One of the most Powerful Countries in the World Can no Longer be Trusted

There is a Public Relations firm operating in both the United States and Canada, Ketchum Inc., that has for the past several years, been working with Vladimir Putin, to sell Russian influence in the United States.

They run an English language website, ThinkRussia.com and when tensions first began to rise in the Ukraine, postings included 'a look back at the Sochi Olympics, a feature on international women's day in Russia, and a piece detailing a crackdown on bitcoin.' Nothing on Ukraine. Indeed, if you visit the site today, you get no sense of the turmoil currently taking place.

Ketchum also maintains a Twitter account for Russia, @mfa_russia They have over 48,000 followers, and while much if it is non-confrontational, they do question the actions of NATO and its members.

They also, however, give us a view of the conflict outside the Western sphere, as Russia seeks humanitarian aid from China, to assist those living in what we refer to as Pro-Russian territory.

Remember. These sites are being maintained by one of the world's largest PR firms, originating in the United States, and being paid for by the Russian government. How can this be?

The Destabilization of a Powerful Nation

Stephen F. Cohen, described as a 'scholar of Russian studies', wrote a book in 2000, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia. I had read it several years ago, but picked it up again to read as a refresher.

In it he writes of the invasion of Russia by the United States, throughout the 1990s. Not a military invasion, but a social and cultural one with an army of bankers, investors and Evangelicals, hoping to turn the country into an American style democracy.

They called it shock therapy, as the middle class was gutted, the most vulnerable left to fend for themselves and Christian Orthodoxy allowed to play an important role in public policy. (Simon Shuster, Time, August 4, 2014)

Cohen questioned the logic of destabilizing a country with nuclear weapons. He is now a seemingly lone voice, in once again questioning the U.S. And their role in Ukraine.

The Coup and the Chorus of Voices

I started following this story back in February, when a tape was leaked of a telephone conversation between U.S. Diplomat, Victoria Nuland, and Ukrainian Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. In it we hear Nuland angrily state "f... the European Union!"

Initially, Nuland denied that it was her on the tape, blaming the Russians for trying to discredit her, but eventually admitted to the slur and apologized for her insensitivity.

However, that tape revealed a lot more than a diplomat with a potty mouth, but also showed America's apparent involvement in the coup. Not because Nuland or Pyatt spoke of it directly, but because many asked themselves who these people were and why were they so upset with the European Union? This was when rumblings of another U.S. sponsored "regime change" was underway.

Victoria Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, co-founder with arch Neoconservative, William Kristol, of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

PNAC worked closely with the Bush Administration and their so-called War on Terror and Kagan personally supported the invasion of Iraq. He also wrote a book in 2003; Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, in which he states:

When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways ... '

He then coined the term "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus"' which understandably upset, well, the Europeans. Did he also coin the term "F... the EU"?

And what about Geoffrey Pyatt, the Ukranian Ambassador?

Soon after landing in the Ukraine, he engineered the purchase of a television outlet called Hromadske.TV, with embassy funds and contributions from wealthy Americans. What's interesting though, is that he also received almost $100,000 from the Embassy of the Netherlands.

A secret Wikileaks cable revealed a statement made by a departing US envoy to the Hague, "Dutch pragmatism and our similar world-views make the Netherlands fertile ground for initiatives others in Europe might be reluctant, at least initially, to embrace."

Damn I hope MH17, with so many Dutch passengers, wasn't targeted because of that, given that Hromadske TV played an integral part in the Revolution, and is now the most quoted in the Western media.

In December, 2013, Radio Free Europe wrote of the upstart new station: Out Of Ukrainian Protests, A New Media Outlet Is Born

Disinformation, misinformation, rumors, and speculation have been widespread throughout the crisis as throngs of protesters have taken to the streets to protest Yanukovych's scuttling of a landmark pact with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow.

But apparently, only Hromadske could get to the truth. However, Hromadske may have also launched the Revolution. According to Mustafa Nayem, the man credited with the igniting spark:

The press gained freedoms under Yanukovych. But it wasn’t until 2013 that a group of us left our jobs at companies owned by oligarchs or political partisans and began to create a truly independent media. In the first months of the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych we formed Stop Censorship! to protest persecution of the press.

Three years later, we founded the first Internet TV channel in the country that operates through donations from our viewers—Hromadske.tv, where I work now as editor in chief. The media showed everything that was happening—helping people to believe that if we all act together, we can accomplish great things.

So who controls the message? You be the judge, because that is not the purpose of this post.

The Destabilization of a Powerful Nation

When I mentioned in the heading, a powerful nation that can't be trusted, I was referring to the United States. Not that we can trust Russia. I think that's a given.

Nor does it necessarily mean that the United States can't be trusted. However, because of past sins, and bogus reasons for war, American credibility is fading.

According to a 2013 Gallup poll, they were seen as the biggest threat to world peace, at 24%. Next to them was Pakistan at 8%, India 6%, Israel and Russia 5% and Afghanistan, Iran, And North Korea all tied with 4%.

Of course, the right-wing blames this on Obama, but the reputation as a war monger, began long before he came to power. In fact, you could say it started in 1898 when the U.S. no doubt blew up its own ship, The Maine, and used it as justification for the Spanish-American War. From then on, Imperialism became an integral part of public policy.

Many influential Europeans are even suggesting that 9/11 was an inside job. But this post is not to debate that either, but to ask ourselves what happens when a country like the United States loses credibility, at a time of profound crisis.

In May of this year, journalist Finian Cunningham, had a piece posted on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy site, entitled: Putin Should Send Troops Into Ukraine

Despite Western claims, the facts show that the unrest and violence in Ukraine has stemmed from Western subversion in that country, beginning with the CIA-backed street agitation in Kiev last November that led to an illegal coup against the elected government of Victor Yanukovych in February. We could go further back to the CIA-sponsored Orange Revolution of 2004 and the $5 billion invested by Washington for regime change from the early 1990s onwards.

The neo-Nazi paramilitaries and their political leaders who usurped power in Kiev have gone on to unleash a campaign of terror against ethnic Russians in the east and south of the country, and anyone else who opposes the regime’s power grab.

It should be noted that Paul Craig Roberts is no left-wing nut, but a supply-sider Republican, who was part of the Reagan Administration. Yet he allows a guest posting that blames American foreign policy for the Ukraine crisis.

Cunningham continues

In the southern city of Odessa, more than 40 anti-Kiev protesters were killed when a building they were seeking refuge in was set ablaze by hundreds of neo-Nazi storm troopers acting on the tacit direction of the junta in Kiev and its Western state sponsors ... Eyewitnesses in Odessa say that when people jumped from windows to escape the blaze they were “finished off” by neo-Nazis on the ground who had minutes before set the building alight with petrol bombs.

These forces comprise remnants of the Ukrainian national army loyal to the fascist junta, as well as Right Sector neo-Nazi paramilitaries outfitted as a “national guard”, and very possibly the involvement of US-backed mercenaries and Special Forces.

Ketchum Inc, is not alone in supporting Russia, though it's not so much about supporting Russia as not trusting the USA.

It took months, for the European Union to endorse severe sanctions, and since many of those Europeans will be hurt in the process, they may cave before Putin. If the purpose is to ignite a coup against the Russian leader, that doesn't appear imminent, as he had already took measures to decrease foreign investments.

The United States had the only vote against a a UN investigation into Israeli violence in Gaza, revealing what little international influence they now have. Had Canada's international voice still meant something, we would have surely joined them, but Harper lost our seat at the UN council.

At a time when we need strong American leadership, that country has been destabilized with shock therapy that has gutted the middle class, left the most vulnerable to fend for themselves and allowed Christian Orthodoxy to play an important role in public policy. Sound familiar?

Tea Party politics Russian style, or American style, is still Tea Party politics. They tanked the Russian economy in 1998, and put the American economy on the brink several times. How can anyone now look to the U.S. for guidance, when the Tea Party now control the GOP and Congress?

The American people are weary of war, and the rest of the world growing weary of the USA.

Let's hope the goddess of diplomacy can defeat the god of war, and this mess ends peacefully, because no matter what neoconservatives believe, there can be no winners in a nuclear war.

Time to Jump In: Stephen Harper and the Neo-Nazis

So I guess it's time to jump right in, to a topic I've been skirting around, not sure exactly what to do with.

However, the evidence is a little overwhelming, so I think that Canadians have a right to know what Stephen Harper was up to when forming his Reform/Alliance Party (now calling themselves Conservatives).

I'm not going to make any assumptions, I'm just going to share what I've read from reliable sources and you can be the judge.

Apparently the revelations were discovered several years ago, but Conrad Black, the media mogul, was able to silence his journalists.

In an attempt to remake Mr. Harper and his party from being ultra right, into a fabricated image of a non-threatening "moderately conservative" party.... “He [Mr. Harper] had little trouble doing so, as the media had been largely muffled by one fact: press baron Conrad Black, then reaching the height of his powers was also a member of the Northern Foundation and equally shy about having it publicly known. ... Journalists feared incurring his wrath as he employed many of them at the time, and was a potential employer for those whom he didn’t employ. Had they made the membership list public, Mr. Black would have been exposed." (Trevor Harrison - Passionate Intensity) (Conrad Black was also a member of the National Citizens Coalition)

I have no idea what is silencing them today, and why no one is going after this, but here goes.

Stephen Harper - The Northern Foundation and the Heritage Front:

I've already mentioned that the Reform Party emerged from the old Social Credit Party, with many of it's policies and original members.

Ernest Manning, father of Preston Manning, was the Social Credit Premier of Alberta from 1943 and 1968, and was the only Social Credit senator in Canadian history.

Stockwell Day's father was also involved in the Social Credit party and once ran against Tommy Douglas NDP.

James Keegstra was an activist for Social Credit and his lawyer, Doug Christie was a close personal friend of Stockwell Day Sr.

We also know from Mr. Harrison's book that the Reform Party adopted a motion at it's inception, to allow Right Wing fringe groups to join them, including Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept, a separatist party. (Of Passionate Intensity - Harrison - 1995, pg. 115-116)

And we know that Stephen Harper was writing policy for the party at the time, much of it, according to former National Citizens Coalition president, David Somerville; cribbed from their handbook. However, the bible, as it were, for the party was apparently William Gairdner's The Trouble With Canada. (Of Passionate Intensity - Harrison - 1995, pg 171 )

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

‘The Northern Foundation was established in 1989, originally as a pro-South Africa group . . . lists among the founding members of the Foundation both William Gairdner and Stephen Harper ... "

2. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network - Author: Warren Kinsella Toronto : Harper Collins, 1994 and 2001.

"Back home, Droege held low-key meetings with his new group in his apartment. They discussed their plans for their new group, and they discussed a name: the Heritage Front. One man, James Scott Dawson, registered the name; another Gerry Lincoln, designed a logo and some letterhead. Then, in November 1989, the Heritage Front went public. Droege, Lincoln and a few others travelled to Ottawa for the founding conference of the Northern Foundation. Droege had chosen a good place for his coming-out party."

The Northern Foundation's president was Rita Ann Hartmann, widow of former Western Guard activist Paul Hartmann. Hartmann had moved to Ottawa in 1987 with her six children, two of whom were skinheads who would go on to recruit on behalf of the Heritage Front in the national capital.

The Hartmann family lived in a huge home at 25 Delaware Avenue, in the well-to-do Golden Triangle neighbourhood. From there, Hartmann maintained connections with Neo-Nazi groups across North America. In March 1990, for example, she wrote to the ultra-violent Confederate Hammerskins of Tulsa, Oklahoma, using an alias she favours, Eleanor Cameron. Out of the same address, Ann Hartmann busied herself with REAL Women of Canada.

Hartmann, who has a law degree from the University of Toronto, provides legal advice to REAL Women. In April 1989, for example, she gave an anti-abortion speech to a REAL Women conference at the Radisson Hotel in Ottawa. Not all of the Northern Foundation's members were neo-Nazis. Along with the Heritage Front, the group's inaugural conference was attended by a well-known Conservative MP; a founder of Alberta Report magazine;a senior representative of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada; and a columnist for the Toronto Sun.

Yet many of those associated with the Northern Foundation would go on to play keyroles in the Heritage Front, among them Steve Dumas, the foundation's research officer, who would write a regular column in the Front's Up Front publication under the pseudonym Steve Baker; Geoff Lupton, who had made an unsuccessful attempt in 1989 to establish a Nationalist Party club at Carleton University and who used the pseudonym Geoff Edwards when working on behalf of the Heritage Front; and Eric (Stilts) Hartmann, son of Paul and Ann, who was moved to pen an anti-abortion editorial for Droege.

"The Northern Foundation Conference was the start of it all for the Heritage Front," recalls Droege. "From that point on, things really took off.
(pg 263-264)

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

"After leaving Tory MP Jim Hawkes' office in 1986, Harper had enrolled in the University of Calgary's master's program. At the same time, he had continued to "network" with some of the conservative think-tanks, such as the National Citizens' Coalition and the Fraser Institute, trying 'to mobilize some of the conservative resources,' and also helped to establish a right-wing organization, the Northern Foundation." (pg. 110)

"A number of organizations continued to arise, moreover, which threatened to splinter the Tory's right-wing support in the belief that Mulroney's government was not going far enough or fast enough in reversing the policies of the previous Liberal regime. One of these organizations - a kind of umbrella organization for many of the other single-issue, right-wing groups - deserves particular mention because of its links to the Reform party: the Northern Foundation.

The Foundation's own literature describes its history and purpose:

"The Northern Foundation was started in 1988 by individuals who were concerned and angered by the continuing deterioration of their country. In Canada, common sense had been drowned out while unprincipled politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, and leftist media elites did all the talking -- and thinking -- on behalf of everybody? ... There was no party, movement or organization to fight for the needs and aspirations of the majority of Canadians who were common-sense, small-'c' conservatives in both the social and economic sense.

In short, the Northern Foundation portrays itself as a kind of 'radical vanguard' for the dissemination of social and economic conservative ideas.

Complaining of socialist/progressive thinking, and a media/political system controlled by 'lib/left' elites, who had been 'able to impose their agenda on the Canadian people because small-'c' conservatives had been divided, 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.

The roster of conservative adherents speaking at foundation conferences in 1989, 1990 and 1992 is equally instructive. Among speakers were Dr Walter Block (the Fraser Institute), Ed Vanwoudenberg (leader of the Christian Heritage party), Lubor Zink (an extreme right-wing columnist with the Sun chain), Dr. John Whitehall (of the Canadian Christian Anti-Communist Crusade), Ron Leitch (president of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), Gwen Landolt (founder of REAL Women), Ken Campbell (founder of Renaissance Canada), Paul Fromm (former member of the Western Guard, a neo-fascist group, and later of CFAR), and author William Gairdner.

The foundation's quarterly tract, The Northern Voice, regularly provides advertising space for these same individuals, their ideas, and their organizations. Ostensibly, therefore, the Northern Foundation is a vehicle for bringing together several disparate right-wing groups and otherwise disseminating an extreme conservative ideology.

Significantly, it also has substantial connections to the Reform Party. (pg. 121-122)

----------------------------------
Later it was discovered by CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) that several radical right-wing groups had infiltrated the Reform Party. (Remember at their first convention they voted to allow them in), and that the Heritage Front actually provided security for Preston Manning when he visited Ontario. Several websites claim that Harper himself arranged for this, but I don't think so.

I've yet to find evidence of that but according to the Canadian: "Stephen Harper was Reform Party Policy chief, at a time when it had numerous members of the white supremacist group Heritage Front as members. Trevor Harrison, further documents that Mr. Harper even had Heritage Front members doing security for Preston Manning at Reform Party events in Ontario." I've read the book and couldn't find that quote, though he does say that "The links between the Heritage Front and the Reform Party need to be fully examined" (Pg. 295), so maybe it appeared in a later version of the book. Mine was published in 1995 and looks to be the first printing.

Another interesting side note in this story deals with Ms Hartmann, former president of the Northern Foundation, and co-founder along with Stephen Harper. Apparently, after everything died down, she moved to Eugene Oregon where she opened a spa. In 2002, a local resident found the information about her past and posted in a local forum (still available). Ms Hartmann responded by saying "I was active in a movement to impeach a former Canadian Prime Minister. The Canadian Government smeared me, my late husband, and even my children - and many other people in the impeachment movement - and continues to do so. End of story"

This just keeps getting better. The PM she'd be referring to was Brian Mulroney. I guess I'm going to take Mr. Harrison's advice and examine more fully the "the links between the Heritage Front and the Reform Party" and of course Stephen Harper.

I'll keep you posted. If the Conservatives think it's a good idea to cherry pick Michael Ignatieff's lectures and books, going back decades, I guess they've given me permission to do the same.

Stockwell Day's Prejudice Goes Beyond Simple Homophobia

I read Clair Hoy's book; Stockwell Day: His Life and Politics and in it he mentions that Day's parents were always actively involved in politics, but provides little detail. We know from other sources that they belonged to the Social Credit Party and in fact Day Sr. once ran unsuccessfully as a So-Cred candidate. (also a supporter of Doug Christie and member of the Western Canada Concept.)

This Party had early on earned a reputation as being anti-Semitic, but when Preston Manning's father became the (Social Credit) Premier of Alberta, he tried to tone down the rhetoric and purge the Party of those with radical views.

Mind you in 1983, they overturned their decision to expel Jim Keegstra, and he was allowed back in; so underneath not much had changed.

In 2000, journalist Gordon Laird wrote a piece for Toronto's NOW magazine, entitled Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day; just as Day's star was beginning to rise in federal politics. He had won the leadership of the Alliance Party and would be running for the job of Prime Minister; so Mr. Laird thought that Canadians deserved to know just what kind of a man this leader was.

The Alliance Party had emerged from the Reform Party, which had seemingly emerged from the Social Credit Party.

From 'The Prairie Roots of Canada's Political "Third Parties"', Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University: "In many ways, the Reform party resembled the Social Credit party. It obtained its strongest support in Alberta, opposed an extensive and redistributive welfare state, and was disproportionately supported by older, middle class men.

We saw that in the 1991 video of Stephen Harper, when he was trying to take his Reformers nationwide. You just have to look at the crowd, and while there are several women present, it is as described above; 'disproportionately middle class men', but also disproportionately middle class WHITE.

In 1995, Stephen Harper wrote an op-ed piece in which he suggested that the Reform Party was "based on three issues, to be more specific, he defined it as being based on three "g-issues"- guns, gays, and government grants."

But it was more than just being anti-gay. There were several in the Party, including Stockwell Day, who believed there was some kind of homosexual conspiracy, in the same way that they had once believed that there was a Jewish conspiracy.

The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies, in San Francisco, California; published an article in 1999; entitled "Jew-haters and red-baiters: The Canadian League of Rights", which dealt mostly with anti-semitism and the infiltrating of unions; but the author also speaks of the natural progression toward homophobia.

The first issue of CLR's magazine "Family Values", "... was taken up entirely by a reprint of Paul Cameron's vicious homophobic and anti-homosexual propaganda. A later issue claimed that noted 1940s sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, trained pedophiles to perform experiments on infants "a few months old." The Kinsey reported is then spuriously tied to the rise of pornography, which is then further linked to sex education in schools. Given the nature of fascism as a totality, it is hardly a surprise that the antisemitic and racist politics of the CLR would be extended to anti-homosexualism."

Stockwell Day actively protested against sex education being taught in schools, saying "There is a growing body of literature suggesting that, as sex education becomes more comprehensive, there is a corresponding increase in sexual activity." He also once got himself into hot water by erroneously accusing a lawyer of supporting pedophilia and child pornography. Taxpayers footed the bill.

In fact, when he first ran in the Alberta provincial election in 1985, he declared his campaign a "moral crusade," and railed against homosexuality and pornography. He would later refuse to send condolences to the Palestinian people on the death of President Yassir Arafat because a speechwriter of George Bush claimed that he had died of AIDS.

But if Day has done a reasonable job of hiding his radical evangelism, former Alliance MP Larry Spencer, who once held the riding of Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Saskatchewan, could not.

In November 2003 he gave an interview to Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O'Neil, in which he claimed that "... he would support any initiative to outlaw homosexuality. He stated that in the 1960s, a "well-orchestrated" conspiracy began and led to recent successes in the gay rights movement. This conspiracy, he further said, included seducing and recruiting young boys in playgrounds and locker rooms, and deliberately infiltrating North America's schools, judiciaries, entertainment industries, and religious communities. (sound familiar?)

According to him, this conspiracy started with a speech given by a U.S. gay rights activist in the 1960s whose name he could not remember. Spencer stated: His quote went something like this ... "We will seduce your sons in the locker rooms, in the gymnasiums, in the hallways, in the playgrounds, and on and on, in this land." It was quite a long quote stating what was going to happen to the young boys of North America.

Spencer further blamed former Canadian prime-minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau for the "movement" gaining public acceptance since he legalized homosexuality in Canada in 1969. He mentioned that although no government would have the courage to strike down these laws, and that he would support any initiative that advocated such a move.

Stephen Harper, then Alliance leader, fired Spencer and replaced him as candidate for the next election, with Tom Lukiwski. Most of us know how that turned out, but if you haven't seen the video, here it is:

These are not isolated incidents, and there are many anti-gay quotes available from Reform/Alliance MPs, including a press release from Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville), in which he claims that "in the 1950s, buggery was a criminal offence, but it has now become a requirement to receive benefits from the federal government.”

And let's not forget Jason Kenney, the man who was beside Stockwell Day during his rise to the top. Not only is he creating a 'whites only' immigration policy, but he recently appointed an anti-gay activist to the Refugee Board, who will determine which of those claiming refugee status on the grounds of sexual orientation; will be returned to their homeland to face persecution and perhaps even death; and who will be allowed to stay.

He's kind of a nut so I'm guessing he'll try to 'cure' them or ship them back.

The gay community has a right to fear a Harper majority, because his ideology runs much deeper than just homophobic remarks, and for the extremists in the party, they really believe that homosexuality is an evil that must be stopped.

And on that note, one more video to watch.

More on Stockwell Day: Hellfire and Neo-Nazi Connections

I'm sharing this story in two parts, because it shows the two sides of Stockwell Day's extremism.

That he is a small minded, despicable little man, is beside the point. Knowing that he is not only in government, but holds an important cabinet position, should be of concern to all Canadians.

Following is part two. Part one can be read here.

Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day
A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and some of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada

Part 2: The Neo-Nazi connection

In Part 1 of Bentley Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day - Gordon Laird's feature on the town that helped shape the Canadian Alliance leadership hopeful - Straight Goods looked at Day's evangelical roots and his connection to the controversial Accelerated Christian Education program. In Part 2, Laird looks into Bentley's Neo-Nazi ties.

Just as the Bentley region had more faith than it sometimes knew what to do with, it certainly saw more neo-nazis than most sleepy rural towns. Keegstra made international headlines in 1983 when he was dismissed for teaching "Jewish conspiracy theory as if it were fact" to hundreds of Eckville students over an eight-year span.

After unsuccessful appeals to win back his job, Keegstra wound up in criminal court in 1984, charged with a federal hate crime. He was convicted in 1985 after a sensational trial that revealed a central Albertan community torn by racism - and a trenchant defendant supported by a rag-tag collection of anti-Semite activists, "free speech" advocates, and self-avowed neo-Nazis.

Bentley resident Jim Green was an old Social Credit insider who'd been running - and losing - in federal elections since 1972. Green was also a formidable scholar and fundamentalist in his own right. When Keegstra got into trouble Jim Green phoned up to give him some practical advice: "'You should keep your mouth shut,' I told him," he recalls of Keegstra's outspoken and unrepentant ways. "I said, 'Would you consider losing your life over it?'" "He said, 'So be it.' - I said, 'Me too.' So that's how we got so close."

"I'd vote for Stockwell." - anti-Semitic teacher Jim Keegstra

Together with Bentley native Terry Long and Calgary Aryan activist Tom Erhart, Green and Keegstra formed the Bentley-based Christian Defence League (CDL), a Keegstra fundraising group that pledged "to defend the basic principles of Christianity in this modern age."

In Web of Hate, author Warren Kinsella describes the CDL as "the most extreme anti-Jewish organization active in Canada" at the time. Long would later leave the CDL to become Canadian head of the para-military Church of Aryan Nations. For those familiar with Keegstra's hate crime trial or the CDL, it came as little surprise that young Jim Keegstra came from a strong Social Credit family (like Stockwell Day's father who ran for the Party), attended Bill Aberhart's (the first Social Credit premier of Alberta) Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, and by 1957, had already joined the party.

And what is to be made of the fact that this extremist who says he has differences with the Alliance candidate on theology still considers Day a political icon? "I'd vote for Stockwell," Keegstra tells me. "Not just [from] knowing him." He quickly dismisses other Canadian Alliance leadership candidates, including Reform Party founder Preston Manning.

"I don't know about Preston," he says with some concern. "Preston went to a Bilderberg [summit] meeting. Rides in a limo with Conrad Black. [He's] hobnobbing with the New World Order." Manning, says Keegstra, is too close to the "Jewish World Government" conspiracy.

Keegstra remembers meeting Day first in 1983. "I knew he had the gift of meeting people and of getting along with people," says the former schoolteacher from his home in Red Deer. "So when I heard that he was getting into politics, I thought he'd found his chosen path."

"I worked on Stock's cars all the time," says Keegstra, recalling chats they had in 1984 about freedom-of-speech issues and Keegstra's upcoming hate trial. "I discussed the topic with him."

He says that they differed on matters of theology, noting that Stock's church favoured prophetic doctrine that favoured "the Jews as God's children." Green says he knew Stockwell Day "pretty well" through the garage and the Bentley Christian Centre. "He came to the garage - said he wanted to be one of the first ones in there when Keegstra opened his garage." He says he didn't know Day's politics at the time.

"As far as I know Day didn't support the CDL - but he liked Jim Keegstra." Green, who now lives in B.C. claims Day corresponds with him. "Usually if you write to an MLA you get a form letter, but when you get a four page letter back, you know he's listening. And the handwritten one's too. I know he's reading my letters - but nothing that could be used against him, you know. You gotta read between the lines."
*********
Few Canadian politicians have a rap sheet of gaffes as long as Stockwell Day. When he won his first election in 1996, his acceptance speech was full of ambitious moral prescriptions that had nothing to do with his new job as a provincial legislator.

He "railed against homosexuals in the armed forces and pornography," reported the Red Deer advocate at the time. "He called for harsher penalties for violent crimes, and attacked other issues that belong in the federal domain."

From early on, Stockwell Day had big aspirations. "As a Christian, I acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ over the whole universe," explained Day in 1998, in response to a gaffe made against single-parent families. "I believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God and every word in it, cover to cover, is true."

With this literalist belief in the Bible comes some unusual ideas that rarely gather press.

As one educator made notes in an informal presentation Day made in Red Deer during 1997, the Treasurer claimed the following things to be true: 1) The earth is 6,000 years old; 2) Adam and Eve were real people; 3) Humans and dinosaurs co-existed; and 4) There's as much evidence for creation as evolution. The educator declines to be named because he believes Day to be vengeful and worries that a public comment could affect local school funding.

Around Keegtra's Bentley garage, fundamentalism was the common thread: in learning how to love God better, some of these men somehow learned how to hate, too. Day and Keegstra might not agree on Christian eschatology or conspiracy theory, but the fact of the matter is that Stockwell Day won the respect of men who have, more or less, decided that everyone is against them. Not just because Stock is a local boy done good, but because, as Jim Green put it, "he's a good Christian." Green and Keegstra attended a few 6am prayer meetings that pastor Day led for local menfolk.

"I realized that Mr. Day had a certain quality: it is the knowledge and experience in his life - from his Dad, too," says Green. "The people in North Red Deer [where Day was elected provincially in 1986], the Christian people, they liked what he stood for and talked him into moving there," says Green. "He was always pushed: people wanted someone with strong principles. I paraded [protested] with Day and his people in front of a school in Red Deer - against sex education." Self-avowed libertarian Gary Botting describes Day as a friend. "Stock and I would pick each other's brains," he recalls. "Politics, a lot to do with education, a bit to do with what was going to happen with Keegstra. I found him very much down to earth."

Botting is a fascinating figure: despite articling with Doug Christie as a lawyer in 1991, by 1996 Botting had completely disavowed Christie's "anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi agenda," as he put it. Throughout the 1980s, Botting prepared briefs for the local RCMP about the activities of Keegstra, Long and other members of the far right. But at the same time, Botting maintained extensive correspondence with - and sometimes hosted - insurgent racialists from the Western Guard and the American Anti-Communist Federation.

In 1991, Botting championed the case of Howard Pursley, a 250-pound Texan neo-Nazi - in his bid for political refugee status. His dismissal from Red Deer college was based in his controversial support of Keegstra - as a civil liberties case - and his own curious attempt to bring Keegstra's favorite book, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, into his own college classroom.

Nevertheless, Botting remains convinced that his motives were pure and that both he and Day were above the repugnant but legitimate views of the Christian Defence League. "Day was concerned about the notion of free speech - the principle of free speech of where I was coming from. He understood. Not everyone did." Botting is emphatic: "Day didn't buy into Keegstra's anti-Semitic platform at all. Put it this way, if it had to be a Christian world - God help us - you'd want Day there."

(Gordon Laird is an award-winning journalist and author of Slumming it at the Rodeo: the Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-wing Revolution, Douglas and McIntyre. This feature originally appeared in Toronto's NOW magazine).