None of the Above and Latinos for Reform

During the 2010 U.S. mid-term election campaign, a group of "discontents" emerged, calling themselves Latinos for Reform.  

President Obama had secured most of the Latino vote in 2008, so the group's message was that Obama had let them down.  Given the Republican's anti-immigration policies, LFR knew that voting GOP was not an option, so instead they encouraged Latino voters not to cast a ballot for anyone.

It turned out to be a scam

The founder of this group, Robert de Posada, was the Republican National Committee's director of Hispanic affairs and worked for the Bush administration and a group founded by Tea Party leader Dick Armey.

We learn this week that in the run up to the Ontario election, a group of "discontents" has emerged. Calling themselves the None of the Above, encouraging those weary of the top three, to choose them instead, thereby nullifying their ballot.

It is run by Greg Vezina, a political activist.

A longtime supporter of Mike Harris who he knew from his home town, in 1989 Greg worked to change the Party Constitution from a delegated convention to a one person one vote process. This change was key to Mike Harris winning the Leadership in 1990.

So what is really behind this? Did Mike Harris have a little chat with his home town buddy, knowing that Tim Hudak could be in trouble? Is that why Vezina is putting up Green Party signs to help split the vote?

Remember, Hudak visited the American far-right to help draft his platform, including Tea Party and Heritage Foundation members. The late Paul Weyrich who helped Stephen Harper get elected in 2006, by promising not to reveal his ties to the group, once said:

“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now."

There are three rules in the Neoconservative Handbook on running elections:

1. If you think you can't win - Cheat!

2. If you only have a good chance of winning - Cheat!

3. Ah, hell! Just CHEAT!

Tim Hudak Wants to be Like Mitch Daniels. No Wonder. He's Another Mike Harris

Indiana- Louise Cohoon was at home when her 80-year-old mother called in a panic from Terre Haute: The $97 monthly Medicaid payment she relied on to supplement her $600-a-month income had been cut without warning by a private company that had taken over the state's welfare system. (1)

Hold that thought.

The Globe and Mail has recently revealed that after losing the last election, Tim Hudak visited members of the American far-right to help prepare his current platform.

We already knew that his mathematically challenged Million Jobs plan, was created with the help of Republican Benjamin Zycher, king of offensive Tea Party rants, like:

“Now, let me be blunt: Michelle Obama, the product of lifelong affirmative-action coddling, is an intellectual lightweight who fancies herself a serious thinker. Just read her Princeton senior thesis, an intermittently coherent stream-of-consciousness pile of leftist jargon, campus pseudo-seriousness, and racial-identity babble. Can there be any doubt that the Princeton administrators accepted it only because of her skin color?”(The National Review, August 17, 2009)

or

“And so I have a question for my legal-beagle colleagues: Are whites not entitled to equivalent treatment under the 14th Amendment? If so, does that mean that education about the history of slavery would become illegal, as it would depict whites negatively? Would it be illegal to point out that most modern-day terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims? Anything about black crime, illegal immigration by Hispanics, ad infinitum? Can air brushing of photos be far behind?”(National Review, April 24, 2006)

That's why the Tea Party loves him, but why Tim Hudak? Because he is with the American Enterprise Institute, and that's always been enough for Canada's Neoconservatives, but more on that later.

Tim Hudak claims that he wants to model Ontario after Indiana under former governor, Mitch Daniels, the man who supposedly saved his state from rack and ruin.

Before he arrived, Indiana had a deficit and after he left, a surplus. Sounds good, right? That's what was said about Mike Harris, except that he only left us with more debt and a 5.6 billion deficit. The only reason Harris looked good on paper was because of increased U.S. exports as a result of NAFTA and a devalued Canadian dollar.

To help balance the books, Mitch Daniels leased the Indiana toll road through 2081, which meant a short term gain but seventy-five years of lost revenue.

Mike Harris leased Ontario's toll road for 100 years, and it sickens me when I think of the money Ontarians have lost. But like Daniels, Harris needed to balance the books before an upcoming election, and a huge lump sum payment did just that.

According to the Washington Post:

“I think that it’s going to turn out to be a bit of smoke and mirrors for Indiana over the longer haul. I feel like he’s been very skilled at selling Hoosiers -- and quite frankly the country -- a bill of goods, and it’s really disappointing,” said Betty Cockrum, the president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Indiana who clashed with Daniels in 2011 after he signed a law cutting off public funds to the organization because it provides abortions.

Cockrum, who ran the state budget for former Democratic Gov. Frank O’Bannon, said Daniels relied on tricks to make the state’s books look good just like any other governor, but he rarely gets called on it because of his national reputation.

And as it turned out she was right. Daniels lost track of $556 million in tax money, borrowed $2 billion to shore up Indiana's bankrupt unemployment insurance fund and took billions in federal relief money, while denouncing the practice. He also left many of his key projects unfunded.

But the rich got richer and his friends a bit friendlier. Further to the story of the 80-year-old woman who lost her Medicaid:

Cohoon's mother, now suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was one of thousands of Indiana residents who abruptly and erroneously lost their welfare, Medicaid or food stamp benefits after Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels privatized the state's public assistance program — the result of an efficiency plan that went awry from the very beginning, the state now admits.

Though the $1.37-billion project proved disastrous for many of the state's poor, elderly and disabled, it was a financial bonanza for a handful of firms with ties to Daniels and his political allies, which landed state contracts worth millions.(2)

Harris also made a complete mess of things when his government tried to privatize many aspects of our welfare system. It ended up costing taxpayers 4 to 1, what it would have cost had they just left well enough alone.

Hudak wants to privatize Ontario's public service, with the same goal in mind. More money in the pockets of those already having trouble keeping their pants up.

If It's Good Enough For Stephen Harper

In the Globe abd Mail article, they list the people and institutions that Hudak visited during his Tea Party romp, most with affilation to the Harper government.

Grover Norquist - Jason Kenney headed up the Canadian Taxpayers Fedeartion, the Canadian spin-off of Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

Cato Institute - Part of the network of think tanks that helped to define the Reform movement and boost the fortunes of Stephen Harper.

Heritage Foundation - Worked with Stephen Harper and the National Citizens Coalition. The late Paul Weyrich, when he headed up the HF, helped Stephen Harper in 2006, by instructing the American Right not to talk to Canadian reporters, for fear they would scare off Canadian voters.

David Frum - Not only a former speechwriter of George W. Bush, but was activly involved with the Unite the Right campaign's hostile takeover of Canada's legitimate Progressive Conservatives. He also introduced Stephen Harper to Rupert Murdoch, enabling him to bring his version of Fox News to Canada. His sister, Linda, is one of Harper's senators.

American Enterprise Institute - has also placed members in the Harper Government, including Alykhan Velshi .

So as Canadians sleepwalk toward the next federal election, no doubt unaware of just how much the American far-right has taken over our country, Ontarians need to lead way.

Mike Harris allowed them to write his Common Sense Revolution and now Hudak has allowed them to write his Million Jobs Plan. We need to say enough is enough. The Tea Party in the United States is slowly losing momentum. We have to stop ours before it destroys us, in the same way that they have destroyed politics in the United States.

Oh and by the way, Mitch Daniels' job creation plan? Wrought with mathematical errors and mostly just made up stuff.

Sources:

1.Indiana a Changed State After Mitch Daliel's 8 Years, Washington Post, January 2, 2013

2. Indiana's bumpy road to privatization,Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2011

The FAMILY LEADER Drops 'Slavery was Good for Blacks' From Presidential Pledge, But it Changes Nothing

Historian Joseph Crespino has written extensively on Racism and the Religious Right, especially their aversion to the Civil Rights movement.

Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Moral Majority/Religious Right, made it abundantly clear that the movement was not in response to the Roe vs Wade decision, that legalized abortion, but the IRS decision to drop the tax exempt status from Bob Jones university, because of their segregation policies.

Weyrich and several of his cohorts got together and determined that it was time to take their country back. Right back to the 1950's, or more specifically 1954. (Backlash, Susan Faludi, 1992)

Why 1954?

Because on December 1, 1955, the wonderful Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person. This launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Weyrich wanted a clean slate, erasing the years 1955-1968, and the Bob Jones decision gave him the opportunity. By using a reverse discrimination argument, they didn't sound quite so racist to those who might be afraid to show support for the "whites only" college. (Sarah Palin uses the same argument in her book)

In 1978, Robert Grant, Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Howard Phillips, and Richard Viguerie found Christian Voice, to recruit, train, and organize Evangelical Christians to participate in elections.

By 1980, the Republicans were pledging to "halt the unconstitutional regulatory vendetta" against the segregation academies, and on April 29, high-profile Christians marched on Washington DC, in an effort to support Ronald Reagan's presidential run.

Citing "Southern alienation" they touted Reagan as the man who would right this wrong, and he did not disappoint.

Addressing students at Bob Jones University, he recycled the theme of 'reverse discrimination', arguing that the IRS policy was tantamount to 'racial quotas' and that: "You do not alter the evil character of racial quotas simply by changing the colour of the beneficiary". The blacks, he affirmed, had the run of the place, and he would do something about it. (In 1982, he restored the school's tax exempt status, but the Supreme Court slapped it down).

At the Neshoba fair in Mississippi (photo above) Reagan championed "states' rights (to deal with their own racist policies) and lauded segregationist Strom Thurmond, a failed 1948 presidential candidate.

Said Reagan: "If we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today". (Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, Chapter Five by Joseph Crespino)

As I've mentioned before, Reagan lost the black vote, but it didn't matter. 90% of African Americans voted Democrat, but only 30% voted at all.

So this week, when it was learned that yet another branch of the Christian Right is working with Republican candidates, exacting pledges to uphold their beliefs, it should not have been a shock that the group, FAMILY LEADER, suggested that slavery was the best time for black families.

... a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

Forget that at any time, mother, father or child could be sold, traded or lost in a poker game.

They never had it so good.

After much public outcry, the group has dropped the slavery comment, but hopefully, the fact that it was there in the first place, will help to open people's eyes to the agenda of the Christian Right/Tea Party/Neoconservative movement.

It was founded on and is grounded in racism, which is now going mainstream.

Not unlike the Conservative Party of Canada and Harper's National Citizens Coalition.

And just as Weyrich's Heritage Foundation became a vanguard of the radical right, Canada's Northern Foundation, helped to draw in groups dedicated to creating a white Christian Canada, complete with rampant homophobia and misogyny.

"... 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." (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, Trevor Harrison, 1995, p. 121))

Many of the members are now with the Civitas Society, the policy arm of the Harper government.

If we had a legitimate media in Canada, they would be writing this narrative for the movement that will reshape our country and change who we are as Canadians.

But we don't.

Instead they insist on calling Harper's party "Tories" invoking an historic tradition.

Ironically, whenever I remind people that Harper's Reformers have nothing to do with the conservatism of Sir John or John Diefenbaker, I receive a lot of email from Harper supporters. Not to challenge my statement but to suggest that if he did have a link to the old Tory party, they would not be propping him up.

Oh, and the redneck that Reagan invoked as the saviour of American values, Strom Thurmond? Six months after his death, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a black American woman, revealed that she was Strom Thurmond's daughter, born to Carrie "Tunch" Butler, a maid who had worked for Thurmond's parents.

Hypocrisy, thy name is the Christian Right.