The Neoconservative Passion for Alexis de Tocqueville

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

Neoconservative doctrine was written by academics and based on the writings of scholars, from Plato to Aristotle, Locke to Rousseau, and everything in between.

But one of the scholars often quoted, is Alexis de Tocqueville, a nineteenth century political thinker, who like many shaping the minds of young neocons, was born into wealth as a member of the aristocracy.

And he wrote of poverty as a man who had never known it, only observed it, yet his 1835 Essay on Pauperism, is used to justify the right's reluctance to help the poor.

What Tocqueville saw as a basic problem, was the definition of poverty.

"Among civilized peoples, the lack of a multitude of things causes poverty... In a country where the majority is ill-clothed, ill-housed, ill-fed, who thinks of giving clean clothes, healthy food, comfortable quarters to the poor? The majority of the English, having all these things, regard their absence as a frightful misfortune; society believes itself bound to come to the aid of those who lack them.... In England, the average standard of living a man can hope for in the course of his life is higher than in any other country of the world. This greatly facilitates the extension of pauperism in that kingdom."

So poverty is a state of mind? A comparative?

If our poor people are better off than the poor in central Africa, are they really poor?

Imagine going to your boss and asking for a raise and she tells you that you are already overpaid when compared to workers in Third World countries.

But workers in Third World countries aren't spending $1.30 a litre for gas to get to work, or 8 bucks for a box of cereal.

The definition of poverty has to be relative to how the rest of the population lives.

I'm not a socialist, and don't believe that if one family has a wide screen TV, then all families should have a wide screen TV.

However, I do believe that in a country with such vast natural resources as Canada, that everyone should be clothed, fed and housed. And everyone should have equal access to healthcare and education.

Neoconservatives do not.

David Frum is right when he says that government should never protect us "against the miseries caused by idleness", but is wrong when he says that only the indigent, or most destitute in society should be helped by government.

Remember the old Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.”

Neocons believe in the power and responsibility of the individual. Striving for equality will only bring those better off down to the level of those with very little. And they use that philosophy to justify pandering to the rich and ignoring the poor. A plantation mentality where the rich, (whose wealth is proof that they are smarter and more deserving than most), will in turn, take care of the poor.

What rot.

But it's that rot that determines Stephen Harper's actions.

“These proposals included cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “child poverty” and for more business subsidies in the name of “cultural identity”. In both cases I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.”(Stephen Harper, The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997)

I'm very concerned with the approaching perfect storm in Ontario. A Harper majority (with a cabinet of many ex Mike Harris disciples), Harris protege Tim Hudak, (whose wife Deb Hutton was Harris's gatekeeper), as premier of the province and Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.

Like most neoconservative governments, Mike Harris's created the highest number of homeless people in the history of our province. And what was worse, he didn't care. One of his henchmen, Jim Flaherty, simply suggested that we throw them all in jail.

And if a person froze to death living in their car, at least they had a car.

Ford is already talking about selling off public housing in Toronto. Maybe he hopes to drive the poor out of his city, but will only drive them into the streets.



Hudak wants to eliminate or drastically reduce the public service, suggesting that because they make a good wage, small businesses can't compete with government in the labour market. What the fool doesn't realize is that those good wages keep many small businesses afloat.

When Mike Harris ran Ontario, we had a Liberal government federally. When Brian Mulroney was prime minister, we had Liberal and NDP governments in Ontario.

If Hudak takes Ontario, there will be no counterweight.

It's absolutely terrifying.

Media Pay Attention. I'm Only Going to Tell You This 546,678 Times

Now that Stephen Harper has his majority and no longer has to pretend, can we please start over?

Stephen Harper is not a Tory and the only thing 'Progressive' about him is his ever changing toupee.

If you bear in mind that he is a neoconservative, in the American Republican tradition, your job will be so easy.

Just read the New York Times or any other U.S. publication, see what the Tea Party is up to and presto. Instant Harper policy. From the census to global warming, it was probably seen there first.

But if you find that too bizarre, then perhaps a word or two from David Frum, one of the architects of the Canadian right-wing movement, might help.

He sums it up nicely in his book, What's Right: The New Conservatism and What it Means for Canada.

The "end game of the welfare state," as Irving Kristol has called it, may thus present Republicans with no choice but to take a harder line against big government. If they did, what would that hard line look like? ... A Republican vision of social welfare would have to pass three tests.

To satisfy the party's economic conservatives, it must slash at government costs. To satisfy the party's social conservatives, it must eliminate incentives to personal misconduct and family breakup. And to satisfy the party's pragmatists, the vision must be attractive and politically defensible.

One principle that passes all three of those tests goes something like this: Government should protect people only from risks they cannot easily protect themselves against — unemployment, natural disasters, catastrophic illnesses. Government should not protect nonindigent people against the predictable results of their own actions or the inevitable cycles of life — against the costs of retirement and college, against the regular fluctuations of farm and factory prices, against the miseries caused by idleness and addiction. (1)

Stephen Harper failed the first test when he racked up almost 250 million dollars in self-promotion ads, on the taxpayers' dime. And when he swelled his own office with an unheard of "communications" team and demanded an increase in his own budget while telling other departments to tighten their belts. (Harper’s personal office budget has ballooned by $10.5 million, a 30% increase)

However, the other initiatives are do-able and have already been reflected in this government's cuts, and will no doubt be reflected in further "deficit fighting" measures.

They will follow a blueprint.

'It must eliminate incentives to personal misconduct and family breakup'. Defunding planned parenthood and abortions. Eliminating benefits for same-sex, common-law, single parents. All part of a long-range strategy. Read anything on the Reform Party. Anything at all.

'Government should not protect nonindigent people against the predictable results of their own actions or the inevitable cycles of life' This is a continuation of intergenerational warfare. The Reform Party believed in means testing for all government programs, including those aimed at helping seniors.

It's interesting that Frum uses the term 'nonindigent' going right to the destitute, or those living in "extreme poverty". This means that very few seniors would qualify for assistance.

He goes onto to discuss how "the nonindigent elderly" are protected "against routine medical problems", causing a drain on Medicare. It's not the government's responsibility to protect its citizens from the "the inevitable cycles of life". Again the term 'nonindigent'. Only those we pull out of a ditch or scrape off the sidewalk, would qualify.

Journalist Murray Dobbin mentions going to Reform Party assemblies when they were first organizing, and how, many seniors jumped ship when they learned of Reform's policies regarding things like CPP and public healthcare. (2)

[No protection] against the miseries caused by idleness and addiction. Neoconservatives believe that most unemployed are only unemployed because they're lazy. And we see their opposition to help for addicts, in their enormous pressure to close down Vancouver's Insite, the fear being that if this works, we can expect the same in all major Canadian cities.

So if you want to guess what social programs will look like under a Harper majority, you will have to ask yourself the same questions that Frum asked Republicans.

How will they fit in with the social conservative (religious right) agenda, and will they help anyone not completely destitute? Seniors or children living in poverty will not get a free pass.

Welcome to Neoconservatism 101.

Sources:

1. What's Right: The New Conservatism and What it Means for Canada, By David Frum, Vintage Canada, 1996, ISBN: 0-679-30858-X, Pg. 12-13

2. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7 4

Harper's Clash of Civilizations Exposed: And He's Not a Straussian?

In Lawrence Martin's new book, Harperland, he states that Stephen Harper sees the world not as a global family but as a "clash of civilizations".

Did Martin come to that conclusion after speaking with Harper's friend John Weissenberg, because of an overall plan laid bare, or was it a hunch? (1)

Either way it is an accurate assessment of Harper's foreign policy.

The term "Clash of Civilizations" was first used by a Harvard political scientist named Samuel P. Huntington, who thought that people's cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

But it took an American neoconservative, Bernard Lewis (shown above), to adapt Huntington's theories as an excuse for war in the Middle East.

He first used the term in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly in a piece called "The Roots of Muslim Rage" and formulated it as a theory in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. This would then be developed into a Foreign Affairs article: "The Clash of Civilizations", and it became the blueprint for the Bush Administration's foreign policy.

The American Enterprise Institute, dubbed the Cheney-family think tank, were responsible for overseeing the strategy, and in fact Harper insider David Frum, who was a speech writer for Bush, was the one who coined the term 'Axis of Evil'.

In March of 2007, Lewis won the Irving Kristol Award for his influence behind the invasion of Iraq, and he like most of the other key players has drifted into oblivion, hoping history will be kind.

Journalist Jacob Weisberg attended the event and wrote:

It had not been a good week, year, or second term for any of these people, and I thought a few cocktails might provoke them to consider their predicament. This was fantasy on my part. Richard Perle and John Bolton might have looked slightly more saturnine than usual, but the overall mood of self-celebration was unabated. From the stage, one caught no hint that matters were not working out as anticipated. All rose to salute the arrival of Dick and Lynne Cheney, herself a longtime fellow at the institute. The vice president looked on from the head table as his friend Bernard Lewis, perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq, came up to accept the Irving Kristol Award.

In his address, the 90-year-old Lewis did not revisit his argument that regime change in Iraq would provide the jolt needed to modernize the Middle East. Instead, he spoke at length about the millennial struggle between Christianity and Islam. Lewis argues that Muslims have adopted migration, along with terror, as the latest strategy in their "cosmic struggle for world domination." This is a familiar framework from the original author of the phrase "the clash of civilizations"— (2)

But while these old neocons may have ridden off into the sunset, Stephen Harper is just getting started. His unilateral approach to Israel and rejection of Canada's Muslim population are part of his agenda.

The "Ottawa Protocol" could forbid Canadians from criticizing Israeli foreign policy, or risk being charged with a hate crime. The hostile takeover of Rights and Democracy because they were being too influenced by the notions of humanitarianism, will further support the initiative.

An aggressive stance toward Russia who he is afraid could thwart his plans, and the shift of military maneuvers to the PMO from trained military personnel.


The Bush Administration did not go away. They are now camped on Parliament Hill and our media had better start paying attention. These are not random things. Stephen Harper is motivated by ideology. A "Clash of Civilizations". A Holy War.

Our prime minister has exerted total control over every aspect of government and government communication. I have to read American and foreign newspapers to determine what is happening in my own country.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Think. Think. Think.

Maybe it's time to boycott papers who refuse to investigate these important issues. Corruption is one thing, and there's certainly enough of it in Harper's party, but this is aggression unheard of in Canada.

Moral in our military is already low. How can we ask them to do this? Could this be why the Conservatives are recruiting on porn sights with phrases like "Nasty Panty Flash" and "Christian Values". War porn, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Is this really your Canada? It's definitely not mine.

Sources:

1. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 79

2. Party of Defeat: AEI's weird celebration, By Jacob Weisberg, March 14, 2007

Did You Ever Think This Pimply Faced Nerd From Toronto Could be Such a Menace?

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

"The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda - before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent any one's disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world - lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world." - Hannah Arendt

Rick Salutin asked recently if Stephen Harper was the last Straussian, referring to followers of the German emigre and political philosopher, Leo Strauss.

People keep asking why Stephen Harper acts as he does, it looks so buttheaded. He seems to muck up his own prospects: firing decent people, lashing out, raising the partisan rhetoric, proroguing Parliament haughtily, binging on military toys, mauling the census – he’s a bright boy, it’s hard to figure.

I used to favour a theory of political Tourette’s, the kind portrayed by Robert Redford in 1972’s The Candidate. You suppress your political ideals for the sake of electability as long as you can; then the buildup leads to random outbursts. But there’s another explanation: Straussianism. (1)

Banality and True Believers

A contemporary and friend of Leo Strauss, was Hannah Arendt, herself a political philosopher. Arendt covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg, and found herself surprised that he was so banal. "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking".

Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis. (2)

These men were driven by pure ideology based on ignorance and the notion of superiority.

Erna Paris questioned in part the notion of banality (2) because many of the men on trial were well educated. But maybe the best example of this is Jason Lisle, who works for the Creation Museum in Philadelphia. Lisle lectures to students and teachers, providing "proof" that man walked with Dinosaurs*.

He tells the students he did not admit he was a creationist to his professors at Ohio Wesleyan, or at Colorado where he received his PhD in astrophysics. He speaks of the dilemma faced by creationists at secular schools, urging that students not "come out" until after graduate school. "Some professors will just stop you from getting your PhD if you're a creationist." (3)

Lisle has a degree in astrophysics. He can lecture as a doctor, but uses scientific jargon to sell creationism as "scientific" fact. James Dobson, the man who helped Stephen Harper's career by supporting his anti same-sex marriage tour, is a child psychologist. However, if you read his advice on child rearing, he uses terms like "original sin" to justify corporal punishment.

And this brings us to an important element of Straussian theory: Religious fervour.

Leo Strauss felt most people will never do the right thing for rational reasons; they need to be motivated by the myths and emotionality of religion. (1)

And this infallible belief system helps to create a kind of totalitarianism where lies become truth. Again using creationism as an example:

The danger of creationism is not that it allows followers to retreat into a world of certainty and magic—which it does—but that it allows all facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality-based world. Signs, miracles, and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians, but also in history, science, medicine and logic. This belief system becomes the basis for understanding the world, and random facts or data are collected and made to fit into the belief system. If facts can't be made to fit, they are discarded or treated as misguided opinions. (4)

This is why Stephen Harper ignores facts and paints the learned as "elites". He's afraid that their proofs will interfere with his ideological agenda. Or at least the ideological agenda of his infamous "base".

When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard by which to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text ... In the promulgation of the totalitarian belief system, at first we are told we all have a right to an opinion, in short, a right to believe anything. Soon, under the iron control of an empowered totalitarian movement, facts become worthless, kept or discarded according to an ideological litmus test. Lies become true. And once the totalitarians are in power, facts are ruthlessly manipulation. (5)

Puzzle Boxes and Secret Agendas

Several years ago I bought an antique puzzle box (the puzzle now is where I put it), which could only be opened through a series of intricate manipulations. I spent days trying to get into it and when I finally did, was disappointed that it was empty. If this box was supposed to contain secrets, as per Japanese custom, the secret must have been the fact that the box was empty.

And just as Salutin correctly suggests that Harper has always been a puzzle, unravelling why he acts as he does, requires work. A good puzzle box will contain many "tricks" that often lead you in the wrong direction. It's main purpose was to protect a secret.

Secretiveness, an aura of manipulation and a sense of hidden agendas. From a Straussian view, these are good things as means to noble ends. (1)

But these noble ends are not necessarily noble in any traditional sense. They are simply the fulfillment of an ideological agenda.

Stephen Harper himself is smart, but he is not brilliant. And while he is often given credit for strategic moves, those moves are being stategized by others. Because Stephen Harper is a narcissist (5)and so long as his ego is fed on a regular basis, he will consent to anything. I believe it is those pulling the strings, who follow Strauss. I don't think Harper is that deep.

All Hail (heil?) King and Country

Neoconservatism as espoused by Leo Strauss, called for unbridled patriotism, or nationalism. Stephen Harper has never been very patriotic. In fact he was always very clear how he felt about Canadians. During the 2004 election campaign he started touting a Belgian style federalism, where the country would be divided along cultural or linguistic grounds. '"He seems to want all francophones to speak with one voice, and the same for anglophones, and this is not the reality of Canada." Harper is quick to point out that his idea is still in the embryonic stage and it will be further developed before the party's policy convention next March.' (6)

Doesn't sound like a devotion to nationalism.

The PM may have shown his real feelings about Canada in 2000 when he called it “a second-tier socialistic country.” Still, for Straussians, nationalism ranks alongside religion as a way to motivate people to great things beyond the vapidity of liberalism. This may help explain the Harper Arctic sovereignty initiatives, or even his curious focus on hockey. (1)

That kind of fierce nationalism allowed the German people to accept their country's aggression. They were hypnotized with symbols and brilliant propaganda. Hannah Arendt once asked whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". (7)

What Could we Possibly be Asked to Consent to That is so Bad?

As we open the doors and find the hidden compartments of the puzzle box, they all lead to something that goes beyond this government's silencing of the press, scientists and experts.

Our foreign policy.

As Stephen Harper is being paraded about from one photo-op to the next, the men behind the curtain have been operating through American Straussians, who not only ascribe to the notions of deception, religious fervour and nationalism, but use them to carry through an aggressive imperialistic agenda.

Council for National Policy: James Dobson, mentioned above is the founder of Focus on the Family, a group with strong ties to the Harper government. Many of Harper's caucus members belong to Focus, including Maurice Vellacott and Rob Anders. Tony Perkins is an employee of Dobson and his political mentor is a man by the name of Woody Jenkins**:

Jenkins and some 50 conservative men gathered in May 1981 at the northern Virginia home of direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie to plot the growth of their movement following Ronald Reagan's presidential victory. They formed the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive, right-wing organization that brought together dominionists such as R. J. Rushdoony, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell with right-wing industrialists willing to fund them, such as Amway founder Richard DeVos Sr. and beer baron Joseph Coors. As DeVos quipped, the CNP "brings together the doers with the donors.

Jenkins, then a Louisiana state lawmaker, became the CNP'' first executive director. He told a Newsweek reporter: "One day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no president, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government."'(8)

In 1997, Stephen Harper delivered a speech (9) to the Council for National Policy, dissing this country and the Canadian people. The CNP approved. But they also approved of others who spoke later:

In 1999, Texas Governor George W. Bush addressed the group as he launched his bid for the presidency. The media were barred from the event. But those who wrote about the meeting afterward said that Bush, who refused to release a public transcript of his speech, promised to only appoint anti-abortion judges if he was elected. The group, which meets three times a year in secret, brings together radical Christian activists, right-wing Republican politicians and wealthy patrons willing to fund the movement. During Bush's presidency, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have attended CNP meetings.' (8)

The American Enterprise Institute: The American Enterprise Institute is one of a myriad of think tanks that have become part of the infrastructure of the neoconservative/Religious Right movement. The fortunes of the AEI have fluctuated depending on who was in power, enjoying their greatest success under the Bush administration. George Bush pulled 20 staffers from AEI, including David Frum ***, the person who organized the Winds of Change, dedicated to uniting the right, and is now a voice in our own neoconservative government.

Michael Novak, a prominent member of the group, is a regular speaker at the Fraser Institute and according to Lloyd Mackey has influenced the thinking of Stephen Harper. (10)Others belonging to the group are Dick Cheney, his wife Lynn Cheney, William Kristol and Richard Perle. Straussians all.

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself. (11)

Members of this group represent the cream of the Neoconservative movement, including Richard Perle, William Kristol and New Gingrich. And while Frum was plucked from the American Enterprise Institute, to act as a speech writer for George Bush, Alykhan Velshi was plucked from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to act as legislative assistant for none other than Jason Kenney.

This should set off a lot of alarms on it's own, but there is more to this story. In December University of California professor, Michael Allen wrote for the Democracy Digest, under the title: The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians:

Canada is poised to set up a new democracy assistance organization, based on the experience and structures of existing foundations, but reflecting distinctively Canadian characteristics and priorities ... A new poll by the US-based Council on Foreign Relations suggests that supporting democracy has fallen out of favor with the US foreign policy elite. But, perhaps perversely, international commitment appears to be growing, judging by relatively recent democracy assistance initiatives. (12)

Of course spreading democracy is code for exploitation, as we've seen with Haiti and the reasons that country is so poor.

I've been watching for our media's reaction to this new initiative, under the guise of the 'D' word, and only recently found an excellent one by Gerald Caplan, who wonders why Stephen Harper is now so interested in Canada obtaining a seat on the UN Security Council, when he has always hated the UN. It's a good question.

Next week the world gathers at the United Nations ... Mr. Harper has a deep vested interested in this meeting. The ultimate fate of his under-the-radar drive to have Canada elected to a rotating seat on the mighty Security Council might well be decided there. No one is entirely sure why the Prime Minister is so anxious for his government to be represented on that august body, and he, of course, has never said. But he’s spent millions of our dollars having senior civil servants and cabinet ministers jet around the world wooing foreign leaders. (13)

Caplan does an excellent job of outlining how Canada's reputation has been destroyed by the Harper Government, so you would wonder why Harper would dare show his face. (A link is provided below. be sure to read it all. It's very revealing)

So Let's Open the Puzzle Box

1. Silencing of the press

2. Demonizing of anyone who contradicts his ideology

3. Exploiting religion

4. Using symbols like yellow ribbons and hockey to pump up nationalism

5. Cozying up to American Straussians

6. Placing American Straussians in his administration

7. Taking over the "D" word. aka: Coup business.

8. Suspending democracy.

9. Buying fighter jets

10. Testing martial law

11. Building more prisons when our crime rate is the lowest in our history. (see 2 and 10)

I think we already know what secrets were in that box. Stephen Harper is picking up where George Bush left off. And if Glen Beck's Tea Party is successful, and the Republicans again assume control after the mid-terms, Harper will have accomplices.

We need an election NOW!



Footnotes:

*Stockwell Day believes the same thing. See the Tyee: The Man Who Walks with Dinosaurs

** Perkins, like other leaders in the movement, has troubling associations with white supremacy groups. They work hard now to distance themselves from these relationships, often quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [like Glen Beck] and drawing parallels between their movement and the civil-rights movement. But during the 1996 Senate campaign of Woody Jenkins, Perkins, who was Jenkins's campaign manager, signed an $82,500 check to the head of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, to acquire Duke's phone bank list.' And as late as 2001, Perkins spoke at a fund-raiser for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist group that has called blacks "a retrograde species of humanity" on its Web site.' The ties by Christian Right leaders such as Perkins with racist groups highlight the long ties between right-wing fundamentalists and American racist organizations, including the Klan, which had a chaplain assigned to each chapter. (8)

***Frum's sister, Linda, was one of Stephen Harper partronage senate appointments.

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? This might explain why the Prime Minister acts as he does, By Rick Salutin, September 17, 2010

2. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, Pg. 318

3. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 10-978-7432-8443-7, Pg. 127

4. Hedges, 2006, Pg. 114-115

5. Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless: Citizens who really want a national portrait gallery in Ottawa can rest easy. The government already has one. By The Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2008

6. Harper suggests 'Belgian-style' federalism, CBC News, October 20, 2004

7. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, By: David Welch, Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-203-93014-2

8. Hedges, 2006, Pg. 135-138

9. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, Canadian Press, December 14, 2005

10. The Pilgramage of Stephen Harper, By: Lloyd Mackey, ECW Press, 2005, ISBN: 10-1-55022-713-0 , Pg. 94 and 209

11. SourceWatch

12. The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians, By Michael Allen, Democracy Digest, December 4, 2009

13. Stephen Harper does the UN - but shouldn't: If he really wants that Security Council seat, he’d be wise to cancel lest he reveal exactly how badly Canada is failing the developing world, By Gerald Caplan, Globe and Mail, September 17, 2010

When Stephen Harper "United the Right", He Solidified the Centre. Just Not For Himself.

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

How Stephen Harper became a "Tory" is the stuff of legend. Or more accurately, the stuff of fairy tales. He did have a brief stint with the PCs in the early 80's, but left the Party because they weren't right-wing enough.

The fact is, that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was not really right-wing at all, at least not in heart and soul. They were just right of centre. And they were 100% Canadian. And in many ways, historically, they were not unlike the Liberal Party in terms of policy.*

That doesn't mean that there weren't fierce rivalries. They were like two football teams (I don't want to use hockey because Harper has done that to death) who battle each other for the prize, but at the end of the day, both teams are in the same league, and committed to the game.

And while they both went after the same prize, the team that won it, honoured it. Showed it off and protected it for the next winner, whether it be themselves or their opponents.

They didn't win it, then smash it, to make sure that no one else could have it. That's how I see the Reformers, whether calling themselves Social Credit, Reform, Alliance or Conservative. They are the party that wants to smash the trophy and terminate the league.

Uniting the Right Was Not About Vote-Splitting

The common belief was that the PCs and Reform-Alliance joined forces to avoid splitting the vote. Sounds good but completely false. That's the way it was sold when David Frum arranged a meeting between Jean Charest then head of the PCs, and Preston Manning, then head of Reform.

In terms of bridging the differences between the parties of Preston Manning and Jean Charest, the conference made little headway ... the chasm in terms of the egos and pride of the leaders; the different attitudes that the parties have towards populist initiatives; Reform's origins in western alienation, Social Credit, and religious fundamentalism; and the fact that Reform emerged in part as an angry protest against the policies of a Progressive Conservative government made a rapprochement unlikely. (1)

A later report by Laurence Putnam confirmed the divide.

The first misconception about the Reform movement is that it is a conservative party. The Reform party has all the characteristics of a Western populist party and very few marks of a conservative party. (2)

And as to the myth of avoiding vote-splitting. In the West, many of those who voted PC did not go to Reform. Most of Reform's gain was at the expense of the NDP, another party that started out as a Western protest movement. But many also went to the Liberals.

Since the 2000 election, unity activists in both the PC and Canadian Alliance parties have preached that the PC party lost a major part of its family when the Reform Party rose to prominence, however, this is not exactly true. The PC Party did not experience a mutiny, but rather with the decline of the PC Party in Western Canada, an opportunity was extended for a new crew, the Reform movement, to come to power. In fact, many members of the Reform Party elected in 1993 had never been Conservatives at all. Preston Manning had been a member of the federal Social Credit Party prior to incepting the Reform Party. MPs Diane blonczy, Deborah Grey and Val Meredith were never members of the PC Party ... As these members were not Tories throughout the 1980's and early 1990's when the Tories were at their most successful peak since Sir John A. Macdonald ... (2)

Promoters of unity between the PC and Canadian Alliance parties had argued that if there were either only a PC or CA candidate in your average Ontario riding, they would have beat the Liberals in 2000. But what about Etobicoke North? In 2000, no PC candidate ran in Etobicoke North, but a Canadian Alliance candidate did, and yet they gained only 3.9%, and the majority of the PC votes migrated to the Liberal candidate. This despite the fact that provincially, the identical riding was held by PC M.P.P. John Hastings.

This riding is one example that proves 1+1 doesn't necessarily equal 2 when it comes to defeating a Liberal incumbent in Ontario ridings. Another interesting Ontario result was found in the riding of Markham, where Jim Jones was elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1997. Mr. Jones crossed to the Alliance in the summer of 2000, but lost re-election just months later. Why was Mr. Jones electable to the people of Markham, Ontario, as a Tory, but unelectable as a Canadian Alliance M.P.? (2)

It's because the majority of the Canadian electorate are moderates. The same people who voted for Brian Mulroney later voted for Jean Chretien, illustrating that votes between the Liberals and the PC Party were always liquid, while votes cast for ideologically-driven parties, like Reform/Alliance and NDP**, came from a "base".

The Reform movement only became palpable to Canadians when they shed their wolf's clothing and started calling themselves "Conservative", or worse yet "Tories", cashing in on a century and a half tradition. And for awhile, they were able to fool some of the people some of the time. But unfortunately for them, as their policies became increasingly un-Canadian, their level of support has drifted back to their "base".

They have no hope of drawing votes from the NDP, except perhaps in the West, but they are also losing the votes of moderates ... aka: ordinary Canadians.

So now they have a problem. Instead of eliminating what they thought was their own competition, they have eliminated all competition for the centre, and all of the "liquid" votes are now flowing away from them.

They are a right-wing fringe party. Nothing more. They came, we saw, they scared the hell out of us, and now they must leave.

This brings us to Michael Ignatieff. I see him as the perfect leader to unite the centre. And if I wasn't convinced before, a column by the widow of the late PC president Dalton Camp, has me sold. Ignatieff is not "a bleeding heart Liberal" but will lead a party that will be fiscally responsible but socially aware.

His family has a long history in this country, and come from all political stripes. His G-Grandfather, George Munro Grant helped Sir John A. and Confederation, and later promoted his railway. His uncle George Parkin Grant was also a Conservative, and author of the popular Lament for a Nation, as reaction to the defeat of John Diefenbaker. His fear was that we would become too Americanized and too beholden to corporations, and while this book was reactionary, he would later suggest that he felt that Pierre Trudeau was on the right track. (3)

Michael's father George Ignatieff was a foreign secretary under Diefenbaker, Diplomat under Pearson, and even served as acting president of the United Nations General Assembly***. He was also a peace activist, who fought hard against nuclear weapons, earning him a reputation as a "Peacemonger." (4)

Another uncle was Vincent Massey.

And though Michael Ignatieff's political views are his own, they have been nurtured in the true Canadian tradition.

So while Johannes Wheeldon may ask "Can Iggy Find His Centre?" He didn't have to. He was already there. And as Wendy Camp says: "He has come home to us." And whispering in his ear, will be family voices from the past, making sure that he doesn't screw up what they helped to build.

Footnotes:

*Stephen Harper referred to the PCs or "Red Tories" as "Pink Liberals".

**The NDP has since become more moderate and appealing, though some of their early followers feel that they had to sell out to do so. I like them and remember the greats like Tommy Douglas and Ed Broadbent, and the leader Jack Layton used to be.

***Stephen Harper and the Reformers never trusted the United Nations.

Sources:

1. The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism, By David Taras (University of Calgary), Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 21, No 4, 1996

2. An Analysis On The Differences Between the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada & The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, by Laurence Putnam As prepared for the Fraser Institute, December 2002

3. Lament For a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, By George P. Grant, McClelland & Stewart, 1970 edition with new introduction by author.

4. The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff, By Sonja Sinclair, University of Toronto Press, ISBN: 0-8020-2556-0

Fabricating a Reason For War by Taking on "New Enemies"

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

"To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson—that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors." Ronald Reagan (1)

When Ronald Reagan first came to power, he had no intention of promoting peace, other than through the Orwellian "Peace Through Strength" initiative. He had been a member of the revived Committee on the Present Danger, whose mandate was to encourage an aggressive foreign policy, to assume control of the world's resources, especially oil. As a result the defense budget was increased to unheard of levels in an effort to build up arms.

When the Reagan administration took office in January 1981, it had little interest in nuclear arms controls or disarmament. To staff its national security posts, the administration drew heavily upon members of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a hawkish group that had led the opposition to Carter-era nuclear arms control ventures. By November, 32 members of the CPD--including Ronald Reagan himself--had joined the administration. CPD member Richard Perle, the new assistant secretary of defense, told the press: "That we and the Russians could compose our differences, reduce them to treaty constraints ... and then rely on compliance to produce a safer world--I don’t agree with any of that." Indeed, as Reagan recalled, "there were some people in the Pentagon* who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war."Reagan’s personal qualms about nuclear weapons were offset by his virulent anticommunism and the hawkish military posture it entailed. (2)

Most members of the CPD were neoconservative followers of Leo Strauss, but they also had the backing of the American Enterprise Institute, whose members include Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol, Michael Novak, Richard Perle and David Frum. (who has since been fired)

And after 9/11, whether you believe it was a conspiracy or not, it definitely provided a very large window of opportunity.

The new Pearl Harbor arrived at 8:46 A.M. on the morning of September 11, 2001, less than eight full months into the Bush presidency .... Bush's first-day response to he attack appeared wobbly but the next few weeks were arguably the strongest of his presidency, highlighted by a well-received speech to Congress and a military move against Afghanistan that was supported by leaders of both parties and most Americans.

But behind the scenes, Bush and some of the PNAC alums immediately saw an opening for also ousting Saddam, strengthening America's presence in the world's main oil-producing region. "Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time," Secretary Rumsfeld scribbled on a pad while the Pentagon was still on fire. "Not only UBL [Osama, or Usama, bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not." By mid-2002, the push for invading Iraq, one of the things not related, was under way, and it became clear how much America and the world had changed. While Reagan had declared publicly that killing civilians in a military response to terrorism was "terrorism itself," U.S. officials spoke in 2002 and into 2003 of a new doctrine of "shock and awe," massive bombing aimed at scaring an enemy population into a speedy surrender. (3)

Sounded good to some, but why were they bombed in the first place?

In his book Lawless World, Philippe Sands, a law professor at University College London, describes the actions of the Bush administration as mounting to "a full-scale assault, a war on law."' This rejection of the rule of law and the global rules created following the Second World War has freed up a boisterous crowd of neoconservatives operating within the U.S. administration to unabashedly pursue policies aimed at enhancing America's global dominance. The administration's plans, the Wall Street Journal noted in March 2005, envision "a military that is far more proactive, focused on changing the world instead of just responding to conflicts" (italics added).' The distinguished U.S. journalist Mary McGrory captured this aggressive U.S. behaviour colourfully in a column in the Washington Post when she described America as the "SUV of nations. It hogs the road and guzzles the gas and periodically has to run over something—such as another country—to get to its Middle Eastern filling station."' (4)

David Frum and the Axis of Evil

While Ronald Reagan brought on members of the Committee on the Present Danger to direct his foreign policy, George Bush recruited directly from the American Enterprise Institute, including the Canadian David Frum, to act as speech writer. He has been credited with creating the term "Axis of Evil", but according to Frum the original speech read "Axis of Hate." With that speech, Frum was hoping to invoke the sentiments of Reagan's "Evil Empire' and FDR's justifications for going to war.

When Bush delivered his first post-9/11 State of the Union address, he stunned many watching by describing Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil." Critics immediately questioned the remark, noting that not only did it seem overly aggressive but there was no evidence that the nations were working in concert, as was the case with the original "Axis" powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which had signed a nonaggression pact before World War II. (Iran and Iraq, in contrast, had fought a protracted war against each other in the 1980s.)

Delaware Democrat Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, said that America's allies were confused by the resident's "axis of evil" remark, and so was he. "Was it meant to stake out a general notion that we know these guys are bad guys but not the only bad guys? NOr was it meant to be an all-inclusive list? Or was it ... a rhetorical connection between Roosevelt and Reagan—'axis' and 'evil'?" The short answer was, yes.

White House speechwriter David Frum, who authored that section of the speech, said he'd been reading up on Franklin Roosevelt's response to Pearl Harbor, in part because he wanted to learn how FDR had convinced the nation to enthusiastically support the war against Germany when it had been Japan that attacked the United States. He believed that the three nations made up what he called an "axis of hate," and he claimed Bush himself changed it to "evil." (2)

But Frum went beyond simple aggressive speech writing to launching a media campaign, along with Richard Perle, to demonize those he erroneously brought into his "Axis of Hate." Or as Gary Kamiya, in a review of their book, An End to Evil, put it: "Undaunted by the Iraq debacle, uber-hawks David Frum and Richard Perle air their fevered wet dream of a national-security superstate that slaps down uppity Muslims, bombs North Korea, slices and dices civil liberties and scatters the Palestinians like birdseed."(5)

Frum is a member of the Civitas Society, that helps to direct Harper's foreign policy, and a close associate of Jason Kenney's.

From Civitas: (You'll recognize most of the names because they are all tied to the Reform/Alliance/ Conservative Party

Founding President: William Gairdner

Other Past Presidents: Tom Flanagan, William Robson, and Lorne Gunter

Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield, Michel Coren, Jacques Dufresne, Tom Flanagan, David Frum, William Gairdner, Jason Kenney, Gwen Landolt, Ezra Levant, Tom Long, Mark Magner, William Robson, David E. Somerville, Michael Walker

Frum is the son-in-law of the controversial Peter Worthington and long time associate of Conrad Black. His sister Linda was given a patronage senate appointment by Stephen Harper.

Things in Afghanistan Now Worse Than Ever

With the leaked documents related to the War in Afghanistan, several important things have been revealed.

The most pertinent point for Canadians is that the situation in Afghanistan today is far grimmer than painted in the leaked papers. Obama’s military surge of 30,000 additional troops has not stopped the Taliban from controlling more territory. They are using more roadside bombs and hitting more NATO convoys and bases, even in Kabul. They are organizing more suicide bombing missions and assassinations.

The NATO offensive in Marjah also failed to root the Taliban out of that key district in opium-producing Helmand province. The area remains ungovernable, “a bleeding ulcer,” as the dear departed Gen. Stanley McChrystal called it. The much-touted offensive in Kandahar, designed to bring the entire Taliban-dominated south under NATO/Afghan control, was set for spring, then June, then July. It won’t begin this month, either, as the fasting month of Ramadan starts mid-August. It may not begin until October, if it all, the locals having revolted against the prospect of another American-led war. So much for the Afghans wanting us to liberate them from the Taliban, whom many now consider the lesser of two evils. (6)

I never supported the war in the first place. The Taliban government wanted to negotiate with the Bush Administration, and agreed to turn over Bin Laden if they had evidence that he was behind 9/11, but Bush turned them down flat. He wanted a war.

In fact, there was also an opportunity to create an allegiance with Iran.

What the world didn't know—but was reported four years later in the American Prospect—was that a back channel of cooperation to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and deal with al-Qaeda, which Tehran saw as a threat, had secretly opened between the United States and Iran, and Bush's efforts to sound Reaganesque all but destroyed these links. (A second push for accommodation by Iran did come around the time of the Iraq invasion, but it was also rebuffed.) Rather than encourage and work with moderates in Tehran, the overt U.S. hostility was greeted with the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and escalating tensions over its nuclear program. (2)

We are now in a situation where we can't realistically pull out of Afghanistan, even if we wanted to. Harper has simply set a date for retreat, without any peace initiative He wants to "cut and run", meaning that all those lives and all that money was for nothing.

We need to resume our Peacekeeping role, while we rebuild, not simply hand everything over to the private sector as the Harper government proposes.

What a tragic waste

Footnotes:

*Including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld

Sources:

1. Message on the Observance of Afghanistan Day, Ronald Reagan, From the Oval Office, March 21, 1983

2. Reagan and Nuclear Disarmament: How the Nuclear Freeze movement forced Reagan to make progress on arms control, By Lawrence S. Wittner, Boston Review, April/May 2000

3. Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, By Will Bunch, Free Press, ISBN: 978-1-4165-9762-9 5, Pg. 178-179

4. HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT: Canada and the U.S. Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 1-2

5. "An End to Evil" by David Frum and Richard Perle, By Gary Kamiya, January 30, 2004

6. Afghanistan: It’s even worse than you thought, By Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, August 1, 2010

Society for Academic Freedom and Canadian Constitution Foundation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These guys are not fooling around.

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

Sources:

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

In the Light of Day: Anne Coulter, Tom Tancredo and Controlled Controversy

In April of 2009 U.S. Republican Tom Tancredo was supposed to speak at the University of North Carolina.

According to the Raleigh News and Observer

Before the event, campus security removed two women who delayed Tancredo's speech by stretching a 12-foot banner across the front of the classroom. It read, “No dialogue with hate.”

Police escorted the women into the hallway, amid more than 30 protesters who clashed with the officers trying to keep them out of the overcrowded classroom. After police released pepper spray and threatened the crowd with a Taser, the protesters gathered outside Bingham Hall.

Police spokesman Randy Young said the pepper spray was “broadcast” to clear the hallway. He said officers' use of force was under investigation by the department. But campus visitors and some faculty members in the capacity crowd of 150 urged the students to let Tancredo speak.

The protesters relented, and Tancredo began to speak, describing failed state and federal legislation aimed at providing in-state tuition benefits for undocumented immigrants. Two women stretched out another banner, first along one of the aisles and then right in front of Tancredo. Tancredo grabbed the middle of the banner and tried to pull it away from one of the girls. “You don't want to hear what I have to say because you don't agree with me,” he said.

The sound of breaking glass from behind a window shade interrupted the tug-of-war. Tancredo was escorted from the room by campus police. (1)

Tancredo was a controversial Republican candidate for the presidency. He is strongly anti-immigration and once suggested bombing mosques in the Middle East as a deterrent for another attack on the U.S.

He is also the honorary chairman of Youth for Western Civilization, a group financed through the Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell. According to YWC there were about 300 protesters at UNC that night, and even the professors were encouraging the students. They also claimed that they threw rocks through windows smashing them. But according to the news report one window to the classroom where Tancreno was speaking, was broken when an over zealous protester pounded on the glass.

He later apologized and was dealt with.

However, given the expected volatile nature of his visit, why did they have him speak in such a small classroom? Why not one of the halls? The university did not try to prevent him from appearing.

It's called controlled controversy and it's one of the techniques taught in the Campus Leadership Training program at the Leadership Institute.

Unlike chapter-based political organizations, CLP clubs are unaffiliated with either the Leadership Institute or each other. According to Blackwell, this trait offers a serious advantage: "No purges." The clubs' independence also comes with the benefit of plausible deniability. "You can get away with stuff that you would take a lot of flak for doing in the College Republicans," says CLP director Dan Flynn. (2)

The Youth for Western Civilization, which has been cited as a hate group, for their pro-white messages, hosted Trancedo because they knew he would rile the student groups. They advertised heavily and deliberately made sure that the venue would not house everyone wanting to attend. Most of the people in the audience were "silent protesters".

When he spoke, they turned their chairs around, so he would be speaking to their backs. Tancredo himself, was the first to make a move when he grabbed the banner the girls were holding up. This angered those outside the classroom and the police had to quiet them with the 'threat' of a tasar which they shot into the air creating an arch.

I saw the video and it was a heated exchange, but not a violent exchange. I believe the only people hurt were the man who accidentally put his fist through the glass and Tancredo when an officer stepped on his toe.

And despite the fact they claimed that the university professors were involved, they were actually trying to quiet the students down and told them to "let him speak."

But it worked beautifully. Because despite the fact that Tancredo's message was against multiculturalism, the news the next day was about the "extreme left wing groups," their violent protests and their attempt to silence free speech. The university publicly apologized and the YWC snickered and high-fived, as they had carefully engineered themselves into becoming the 'victims'.

Anne Coulter and a Little Controlled Controversy

Ann Coulter is the controversial American comedian, in the Howard Stern vein. Her shtick is gay and Muslim baiting.

Popular during the Bush administration , it would appear that she was past her prime. That stuff is only funny to those who find it funny, for a while, and then it just gets tired and old.

But then a group calling themselves the International Free Press Society in conjunction with the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, sponsored her visit to three Canadian Universities: Western, Ottawa and Calgary.

Before the Ottawa event, a $250.00 a plate dinner was held for Conservative supporters, sponsored by the Ottawa Campus Conservatives and arranged by Ashley Scorpio, who is listed in the government's electronic directory, as a "... staffer working in the office of Conservative MP Gerald Keddy. She has also worked for Ontario Conservative MP Patrick Brown and was once an administrative assistant in the Harper PMO". (3)

Because of her books and columns, bashing anyone not a neoconservative, the Provost of the University of Ottawa sent Coulter a letter with a gentle reminder that Canada had tougher hate speech laws than the United States, so she should be mindful of that.

Just what her team had hoped for. Ezra Levant went nuts and turned the whole thing into a three-ring circus. According to him there were 2000 violent protesters all after her head. So threatening were they, that poor Ms. Coulter had to cancel the event because the Ottawa police warned her that they could not offer her protection.

Apparently her new shtick is making stuff up, and her side shtick Ezra Levant, played the bumbling clown.

First, contrary to what Coulter seems to suggest in a brief phone interview with Macleans.ca scribe Colby Cosh, it was not the police who "shut it down." I spoke with Ottawa Police Services media relations officer Alain Boucher this morning, and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was her security team that made the decision to call off the event. "We gave her options" -- including, he said, to "find a bigger venue" -- but "they opted to cancel ... It's not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision." (4)

It was clearly nothing more than a publicity stunt and a bit of controlled controversy, because the debate became about "freedom of speech, " and not hate-mongering, which was far more damaging, because we are now asked to decide whether or not we think it's OK to bash Muslims.

Because if it had been about free speech, there would have been no trouble with George Galloway visiting. And since we now know that Jason Kenney was directly behind it, the Conservatives and their supporters don't get to play that card.

But what I would like to know is who these people are who arranged her visit, and what they have to do with the Conservative Party of Canada.

The International Free Press Society

Despite the fact that it was determined that Coulter cancelled the event herself, and the biggest threat was that someone jokingly commented that they would like to pie her, the website of the International Free Press Society had this to say:

It is interesting to see the aftermath of Canada’s Ottawa University after an unruly crowd of leftist and Islamic protesters through threats vandalism and intimidation, shut down a planned speech by Ann Coulter.

You can visit their site here if you want to learn more about Ezra Levant. And here. They are definitely fans.

But who are they? Three words: Islamic hate group.

Their founder, the Danish Lars Hedegaard has stated that: "The modern Islamism, which nearly all Danish imams advocates call themselves a religion, but is first and foremost a political ideology in line with communism and Nazism."

You can buy copies of the Danish cartoons from them for $ 250.00 a pop, and presently they are raising funds for the Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

The fiercely anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been traveling through the U.S. this week on a highly-publicised trip to meet with politicians, promote his controversial film ‘Fitna’, and raise money for his legal defence back home.

Although Wilders’s stated goal has been to campaign for free speech, his trip has been sponsored and promoted by an unlikely coalition of groups united primarily by their hostility towards Islam. His backers include neoconservative and right-wing Jewish groups on the one hand and figures with ties to the European far right on the other.

On Friday, he capped his busy week with an appearance at the National Press Club. At the event, he reiterated his calls for a halt to immigration from Muslim countries and pronounced, to raucous applause from the audience, that "our Western culture based on Christianity, Judaism, and humanism is in every aspect better than Islamic culture".

Wilders is also known for campaigning to ban the Koran, Islamic attire, and Islamic schools from the Netherlands, and for proclaiming that "moderate Islam does not exist."

... An event he held at a Boston-area synagogue was sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, an influential group whose board members include casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, and neoconservative writer David Frum, who attended Wilders’s Friday event in Washington. (5)

Well there you go. David Frum and Ari Fleischer. Both Bush administration alumni and Harper insiders. Frum is a good friend of Jason Kenney, Stockwell Day and Ezra Levant, and his sister Linda, was one of Harper's patronage senate appointments. And we all know Ari Fleischer, who has been given untendered contracts by our government, to help fend off accusations of alleged war crimes.

And the Clare Booth Luce Institute is just kind of a silly Conservative women's group who publish a calendar every year of "Hot Conservative Women".

Boy is the Conservative brand ever in the gutter. Hatred and exploiting women. And they claim to do it all for Jesus. No wonder so many people are turning to atheism.

Sources:

1. Protest Stops Tancredo Speech, By Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer, Raleigh News and Observer, April 15, 2009

2. My Right-wing Degree, By Horwitz, May 24, 2005

3. Ann Coulter and Canada's Conservatives, By: David Akin, Canada.com, March 23, 2010

4. Sorry Ann Coulter, Canada's Just Not That Into You, By Michael Rowe, Huffington Post, March 25, 2010

5. Dutch Foe of Islam Ignores US Allies' Far Right Ties, By Daniel Luban and Eli Clifton, IPS, February 28, 2009

Will the United States Save us From Jason Kenney?

Since I am now clearly an enemy of the state, because I seek a peaceful solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and have no desire to throw all the Jews in boats and 'lovingly assist' them back to Israel; I am going to continue to speak up before they shut me up. (like anyone could)

The Harper regime is attempting to pass legislation making it illegal to suggest that Israeli aggression is wrong, or that we must put an end to the apartheid.

They are doing this under the guise of anti-Semitism, by suggesting that if we denounce Israel, we are in fact denouncing all Jews. Yes, ridiculous I know, but this government is not playing with a full deck. In fact, I'm not sure they even hold a single card. We need debate not legislation.

When the world rallied against the South African apartheid, it was not because we were against South Africa, the people of South Africa or whites everywhere.

We were against the apartheid of South Africa, that oppressed the native people. And our efforts resulted in ending this barbaric practice.

Can you imagine if the government of the day forbid us from speaking up? And yet that is exactly what's happening today.

So why are we not morally outraged?

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the flow of information, or lack thereof. The simple fact is that our citizens are not privy to events as they unfold, and our media lives in constant fear. Or at least those in the media who still give a damn.

One man in the above video is David Frum, a former George Bush speech writer and Harper insider. His sister was one of the patronage senate appointments, anointed by the exalted one.

Frum is debating George Galloway, the British MP that Jason Kenney would not allow into our country because he did not share this government's Zionist view of the middle east, or their search for the rapture at the detriment of those in their path. Like myself, he believes that these 'new' friends of Israel, have an agenda. A terrifying agenda.

Fortunately George Bush and the Republicans are not in power, because they were definitely on board with this nonsense. But Barack Obama is not nuts, so maybe he will be the one to stop this insanity.

When our foreign policy is being based on a Biblical prophesy, we no longer have any legitimacy.

David Frum and Spin Doctoring

Despite the fact that Frum has taken out an American citizenship, he is still a regular in the National Post's poison pen club. I try to avoid the National Post whenever possible, and Frum even more so; but since this just keeps getting uglier, and this man won't go away, I have to show you how they twist this.

Remember those visceral attacks on the Liberals because they weren't nuts?

Well Frum tried to do the same thing with the current U.S. President.

Extracting a straight answer from Barack Obama is admittedly like nailing the proverbial Jello to the wall ... Jeffrey Goldberg goes to work to try to elicit a clear response from the presumptive Democratic nominee on the question of Israel, Zionism and his own personal feelings about the American Jewish community.

GOLDBERG: I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?

Hmm. The Zionist idea is not about Justice. It's about inflicting horror, a step above terror. But clearly this is an attempt to tie Zionism in with the American Jewish community, when in fact most in that community don't support the Zionist idea themselves. This is stereotyping at it's worst.

The United States government is clearly sending a message to these so-called 'friends' of Israel to smarten up. Of course Kenney and Frum will no doubt start calling Obama an anti-Semite, but he won't care. And the reason he won't care is because he's not nuts. In the same way that most Jewish people think that Kenney and his ilk are.

John Hagee, the leader of this troop of the insane, once stated that Hitler was doing God's work. Enough said.

Israeli leader urges calm over row with Washington
By AMY TEIBEL (AP)

JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister tried to play down a serious diplomatic dispute with the United States on Sunday, urging calm after another stern rebuke from Washington over plans to build 1,600 new apartments for Jews in contested east Jerusalem.

Israel's already strained relationship with the U.S. hit a new low last week when Israel announced the construction plans during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. The timing of the announcement deeply embarrassed the Obama administration and put plans for indirect peace talks with the Palestinians in jeopardy. The U.S. responded with repeated condemnations, including a lecture from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton over the weekend.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?