Shock Doctrined Through Think Tanks

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

I've been reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, and what I find interesting, is that American Imperialism over the past half century or so, has followed a pattern.

One laid out by the Chicago school and Milton Friedman. And it was done under the guise of fighting Socialism/Communism, but was really about taking over the economics of other nations, for corporate interests.

Chile provides an excellent example of how the system works.

In an attempt to combat the socialist principles of leading Latin American economist Raul Prebisch, the Chicago School offered free market courses at a Chilean university.

This was the brainchild of Albion Patterson, director of the U.S. International Cooperation Administration in Chile, and Theodore W. Schultz, chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, who called on Friedman to work his magic.

The two men came up with a plan that would eventually turn Santiago, a hotbed of state-centred economics, into its opposite—a laboratory for cutting-edge free-market experiments, giving Milton Friedman what he had longed for: a country in which to test his cherished theories. The original plan was simple: the U.S. government would pay to send Chilean students to study economics at what pretty much everyone recognized was the most rabidly anti-"pink" school in the world—the University of Chicago. Schultz and his colleagues at the university would also be paid to travel to Santiago to conduct research into the Chilean economy and to train students and professors in Chicago School fundamentals. (1)

Friedman and his gang would also bring the media on board, and not surprisingly, the president of their largest newspaper, El Mercurio, would become Augustus Pinochet's economic minister after the U.S. led coup.

However, another important step in trying to turn the Southern Cone , and indeed the rest of the free world, to the right, came from another faculty member at the Chicago School, Friedrich von Hayek.

Hayek had come up with the notion of the corporate funded free market think tank, that he suggested should "present themselves as civil society". They churn out report after report, poll after poll, all to promote corporate interests.

And Chile was no exception. The most prominent are Libertad y Desarrollo (now the Latin American institute) and Centro de Estudios Públicos , both heralded as the saviour of Chile (next to Milton Friedman, bombs, guns and assassins).

Alejandro Chafuen wrote a piece in April of 2010: Think Tanks and the Transformation of the Chilean Economy

In it he not only praises Libertad y Desarrollo and Centro de Estudios Públicos , but also Canada's own Fraser Institute.

... the Fraser Institute in Canada, ranked today as the best market oriented institute outside the United States. Fraser has a huge influence in a Canada which is overcoming the US in economic freedoms, transparency, and several other areas.

But who is this Alejandro Chafuen?

He is the past President of the Atlas Foundation and a Senior Fellow at the Acton Institute. In fact the Acton Institute was started with funds provided by the Atlas Foundation, and is an extension of the Religious Right.

Atlas was, and is, a major sponsor of the Acton Institute run by former faith healer, evangelical, gay community organizer, and now Catholic priest, Bob Sirico. Sirico ran fundamentalist faith healing meetings until he came out as gay. Then he moved on to the Metropolitan Community Churches and started running the Gay Community Center in Hollywood ... Acton officials got heavily involved in the debate on gay marriage. With Sirico back in the closet (though some conservatives don’t think so) the position they have been taking has been to pander to bigots on the Religious Right.

The Atlas Foundation also helps to finance the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which was started in 2002, by Conservative MP John Weston. The CCF has ties to the Harper government and Canada's Neoconservative movement.

They were also behind attack ads run in the U.S. to oppose Obama's healthcare plan.

Donald Gutstein wrote an excellent book: Not a Conspiracy Theory, in which he exposes the myriad of think tanks and foundations propping up the Harper government. Gutstein tells us to follow the money, and the few connections I provided above, are only a tip of the iceberg.

If we are going to engage in non-violent civil disobedience, it's important to know what we're up against. The media is constantly quoting polls and reports from these groups, to defend or explain this government's policies.

We have to do what Gutstein suggests and follow the money. Google the name of the group or the person quoted. It won't take long to find they belong to some corporate funded think tank or "advocacy" group, many with planted MPs.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (Jason Kenney)
The Fraser Institute (Jason Kenney, Rob Anders)
The Montreal Institute (Maxime Bernier)
The Civitas Society (Jason Kenney)
The National Citizens Coalition (Stephen Harper and Rob Anders)

The list is endless.

Once you trace the origin, email the columnist or own the comments section. Our best weapon is education, including the education of the media. Maybe if we become enough of a pain, they may start providing some balance.

Brigette DePape started something here, putting her job on the line to make a statement. But it's not enough to simply "stop" Stephen Harper. We must fight against the entire movement, before it destroys us.

Sources:

1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, By Naomi Klein, Vintage Canada, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-676-97801-8

Redefining Populism: Think Tanks, Foundations and Institutes, Oh My!

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The Tea Party in the United States is being called a grassroots movement. The voices of the people.

But like the Reform movement, this is just another vehicle for the corporate world, who risked losing their scheduled "Bush tax cuts".

So working through the Republican Party, they have managed to shift the United States even further to the right. To a spot just right of sanity.

But while the Tea Party may be steeped in Orange Pekoe, those funding and benefiting from the clinking teaspoons, prefer champagne and caviar.

According to Linda McQuaig:

Back in 1980, when Ronald Reagan launched his campaign for a right-wing revolution in America, David Koch was a disgruntled billionaire who thought Reagan wasn’t far enough to the right. Today, Koch is still a disgruntled billionaire and still convinced the Reagan revolution hasn’t gone nearly far enough in cutting taxes on the rich, dismantling the welfare state and gutting government controls on business.

But today, as Americans vote in their mid-term elections, Koch is no longer in the political wilderness. After pumping more than $100 million into arch-conservative political organizations over the past 30 years, he (and billionaire brother Charles) now appear close to pushing U.S. politics significantly further to the right — even though the wealthy elite is already richer and more powerful today than it’s been since the 1920s. Through their Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch brothers have micromanaged the rise of the purportedly grassroots Tea Party movement. (1)

And that's not all the Koch brothers have been behind. When an organization founded by one of Harper's MPs, John Weston, and former Stockwell Day supporter, John Carpay, launched attack ads in the US against Obama's healthcare plan, the Koch Foundation, through their Americans for Prosperity, helped to pay the bills. You can read all about it here.

These so-called grassroots movements have been called astroturf, but fake or not, the Tea Party is here to stay.

And using foundations to fund these movements is clever, because it means that while they warble against "taxes" the donations these foundations contribute is tax deductible, so those warbling taxpayers are funding their own demise.

We have the same thing in Canada. The Griffith Foundation for starters, donated $ 100,000.00 tax deductible dollars to the Fraser Institute. (2) The same Fraser Institute that helped to launch the Reform party. Jason Kenney and Rob Anders are both alumni.

And when Stephen Harper came to power he immediately changed the rules to make it even easier for these groups to benefit from our tax dollars.

Just a year after the Fraser's anniversary, Harper was prime minister and it was payback time. Buried in his first budget was a provision to exempt from capital gains tax donations of stock to charity. Adding this new exemption to the existing tax credit for donations to charities means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars he donates. Taxpayers pick up the rest. (3)

In his book Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, Trevor Harrison speaks of the assorted think-tanks that helped to advance neoconservatism in Canada. When we were still allowed to call it neoconservatism.

The Fraser Institute was founded in British Columbia in November 1974 by Michael Walker, the son of a Newfoundland miner. Walker, holder of a doctorate in economics from the University of Western Ontario, started the institute with the monetary support of BC's business community, which was still reeling from the NDP's election in 1972. By 1984 the institute was operating on an annual budget of $900,000, funded by some of Canada's largest business interests, including Sam Belzberg of First City Trust, Sonja Bata of Bata Limited, A.J. de Grandpre of Bell Canada, and Lorne Lodge of IBM Canada.

The Fraser Institute also boasts impressive conservative credentials. The institute's authors include Milton Friedman [Ronald Reagan's economic adviser] and Herbert Grubel, while its editorial board includes Sir Alan Walters, former personal economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher. Finally, William F. Buckley Jr, brother-in-law of BC Socred bagman Austin Taylor, is a favourite guest speaker of the institute.

In short, the Fraser Institute is a conservative think-tank heavily funded by the corporate sector. Like the National Citizens' Coalition [Stephen Harper was president of the NCC when he left to run for leadership of the Alliance Party] , the Fraser Institute has steadfastly used its position to advance the neo-conservative agenda, an agenda liberally sprinkled with such Reaganite buzzwords as fiscal restraint, downsizing, and privatization. (4)

We are funding our own demise.

And these "think-tank" "astroturf" groups are growing. Dennis Gruending revealed several new ones, all with ties to Stephen Harper.

· the Manning Centre, created by Preston and his wife Sandra to train people how to succeed at conservative politics;

· the Ottawa-based Institute for Canadian Values, which has as its executive director Joseph Ben-Ami, a former political organizer for Stockwell Day.; and

· the Ottawa-based Institute for Marriage and Family, created by Dr James Dobson’s powerful US Focus on the Family (Canada), to provide socially conservative research and advice.

. the Hamilton-based Work Research Foundation (WRF), vice-president of research, Ray Pennings, was an unsuccessful Canadian Alliance candidate in the
2000 federal election.

The emergence of all these organizations might indicate that Canada is now seen as fertile territory for the think tank industry. If so, we all (and unions especially) should brace for an onslaught of “free market” propaganda. The challenge for progressive groups is provide better information and to distribute it widely within the community. (5)

And then there's the Frontier Centre, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Montreal Economic Institute (Maxime Bernier), the Civitas Society, the Canadian Constitution Foundation. The list is endless.

Yes Folks. We are funding our own demise.

Sources:

1. Fortunes fertilize grassroots, By Linda McQuaig, Toronto Star, November 2, 2010

2. Behind Closed Doors: How the Rich Won Control of Canada's Tax System, By Linda McQuaig, Viking Press, 1987, ISBN: 0-670-81578-7, Pg. 57

3. Harperstein, Straight.com, By Donald Gutstein, July 6, 2006

4. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 48-49

5. Conservative think tanks multiply in Canada, By Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics, November 10, 2007

Society for Academic Freedom and Canadian Constitution Foundation

As progressives are starting to understand, the funding, planning, and coordination of the conservative movement has led to tremendous success in elections and government policy. But another arena of ideological competition has gone largely beneath the radar. An asymmetric political war is raging at universities across the country, and once again conservatives are running circles around progressives.

The campus Left, which is still organized for the most part by students and community activists, increasingly finds itself facing off against seasoned conservative strategists. And while progressive student groups are mostly self-funded, by the mid-1990s roughly $20 million dollars were being pumped into the campus Right annually, according to People for the American Way.

That money and expertise are directed at four distinct goals: training conservative campus activists; supporting right-wing student publications; indoctrinating the next generation of culture warriors; and demonstrating the liberal academic "bias" that justifies many conservatives' reflexive anti-intellectualism. (1)

In the United States much of this movement is being orchestrated by Morton Blackwell and the Leadership Institute. In Canada, it is the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, which was started with a ten million dollar anonymous contribution. What Manning is operating is anything but democratic, as he is stirring things up in a very negative way, at university campuses across the country.

The U.S. movement has had a thirty year head start, but in Canada they didn't need a head start, because most of the funding and expertise for the Canadian anti-Democratic movement is being shipped over.

I've been following the Canadian Constitution Foundation, that gets a great deal of funding from places like the Donner Foundation, Atlas Foundation, Aurea Foundation, etc., as well as from anonymous donors, who could be just about anybody.

The founder, John Weston is a Harper MP, and the current director, John Carpay; not only ran for the Reform Party but also worked on Stockwell Day's leadership campaign. They claim to take on "free speech" issues, but they have little to do with actual free speech, but more to do with an attack on common decency.

In a kind of upside down world, that they strive to create; Christian "values" now mean hatred for anyone not white, male and praying to some vengeful god at least 18 hours a day, and groups like CCF are paving the way.

But there is another group also turning Canadian Academia on it's head: The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship. Their founding president is Doreen Kimura, a professor at Simon Fraser University. Kimura is a critic of affirmative action, and believes that males are biologically superior to females.

When I first found their site I was encouraged, because I noticed that they had taken up the cause for York University students. But alas, they are just another right-wing "non-partisan" group promoting nuclear holocaust in the middle east. They suggest that York has taken sides in the conflict against Israel. These so-called scholarly minds feel that by objecting to Apartheid in Gaza, you are somehow against all Jews.

Tom Flanagan is one of their directors, Stephen Harper's former right-hand man. You can also link to all of their campaigns here.

They are quite clever though, because they use an opinion piece written by David Frum to validate their claim that York is bias. Frum is a former speech writer of George W. Bush, his sister Linda was a Harper patronage senate appointment and he is one of the founding members of the Civitas Society. The Civitas Society where the current president of the Society for Academic Freedom, Clive Seligman, was invited to help answer the question "Can the universities be saved?"

I'd like to know if they can be saved from people like Clive, but I don't think that's what they meant.

Jason Kenney is also a founding member of Civitas. For those who don't know, Kenney and David Frum were Siamese twins, separated at birth, but they still speak with just one voice. It's uncanny really. You barely see Frum's lips move.

We've got to start exposing these groups, that all have ties to the Harper government. Peter Kent tried to interfere in York University elections. Steven Fletcher attacked the student newspaper in Manitoba, Peter Braid tried to teach students at Carleton how to cheat the University out of money.

As Joshua Holland says, these right-wing student activist groups are being handled by seasoned conservative strategists. But they are also being funded by corporate sponsored think tanks and foundations, and are linked to current members of government. Progressive students are on their own, and ill prepared to handle this assault.

Their best defense is to ignore them, but they are aggressive. When students at the University of Manitoba were engaged in a day of protest against poverty, campus conservatives, under the direction of provincial conservative MLA, Hugh McFadyen; formed a human chain to prevent their progress toward the legislature, hoping for a physical confrontation.

These guys are not fooling around.

Sources:

1. Why Conservatives are Winning the Campus Wars, by Joshua Holland, Campus Watch, August 7, 2005

Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Federalist Society Attacking Universities

I've been writing a series of articles on the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, who have joined forces to attack Canadian universities, partly through student associations.

It first came to my attention after reading the blog of an American woman who had been covering this phenomenon in the U.S. and in particular a group called Youth for Western Civilization. This "youth" group is funded by Blackwell's Leadership Institute, and engage in something he teaches called "controlled controversy".

Budding journalist Jeff Horwitz went undercover, I guess you'd say, attending one of their seminars and wrote an article My Right-wing Degree: How I learned to convert liberal campuses into conservative havens at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, Alma Mater of Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jeff Gannon and two Miss Americas. (1)

Rob Anders is also a graduate of this school, and according to Marci McDonald in her book The Armageddon factor (2), about 700 other Canadians, including several of Harper's MPs, have passed through their halls. I'd be willing to bet that Pierre Poilievre and John Baird were graduates, though it's only speculation, based on their actions. Baird's latest outlandish display during the committee hearings into the Jaffer/Guergis affair, is pure Blackwell.

I really wish Canada had more of an actual media, because there is definitely a story here, and it's very troubling.

Not long after perusing the blog of the concerned American, I came across an article from a university newspaper, telling of an incident at Carleton. Someone attended a workshop there armed with a tape recorder, and exposed the fact that through Manning's centre (the Canadian offshoot of the Leadership Institute) there was an aggressive attempt to infiltrate student unions to shift them to the right.

In order to do this they suggested ways of obtaining funding by setting up "front" groups that would become part of a central organization. In doing this they could illegally, or at least unethically, obtain more funding (eg. five groups, five separate fundings for one organization)

Since I first started to unravel this, I've had several people contact me, all from the United States, because Canadians are still asleep at the wheel it would seem, and on Friday hit the mother lode. Pages and pages of research based primarily on the rift within the Catholic church between orthodox and modern teachings (part of it concerned Jason Kenney, which I blogged on yesterday)

Everything sent is a matter of public record, so there's no "deepthroat" thing going on, but I think we have to start taking this seriously. I printed everything off and started googling a bit, and they are definitely onto something.

I am currently reading Donald Gutstein's book Not a Conspiracy Theory*, in which he outlines the numerous think tanks and federations that currently back up Harper's Reform-Alliance-Conservative movement. And it is indeed not a conspiracy theory, as he simply follows the money. So I've been doing the same with this new "youth" movement, and when following the money, they are clearly very well financed.

And I suppose it shouldn't come as any big surprise that the same people who are funding the U.S. movement, are also throwing money around in Canada, as part of what is now called the "Religious Right"; not so much a divine mission, as it is an unholy crusade.

Controlled Controversy

Controlled controversy -- making your point in a manner so bombastic that your opponents blow their cool -- is a Blackwell specialty. (1)

John Carpay who is at present the director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation (I've been told by CCF that he will be stepping down) had worked on the leadership campaign of Stockwell Day (along with Jason Kenney) when he was running against Preston Manning in 2000.

Carpay was upset that Manning and his team were attacking Day's religious beliefs, including the comment that there was a "Jim Jones Kool-Aid"** thing going on. (3) Carpay lashed out: "I'm upset at the negative campaigning, but I hold Preston Manning responsible. He wears a fake halo and pretends to be innocent. It's rather sickening." (4)

Carpay is not alone in suggesting that Manning is not as innocent as he likes to let on. McDonald in her book suggested that he was difficult to pin down, and that is not by accident. I've read his books, and it's more about what he doesn't say in them. For instance, little or no mention of the Fraser Institute, and none of the National Citizens Coalition, despite the fact that the Reform Party would never have been as successful as they were, had it not been for these two organizations.

In fact, it was his father, Ernest, who convinced Colin Brown, founder of the NCC, to start it up in the first place. Up to then he had only placed ads in major newspapers attacking Tommy Douglas and Medicare. It was also his father who suggested that they register themselves as a non-profit, to enjoy the tax breaks, and Ernest Manning was on their advisory board. (Stephen Harper was president of the NCC before stepping down to run for the Alliance leadership in 2002. He also ran against Stockwell Day and attacked his socon groupies)

Manning and Carpay have obviously mended fences because the Manning Centre awarded him recently with the Pyramid Award for Ideas, neoconservative jargon for dismantling Canada.

Recent examples of "controlled controversy" in Canada include York University, where a group of young Conservatives burst into the screening of a film during anti-Apartheid (Israel) week, laughing at dead Palestinian children. Just bombastic enough to garner the desired response. It worked as headlines blamed York students and Jason Kenney referred to their reaction as a "pogrom", despite the fact that there was no blood and no massacre. Since then no university is even allowed to put up posters advertising the event. Ironically CCF is not taking on their case.

Another was at the University of Calgary where young Conservatives displayed anti-abortion posters depicting aborted fetuses and swastikas. They were not made to take them down only turn them away from the street. CFF handled the case, and are reporting a victory.

If anything the bombastic posters stripped the group of any legitimacy, but that was not the intent. What we have now is an administration that will give this group more leeway, fearing reprisal and negative media reports. So what will they do next? Tack an actual aborted fetus to the wall? I can hardly wait.

I already have a thread started with the incidents at Canadian universities, but am starting another here showing how they directly connect to their American counterparts. One thing that screams out at you can be seen on page 5 (you will have top scroll down to it) of a 2008 report by the Canadian Constitution Federation. There is a photo of John Carpay sitting beside Eugene Meyer, president of the Federalist Society in the U.S., an arm of the Council for National Policy.

If you want to see a power broker, the Federalist Society is one of the top. (5) Remember the Monica Lewsinsky scandal and the attempt to impeach Bill Clinton, headed by Kenneth Starr?

"Ken Starr, the sober-faced lawyer who headed the independent counsel investigation leading to the impeachment of Bill Clinton ... Starr, 63, served as solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush and was later appointed independent counsel for an investigation of Clinton that eventually looked into the president's relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted Clinton after the impeachment charges were brought by the House. Starr, a constitutional lawyer and member of the conservative Federalist Society, was reviled at the time by Democrats who called his inquiry a witch hunt." (6)

Now do you remember the 1997 speech that surfaced during the 2006 election campaign, that many believed cost Stephen Harper a majority, and saved Canada from total destruction? It was delivered at a conference for the Council for National Policy in Montreal where they passed a motion to try to find some way to impeach Bill Clinton. (6)

And you don't think this group is capable of getting a foothold in Canada? Will we hear John Carpay say "Just Watch Me"! Come on people, wake up. The CCF is not just a nice little legal group "defending free speech". They are organized and well financed. And a lot of that financing can be linked to the Republicans and the American Religious Right, which are now one and the same.

McDonald's book The Armageddon Factor was only a tip of the iceberg, because for every CCF out there, there are dozens of other groups, many of them "fronts", enjoying tax free status by claiming to be non-partisan and not for profit. Neither claim is true. They are very profitable and the staff moves back and forth from the organizations to Harper's parties in all of their manifestations. And I can prove it.

AND THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY!!

Footnotes:

*Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy, By Donald Gutstein, Key Porter Books, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-55470-191-9

**In November of 1978, the world was shocked by the suicide deaths of 913 members of the People's Temple cult. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown, Guyana, a remote community that Jones carved out of the South American jungle and named after himself. Jones constantly feared losing control of his followers. His paranoia was the main reason he moved the cult to Guyana.

The mass suicide occurred after U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and a team of reporters visited the compound to investigate reports of abuse. After some members tried to leave with the congressman's group, Jim Jones had Ryan and his entourage ambushed at the nearby airstrip. He then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. (Don't Drink the Kool-Aid, By: Todd Strandberg)

Sources:

1. My Right-Wing Degree, By Jeff Horwitz, May 24, 2005

2. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3, Pg. 104

3. Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, By Trevor Harrison, Black Rose Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-55164-206-9, Pg. 62

4. "Manning Backer Drops Bid to Woo Social Conservatives, National Post, July 5, 2000

5. Debating the Subtle Sway of the Federalist Society, By Jason DeParle, August 1, 2005

5. Clinton Nemesis Ken Starr to Head Baylor University, By Tom Diemer, Poltiics Daily, April, 2010

6. Bill Clinton's Washington, Unzipped: 'The Death of American Virtue' is a cautionary tale of justice and libidos out of control, By Rafe Mair, The Tyee, June 4, 2010

Is Money Corrupting Religion?

The late Charles Templeton (1915-2001), evangelical turned agnostic; wrote a book Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. In it he describes his journey from a popular Christian crusader, and colleague of Billy Graham, to his eventual abandonment of organized religion.

At a stage in his life when he was beginning to have doubts about his faith, he went to his friend Graham, expecting some spiritual guidance.

He asked him how he could accept creationism as 'fact' when there was irrefutable evidence that the world had evolved over millions of years. Graham, an intelligent man, told him "I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power." (1)

So even if Billy Graham, the scholar, pondered the scientific proofs of evolution, he chose to focus his beliefs on the words in an ancient text, because it was better for business.

Templeton and Graham would eventually part ways, but not because Templeton was losing faith, but because he exposed the enormous amount of money that TV evangelists were pocketing from the collection plates.

He would eventually become an agnostic, because he realized that there was no single god, who was the true God. "We worship the gods of our predecessors." (1)

I often say that the Religious Right has inspired me to become a born again atheist, but I suppose I'm an agnostic, because I do believe there is something bigger than us. But if there is indeed a God, I doubt he'd be pleased that the so-called Christian Conservatives have abandoned him to worship on the alter of the almighty dollar.

Show Me the Money

Classically Liberal, a Libertarian blogger, tells the story of Bob Sirico, once a gay rights activist, and now a Catholic Priest. According to Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute:

One often hears priests, preachers, and rabbis endorse an activist government able to solve social, economic, and perhaps even moral problems. Fr. Sirico offers a powerful challenge to this conventional wisdom. Religious principles, he says, require that men and women be free to practice virtue or vice, and freedom in turn requires a limited government and vibrant free-market economy. (2)

What the hell? I don't remember that in my Catechism. According to 'Classically Liberal', Sirico was given money from the Atlas Foundation and several other right-wing groups, to start up the Acton Institute, a right-wing think tank, run by a priest who believes in the faith of a free-market economy. Just what god is he following? Nieman-Marcus?

Atlas was, and is, a major sponsor of the Acton Institute run by former faith healer, evangelical, gay community organizer, and now Catholic priest, Bob Sirico. Sirico ran fundamentalist faith healing meetings until he came out as gay. Then he moved on to the Metropolitan Community Churches and started running the Gay Community Center in Hollywood ... He was also one of the first ministers in the country to perform gay marriages as early as 1975. Sirico’s outfit started out as an organization that was going to sell free market ideas to the religious community.

Acton officials got heavily involved in the debate on gay marriage. With Sirico back in the closet (though some conservatives don’t think so) the position they have been taking has been to pander to bigots on the Religious Right.

.... All of them forget that their beloved Father Bob performed same-sex marriages. And in one press interview at the time Sirico told the reporter “I’m hoping to be married to a beautiful man in Los Angeles whose work is translating for the deaf.” By 1977 Sirico was listed by the LA Times as the “organizer of Libertarians for Gay Rights. (3)

Apparently the good father Bob is still living a gay lifestyle, while telling his followers "not to comply with rules and laws forcing them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences." I guess hypocrisy is now a virtue.

Classic Liberal believes that this trend began when the Atlas Foundation abandoned it's original Libertarian ideals and began preaching the gospel of the wealthy Templeton family.

Over the years institutions evolve, change or slide away from their original purpose. It is inevitable, sometimes good, and sometimes not so good. One depressing change in recent years is with the Atlas Foundation. Atlas began as a libertarian-oriented, free-market foundation that was there to help think tanks around the world with similar purposes.But in recent years Atlas has begun to heavily rely on one specific donor or family, that is the money coming from John Templeton’s foundation or estate. As they have taken millions and millions from Templeton they started pandering to Templeton’s religious bias and prejudices. (3)

One group that falls under the virtue of hypocrisy and the Atlas Foundation, is the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Started in 2002, by a devout Religious Righter, John Weston, they take on cases that challenge the Constitution, in hopes of creating "a limited government and vibrant free-market economy", as handed down from God as the eleventh commandment.

But just in case we doubt they are devout, they will end abortion, same-sex marriage, and pass laws that allow us to call each other horrific names. Which brings me to the twelfth commandment: "Thou shalt abandon common decency and basheth all gays."

If you go to their website and read their mission statement, they lie and steal in the first paragraph. First off they claim to be non-partisan, despite the fact that their new chief, John Carpay was a long time Stockwell Day supporter, and is currently part of the Fraser Institute and the Manning Centre, both duct taped to the Reform-Alliance-Conservative movement. (did I mention that their founder, John Weston, is a Harper MP?)

And the fact that they are listed as non-profit, meaning they escape paying taxes, but have money seeping from their pores, brings me to the thirteenth commandment: "Thou shalt fooleth some of the people, some of the time ..." Amen.

Sources:

1. Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith, By Charles Templeton, McClelland & Stewart, 1996, ISBN: 0-7710-8422-6, Pg. 7-8

2."Religion and Freedom." Heartlander. By Joseph Bast, Heartland Institute. January 1, 2007

3. Conservative money corrupts libertarian thinking, By: Classically Liberal, February 19, 2009

John Carpay Challenges Jason's Kenney's Decision to Suspend the Rights of Students at York University

John Carpay is a long time Reform-Alliance-Conservative supporter, running himself unsuccessfully for the Reform Party in 1993, along with Rob Anders and Jason Kenney, who were all supported by the Fraser institute. Carpay was a member of Jason Kenney's Canadian Taxpayers Federation and now runs the Canadian Constitution Foundation, after it's founder John Weston, quit to run for Harper's party in 2005. (1)

Carpay is currently defending the rights of university students to speak openly and without restraint against Israeli Apartheid. He claims that freedom of expression is the lifeblood of democracy, and even if it offends, that right to offend is enshrined in section 2 of the charter of rights and freedoms.

What Jason Kenney has tried to do is silence students at York University, by not allowing them to put up posters advertising anti-Apartheid week. They have not displayed images of dead Palestinian children, nor have they emblazoned a swastika for all to see, and yet they are being forced to remain silent on an issue that is very important to them.

Opposing a country is not the same as opposing a people, and yet Mr. Kenney is trying to class their protests as being anti-Semitic.

Carpay will have none of this and plans to take it to the highest court of the land. Students pay tuition to go to York University, and it is their constitutional right to be able to express freely their dissent.

Of course this is not entirely true. Carpay is actually defending the rights of University of Calgary students to display images of aborted fetuses emblazoned with a swastika. Because you see Mr. Carpay does not really believe in freedom of expression, so much as he believes in the right to simply oppose abortion by using graphic images and a shock factor.

He would never defend the rights of Canadians to speak out against Israel. His corporate and Religious Right backers would have his head. Quite a double standard these people have.




While I am pro-choice, I have no problem with the posters, because if anything they shed light on the thinking of many pro-lifers. Going right to Hitler, they lose credibility, so I would not oppose the posters. Besides, the longer they are visible, the more they lose their shock factor, so they in fact may be hindering their anti-abortion sentiment.

I mean they pulled out all the stops with these. Dead babies and swastikas. What do they have left?

These so called constitutional challenges initiated by Carpay and Weston, are simply more neoconservative nonsense. Because if they really cared about the lives of children, they would be joining the Anti-Apartheid movement at York University, or protecting our rights to oppose the war without being called a 'Taliban dupe'.

Sources:

Canadian Constitution Foundation Challenge Against Single-Tier Medicare, Ontario Health Coalition, May 2007

Canadian Constitution Foundation: Follow the Money to Racism?

In 1971 a student newspaper, the Ubyssey, ran a story about a university professor who had made some seemingly racist comments to a local paper, resulting in calls for his dismissal.

A stormy controversy involving charges of racism against a history professor has erupted at the usually placid University of Western Ontario. Things came to a head Wednesday night when professor Kenneth Hilborn invaded a students meeting discussing demands for his dismissal and was involved in a scuffle with one of his denouncers .

The demands for the firing of the tenured professor arose from an article he had written, which appeared in the London Free Press. In this article Hilborn attacked those who support what he termed "terrorists" in South Africa . He said that the best way to end the apartheid system in that country was by a process of "erosion" . This could best be accomplished, the article went on, by increasing the prosperity of the white ruling class in South Africa . (1)

One of the first rules when covering a story is to follow the money, and in following the money to the Canadian Constitution Foundation*, one of their financial backers is Professor Kenneth Hillborn, an early Reform Party member who was (is?) on the president's counsel of the National Citizens Coalition**. He was also involved with a group called the Canadian South-African Society.

"The 300 members of CSAS (Canadian South-African Society) were mainly from large corporations, but there were also academics, churchmen and a Quebec Superior Court judge. One of these is Professor K.H.W. Hilborn of the University of Western Ontario on London. He was on the board of directors and is a regular contributor to the right-wing foreign affairs magazine 'International Conservative Insight.' He is one of the people honoured in the Northern Foundation's Northerner magazine, and is on the president's council of the National Citizens Coalition. A recent member of the Reform Party, Hilborn hopes Reform foreign policy will be fleshed out with all this orientation towards the likes of the ANC (Nelson Mandela's party) with it's strong Communist component ... foreign aid should go only to countries not practicing socialism ..' (2)

The Northern Foundation was a vanguard group set up to establish a network of far-right organizations, born out of Reform's decision to allow extremists to join their party.(3)

"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (4)

What the Canadian South-African Society, of whic Hillborn was a member, did, was defend apartheid in South Africa:

"(CSAS) was founded to bring together Canadian and American subsidiary business interests in South Africa ...Their profit levels are high - often twice their returns in companies ventures in Canada - due to their ability to pay low wages and almost no benefits to black labour.' (that's what this was really about)
"Most of the thirty member board are from Ontario ... a few were from the west ... one of these was Norman Wallace of Saskatoon ... a founding member of the Reform party ... He set up Eagle Staff Import Export Ltd. to further business ties with South Africa.

"Wallace created considerable controversy in 1987 when he and others involved in a group called the Indian Business Development Association put up money for a South African tour for five Saskatchewan Indian leaders ... intended to give the Pretoria regime a public relations weapon - using aboriginal conditions in Canada to demonstrate the Canadian government's hypocrisy. (5)

Besides being a staunch defender of South African apartheid, and defender of whites to make money, Hillborn has also, like the CCF, been an advocate for "free speech." He has had a long association with people like Paul Fromm***, and his book; The Cult of the Victim: Leftist Ideology in the '90s, can still be purchased on Fromm's C-Far website. In fact Paul Fromm wrote the preface.

Hillborn has also fought diligently against the rights of First Nations, which has earned him a spot on the Nizkor list of those associated with hate groups.

In 1997 when there was a move to make the title of "Masters' more gender neutral, Hillborn spoke out against it.

A second motion was also passed which, if accepted by Senate, would allow current Western masters degree holders the option to change their degree to a magisteriate. "It's a non-existent word for a non-existent problem," said Kenneth Hilborn, Western history professor and Senator. "[Magisteriate] is not in any established dictionary. It's feminist clap-trap." (6)

"Feminist clap-trap". I like him already

I do support the right to free speech and academic freedom on campus, but it's important to expose the money and power behind many of these organizations, like the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who back up the Reform-Alliance Conservative movement.

Is their fight for freedom of speech part of an advocacy group that would allow organizations like C-Far to attack our immigrant communities? Many of the groups that fell under the Northern Foundation umbrella were actually neo-nazi. Will this open the door to overt anti-semitism?

There was a reason for the adoption of human rights commissions, and people like John Carpay, Ezra Levant, John Weston and even Dr. Hillborn, need to understand what they were. These ridiculous lawsuits and constitutional challenges threaten to change who we are as Canadians.

It's time to start fighting back against groups like the CCF.

Footnotes:

*The Canadian Constitution Foundation was the brainchild of Reform-Conservative MP John Weston. He stepped down as the head of CCF to run as an MP, and Reform-Alliance-Conservative insider, John Carpay has taken over the reins. "The Ontario Health Coalition described the CCF as an “extremely right-wing” legal advocacy group that uses the Charter of Rights to promote a conservative agenda, including the end of medicare. "In 2005 Weston talked to the Calgary Herald about his counter intuitive approach to the Charter, which has typically been praised by the liberal-left and attacked by the political right. “It’s here, there’s not much point in wishing it weren’t. Now, we need to make it mean what it is supposed to mean,” Weston told the Herald. “Conservatives must reclaim it for conservative values.” "To that end, the CCF and Weston fought the federal Liberal government in the courts, challenging the Nisga’a Treaty ... The CCF is also funding a class action legal challenge to medicare in Alberta and an individual action in Ontario."" (7)

**The National Citizens Coalition is a rather secretive right-wing advocacy organization, heavily financed by corporations. They were initially established to put an end to Canada's medicare system. Stephen Harper has been a member for three decades and has served as both it's president and vice-president.

***Paul Fromm was a Toronto high school teacher who was fired when a video surfaced of him at a Hitler's birthday celebration giving a Nazi salute to a Confederate flag. He was allowed to sell memberships to C-Far at Reform Party assemblies.

Sources:

1. UWO Prof Attacked as Racist, The Ubyssey, University of British Columbia, November 23, 1971

2. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Author: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 104

3. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 115

4. Harrison, 1995, Pg. 121

5. Dobbin. 1992. Pg. 100-107

6. Fighting for an option to be no one's master, By Kevin Gale, University of Western Ontario Gazette, March 21, 1997

7. New MP profile: West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky's John Weston. Vancouver Sun. October 18, 2008

John Carpay, John Weston and Their Attack on Canada: Shona Holmes

John Carpay is the co-founder of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, referred to by Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre (ECP) as "Canada’s leading organization fighting the enemies of freedom in Canada’s courts." Up until recently, ECP's director was Timothy Bloedow, legislative assistant to Maurice Vellicott.

Carpay has been a long time Stockwell Day supporter, and is part of his Reconstructionism team. Though he once ran as a Reform Party candidate but lost, his partner and co-founder of CCF, John Weston, is now one of Harper's MPs, and like Harper, these men and CCF are committed to demolishing Canada's Health Care system. To do this they take on constitutional challenges, including that of Shona Holmes. (1)

The Mysterious Case of Shona Holmes

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is one of the groups behind the organizing of the infamous and band of the ignorant, Tea Party rallies in the United States. Funded primarily through the Koch foundation, a conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas, chemicals, minerals, ranching, and securities, they have also launched campaigns against climate change, regulating the tobacco industry and the size of government.

Their Director is Art Pope, an ex-legislator who has been dubbed "The Knight of the Right". Pope has created several "organizations to sway public opinion, monitor the legislature, develop grass-roots political efforts and bring court challenges" and he has spent "millions of dollars on a network whose purpose is to move North Carolina to the political right." His goal was to purge the North Carolina state House of Representatives of Republican moderates. (2)

In mid-2009, Americans for Prosperity launched an advertising and advocacy campaign opposing U.S. health care reform: Patients United Now. According to talk show host Rachel Maddow:

They're experts at fake grassroots campaigns that promote corporate interests. Americans for Prosperity is the group that ginned up anti-stimulus rallies earlier this year. They also organized what they called the "Hot Air Tour" to campaign against the whole idea of global warming. They were the ones who sent Joe the Plumber around the country to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act, which is pro-labor legislation.

One other thing about Americans for Prosperity, their most visible spokesman, is a man named Tim Phillips. He is the President of the organization and we've asked him to come on the show to talk with us about the group. Tim Phillips got his start in fake grass roots with a firm called Century Strategies, run by Ralph Reed. Century Strategies is famous for having duped Christian groups into lobbying for energy deregulation. You know, like the Bible said.They were doing that at the behest of Century Strategies' client, Enron. Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed were later made even more famous in the Jack Abramoff scandal, for duping Christian groups into lobbying against gambling. But only in areas where these guys happened to have competing gambling interests as clients.These guys are the pros. (3)

And of course much of the funding comes from Koch Industries through a network of think tanks and non-profit groups.

John Carpay, who is also involved with the Fraser Institute and Preston Manning's the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, is a regular speaker at an affiliate of Koch, the Atlas Experience, where like Stephen Harper, he preaches to the American conservatives on the evils of the Canadian identity.

So who better to call on when they wanted to launch another "fake grassroots campaign", than their buddy John Carpay and his Canadian Constitution Foundation, and he knew just who would be up for the job. An Ontario woman named Shona Holmes, who claimed that had she not gone to the U.S. for surgery, she would have died. Did I mentioned that she "claimed" she needed this life surgery? (Holmes is second from right in the photo below, taken with Republican Party brass.)

Holmes was featured on a number of ads suggesting that Obama was looking to replicate the Canadian system, and just how damaging that would be. However, columnist David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "a single-payer Canadian style insurance system is not part of any leading reform proposal as the ad suggests". Media Matters for America called the ad "Strong on emotion and weak on facts.

So who is Shona Holmes and is her story true?

"What many Canadians don’t know is that Ms. Holmes has a lawsuit against the Ontario government, which has not been filed, to recoup 100 thousand dollars for her 2005 trips to the Mayo clinics to remove a Rathke’s Cleft cyst. The suit is also a challenge to single tier care and the Canadian health system. She is one of two plaintiffs, the handlers behind it are The Canadian Constitution Federation. After doing the commercial and a talk show circuit in the US Shona Holmes publicist told CBC News, she was now declining interviews." (4)

According to American journalist Ian Welsh, the entire thing was a hoax:

On the Mayo Clinic's website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it's somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes' "brain tumour" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."There's no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it's a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks. (5)

The following video represents one of Americans for Prosperity Tea Party chats, where they are trying to use fear mongering, even suggesting that Obama would engage in the genocide of senior citizens. But as one person suggests after the video: "It's really too bad there are so many uneducated people. End of life counseling is done all the time and in fact, check your private insurance policy, cuz it's in there. I worked for an attorney and we wrote living wills all the time - and guess what? We never killed anyone."

What this speaks to more than anything is the enormous ties between the Republican Reconstruction team and Canada's Religious Right. John Weston, the MP who helped to found the Canadian Constitution Foundation, also belongs to the Christian Legal Fellowship, that challenge our Constitution, taking on court cases based on religious freedom.

Sources:

1. New MP profile: West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky's John Weston. Vancouver Sun. October 18, 2008

2. "The knight of the right: Ex-legislator Art Pope has quietly built a political network to advance his conservative vision for North Carolina", By Rob Christensen, Raleigh News and Observer, January 29, 2006.

3. Rachel Maddow: Big Money Pulling the Strings of Protests, Heather/Video Cafe'; Rachel Maddow, August 6, 2009

4. Shona Holmes and The Canadian Constitution Federation, By: Bene Diction, August 2, 2009

5. Americans Lives vs. Insurance Company Profits: The Real Battle in Health Care Reform, By Ian Welsh, Huffington Post, July 21, 2009

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: James Lunney and Quackery

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Dr. Stephen Barrett is a retired American psychiatrist, author, co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch. He runs a number of websites dealing with quackery and health fraud, focusing on consumer protection, medical ethics, and scientific skepticism. (Wikipedia)

He publishes a list of 'Questionable Organizations' and the Consumer Health Organization of Canada made his list of one of those he would treat with considerable distrust.

I posted on them earlier as one of the groups that David Lethbridge cornered, as a possible front for fascist activities, given the people they bring to their "health" fests.

The founders of the group Libby and John Gardon, have defended their choice of guests, suggesting that the controversy is good for business. At the time they were speaking in particular, of the late Eustace Mullins, one of the most controversial anti-Semites in the United States. He referred to Jews as furry insects who drink the blood the children.

What was telling was the fact that Libby Gardon called Mullins a friend. She said she has known him for 15 years and described him as gentle and caring. Eventually the Jewish community banded together and Mullins speech was cancelled.

David Lethbridge had suggested that the connection between some of these so called 'Health' experts with their miracle cures, and neo-Nazi fascist organizations, needed further research, especially since some of the names also link to our current government.

So I did a bit of googling to see if there was any merit to that, and indeed there appeared to be. One of the names that cropped up on a regular basis was that of James Lunney. Lunney was a friend of Stockwell Days, who was encouraged to run in 2000, with Day's new Alliance Party (formerly Reform Party). He was given the health critic post while in opposition, but instead of making health his focus, he instead became an advocate for the snake oil vendors, many of whom have been exposed by Dr. Barrett.

Lunney introduced Bill C-420 which has been tossed around for a bit, an attempt to move these "miracle" cures from the restrictions of what he refers to as the "regulatory regime" and move them to food, claiming they are mostly just vitamins and food products. (His favourite EmPowerplus sells for $74.95 a bottle)

The Standing Committee on Health, dealing with the issues surrounding Bill C-420, called in some experts, and one of these experts was Libby Gardon. Another was Trueman Tuck, a purveyor of some of this stuff, whose mission statement is:

“God created Sovereign Spiritual / Human Beings as children of God. God's children cannot and should not claim to have sovereign supremacy with their creator. The Sovereign Children of God created artificial entities, which are all sole or aggregate corporations including rulers, governments, parliaments, senates, judges, etc. THEY do not posess [sic] any sovereign supremacy and cannot and should not claim to be equal or greater than their creators.”

Trueman of the Tuck clan (aka Trueman Tuck), is a son of God and a Sovereign Spiritual / Human Being that is purpose driven to educate, assist and defend the unalienable rights, freedoms and liberties of other sons and daughters of God.

Did I mention that Trueman Tuck was a bit of a nut? But more importantly he dispenses 'herbal' medicines but has no medical degree or training, and even offers legal advice to other 'herbal' medicine businesses, calling himself an "Attorney-In-Fact", when in fact, he is not an attorney at all. He is a salesman. A salesman providing 'expert' testimony to the Standing Committee on Health. That's how low we've sunk.

Wrapped up in all of this is such a maze of organizations, you'll be needing some "herbal magic" just to keep your head from exploding. Most have 'Freedom' and 'Health' somewhere in their titles and are run by people like Gardon and Tuck. This is not to say that Health food stores, etc. don't have a purpose. They clearly do and homeopathy is definitely something that needs to be researched extensively as an alternative to chemical therapy. However, I believe that anything with 'cure' or include the suggestion of a 'cure', need to be regulated by Health Canada. Lunney and his pals do not.

Quackwatch has exposed another dubious character who has been making the rounds, when they discovered that his books and products were being sold on a Neo-Nazi website.

Dr. Cassim Igram, aka Dr. Oregano, Cass Ingram, is a frequent guest .. in Canada. On November 20, 2003 he appeared again on the Michael Coren TV show on Canada's foremost Faith-based family TV cable network CTS-TV. We told Michael that Ingram's products were being sold by at least one neo-nazi web site, but he ignored us completely. In fact, he mentioned at the beginning of the show that people had e-mailed him to basically complain about the show before it aired.

Three days later, Cass Ingram appeared at a rally at the OISE in Toronto to raise money to help pass Bill C-420. On that panel was Trueman Tuck, Helke Ferrie, and MP James Lunney. It seems that the "freedom" to sell nutraceuticals is heavily entwined with right-wing politics around the world. Some of these agendas are anti-gay, anti-semitic, anti-tax, etc. A few years ago the Consumer Health Organization's Total Health Expo, where Cass Ingram regularly appears, was in the spotlight because Eustace Mullins, a self-proclaimed rabid anti-Semite was cancelled after numerous complaints were filed.

... Ingram still wanders around North America proclaiming that he has the answer to SARS, toxigenic E. coli, and other ills despite all of this? Hmmm.........Could it be it improves his bottom line? ... Now Trueman Tuck has hooked up with Nick Jerch in another attempt to support nutraceutical misadventures.

I checked out the website they mentioned; Free American, and it is extremely racial. They have a video touting Hitler as a hero and promote a book claiming that "2000 years ago the bible told us of the coming of the New World Order as the English Beast, the mark of the beast and warned us about the Jews who would say they are Jews but are not. Jesus told us they were liars and of their father Satan." This is quite a racket.

Now I don't believe that Lunney or Tuck are involved with any of that, and as David Lethbridge reminds us: "Wherever we find tendencies to irrationalism and conspiracy-mongering, there we find fertile ground in which fascism can grow, or a movement which fascism can exploit. These tendencies are rife within the ever-expanding and overlapping alternative medicine, New Age, and tax refusal* circles." (2)

But there is another element that binds these groups together: "faith healing". That's up next.

Footnotes:

Trueman Tuck also runs a site TaxTyranny.ca

Sources:

1. Cass Ingram's oregano oil products and books sold by neo-nazi web site, Quackery Watch Canada

2. Prescription For Fascism: Alternative Medicine and Right-Wing Politics, By David Lethbridge, April 2001