If Stephen Harper Was Still a Libertarian he Would Hate Stephen Harper

There is a great site called 404 Systems Error, that functions much like Wikileaks, though with Canadian content.

They have recently posted an old fundraising letter of Stephen Harper's from 2001, when he was heading up the corporate funded activist group: the National Citizens Coalition.  The NCC has always painted themselves as Libertarian, so I now wonder why they are not sending out fundraising letters calling Harper "a jackass".

In August of 2001, what got his boxers in a twist was Elections Canada, who were going after a blogger Paul Bryan, for violation of the Elections Canada Act, by prematurely posting results of the vote.

Harper calls then head of EC Jean-Pierre Kinglsey, "heavy-handed" and "an advocate of the most minute of controls and regulations".

And yet two years later, Harper and Peter MacKay were able to convince Kingsley to register their new party on a Sunday:     "The documents that were provided show that the initial presentation to the Chief Electoral Officer concerned the creation of a new party, not a merger. To date no explanation has been given for the changed wording or of how it was arranged that the Chief Electoral Officer received the merger application on a Sunday".

It's interesting that this new party was created on December 7, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbour.

However, in 2001, Stephen Harper believed that EC was taking "the threat to freedom to a new and dangerous level."

Enforcing the law, according to this devout Libertarian, was "more dangerous than luring children toward violent pornography".  He also believed that control of the internet and the press just for the sake of controlling information was "ominous and very scary."

So should we be scared now that he controls not only the press, but is monitoring the internet? "Our basic freedom of speech and our right to information is at stake here."

The Conservative's new Bill C-30, is exactly the kind of "gag order" that the NCC once fought against.  Yet I went on their website and could find no opposition to it.  Proof that these groups are nothing more than fronts for big business.

To stifle debate, the Conservatives are suggesting that anyone who opposes the Bill is in support of child pornography.  But all tighter monitoring will do, is drive them underground, where they'll reap bigger profits because of the increased difficulties of distribution.

Maybe Stephen Harper should go back to the National Citizens Coalition.  Our country could sure use someone so passionate about protecting us from a tyrannical government.

Should the National Citizens Coalition Lose Its Tax Exempt Status?

When it was learned this week that Bob Rae is now polling 24 points ahead of Stephen Harper, many of us wondered when the Harper attack ads would begin.

It took exactly 17 minutes and 43 seconds (Actually, they were already running them).

Careful not to make it appear that he is focusing on his political opponents and not the mess that our economy is in, Harper instead allowed his alma mater, the National Citizens Coalition,  to do his dirty work for him.

NCC had provided Harper with a stellar education in liberal bashing, under headmaster Art Finkelstein, Richard Nixon's former campaign strategist.  He had the know how, but darn it all, his hands were tied, what with being the prime minister and all.  Can't look petty and ... er ... desperate.

When Bob Rae was premier of Ontario, a group calling themselves Ontarians for Responsible Government, a spin-off of the NCC, launced a four year attack, headed up by Gerry Nicholls, Harper's former VP with the non-profit "public service" group.

So who better to get their hands dirty for you?  They already had the file, even if it is 20 years old.

Going on the defensive, they emphatically stated that "National Citizens Coalition 'never has, never will' work for Conservative Party".  What a farce.  They acted as a registered third party during the last election campaign.  They were certainly working for the Conservative Party then.

Glen McGregor has an excellent piece in the Ottawa Citizen, detailing the NCC's "not for  the Conservative party" assault, including a list of big donors.  (I thought you could only contribute $1100)

During the spring election campaign, the NCC raised $168,960 in contributions to advertisements, according to its third-party advertising return filed with Elections Canada.  But the NCC appears to have held on to the bulk of this money for, uh, later use. The return shows the NCC spent only about 29 per cent of the money it took in. So, Election 41 was something of a cash bonanza for the NCC.

And the donors ( public record)

Robert Colborne Calgary AB 2011-03-31 $10,000
John Elliot Midhurst ON 2011-04-28 $10,000
Darey Rector Toronto ON 2011-04-06 $10,000
Bruce + Robert Orr Vancouver BC 2011-04-20 $10,000
Wazir Seth Calgary AB 2011-04-11 $5,000
Rick Balbi Calgary AB 2011-04-19 $4,000
Kent Norris Victoria BC 2011-04-29 $3,000
Paul Greenhalgh Richmond Hill ON 2011-04-04 $2,500
Mrs. William P. Wilder Toronto ON 2011-04-15 $2,000
Robert Macdonald Calgary AB 2011-04-01 $1,500
Tom Skinner Kanata ON 2011-04-19 $1,200
Brian Buttler Saanichton BC 2011-04-21 $1,200
Bob Elliot Guelph ON 2011-04-06 $1,200
Tom Como Edson AB 2011-04-28 $1,000
Tara Sinanan Edmonton AB 2011-04-28 $1,000
Sandra Simpson Toronto ON 2011-04-28 $1,000
Rick Balbi Calgary AB 2011-04-20 $1,000
Paul Sunnen Chatham ON 2011-04-04 $1,000
John Elias Morden MB 2011-04-01 $1,000
James L. Attwood Toronto ON 2011-03-29 $1,000
Gerald Heffernen Toronto ON 2011-04-28 $1,000
Frans Feyter Fort Macleod AB 2011-04-21 $1,000
Ed Thiessen Strathmore AB 2011-04-20 $1,000
David Jamieson Red Deer AB 2011-03-31 $1,000
Bryan Bennett Mississauga ON 2011-04-08 $1,000
Brent Buchanan Edmonton AB 2011-03-31 $1,000
Bill Nicholls Cambridge ON 2011-04-19 $1,000

Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor, now with the NCC, while posing as a journalist, has strong ties with the Harper government.  And in 2008, when the NCC was giving Preston Manning its medal of freedom, a rather dubious honour, it was our man Harper who presented it.

If you are going to try to make the claim that you don't work for the Conservative Party of Canada, you might want to stop working for the Conservative Party of Canada.

The NCC is not a public service organization, but just an extension of our current government.  They should pay taxes like everyone else, and stop hiding behind their "watchdog" title.

These groups do not uphold democracy, but undermine it, and its time they were exposed.

Not a Good Time for Stephen Harper to be Compared to Richard Nixon

The historian Garry Wills once observed that Richard Nixon wanted to be president not to govern the nation but to undermine the government. The Nixon presidency was one long counterinsurgency campaign against key American institutions like the courts, the FBI, the state department and the CIA. Harper has the same basic approach to politics: attack not just political foes but the very institutions that make governing possible. The state for Nixon and Harper exists not as an instrument of policy making but as an alien force to be subdued.

If it's not the media, or the courts, or the Senate, or Elections Canada, it's the Wheat Board, the federal government's own spending power, the bureaucracy, the gun registry ... Canadians should rightly wonder why their head of government has such a problem with so many Canadian institutions. (1)

It certainly is a "wonder" and a bigger "wonder" how someone who hated our institutions this much, was given the job of upholding them.

From Nixonland to Harperland, a story is told of unprecedented control in what are supposed to be healthy democracies.  National Post's Kelly McParland said that it was the result of a "siege mentality".

One of the many online encyclopedias defines “siege mentality” as “a shared feeling of helplessness, victimization and defensiveness” which “refers to persecution feelings by anyone in the minority, or of a group that views itself as a threatened minority.” If there’s anything that typifies the Conservatives under Mr. Harper, it’s the notion that anyone outside the party is to be viewed with suspicion, and even within the party trust is to be handed out sparingly. Beyond the fortified redoubt of the Prime Minister’s inner circle, everyone is on permanent probation. (2)

Richard Nixon kept enemy lists maintained by Watergate plumber Chuck Colson.  Word was that you didn't want to get on that list.  Many in the media did make it there.

"Never forget," he tells national security advisers Henry Kissinger .. and Alexander Haig in a conversation on December 14 1972, "the press is the enemy, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy, the professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times." (3)

Harper's enemy list extends to young girls who share photos of themselves standing with his political opponents, on Facebook.

There is yet another book written on the life of Richard Nixon, that uncovers not only more control and paranoia, but a violent temper, a battle with alcoholism, wife beating and even homosexuality.  I'll leave out the last three in comparing Harper to Nixon, but his pathological control and violent temper are well known, despite attempts to keep it from the public.

Harper's former VP when he headed up the National Citizens Coaltiion, Gerry Nicholls, writes in his book Harper, Me and the NCC, that Harper's temper is not red hot but icy blue, and when he was in a "mood" you kept out of his way.

Lloyd Mackey in The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper, tells of a chair throwing incident at a Conservative Party convention because things were not going his way.

Former Alliance MP Larry Spencer, in his book Sacrificed: Truth or Politics, relates an interview he had with Harper, where he was torn down for a radio interview, in which he spoke of a "homosexual agenda".  Harper wasn't angry about about the gay bashing, but it's timing, suggesting that he was "put up to it" by his political enemies.

Belinda Stonach and Garth Turner took similar dressing downs, where the air was so blue, the big guy may have set a new record for his use of profanity.  Others have confirmed, off the record of course, that Harper has quite a potty mouth, and they never want to get caught in his verbal line of fire.

In the many books written on Stephen Harper, the authors have tred softly, opening up many areas for discussion, that for the most part have remained closed.  Of the ones I've read, Lawrence Martin's Harperland and Christian Nadeau's Rogue in Power, are the most revealing, and the ones that we should be paying attention to.

Jeffrey Simpson in his critique of Harperland wrote for the Globe and Mail:  Looking for Nixon-like tendencies in Harperland

... the interesting comparisons arise between Mr. Harper and Mr. Nixon. By all accounts, and especially those in Harperland, the Prime Minister is not only a partisan, as all prime ministers must be, but he viscerally hates Liberals. His objective is not just to defeat but to obliterate the Liberal Party of Canada. For that purpose, the gloves are off all the time, from nasty attack ads against Liberal leaders to ritualistic, partisan punches from him and his ministers.

Mr. Nixon saw enemies everywhere: in the media, the “liberal elites,” the Ivy League colleges .... He carried enormous resentments, remembered many past slights, and bottled them up inside where they fed paranoid streaks in his character. He was a control freak, and demanded that his staff act accordingly.

With the release of Nixon's Darkest Secrets, Harper might want to tone it down a bit, before someone starts looking for his.

Sources:
 
1. The Canadian Nixon: Stephen Harper's feud with Elections Canada is just the latest front in his war against government institutions, By Dimitry Anastakis and Jeet Heer, The UK Guardian, April 24, 2008

2. Harper discovers it's easy to find enemies, if you look hard enough, By Kelly McParland, National Post, April 23, 2008

3. Recordings reveal Richard Nixon's paranoia: Recordings show Nixon urged staff to use all means to discredit his political opponents, both large and small, By Dan Glaister, UK Guardian, December 3, 2008

A Half a Century Later and We are Losing Half a Century

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

In researching the conservative movement on both sides of the border, one thing becomes clear.  In the U.S. they don't like to be referred to as Republican any more than Stephen Harper likes to be called a Tory.  They are CONSERVATIVE, and there is a difference.  The Republican Party is only the vehicle on their route to power.

Historian Richard Perlstein, writing of the 1960s conservative takeover of the GOP, says "A right-wing fringe took over the party from the ground up" while the Eastern establishment has been reduced to a "fringe looking on in bafflement". (Nixonland, 2003)

The picture above is definitely worth a thousand words.  Nelson Rockefeller, who should have beaten Barry Goldwater for the nomination in 1964, George Romney and of course Ronald Reagan.

Mitt looks a lot like his dad, and like his dad he could very well be obliterated by history.  George Romney was a moderate who opposed the Vietnam War and supported Civil Rights.  The conservatives had to crush him, and now feel the same way about his son. 
 
This is important for Canadians to understand, because Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada, were born of this movement. 

Ernest Manning* and his son Preston, planned to take over the PC Party in the 1960s, until Robert Stanfield, a Red Tory, won the leadership, and they knew they'd have to wait.  They wrote a book Political Realignment, that called for a definitive right-wing party to challenge a definitive left-wing party, and no soft centre.
 
It's not hard to see how we are being realigned, though I think Canadians may finally be balking as such an unnatural situation in a country that has always been somewhere in the middle.
 
Colin Brown, the man who created the National Citizens Coalition, initially to oppose public healthcare, read Political Realignment, contacted Ernest Manning and together they built the NCC into a voice for corporate interests.  Stephen Harper ran the NCC before running for the Alliance leadership (they kept his position open for four years in case it didn't work out).
 
Gerry Nicholls, Harper's VP when he headed up the organization, was fired for criticizing his former boss.  Not his wasteful spending, though he did publicly denounce it, but because he committed the mortal sin of suggesting that Stephen Harper was not "conservative" enough.  
 
If lynching was legal they would have strung him up.
 
Perlstein tells us that while American Conservatives were devoted to Barry Goldwater, they had their suspicions of Richard Nixon, who had also initially spoke out against the Vietnam War.  It wasn't until a young Nixon aid, spoke to his Conservative allies and assured them that Nixon was only trying to garner support from moderates, that they agreed to back him. 
 
That young aid?  Pat Buchanan.
 
Being devoutly anti-Communist and anti-Civil Rights, Ronald Reagan was never in doubt.  When he ran against incumbent Jerry Brown, as Governor of California, Brown tried to expose Reagan's extremism, that included his ties to the John Birch Society.
 
However, as one Reagan insider told the Brown team: "A Bircher isn't identifiable, but a negro is."  At least they had the "'right' colour" on their side.
 
The conservative movement, as well as the Religious Right, has always been about race, and they appear to be successfully wiping out the last 50 years of tolerance.   One Kentucky Church is even banning interracial marriage.  How long before others follow suit?
 
This week Ezra Levant responded to the Attawapiskat crisis with so many "white people" chants, I was waiting for his Freudian to slip, and he break into a "white power" shout.
 
Richard Nixon and Stephen Harper shared the political expertise of Arthur Finkelstein, but it was the Reagan/Harper guru, Paul Weyrich, who taught them the art of hatred.
 
Harper's decision to cut 31.5 million in funding to Ontario immigrant programs, and his new immigration policies, must have the late Weyrich looking up, cackling in the flames.
 
Footnotes:
 
*Suncor founder, the late J. Howard Pew, gave money to Manning, Reagan, Goldwater and Nixon.  His Pew Foundation now supports many right-wing causes.

Not So Much Reform as Special Interest Groups

Jeffrey Simpson has an interesting column this week: Remember the Reformers? They’re still here  In it he suggests that the Conservatives are now putting policies in place written for the Reform Party, two decades ago.

However, while the cowboy law and order agenda was early Reform Party, most initiatives are in response to the special interest groups who helped Stephen Harper's rise to power.  He now has to repay many, many favours.

The gun laws are to compensate gun lobbies, like the National Firearms Association, most connected with the American NRA.  In fact two gun groups handled Conservative MP Chris Alexander's campaign.

The Canadian Wheat Board was never really a target of Reform, but the National Citizens Coalition.  They launched a campaign against the board, reportedly on behalf of Karlheinz Schreiber.

In fact, in the early days, the Party almost had a mutiny on their hands when they suggested cutting farm subsidies.  Their rural members threatened to leave, until they tweaked it.

The tough immigration laws, that enticed  neo-Nazis to infiltrate the Reform Party, came from groups like C-Far, run by Paul Fromm.  Fromm was allowed to sell memberships at at least one Reform Assembly, until his ties to neo-Nazi groups was revealed.  Peter Brimelow, creator of V-Dare, another anti-immigration group, was also an early influence.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation not only fought against immigration policies, but multiculturalism, which might seem odd given that their former president is now the head of Immigration and Multiculturalism.

But it's a ruse.  He exploits immigrant communities but his immigration policies are very selective.  Those not of the right sort can work here temporarily, providing cheap labour for corporations, but if they step out of line, they are immediately shipped back.

When our unemployment rate was at its highest, so was the influx of temporary workers.  You do the math.

Jason Kenney was recently caught in a lie, suggesting that he had only made two patronage appointments to his refugee board.  Turns out it was 16.  Not so much a math error as a question of his integrity.

Even the latest attacks on Native communities by the Conservatives come from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.  Harper has distorted the numbers to make it appear that he has given Attawapiskat $90 million that they squandered, using it as an excuse to take over, but it's just that.  An excuse.

And suggesting that he wasn't aware of the horrendous conditions on the Reserve, again not true, given that they have apparently visited several times, and reported nothing.

They just want control, in much the same way that they took over Barriere Lake, making it easier for big lumber.

We are now being governed by special interest and right-wing fringe groups.  All the devils who now own Stephen Harper's soul.

Why Are we Allowing the Media to Write the Narrative?

I've found myself getting upset the past few days reading columns about the Harper majority.

There is an overwhelming attempt to rewrite Stephen Harper's political story.

Angelo Persichilli tells us that yes Harper was in the Reform Party but left because "he was disappointed" in them.

He left in part because of a power struggle between he and Preston Manning, and in typical vindictiveness, that has come to define him, held a press conference accusing Manning of pilfering money from the party.

He wasn't, but that didn't matter. The damage was done.

However, what Persichilli missed was the fact that Stephen Harper had become disenchanted with Parliament, and felt that he could do more for the movement, heading up the National Citizens Coalition, without the restraints of politics. And indeed he did.

With the help of top Republican strategist (Richard Nixon's campaign manager), Arthur Finklestein, he attempted to make the term "liberal" a dirty word.

Others in covering the Conservative convention have suggested that the "new" Conservative party is a marriage between Red Tories, or what Harper spat out as "pink liberals", and the Reform-Alliance. A bigger myth than Harper turning his back on Reform.

But the best piece of nonsense this week comes from Bruce Anderson in the Globe: Why ‘Stop Harper’ protests are no canary in majority coal mine

On the surface the article appeared to be critical of Canadians. We weren't upset that Tony Clement handed over $50 million dollars to a handful of people in his riding, that was used on some of the most ridiculous projects known to man. And when he gave them the money, he demanded no receipts, so consequently we have no idea what was spent where, though I hear the lighthouse on a stump was a real bargain.

It made Muskoka look like a miniature golf course.

Anderson also mentions the fact that Harper used a military jet to go to a hockey game, but that we forgave him because he took his daughter. How cute. Of course I'm sure she'd have rather stayed home with her dad spending quality time, and not be the victim of a photo-op with Conservative cronies and 11 bodyguards.

I remember when Stephen Harper was critical of Brian Mulroney for using his family in photo-ops.

He also speaks of a gentler mood in Parliament, which makes me wonder if he too does crossword puzzles during Question Period.

It's gone from cocka-doodle-dooing, to inane tripe.

But his most bone-headed remark was suggesting that "Strong leaders, with clear ideas for the future, passionately argued: This is the recipe for the success enjoyed in the last election by Stephen Harper and Jack Layton."

When did Stephen Harper passionately argue clear ideas? He spent the early weeks of the campaign stuck on a "coalition threat", while limiting questions to five.

And even then with the limited number of questions, he refused to answer those he was uncomfortable with, or had no script for. In fact, when reporters pressed, the crowd on cue yelled and hollered and drowned them out.

It's funny, I was just reading a story on Gaddafi's son, who has a PhD from the London School of Economics, and was pressing for reform, long before the Canada led war on his country.

He refused an appointment in his father's government and actually invited human rights activist to come and speak on how to improve the lives of the Libyan people.

But at the event, his father's supporters "yelled and hollered and drowned them out".

Maybe all dictators work from the same playbook.

But this begs the question, why are we allowing the media to create the narrative, by rewriting history?

It's like they've given Stephen Harper a do-over.

Forget the human rights abuses at the G-20. Forget the vilifying of watchdogs and hostile takeovers of arm's length government agencies. Forget the 200 page manual instructing Conservative MPs in the art of disrupting committees, investigating their wrong-doing.

Forget the more than 200 million spent on self-promotion ads, the ethics czar given hush money and the death grip on information.

We have a "new and improved" Stephen Harper now that he has what he wanted. Complete control to do whatever he feels like.

Including destroying the careers of any journalists who do attempt to tell the truth, I suppose.

Maybe it would be best to just not say anything at all.

Is Canada Now Part of the U.S. Empire?

In reading books like Todd Gordon's Imperialist Canada, Chalmers Johnson's Dismantling the Empire and now Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, a pattern for American Imperialism becomes evident.

If a country has natural resources the U.S. wants, but refuses to hand over, the government is replaced with a dictator. And that dictator is financed by the corporations then operating in, or wishing to operate in, the resource rich country.

Stephen Harper is now the dictionary definition of a dictator (try saying that fast three times).

This was not accomplished through a bloody coup, and the big stick diplomacy was domestic, however, much of Harper's success was American made.

1. One of the top Republican polling firms, McLaughlin and Associates take credit for Harper's career. They were also the official ad firm for Harper's National Citizens Coalition, "having worked with them for many years". From their website: John [McLaughlin] also has done extensive market research and consulting for non-profit and corporate clients. His clients have included ... The National Citizens Coalition (Canada)

2. Arthur Finkelstein, another top Republican pollster, who has worked for presidents from Nixon to Bush, was the official advisor to the National Citizens Coalition, for sixteen years. He was also a mentor of Stephen Harper's, passing on a visceral hatred for anything liberal.

3. Frank Luntz, yet another Republican pollster, instructed Harper on how to get a majority. His advice included faux nationalism and talking hockey any chance he got. And darn it all, if it didn't work.

4. One of the founders of the American Religious Right, Paul Weyrich, helped to get Harper elected by cautioning his flock not to speak with the Canadian media.

5. Another key player in the American Religious Right, James Dobson, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, on Canadian radio ads attacking same-sex marriage, to bolster Harper's campaign when he was running on the same platform.

6. In Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, he claimed that Stephen Harper does not believe in peacekeeping, but sees the world as a 'Clash of Civilizations', the doctrine of American neoconservative Irving Kristol.

7. Alykhan Velshi from the American Enterprise Institute (dubbed the Cheney Family Think Tank (Dick and Lynne)), is now Jason Kenney's assistant. The same Jason Kenney who brought Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition to Canada.

8. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, financed our own Fox News North (Sun TV)

In November of 2006, in response to a John Ibbitson column: Harper and Bush Compared, Michael Watkins refuted the claim that Harper was nothing like Bush. In everything from healthcare and education, to foreign policy, he was indeed the mirror image.

Not surprising given that the people above, were involved with both men.

I know the list is longer, but it gives some idea of the American bloodless coup and their puppet dictator.

Some are now referring to Canada as the 51st state, but I think it's more than that. I think we are now little more than another American colony.

And before you roll your eyes, consider this.

1. Operation "Shiprider" allows U.S. agents to patrol Canadian waters.

2. An agreement with their military, allows the U.S. to send troops across our border in the case of an emergency. One of those emergencies would be an indigenous protest over a joint venture like a pipeline or highway.

3. FBI agents can now conduct investigations in Canada without permission.

4. The Buy America trade deal was the gifting of our country to the United States.

5. Harper introduced a bill that would require permission from the U.S. before any Canadian flies to a third world country.

The Harper government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons that would give U.S. officials final say over who may board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly over the U.S. en route to a third country. "Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window," Liberal Transport critic Joe Volpe told the Montreal Gazette in a recent telephone interview. "You are going to be subject to American law." (Vancouver Sun)

6. We are now part of the U.S. led nuclear partnership, allowing all nuclear waste to be repatriated to Canada. In other words, the handling of our nuclear energy, is being directed by the United States.

7. The Border Security deal, locks us inside fortress North America.

So could someone please tell me how we are not now just another American colony. We have been handed over by our puppet dictator. Once they control our public services, including healthcare, we may wish we were just the 51st state.

Stephen Harper's Perfect Crisis

“Pulling their children from ‘union-run’ schools should be a viable option for all parents.” Stephen Harper

I just started reading Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine and from the introduction, it sets the stage for what a Harper majority might look like.

She begins by discussing Katrina and the horrible devastation the storm caused. But in the midst of the chaos, were the smiling faces of the neoconservative interlopers. They failed to see the human misery, but instead saw an opportunity for profit. Levelled land on which to build a free market empire.

The news racing around the shelter that day was that Richard Baker, a prominent Republican Congressman from this city, had told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Joseph Canizaro, one of New Orleans' wealthiest developers, had just expressed a similar sentiment: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities." All that week the Louisiana State Legislature in Baton Rouge had been crawling with corporate lobbyists helping to lock in those big opportunities: lower taxes, fewer regulations, cheaper workers and a "smaller, safer city"—which in practice meant plans to level the public housing projects and replace them with condos. Hearing all the talk of "fresh starts" and "clean sheets," you could almost forget the toxic stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles down the highway. (1)

Leading the charge for God's chosen people, the corporatists, was the late Milton Friedman, a man who has played an integral role in the neoconservative/neoliberal/free market movement.

And he began in an area near and dear to his heart. Privatizing eduction.

One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was Milton Friedman, grand guru of the movement for unfettered capitalism and the man credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, "Uncle Miltie," as he was known to his followers, nonetheless found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke. "Most New Orleans schools are in ruins," Friedman observed, "as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity to radically reform the educational system."

Friedman's radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans' existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions, many run at a profit, that would be subidized by the state. It was crucial, Friedman wrote, that this fundamental change not be a stopgap but rather "a permanent reform." (1)

Friedman had been a regular speaker at the Fraser Institute and has been following Canada's own right-wing revolution.

And Canada's right-wing revolution, includes the desire to 'radically reform the educational system'.

The Reform Party had public education in their cross hairs:

The Reformers gathered in Saskatoon saved perhaps the loudest cheers, whistles, and applause for [founding member William] Gairdner's last shot: 'And my favourite proposal, by the way, is returning choice to education by privatizing every school in the country'. (2)

When Jim Flaherty was finance minister in Ontario, he did "Uncle Miltie" proud. From the National Review:

We don't often look to Canada for inspiring leadership. But Jim Flaherty — the finance minister of Ontario, its largest and wealthiest province — is poised to make his constituency a model of smaller government and respect for individual freedom.

Flaherty is running to succeed premier Mike Harris at the helm of Ontario's governing Progressive Conservative party in the party's leadership election on March 23. His full-bodied, conservative platform of tax cuts, privatization, and school choice has set the agenda for the contest ... Flaherty first caught the attention of grassroots conservatives with his unexpected announcement in last year's budget of a $3,500 ($2,300 USD) per-child tax credit for parents who send their children to independent schools. The measure, according to Laura Swartley of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice, is the most generous education tax credit in North America. It alone has won Flaherty the support of social conservatives and minority religious groups. (3)

The quote at the top of the page from Stephen Harper, was in response to Flaherty's private school subsidy. (Hill Times, 2001)

In his 2007 federal budget, he provided "bursaries" for elementary school students.

The Harper government is giving a tax break to families who send their kids to elite private schools, raising the ire of public education advocates. Under a little-noticed measure in last month's budget, scholarships and bursaries to attend elementary and secondary school will now be fully tax exempt. Finance officials estimate the new exemption will mean "significant tax savings" for about 1,000 students – or, by extension, their parents.

Officials insisted that the exemption applies to scholarships for either public or private schools. But they couldn't supply any examples of public schools – which are funded from the public purse and don't charge tuition fees – awarding scholarships or bursaries.

Entering into his majority, Harper has his Katrina; the "global economic crisis", and a record deficit and debt.

His clean sheet that will provide those very big opportunities that Friedman envisioned. And with Mike Harris lap dog, Tim Hudak, poised to become premier in Ontario, and former student of Tom Flanagan, Danielle Smith in Alberta, it will create the perfect storm.

Education, however, will only be one area, where taxpayer money will build, and the corporate sector will profit.

In New Orleans they laid off all 4,700 unionized teachers, with only a handful hired back, but at greatly reduced wages. And the savings of course were not given back to the taxpayers but into the pockets of the already wealthy.

Milton Friedman is giddy in his grave.

Continuation

Milton Friedman and the Chilean Experiment

Milton Friedman and the Destruction of Argentina

Milton Friedman, the Southern Cone and "Authoritarian Democracy"

Raul Prebisch and Developmentalism

Sources:

1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, By Naomi Klein, Vintage Canada, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-676-97801-8, Pg. 4-7

2. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 165-166

3. Looking North: Election time in Canada, By David Curtin, March 18, 2002

Line 'em Up. Shoot 'em Down

For more than a decade Stephen Harper has had the Canadian Wheat Board in his cross hairs, and it began during his days with the National Citizens Coalition.

In 1996, farmer Andy McMechan of Lyleton, Manitoba, was charged with selling wheat to the United States without a CWB permit. A grassroots group, Canadian Farmers for Justice, took up his cause, and McMechan received a great deal of community support.

From their newsletter: "Late September saw a huge turnout for an old fashioned farm bee on the McMechan farm. Organized by friends of the McMechan family, people turned out from all around to help combine the fields and bring in the harvest. Still others were helping out on the garden, mowing the lawn and trimming trees. Even CTV's W-5 turned out with some cameras to record the event. And to make me wish I was there even more, there was a "huge table of food, baking, sandwiches and pickled preserves."

The National Citizens Coalition was always looking for causes like this to get behind, if it meant they could fundraise, garner media attention and/or discredit the Liberals, and this cause earned the triple crown.

So in July 1997, they started running attack ads against Liberal Ralph Goodale in the West, and beginning September 22, 1997, also in Ottawa. According to David Somerville, then president of the NCC (Stephen Harper his vice-president): "Our plan is to run a radio ad blitz in the West where Goodale lives and in Ottawa where he works. One way or another he will get the message."

And in the process, the campaign also helped Harper's Reform Party.

Goodale had proposed changes to the CWB that allowed it to be run by a board of directors, 10 elected by the prairie farmers themselves, and the other five appointed by the government; so Reform Party MPs joined the chorus, with then MP Jay Hill promising to do what he could to delay the vote on the bill.

The NCC had their well funded political cause and it paid off for Reform. From the July 1997 newsletter of the Canadian Farmers for Justice:

Who Speaks for the Western Farmer? Prairie farmers in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are now represented almost entirely by Reform MPs who stand for farmers' choice in grain marketing.

Of course the NCC cared little for the farmers. Their concern was for the corporate sector, and some believe that their expensive campaign may have been funded by Karlheinz Schreiber, Brian Mulroney's former cash machine, who was planning on starting a pasta business.

Ken Larsen, now with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, wrote in February of 2008:

Brian Mulroney's former chief of staff Norman Spector advised the Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. He suggested the committee's most important work was to find where and to whom Karlheinz Schreiber distributed around $10 million in so-called commissions. In December Schreiber told the same committee, "So forget the pasta thing. That came much later." At the time, many thought he was just talking about a machine. However, Mr Schreiber went on to testify that he and Mulroney discussed what to do about pasta in 1994, and he then went on to say "it started somehow in 1996 or 1997." Perhaps it was entirely coincidental, but less than a year later Steven Harper's National Citizens Coalition had generous funds to attack the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).

For Mr Harper it seems it was all about the pasta. He justified his attacks on the CWB with help from a couple of small groups, by claiming the CWB was preventing investors from opening pasta plants. For those who understand food processing, and the overbuilt pasta industry, these proposals were about as credible as a kindergarten class announcing they could build a working nuclear reactor if only Federal regulations were removed. However they did serve as a convenient stick for Harper to use on the CWB. Indeed, Harper became infamous for attacking the CWB using lavish electronic and print advertising. (1)

Harper is nothing if not determined to get his way, so with the same glee as his cancelling the Kelowna Accord, the Kyoto Protocol and a National Childcare Plan in 2006, he was kicking up his heels recently, when with the stroke of a pen, he axed the Canadian Wheat Board.

And if Canadians go hungry because of his agenda, he'll shriek "Let them eat pasta".

I've often suggested that if you want to know what Harper's next move will be, check out the Republicans or the Tea Party. But if you want an overview of his agenda, I suggest Gerry Nicholls' book Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper, Me and the NCC and Murray Dobbin's The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globilization.

Dobbin sums up the agenda nicely, while Nicholls reveals the devious ways they sell it to us.

Sources:

1. Who funded Harper's Wheat Board vendetta? PM has been after Wheat Board since he was at National Citizens' Coalition, By Ken Larsen, Southern Alberta, February 12, 2008

Michael Ignatieff Not the Only Victim of Smear Campaign

Though the media had been both perpetrators and spectators to the horrible character assassination of Michael Ignatieff, we find that across the country similar smear campaigns were taking place on Liberal candidates.

We knew this election, with everything on the line, Harper and his team would fight dirty. But we were not prepared for what took place, in what is becoming clear was the most fraudulent election campaign in Canadian history.

Harper's former VP when he was running the National Citizens Coalition, called it guerrilla warfare. And it was indeed an undercover operation. A small group of combatants whose mission was not only to win, but to destroy every Liberal in its path.

The Conservatives even disbanded their 'NDP Unit' just before the election to focus their attention on a single enemy.

And one of the victims of this war, was Glen Pearson, a decent man and hard working Member of Parliament. He never let partisanship destroy his integrity, but in the end it destroyed him.

He explains what happened on his blog: Transitions – Brutal In Their Despondency

It was expected by most that I would win and the media sent its staff to my campaign office to cover the victory party that wasn’t. It became clear as the evening progressed that the vote split between myself and the NDP was proving fatal. Yet I’d had something of a premonition of the outcome during the last few days of the contest. At doors I canvassed I kept hearing certain stories about how I spent too much time in Africa, or that my voting presence in the House wasn’t too impressive. When I informed them that I only spent one week a year on that continent (Sudan), and that I take it on my holiday time over New Years and on my own dime, I could sense the hesitation in their voice. “Oh … that’s not what we heard when the Conservatives phoned us last night.” Something that hadn’t been an issue heretofore was suddenly looming large in the final days.

It was frustrating, but I didn’t know who to talk to. It was only when the election was over that a good Conservative friend informed me that they had actually been utilizing a central office for phone calls and that none of them emanated from London itself. They had poured big money from afar into influencing my riding. What I had thought to be a local campaign had suddenly taken on national dimensions.

Mr. Pearson does volunteer work in Africa. Who knew that the Conservatives would stoop to the level of using it against him.

Sadly his story is not unique. Riding after riding, is reporting the same dirty tricks, reminiscent of Karl Rove and the way he stole elections for George Bush.

But in the process, people's lives are being destroyed. As Andrew Potter said recently of the destruction of Michael Ignatieff, Canada is 'No country for good men'.

Sadly, we are now a country where good people will be afraid to run for office. If Glen Pearson can be destroyed, anyone can.

I'm Sorry But I Don't Accept That

In Gerry Nicholls book, Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper, Me and the NCC, he speaks of how they were able to manipulate the NDP and their supporters.

The NCC also had a couple of noteworthy political battles with our ideological opposites — the socialist New Democratic Party. One battle was waged against former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, the other against Bob Rae, during his ill-fated reign as Ontario's Premier. (1)

I have written of how they spent Bob Rae's entire tenure as Premier of Ontario, tearing down everything he did.

But knowing that their national membership wouldn't pay for ads targeting a single province, they set up Ontarians for Responsible Government, and Nicholls headed up the campaign.

Their assault on Ed Broadbent however, took a bit of conniving, but they had Arthur Finkelstein, Richard Nixon's former guru, to help them out.

The Broadbent campaign was a short but intense melee that occurred before and during the 1988 federal election. In the summer of that year Arthur Finkelstein had done a poll for us on Canadian attitudes towards political parties. What he discovered shocked us. According to Arthur's poll, a whopping 40 percent of Canadians supported the NDP, meaning the socialists could actually form the next government. Arthur told us his findings indicated Canadians liked Broadbent because they viewed him as more honest than either Prime Minister Brian Mulroney or Liberal leader John Turner. Ed Broadbent as Prime Minister of Canada? The horror! The horror! (Reference to Heart of Darkness) Something big had to be done. Somebody had to undermine public support for Broadbent and the NDP. We took on the task. (1)

So they looked for Broadbent's weakness, and believed that it might be his agenda. Canadians liked him but may not like his "socialist views"

So they launched a campaign with the theme that Broadbent was "very, very, scary". The NCC poured $500,000 into their attack using radio, newspapers and direct mail. There were skits interchanging Karl Marx with Groucho Marx, and at one point focused on the fact that Broadbent had said that Canada should get out of NATO.

Now there have been times, when I've felt the same, believing they may have lost their way, given that Afghanistan is nowhere near the North Atlantic. But that's a subject for another day, or maybe never.

At the time the NCC really had no opinion either way on NATO, but were concerned that a Broadbent victory could put an end to the Free Trade deal, and they wanted to take the sting out of the left's campaign against it. They had already helped Mulroney's leadership bid, with their ABC campaign, Anybody But Clarke (1), to destroy Joe Clarke, paving the way for a Mulroney victory.

Part of the problem with pushing free trade, however, was that a lot of Canadians (and for that matter a lot of NCC supporters) just didn't like Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. In other words, we had to sell the idea of free trade, despite Mulroney. Or as Arthur so indelicately put it during one Of our strategy sessions, "We have to convince Canadians to drink pig piss."

So we figured if we couldn't drive up support for the Tories maybe we could do the next best thing and help drive down support for the Liberals. To do that, we ran a newspaper ad Machiavellian in its cleverness. To the unwary observer the ad was a typical right-wing assault on the NDP. The headline was, "Look Who's Opposing Free Trade." And under a photo of Broadbent the ad copy declared, "Ed Broadbent: A dedicated socialist, who means what he says. He doesn't believe in free enterprise. He doesn't believe in free trade. He's very, very scary."

But the ad also had a subliminal message directed at NDPers who were thinking of strategically voting liberal to stop free trade. That message was, "Hey, we nasty right-wingers at the NCC are attacking your guy because he's a true socialist. Are you going to let us get away with that?" Get it? We were sneakily using psychology to drive NDPers back home. After all, it's a natural emotional reaction for people to rally around their friends when they are under attack. We wanted left-wingers to rally around Broadbent.(1)

It was a very strange day yesterday, on the eve of the advanced polls and those advocating strategic voting going into the final leg of the journey.

Headlines everywhere were suggesting an enormous NDP surge. Conservatives on Twitter were telling people to vote NDP, some even using the 'strategic voting' concept, by suggesting that the Liberals were on their way out.

So I took a close look at one of the polls conducted by Nanos research. If you scroll down to Regional Ballot of Committed Voters - April 20, you'll see the breakdown by region.

In Quebec for instance, where a lot of the headline grabbing focused, Nanos shows the Conservatives at 17.5%, the Liberals at 20.8% and the NDP at 23.4% (actually down 2 points from the day before).

However, when you move down, you'll see the "margin of error is a whopping 6.4%. How are any of the previous numbers valid? 6.4% means that the Conservatives are either 11.1% or 23.9%. The Liberals either 14.4% or 27.2%, and the NDP either 17% or 29.8%. At any given point, any of the three parties could have been leading.

The same with Ontario which had a 5.6% margin of either. If you remove that from the Conservatives they would be 39.1%. Add it to the Liberals, they would be 42.1. And the plus or minus for the NDP puts them at either 8.9% or 20.3%

So why the sudden push for the NDP, despite the fact that the numbers don't suggest any big gain?

Pollster Allan Gregg calls it "an unholy alliance with journalists who routinely misconstrue data and ignore margins of error." And he warns us about putting too much stock in polls. When asked who among the pollsters we should believe, he says:

"Nobody," says veteran pollster Allan Gregg, an outspoken critic of his own industry and chairman of Harris-Decima, which conducts polls for The Canadian Press. As far as Gregg is concerned, the election campaign has magnified problems with political polling: methodological issues that are skewing the results of both telephone and online surveys; commercial pressures that are prompting pollsters to over-hype their surveys.

"Commercial pressures". They are never going to allow the NDP to win, but at this crucial, yet still safe, part of the campaign, they are playing the same game that the NCC played.

The day you hear a Conservative suggesting that people vote NDP, "their ideological opposites", is when you know there's something else going on. They are trying to throw us off course. And it would appear that Jack Layton has taken the bait.

He will now pound away at Michael Ignatieff, in the same way that he pounded at the carbon tax, giving Harper a stronger minority.

If the NDP had legitimately spiked and it was at the expense of the Conservatives, I'd be thrilled. But this was just a clever manipulation by what Gregg calls an "unholy alliance".

It's created confusion for strategic voters, and may be just enough to give Harper his majority. They gave Mulroney the largest majority in Canadian history.

I wonder how much the National Citizens Coalition has poured into this campaign.

Sources:

1. Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, By: Gerry Nicholls, Freedom Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-9732757-8-0

Who Will Win Harper's War on Canada? Him or Us?

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporality embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck

The healthcare debate has once again brought the National Citizens Coalition into the spotlight. The group that Stephen Harper has not only belonged to for three decades, but also served as its president.

The NCC was founded in 1967 by wealthy insurance broker Colin Brown, to fight against what he called "socialized medicine". Kind of like the American Tea Party.

However, it didn't really take off until Ernest Manning came on board, encouraging them to seek status as non-profit to enjoy the tax breaks. A bit of irony here. A group that fought against taxes (and they want the corporate tax rate to eventually be zero), had no qualms about stealing from taxpayers to promote corporate interests.

And there was no end to the corporate money that flowed through the offices. So much that they could afford to hire top Republican strategist Arthur Finklestein.

And while the ultimate goal of the NCC was to end public healthcare, they also advocated the end of unions and the ability of corporations to fund politicians.

The notion of corporations funding politicians was not new. After Watergate, when laws were toughened in the U.S., Finklestein, who had worked for Richard Nixon, created what he called Independent Expenditure Campaigns. In Canada we call it Third Party Advertising.

And Finkelstein helped the NCC become massive third party advertisers. But there was a problem. In Canada we limit this to $150,000. How could wealthy corporations take over the democratic process if all they could spend was $ 150,000?

Enter Stephen Harper.

In his 1993 campaign to win a seat for the Reform Party, the National Citizens Coalition poured $50,000 into his riding, advertising against what they called "the Gag Law". (1) This was especially telling, since Harper was running against Jim Hawkes, the man who had acted as mentor, making Harper his aide in Ottawa when he was a PC MP.

The attack became so visceral, that Harper's former fiancee, Cynthia Williams, went to work for Hawkes. Not a jilted lover because she was the one who broke off the engagement, later saying that had she stayed with Steve, she would not have been able to have a career. (2)

Something else we should have taken from Harper's time with Hawkes, was that his former boss found Harper a little odd. The only thing he talked about was himself and his ambitions. (2)

But back to corporate funded democracy.

Stephen Harper believed in this to such an extent, that he actually sued the Canadian people, in the now infamous Stephen Harper vs Canada ruling.

Mitchell Anderson is concerned that if given a majority, Harper will simply go over the head of the Supreme Court in favour of corporate interests. And he's probably right.

This Rogue in Power does everything by stealth.

In the court decision against Harper, the Supreme Court stated: "Promoting electoral fairness by ensuring the equality of each citizen in elections, preventing the voices of the wealthy from drowning out those of others, and preserving confidence in the electoral system, are pressing and substantial objectives in a liberal democracy."

Electoral fairness? Equality of each citizen? A liberal democracy? Stephen Harper? NEVER!

Mitchell reminds us of what is happening in the United States when a Bush appointed court paved the way for the corporate sector to engineer American democracy. A nightmare.

Democracy will only apply to those who can afford it.

Is this really your Canada?

On May 2, vote and vote wisely.

Sources:

1. Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, By: Gerry Nicholls, Freedom Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-9732757-8-0

2. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

New Canadian Epidemic. We've All Been "Finkel Thinked"

After Watergate brought down Richard Nixon, the U.S. passed the Federal Election Campaign Act in an attempt to make election campaigns more open and transparent. One of the key features of the act, was that it placed legal limits on campaign contributions.

This prompted high profile Republican strategist, Arthur Finkelstein, who had worked on Nixon's campaign, to come up with something called Independent Expenditure Campaigns (in Canada this is known as Third Party Advertising). This allowed the wealthy to funnel their contributions through a political activist group, who could run attacks ads freely, usually zeroing in on a policy the Republicans opposed and their opponents favoured, or had already adopted.

Finkelstein would also work for Ronald Reagan, before joining Canada's National Citizens Coalition. According to Gerry Nicholls, who was Stephen Harper's VP when he was running the NCC:

Arthur [Finkelstein] was an American political consultant who worked for the NCC, he gave us political, media and fundraising advice. He was, in fact, truth-be-told, one of the chief reasons behind the NCC’s success. He was also the top Republican political consultant, if not the top American political consultant period. He was also the guy who basically invented the negative ad. His nickname was the “Merchant of Venom.” (1)

And this "Merchant of Venom" taught Stephen Harper well.

Finkelstein's strength was in finding a weak spot, as flimsy as it might be, and then creating an entire campaign around it. Harper found Dion's in his difficulty with the English language, to create the image of a bumbling fool with the simple "Not a Leader" attack.

With Michael Ignatieff it was more difficult, but he found a "weak spot" in his five years spent teaching at Harvard. He couldn't use his teaching positions at Oxford, Cambridge or the London School of Economics, because they were British. So those five years spent in Boston became the focal point of the "Just Visiting" ads. And the fact that while teaching in Boston, Ignatieff chose "we" to connect with his students, that "we" became the most powerful two letter word in the English language.

Another strategy of Finkelstein's was to give negative connotations to certain things through repetition and association. "Tax and spend liberals", "reckless coalition", that kind of thing.

This strategy became known as "Finkel Think". But too much Finkelthinking can be a bad thing. In the U.S. several of his campaigns backfired because he used terms so much, that the negative response was aimed at the ads, and the Democrat won.

Harper's overuse of "reckless coalition" appears to have also backfired, especially after it was made public that he himself had tried to become prime minister in 2004, in a coalition that included the full support of the Bloc.

In fact, a recent poll suggests that the majority of Canadians would prefer a coalition to a Harper majority. This doesn't mean that Harper will change his strategy. He can't. His Finkelthinkitis is terminal.

Symptoms of the Disease

1. The first sign that a nation has been finklethinked is the odd behaviour of the media. They will begin to froth at the mouth while watching the latest attack ad. Then they wait for the polls to see if the ad is working. Now collectively, with arms extended like Zombies, they will head to their keyboards to create headline news. "Latest Harper Attack ad may cause Michael Ignatieff to plummet to his political death."

There is an easy cure at this stage, but it would involve their having to think and perhaps ponder what this is doing to our democracy. But thinking is elitist, meaning they could become the next victim of Fatal Finkeling.

2. The electorate begins to develop a rash. They can't sit still while watching the attack ads, so will fidget and hold their tummies, waiting for the nausea to consume them. In the most severe cases you may also see a gauging out of the eyes and the placing of sticks in ears, while the victim runs in circles singing "la, la, la, la, la, la ..."

An Old Wives Tale suggests that they lock themselves inside on election day, but research has shown this to be false. The best cure for Finkelthinkitis, is to show up at the polling station on election day to receive the antidote.

It's called a ballot. The only known cure.

So don't become a frothing, fuming, fumbling, fulminating, fickle faced foolish Finkelthinker. On May 2 vote and vote wisely.

Sources:

1. Libertarianism and me, by Gerry Nicholls, November 13, 2009

To Understand Stephen Harper is to Understand the National Citizens Coalition

I've read a great many books on the rise of Neoconservatism in Canada, in particular as they related to the Western Reform Movement (now the Conservative Party of Canada) and the Mike Harris government in Ontario (now headed up by Harris' lapdog, Tim Hudak).

But I thought that to really understand the philosophy behind it, I'd also read books written by some of the major players.

Anything Preston Manning churned out was revisionist history that left out many important details, like the influence of the American Republicans and the National Citizens Coalition. He only stopped short of suggesting that God himself wrote their platform, chiseled it in stone and delivered it on Mount Sinai.

It wasn't of course. In fact the Reform polices were written by Stephen Harper and most "cribbed from the National Citizens Coalition handbook". (1)

Gerry Nicholls, VP of the NCC when Harper was president, also laments the fact that Stephen Harper fails to mention his involvement with the group, in his own official bio.

Stephen Harper fails to mention a lot of things. And for good reason. The NCC being the least of them.

However, what I've discovered in my journey to the dark side (I'm kidding. Just using a bit of neocon-speak), is that there may be another reason why Harper leaves out some very important elements of his life.

It's because he not only plagiarized the NCC handbook to appear that he knew how to draft policy, but he also stole most of his ideas, from not only the NCC, but many of the players in the early days of Reform.

One of the authors affecting his ideology was Peter Brimelow, so I read his book Patriot Games, that had such a profound affect on Harper that he went out and bought ten copies (2) to give to friends (Shut up. Yes apparently he did have 10 friends, though it is rumoured that he thinks his cat can read).

From that book, I found most of Harper's political "ideas", including the notion of a Belgian model, that made headlines during the 2004 election campaign. Not his idea it turns out, but Brimelow's.

Stephen Harper is a smart man, but not a wise man, and his strengths are in cunning and combativeness. He has no fresh ideas to help the country, so instead attacks the ideas of others. And when he can't attack their ideas, because they make too much sense, he instead attacks them.

This commando style "guerrilla warfare", comes from the National Citizens Coalition and Arthur Finklestein, who was a master of the simplistic attack ad. KeepItSimpleStupid with the emphasis on 'Stupid'.

What Is/Was the National Citizens Coalition?

"Not only was I helping to make Canada a better, freer country, but I had the pleasure of knowing my work was upsetting the left-wing elite." Gerry Nicholls

In his book, Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, Gerry Nicholls speaks of the misconceptions surrounding the NCC and what they were, and attempts to correct them.

He also follows Manning's lead (Preston Manning is the recipient of the "prestigious" medal of freedom given out by the NCC, as is Stephen Harper and Conrad Black. Enough said), and writes a bit of revisionist history of his own.

1. The NCC was started by Colin M. Brown "one of the country's leading life insurance salesmen". It was started by Colin M. Brown, however, he was hardly a mere life insurance salesman, but a wealthy agent for London Life. Most say millionaire and I think they're right. And he was inspired, not by a desire to help others, but in response to the promise of public healthcare, fearing it would hamper his business.

The idea behind the creation of the National Citizens Coalition as an advocacy group, came from Ernest Manning, father of Preston, who had many connections with the American Republicans. It was Manning who came up with the idea of making the NCC non-profit, so that they could take advantage of tax breaks. (2) Meaning that while they screamed "lower taxes", they were enjoying tax benefits, passing more of the burden onto the working class, while soliciting the same people for their funding.

2. The National Citizens Coalition is not "extremist", "radical" or "extreme right-wing". However, in their early days they championed the causes of the extreme right. Case in point, is the horrendous "boat people campaign", to keep Canada from accepting Vietnam refugees.

You can listen to the podcast here. And this was launched the same year that Stephen Harper joined the NCC.

They were also involved in circulating the video of Peter Worthington's propaganda documentary against Nelson Mandela. The mainstream media wouldn't broadcast it because it was too one-sided.

They only became involved in political campaigns when Brown hired Art Finklestein.

Finkelstein had created the concept of independent expenditure campaigns (third party advertising), which could operate behind the scenes, to get a chosen candidate elected or defeated.

Finklestein was the chief strategist behind the most successful IE operation of this period, the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). In 1981 New Right activist Richard Viguerie wrote, "NCPAC relies heavily on research and polling, a reflection of one of its founders, conservative pollster Arthur Finkelstein."

In 1978, NCPAC was instrumental in the defeat of Democrats Dick Clark in Iowa and Thomas J. McIntyre in New Hampshire. Both liberal Senators were replaced by committed conservatives. NCPAC ran hard-hitting ads for television, radio and newspapers, crafted by Finkelstein. A central idea behind the strategy was to expose the liberal words and actions in Washington of elected officials ... (3)

From then on, this became the mandate of the NCC. Their most successful independent expenditure campaign, in fact, first got Stephen Harper elected as an MP in 1993, when he went up against his former boss, Progressive Conservative Jim Hawkes.

The campaign was so ugly that Harper's former fiancee, Cynthia Williams, went to work for Hawkes, feeling that he was being unjustly vilified. That campaign cost the NCC about $50,000.00.

They were also responsible for the four-year campaign against Bob Rae when he was premier of Ontario, through their spin-off group: Ontarians for Responsible Government. Billboards, bumper stickers, radio spots. They were relentless. And of course the same group was instrumental in getting Mike Harris elected.

So even that far back, the American conservative movement was interfering in our elections.

But instead of just exposing the roots of Stephen Harper, we can actually use some of their logic against them, with simple ads. Not personal attack ads, but attacks against policy and strategy.

The "In and Out" is not an "accounting problem", but involved Conservative operatives fabricating receipts for government rebates, they weren't entitled to.

Harper is not for lower taxes, but his government is behind the HST and the payroll tax on workers.

They are not fiscal conservatives, but have racked up a record debt and deficit, exploiting the Wall Street "heist", dubbed the "global economic crisis".

They are not worried about creating jobs, because during the same period when we were experiencing massive job losses, their government stepped up the use of migrant workers.

Bang, bang, bang. Simple facts. Guerilla warfare.

Thank you Gerry Nicholls and thank you Arthur Finklestein.

Sources:

1. Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, By: Gerry Nicholls, Freedom Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-9732757-8-0

2. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

3. Wikipedia: Arthur J. Finkelstein

To Understand Stephen Harper is to Understand Arthur Finklestein

I have written before about Arthur Finklestein, the Republican pollster who worked with Stephen Harper and the National Citizens Coalition.

I was a little shocked when I first learned of this, because Finklestein was pretty high profile. Not a public icon like Karl Rove or to a lesser degree, Frank Luntz. Finklestein was more like Guy Giorno, preferring to operate in the shadows.

He handled the campaigns of controversial figures like Jesse Helms and Alfonse D'Amato, but his client list also included Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

He was no lightweight.

I'm currently reading Loyal to the Corp: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, by Harper's former VP at the National Citizens Coalition, Gerrry Nicholls. Nicholls reveals the fact that Finklestein was employed by the NCC for 14 years, taking Harper under his (right) wing, and teaching him everything he knew. And he knew plenty.

Not about how to be a good leader, but how to demolish your political opponents.

Finklestein was king of the petty attack ad. The pettier the better, and Stephen Harper was a very good student.

The Legacy of Arthur Finklestein

In Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, he discusses Harper's visceral hatred for "L"iberals, though it's more of a visceral hatred for anything "l"iberal. It's almost an obsession.

In the United States Finklestein is credited with helping to make "liberal" a dirty word throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He did this by associating the word with anything negative.

"That's liberal. That's Jack Reed. That's wrong. Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you."

Three times: liberal = "wrong" liberal = Jack Reed "too" liberal. The message is pretty clear.

But this one backfired:

"Paul Wellstone. Embarrassingly liberal. Decades out of touch."

He played it so often that a grassroots organization was formed to counter the ignorance and Wellstone won. Besides, it was 1990, after almost a decade of "out of touch" Reagan, so it failed to resonate.

We can do the same here, and in fact, I think the Conservative attack ads are beginning to wear on everyone. Wellstone's campaign is actually a good example of how to beat the right-wing nonsense. The senator from Minnesota died in a plane crash in 2002, along with his wife and daughter, but a group has been formed in his name:

Wellstone Action trains progressive citizens and potential candidates for public office, on how to "succeed in winning elections, enacting legislation, and passing ballot initiatives". I'm hoping we can mobilize as a progressive force this election, and turn this country around.

We saw how easy it was to recruit 225,000 Canadians, who opposed Stephen Harper's last self-serving prorogation, and more recently, 30 groups got together to oppose the "hush money" paid to Harper's "not so much an ethics czar as a sweeper under of rugs", who buried 50 allegations of fraud and misconduct against his government.

Pundits and pollsters are suggesting that the Conservative attack ads are working, citing recent poll results. But Harris-Decima chairman, Allan Gregg recently warned Canadians not to take too much stock in polls these days, admitting that "telephone surveys have fallen to 15 per cent -- partly because more people use cells, have call screening or just hang up."

The results are only based on a 15% success rate. And on-line polls represent the opinions of those who seeks out those polls, and hardly an accurate reading of the pulse of the nation.

Last month, we were on the brink of a Conservative majority: three separate polls said as much. Those attack ads on Ignatieff were hurting the Liberals. The fact that much of the Conservative surge was on the Prairies, where they already hold most of seats, was downplayed.

... Then there's highly imperfect reporting. Dutiful news stories will include the usual warnings in the final paragraph: this poll is reliable 19 times out of 20, with a margin of error of whatever. But television hosts, pundits, columnists (guilty) often ignore this excitement-killing nuance. One recent poll had the Tories moving from 38.1 per cent to 39.7 per cent and was widely reported as a "rise" in Tory support. But the fine print reports a margin of error of 3.1 per cent: in other words, the "gain" was statistically meaningless.

We just have to try and beat the right-wing at their own games. Not by making silly attack ads, but by reminding people of just how ridiculous they really are.

"Michael Ignaieff didn't come back for you". What is that supposed to mean?

I bought some voice distortion software and created an attack ad as it might appear in 1867, when Conservative John MacDonald (Sir John A.) was running against Liberal George Brown.

MacDonald had scoffed at Brown's prison reform, suggesting that conditions in the prison system were not that bad.

I thought it might go something like this.