with a doctor father and lawyer mother, and that includes most white families. However, the Religious Right's attitude on racial issues has not changed since Reagan's time, as witnessed by their latest offspring, the FAMILY LEADER, and their suggestion that slavery was good for the black family.

However, women and blacks were not the only targets of Bauer's office"

[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general [C. Everett Koop] to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers ..... Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them. (3)

Gary and Carol Bauer: Your Typical American Family

Bauer's office promoted the nuclear family, as laid out in a fifty-two-page diatribe, that senator Daniel P. Moynihan, referred to as "less a policy statement than a tantrum."

"The Family: Preserving America's Future" opens with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: "If the mother does not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a next generation that is worse than none at all." The pages were filled with attacks on "women who work, women who use day care, women who divorce", and "women who have babies out of wedlock".

His "recommendations" to save the family included a list of punishments for girls and mothers: "bar young single mothers from public housing; revive old divorce laws to make it harder for women to break the wedding bonds; deny contraceptives to young women". Mothers who stay home, he suggested, should get tax breaks; "the more babies, the more credits".

With such strong opinions you would think that Bauer and his wife Carole, were living this desired family life. But they weren't.

It comes then as a bit of a surprise to learn that Bauer has subjected his own children to this leftist institution—for nine years. (Bauer called daycares "Marxist")

He can explain it, he says. His use of day care was "different" and "better" because he placed his children in "home-based" day care—that is, an unlicensed center run out of a woman's living room. (It's unclear how this is better: a national review of child abuse statistics at day care centers finds that the most incidents of abuse have occurred at such unlicensed sites.) At any rate, Bauer says, a bit defensively, it's not like his kids went directly from the maternity ward to the day care nursery. His wife, Carol, waited "at least three, four months" before she returned to work. (1)

However, wife Carol remembers it differently:

"Actually, I went back to work six weeks after Elyse was born," says his wife ... At the time of her daughter Elyse's birth in 1977, Carol Bauer explains, she was a top assistant to Congresswoman Margaret Heckler; she couldn't just quit.

A lack of federal assistance programs for mothers also played a role in her decision: "There's no set leave policy on the Hill," she points out. Financial considerations entered into it, too: "We had bought a house and we had a mortgage." And then there was that other impulse that she just couldn't seem to squelch: "It wasn't just economics. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work. I loved work." She laughs. "I mean, when I had Elyse, I literally took my work with me. After I got out of the hospital, I was working the next day at home."

For years, at eight o'clock every morning, the Bauers dropped off Elyse, and eventually their second daughter, Sarah, at day care, put in a full day of work, and then picked up the girls on the way home, usually after six o'clock. The children spent so much time at day care, in fact, Carol Bauer says, that when it came time for Elyse to enter kindergarten, they enrolled her in the school in the center's neighborhood rather than their own. How did the girls feel about day care? "Oh, fine," Carol Bauer says. "They were very happy there. For them it was normal."(1)

Like Beverly Lehaye, one of the founders of REAL Women's inspiration: 'Concerned Women for America', Carol Bauer only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home. When she finally did drop out of the workforce, Bauer found "nesting" difficult, and was only happy when she spent most waking hours doing volunteer work.

Oh, and that "family values" man, Gary Bauer.

He was alleged to have had an affair with a 26-year-old staffer (deputy campaign manager Melissa McClard), prompting nine members of his staff to quit. He denied that it was an affair, but Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, warned Bauer several times "in the clearest possible terms" that he was creating "the appearance of impropriety" by spending "hours and hours and hours behind closed doors with a young single woman."

Canada's "family values" man, Vic Toews, lost his deniability rights, when it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a young conservative staffer, breaking up his 30 years plus marriage.

From Women's Affairs to Foreign Affairs

For Harper, the courtship of the Christian right is unlikely to prove an electoral one-night stand. Three years ago, in a speech to the annual Conservative think-fest, Civitas, he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. "The only route", he argued, "was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence.

"Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue", he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same".

Arguing that the party "had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ... " (4)

Gary Bauer continues to work the circuit of anti-feminist, anti-gay conferences, where REAL Women of Canada make regular appearances.

REAL also promotes Bauer's new group: American Values, in his attack on "leftie" judges.

Bauer is associated with Focus on the Family, a group that conservative MPs, Rob Anders and Maurice Vellacott belong to, and who helped Stephen Harper get elected in 2006, on his "anti-same-sex marriage" platform.

But the most alarming activities for Bauer, and indeed most of the Religious Right, is their dramatic shift to foreign policy.

Bauer is a member of the Project for the New American Century, that included neoconservatives like Steve Forbes, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and William Kristol. This group helped to draft the Bush Doctrine.

They have been critical of Obama's decision not to send ground troops to Libya, instead following the UN Resolution, which does not support a "regime change".

The Harper Doctrine has no such limitations, and in fact is very specific that only a regime change will do.

However, even more alarming is Bauer's new pet project: Emergency Committee for Israel's Leadership, an aggressive extension of Christians United for Israel, who support extended military engagement in the Middle East.

Jim Flaherty's pal, Charles McVety, heads up the Canadian chapter.

This group, like most in the movement, are Apocalyptic.

So what does it mean when they not only provide foot soldiers for Harper's war on women, but dictate his foreign policy? Or what Harper himself calls 'putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments'.

Yet another reason why the media has to start paying attention.

Drop the 'Tory' nonsense, and report from the Neoconservative/Religious Right/Tea Party reality.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 263-267

2. "R.E.A.L. Women, Anti-feminism and the Welfare State, By Lorna Erwin, Resources for Feminist Research, 1988

3. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, By D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-19-532666-6

4. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

Rupert Murdoch Lied? It Can't be True!

During his testimony to the British Parliament, Rupert Murdoch claimed not to know about the phone hacking.

However, two former executives with News Corp disputed the claim, saying that Murdoch was warned several times that phone hacking at one of the company’s tabloid newspapers was more widespread.

He didn't get the memo. Sound familiar?

Ann Coulter is Not a "Free Speech Heroine". She's an Idiot.

I must admit that I had never heard Ann Coulter speak, but have read many of the things she has written. Certainly no intellectual, but if I understand correctly, she is a comedian, akin to a shock jock.

Bill Maher had her on as a guest this week and my "shock" was not in her anticipated "hate speech", but in how ignorant she is, or at least acts.

Coulter was blaming the current debt crisis in the U.S., on medicare and social security. When pressed about the wars and the extension of the Bush tax cuts, she declared that they had nothing to do with the current debt.

WHAT???

No. Apparently, the sick and the elderly are to blame.

Not expensive wars or corporate tax cuts. Not the bailing out of Wall Street.

Ezra Levant, that chick magnate, is smitten with Ann Coulter, and interviewed her recently on Fox News North, opening the segment with scenes of an "angry mob", protesting Coulter's intended visit to the University of Ottawa.

Although Levant prefers to use the terms "Demonic Mob" and "Mad Mob".

In the photo above, the young man in the background, with the red eyes, is not part of a demonic mob", but young neocon, Michael Sona, a Conservative staffer.

Sona was the activist who tried to steal the ballot box at the University of Guelph.

The votes in that box were allowed to stand, but it had the desired effect, because Sona's actions resulted in a ruling that no other special ballot polling stations, similar to the one in Guelph, would be authorized anywhere else in Canada during the campaign.

Controlled controversy 101.



In the above segment Coulter and Levant discuss the mob mentality, with Coulter suggesting that the only violence, or threats of violence, come from the left wing.

Obviously she hasn't been watching the Tea Party protests, where one man carried this sign.



Coulter also claimed that only the left will compare right-wingers to Nazis and/or other dictators. Again she needs to get out more.




Even Canada's Sun Media jumped on the bandwagon.



Of course, the intent is not to have us believe what they are saying. They know it's not true but it doesn't matter. The devotees will believe it's true and they need to keep them angry and loyal. 'Don't be ashamed of those thoughts because we agree. We're just like you'.

Classic Karl Rove.

And Karl Rove's counterpart, Guy Giorno, has advised the same to Stephen Harper. Protect that "base" at any cost, even if it means appearing stupid.

Mob Mentality

In a bit of an intellectual aside, Coulter brings up Gustave Le Bon, a French social psychologist, sociologist and author of A Study of the Popular Mind. Without really going into his study, she simply suggests that he has the demonic left-wing mob mentality down pat.

Viewers swooned. She speaks French.

Le Bon suggested that the mob will take on the intellect of the lowest among them.

This very fact that crowds possess in common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence. The decisions affecting matters of general interest come to by an assembly of men of distinction, but specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in common on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. In crowds it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumulated.(A Study of the Popular Mind, By: Gustave Le Bon, Book One: The Mind of Crowds)

It should be noted that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda mastermind, read Le Bon religiously, to reach to the lowest in Germany, and Mussolini kept a copy of A Study of the Popular Mind beside his bed.

Le Bon's biggest fears were realized, because he was concerned that in the wrong hands, the book could be used as a guideline to manipulate the masses for the lesser good, and indeed it was.

I can't help thinking that that is exactly what Fox News North and its big brother Fox News is attempting here. Reach out to the worst of people, and the worst in people.

Philosopher Hannah Arendt covered the Nazi trials at Nuremberg for the American press, and remarked on how "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking" they were.

Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis. ( Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, P. 318)

And yet there were many PhDs in the party.

But to do what they did required ignorance, not intellect. A numbing of the masses, so the worst could dictate the actions of all.

In that atmosphere, hatred goes mainstream, and we all become desensitized to it.

Bombings, human rights abuses, war crimes.

Shrug.

“Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.” Gustave Le Bon

"Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the “remaking” of the Reich ..." Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

From Forlorn to Forbearing: Feminism Never Stood a Chance

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

We all remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Meg Ryan shows Billy Crystal how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm, and another patron declares "I'll have what she's having".

It was probably the funniest scene in the movie, but not everyone was laughing.

Two years before the movie's release, in November of 1987, Shere Hite published the last installment of her national survey on sexuality and relationships, Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress, and the reaction from the male population was immediate.

The media, unable to dispute the findings, since they were testimonials from flesh and blood women, instead attacked Hite personally, as a man hating flake.

I doubt many read all 922 pages, representing the views of 4,500 women, so instead thumbed through the summaries, questioning the numbers.

They also accused Hite of only distributing her questionnaires through women's rights groups, but that was not the case. Hite sent her surveys through a wide range of women's groups, including church societies, social clubs, and senior citizens' centers. And while their views were dismissed as "man-bashing diatribes", they sounded more forlorn than vengeful.

So why the uproar?

Says Susan Faludi, in her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women: "the overheated denunciations of Hite's book suggest an emotion closer to fear than fury."

Hite revealed that women were more likely to experience orgasm through masturbation than intercourse, and panic set in. Test-tube babies were already a reality, so the fear for some men would be that they might be deemed to be obsolete.

A ridiculous assumption, but one shared by many just the same. Canadian neoconservative Link Byfield, spoke at a REAL Women of Canada conference, relating his fears"

To populate the nation, society has implemented the ideas set out in Aldous Huxley's book, "Brave New World." For example, we are increasingly playing with providing babies in nurseries without mothers and fathers and families, just as predicted by Mr. Huxley ...

Fortunately, most men don't really feel that way, enjoying more intimacy in an equal partnership, but it helps to reveal some of the fears, neocon males have of "radical feminists".

If women can support themselves, pleasure themselves, have and raise children themselves, where do they fit in? Will they have to audition for a place in society that they were once guaranteed, simply because of their maleness?

The Strange Case of Srully Blotnick

Eventually Shere Hite was forced to leave the United States and become a German citizen, she was so vilified.

And yet another expert on women, who was releasing the results of his survey, was glorified by the media. Srully Blotnick, a columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Blotnick asserted that his twenty-five-year study of 3,466 women proved that achieving career women are likely to end up without love, and their spinsterly misery would eventually undermine their careers as well. "In fact," he wrote, "we found that the anxiety, which steadily grows, is the single greatest underlying cause of firing for women in the age range of thirty-five to fifty-five." He took some swipes at the women's movement, too, which he called a "smoke screen behind which most of those who were afraid of being labeled egomaniacally grasping and ambitious hid."

Dr. Blotnick appeared everywhere and was quoted often. And his testimonials were not deemed to be female-bashing diatribes, but legitimate views of working women.

And Forbes magazine paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce still more studies about these "anxiety-ridden careerists". But there was a problem.

First off, if Blotnick had really been compiling his data for 25 years, using interviews with women, as he claimed; it would have meant that he had began when he was only 17. How many women are going to open up to a 17-year-old boy, about their anxieties over working outside the home, while still being expected to perform 80% of the domestic duties.

Or about their sexuality?

The biggest problem, however, was that Dr. Blotnick was not a doctor at all. His degree had been acquired through a correspondence course, and was not recognized anywhere. When the news broke, Forbes had him remove the "Dr." from his byline, but continued to print his columns.

And the media continued to quote him everywhere.

Why Was Forbes so Interested?

Eventually Forbes magazine did fire Blotnick, after a criminal investigation for practicing psychology in New York, without a license.

But why was a business rag so concerned with women's rights, that they poured so much money into this man's "research"? Keeping him on even after learning that he had lied about his credentials?

To understand the motivation of Forbes magazine is to understand it's editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes, a card carrying member of the Neoconservative movement.

Grandson of the magazine's founder, Forbes used the publication to endorse Ronald Reagan, and when Reagan became president, he brought Forbes into his administration as head of the Board of International Broadcasting.

Steve Forbes took a run at the presidency on his own, but failed. However, he continued to work behind the scenes, in many think tanks and AstroTurf groups, the most famous being the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy

Alykhan Velshi, Jason Kenney's former puppet master, was plucked from there to help put words into Kenney's mouth, and keep the boys in the backroom "election ready". However, now that Harper has a majority, Velshi has left, his work here apparently done.

AEI also helped to draft the "Clash of Civilizations" foreign policy, which according to Lawrence Martin in his book Harperland, is something that Stephen Harper has embraced.

The American Right has been the driving force behind Canada's movement for decades.

In fact, Steve Forbes was key adviser to Christie Todd Whitman's 1993 run for New Jersey governor, transforming her from "plain old Christie Whitman to a Christian Coalition Republican" (CNN Crossfire, January 20, 2000).

He brought on board some Republican heavyweights, including strategist Mike Murphy, who drafted a "common sense" revolution, with the promise of a 30 percent cut in New Jersey's income tax. As a result she beat out the incumbent Governor James Florio.

So successful was the campaign that the Neocons decided to replicate it, transforming plain old Mike Harris into "a *Christian Coalition Republican".

Whitman defeated a popular Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio, primarily on the basis of a Murphy-inspired campaign using a "common sense" slogan and pledging a 30 per cent tax cut. Since her victory, the activities of her government in implementing this plan had been carefully charted by Harris aide Bill King. In March 1994, Harris actually travelled to New Jersey to meet Whitman and discuss strategy. Two months later, the "Common Sense Revolution" with its 30 per cent tax cut was unveiled. (Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 166)

The Undeclared War Against American Women, is now the well documented War Against Canadian Women.

And the American neoconservative movement has expanded it's mandate, making Canada Chapter Twenty-two of The Shock Doctrine.

They didn't need a bloody coup to achieve their goals, only a willing partner, and no one was more willing than Stephen Harper.

When is our media going to wake up? The evidence is so overwhelming, that it is hitting them between the eyes, knocking them on the head and kicking them in the groin. Yet they still choose to ignore it, preferring instead to believe that Harper was sprinkled with happy powder and instantly turned into a "Tory".

A miracle only rivalled by those witnessed at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.

Another man behind REAL Women of Canada was the late Ted Byfield. When Harper cancelled the Court Challenges program, Byfield wrote under the headline: Canadian Tories pull rug from feminist-gay revolution (World News Net, September 30, 2006)

Whether the challenges program is gone for good is, of course, still in doubt. It survived its last demise under Mulroney, [Lorne] Gunter recalls, by kicking up such a squawk that even the Tories themselves promised to revive it if returned to office. But the Conservatives of those days were the so-called "Red Tories," a species to which Harper & Co. do not belong.

Moreover, the conservative lobby groups are now considerably better organized. The SOW had barely got started in its mass-mailing campaign against the Harper axe when Gwen Landolt of the conservative REAL Women organization, pounced on them for using government funds to influence government policy. Her swift response was typical. It has been REAL Women, totally self-financed by thousands of members, which more than any other group finally put the boots to these detestable agencies. May they stay dead.

There is no argument that we've "had the boots put to us", but the question is: When are we going to start kicking back?

Footnotes:

*Later brought to Canada by Jason Kenney and company. Kenney would also use his Canadian Taxpayers Federation to endorse Mike Harris.