The Republican Debates Now Turning Into the Reform-Alliance Debates

Watching the Republican presidential hopefuls duke it out to determine who is the most absurd, I'm reminded of how far this party has fallen since the days of Eisenhower. I doubt they'd get anyone "normal" to run now.

In the latest round of insanity, Rick Perry's team is attacking Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon, which apparently is the next thing to being in a "cult".

The Mormon faith of Mitt Romney, a leading contender to be the Republican presidential candidate, has been thrust to the forefront of the electoral contest. Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor and supporter of a Republican rival, Rick Perry, said the religion was an anti-Christian "cult."

... Jeffress, who leads a 10,000-member Baptist mega church in Dallas, said evangelical Republicans had only one option in the party's primary elections because Mormonism was "a cult." He added: "Every true, born-again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian." Asked if he believed Romney, 64, was a Christian, Jeffress said: "No."

This nonsense reminds me of Canada in 2000, when Preston Manning and Stockwell Day were competing for the leadership of the Alliance Party.

When Jason Kenney and Day brought in the more radical fundamentalists to campaign for them, Manning's camp suggested that there was a "Jim Jones Kool-Aid quality to what was going on." (1) AKA: a cult, though in this case they weren't far off the mark.

Jason Kenney attended St. Ignatius Jesuit school in San Francisco, when it was said that one of the instructors, Fr. Cornelius M. Buckley's "liturgies based on Catholic orthodoxy, inspired a "cult like" following. One of Kenney's teachers confirmed in an interview, that our Jas wanted to take religion back to the 50s. "Not the 1950s, but the 1550s".



I called the university myself and spoke with a Jesuit priest, an extremely nice man. He claimed to remember the case well and said that the pro-choice advocates used law students from the school to represent them. It was a very polarizing time.

Stockwell Day also has a history of religious extremism. The minister who took over for Day when he was running the Bentley Bible schools told journalist Gordon Laird:

Throughout this period, Stockwell Day was assistant pastor and school administrator. "They changed their by-laws so that the people would have no say - leaders to be appointed by other leaders, as determined by scripture," explains Rathjen. "It was a haughty, arrogant, pride-filled success story that led to disaster." Fuelled by American-style revivalism, the church emphasized radical gospel practices - such as speaking-in-tongues - that whipped worshippers into a frenzy. "They have emotional experiences and then try to build a doctrine around it," explains Rathjen. The intensity of the church and constant stream of visiting American pastors gave Bentley an international profile within fundamentalist circles. But the church eventually succumbed to its own extremes.

"I would say that it was as close to a cult as you can get," says pastor Rathjen. "They were still holding on to the Christian teaching - but with manipulation and control. (2)

In 2002, when Stephen Harper and Day were competing for the leadership, similar arguments ensued. From Report Magazine:

One thing is for certain. This is going to be a dirty campaign--perhaps even nastier than in 2000, when the Tom Long campaign was accused of being a homosexual coven and Mr. Day was compared to mass murderer Jim Jones. And despite Mr. Harper's promise to avoid personal attacks--a promise made also by Mr. Day--it was his campaign that drew first blood.(3)

After Maurice Vellacott held a rally for Day at his Bible college, Harper accused them of exploiting religion:

Last week, organizers for Mr. Harper went public with concerns that Mr. Day is appealing to a narrow base of religious groups -- including orthodox Jews, Pentecostals and anti-abortion Catholics -- in a bid to regain the leadership post he was forced to relinquish late last year.(4)

Yet, not long after winning the leadership, Harper told a group of supporters that he would also be tapping into Day's fundamentalists to create "his base".

... he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives ... but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence ... Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ..." (5)

Later Stephen Harper would brag that he had more pro-life supporters than Day. Good for him.

Anyone who doubts that Canada now has its first Republican government, only needs to watch the current Republican debates.

This is why you can't mix religion and politics. C.S. Lewis's hallway with the little rooms representing the different faiths, got boarded up and the house has been set on fire.

I think this "new conservatism" will collapse under the weight of their own nonsense.

Sources:

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

2. Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day: A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and so"me of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada, By Gordon Laird, NOW Magazine, 2000

3. Strange Alliances, By Kevin Michael Grace, Report Newsmagazine, February 04, 2002

4. Day slips into Bible college for Rally, By S. Alberts, National Post, February 13, 2002

5. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, By Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2006

The New anti-Abortionists: Young Political Activists or Youthful Vigilantes?

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

The inspiration for the Moral Majority/Religious Right, in the United States, was the central government's passing of anti-segregation laws. However, the art of political activism by the movement, came from a man by the name of Francis Schaeffer.

If we are to understand the Harper government, we have to accept that everything they do or have done, comes from the U.S. Republican/Tea Party/Religious Right.

I could stop searching for these links, and instead focus on their truly Canadian-based actions, since it would be a much shorter list. The only problem is, that I haven't found any.

The election of Ronald Reagan in the U.S., gave the evangelical activists an "in". The election of Stephen Harper has done the same in Canada, and as Marci McDonald reminds us in The Armageddon Factor, they will now be a permanent fixture on Parliament Hill.

Francis Schaeffer and How the Evangelicals Stormed the Bastille

Reagan's 1980 victory, gave rise to many quasi-religious organizations, like Focus on the Family, who helped to finance Harper's 2006 victory, by placing radio ads on over 100 Canadian stations, against same-sex marriage. Harper's rallying cry.

The Canadian chapter of Focus on Family, was started by Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Darrel Reid. The executive included two top ranking officials from their American parent organization, and $1.6 million from Dobson himself (Armageddon Factor, p.86), who claimed to be concerned with Canada's moral decay.

However, the notion that evangelicals should play a more active role in politics, came from Francis Schaeffer, the man who coined the term, or at least made popular the term, "secular humanism".

He believed that putting people above religion was wrong, and he was determined to do something about it. So he established a commune in Switzerland, L'Abri (shelter), devoted to Christian thought and activism. (There is a Canadian chapter on Bowen Island in B.C.)

When Michael Lindsay was researching his book: Faith in the Halls of Power, he found that many Religious Right leaders that he interviewed, had either visited the commune or had been heavily influenced by Schaeffer's writings.

One of the first campaigns that Schaeffer ignited, was the anti-abortion movement, that mobilized his followers to take action. It was perhaps the first time that orthodox Catholics and Protestants united for a common cause.

Gwen Lanholt, now president of REAL Women of Canada, was part of that movement.

And as a founding director of the Civitas Society*, the policy arm of the Harper government, she has a great deal of influence with the powers that be.

Youthful Vigilantes

Brian Lilley recently interviewed a young woman, named Alissa Golob, on his Fox News North/Sun TV Byline.

Golob is an anti-abortion activist, involved in a campaign to "shock" people into joining her cause, by posting images of aborted fetuses (emblazoned with a swastika). I've mentioned this in another post, because of yet another American inspired group, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who had taken up the cause.



Golob believes that the graphic image campaign will work the same as MADD's (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) images of car wrecks and the police's of gang violence. However, they are about self-preservation.

No doubt the signs will impact some, but most of us have an idea of what an aborted fetus looks like.

However, this isn't really about the abortion debate, but the modus operandi of this new youth movement, attached to the broader neoconservative movement.

Golob brings up the work of her American counterpart, Lila Rose, a young woman who believes that abortions should be performed in the public square, so people can see how gross they are.

That may sound a little nuts, but Rose's involvement draws attention to a larger issue.

The benefactors.

Lila Rose is a graduate of Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, (so is Rob Anders and Karl Rove) and friend of James O'Keefe. O'Keefe was involved in the demise of ACORN, an organization that worked for the poor, especially African-Americans. The Neocons wanted it gone.

So two young activists, O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, went undercover to discredit the organization, and though their videos were later determined to be "highly edited", they were able to paint the non-profit group as "pimps".

But they couldn't have pulled it off without the help of Fox News and Andrew J. Breitbart. You might remember Breitbart as the one responsible for destroying the career of Anthony Weiner.

This has gone from political activism to dangerous vigilante justice against their perceived enemies. They want to destroy anyone and everything associated with a progressive and just society.

For Lila Rose, it's Planned Parenthood. She helped to perpetrate a hoax against PP, to "prove" that they were sex traffickers.

Where Does Alissa Golob Fit in to All This?

At the beginning I mentioned Francis Schaeffer, who inspired the Moral Majority/Christian Right. Schaeffer was a dominionist, who believed that before the Second Coming of Christ, the U.S. must be returned to a Christian nation.

Canada's dominionism, aka reconstructionism, is championed by people like Darrel Reid and David Sweet (amoung many, many others), both involved in the Work Research Foundation, and Redeemer University. (Sweet also Canadian founder of Promise Keepers)

Redeemer University, a private for-profit school, received three million from the Harper government as part of the Canada Action Plan.

Alissa Golob is a graduate of Redeemer, one of many of her fellow students, turned activists for the movement. And while she claims to be pro-life, it's pretty clear that she is just anti-abortion. She does not encourage birth control or "safe sex".

Because those are some of the best defenses against abortion.

Better access to contraception, higher quality sex education and shifting social norms have contributed to a 36.9 per cent decline in Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate between 1996 and 2006, according to a report released today by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.

Other initiatives that Golob could adopt would be eradicating poverty and improving health care.

But that will never happen.

The group that Golob works for, Campaign Life Coalition, also has Planned Parenthood in their crosshairs.

The Harper government has already defunded them at home and abroad.

The Campaign Life Coalition also had a hand in the success of Stockwell Day, by selling 130,000 memberships to the Alliance Party, on his behalf.

So do you see what we're up against?

Fox News, the American Religious Right and Stephen Harper. Jagged lightening, rumbling thunder and gale-force winds.

Batten down the hatches, because it's going to be one hell of a storm.

Footnotes:

* Civitas Society: Founding President: William Gairdner (Reform Party)

Other Past Presidents: Tom Flanagan (Reform Party and Calgary School), William Robson, and Lorne Gunter

Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield (Reform Party), 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 (National Citizens Coalition), Michael Walker (Fraser Institute)

Right-Wing Media Moguls and the Buying of Politicians

In the unfolding scandal of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, aside from phone hacking and the buying off of cops, there is another question emerging.

How did these media moguls gain so much political power?

The BBC asks: Who is more powerful - Murdoch or Parliament?

If ever there were a symbol of the uneasy balance of power between national governments and large multinationals companies, it is the spectacle of the British Parliament being poised to vote overwhelmingly (it seems) for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to abandon its bid for British Sky Broadcasting - but being powerless to force him to abandon that takeover.

If Parliament is sovereign, there is something slightly odd about the idea that the vote can be passed and that Mr Murdoch can choose to ignore it.

Maybe Mr Murdoch will eventually abide by the revealed will of the elected representatives of the British government. But as of last night, Mr Murdoch appeared unimpressed that the prime minister and the deputy prime minister decided to throw their weight behind the leader of the opposition's motion calling on him to drop the takeover.

British prime minister David Cameron really has no choice but to at least give the appearance of standing up to Murdoch, but he would not have been as successful had it not been for this man's support.

The relationship between politicians and the press has always been a topic for debate, but simply supporting a candidate or party, through spin, has transcended to something far more alarming.

They are now being groomed by the media and even purchased.

Margaret Thatcher had a very close relationship with Murdoch editor Larry Lamb. He would even visit her home, giving her communication advice.

Says Murdoch biographer William Shawcross:

Thatcher was persuaded by advisers that tabloids like the Sun, the Mirror and the Daily Mail were far more important than the more serious papers in influencing voters. The Mirror would always be pro-Labour, but she was advised to cultivate the editors of both the Sun and the Mail.

... Mrs. Thatcher came to Bouverie Street. Lamb said she "accepted a glass of whisky, kicked off her shoes and engaged us all in spirited debate for several hours. We were all impressed, not least by the fact that she listened." Lamb also went to see her at her house "to talk about the kind of campaign she planned, who she felt might emerge as the star performers, and which members of her team we should stick close to.

... On Election Day, May 3, 1979, the Sun's massive editorial., covering the entire front page and continuing inside, was headlined "VOTE TORY THIS TIME. IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE ROT." ... The editorial asserted that the Sun as a radical paper was urging a vote for the Conservatives.

Murdoch's papers appealed to what Shawcross called, "the lower-income group", and their massaging of the campaign was effective.

The biggest swing to the Conservatives was among the lower-income group, known to market researchers as Us, which included many Sun readers. A victorious Thatcher wrote Lamb what he called an "affectionate" letter and thanked him for his help.

It's rather ironic given that Thatcher's policies hurt the low-income group the most, but it didn't matter. Lamb was able to paint her as a champion of the lower class. (Source: Rupert: Ringmaster of the Information Circus, Shawcross, 1992, P. 153-155)

And he was later rewarded with a knighthood.

In Canada, Conrad Black was ringmaster of the media circus, before he went to prison for fraud.

Not only did he shift Canada's media to the right, but he also provided "communication" and financial backing to the neoconservative movement.

As a member of both the National Citizens Coalition (who ran an ABC: Anyone But [Joe] Clark campaign. (Loyal to the Core, Gerry Nicholls, 2009)) and the Fraser Institute, he helped to make sure that they stayed on track. He even allowed an employee, Peter White, to work with Brian Mulroney, to help capture the support of the Conservative youth movement.

Disillusioned with Mulroney, who he deemed not to be right wing enough, he switched his support to Reform, donating $20,000.00 to their 1993 campaign. According to the infamous James Keegstra, Preston Manning was often seen riding around in limos with Black, making him suspicious of the true intentions of the party.

Seeing perhaps more promise in Stockwell Day, as someone who could be manipulated, Black then went to work to create a charismatic leader. According to Trevor Harrison, in his book, Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, Black hosted $1000 a plate dinners and allowed Ezra Levant to hold party fundraisers in his home.

Levant was a boyhood friend of Day's son Logan.

With a right-wing media firmly in place in Canada, thanks to Conrad Black, Rupert Murdoch trumped him after a luncheon with Stephen Harper, giving us the vile Fox News North.

So how did the media become so powerful, that they can defy governments, and yet so powerless, that journalists are not allowed to write the truth?

Wow! Isn't neoconservatism grand?

Harper's War on Women Was Launched in the USA

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

"The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband . . . This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God's design for women."BEVERLY LAHAYE, The Spirit-Controlled Woman

One evening in 1978 Beverly LaHaye was watching television with her husband. On the tube Barbara Walters was interviewing the feminist leader Betty Friedan, who suggested that she represented many women in America.

According to the story that LaHaye has repeated countless times, she immediately sprang to her feet and declared, "Betty Friedan doesn't speak for me and I bet she doesn't speak for the majority of women in this country."

From that day on, or so the story goes, she vowed to rally other "submissive" women who believed, like her, that "the women's liberation movement is destroying the family and threatening the survival of our nation." (1)

Betty LaHaye's husband is Religious Right leader, Tim LaHaye, co-author of the successful Apocalyptic Left Behind book series. He is also a founder of the Council for National Policy, where Harper gave his 1997 speech, where he vilified Canadians and our socialist ways.

Betty LaHaye's "submissive awakening" was in direct contrast to what she had been preaching several years before. Then as a pastor's wife, raising four children, she felt unfulfilled and hated the drudgery of her day to day existence.

One very well-meaning lady said to me in the early days of our ministry, "Mrs. LaHaye, our last pastor's wife was an author; what do you do?" That was a heavy question for a fearful twenty-seven-year-old woman to cope with. And I began to wonder, "What did I do?" Oh yes, I was a good mother to my four children, I could keep house reasonably well, my husband adored me, but what could I do that would be eternally effective in the lives of other women? The answer seemed to come back to me. "Very little!" There was something missing in my life.

In my case it was not the major problems that succeeded in wearing me down; it was the smoldering resentment caused from the endless little tasks that had to be repeated over and over again and seemed so futile. Day after day I would perform the same routine procedures: picking up dirty socks, hanging up wet towels, closing closet doors, turning off lights that had been left on, creating a path through the clutter of toys. (1)

So despite the fact that her children were still young, she returned to work full-time, as a teletype operator for Merrill Lynch. This job she claimed helped her to "gain confidence" and fulfilment.

By 1978 her children were grown and forgetting her life before Merrill Lynch, she decided that she would be the voice of submissive women everywhere.

Lahaye helped to form the group 'Concerned Women for America', drafting women's policy for the Neoconservative/Religious Right movement. CWA also sparked similar organisations in other countries, including our own version 'Real Women of Canada', who have worked in Harper's various parties from the beginning of Reform.

A branch group of Real Women, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families, helped to get Conservative MP Rob Anders elected.

Members of Concerned Women, regularly speak at Real Women conventions, and Canadian members return the favour.

In fact several Conservative MPs have also made the trek to Betty LaHaye's anti-feminist kingdom, including Vic Toews and Stockwell Day.

Given this kind of support for anti-feminism, should we really be surprised that the Republicans are attacking any funding to vulnerable women? That Harper's tax policies ignore single mothers, and pander only to high income households with one wage earner? Or that the Neoconservative government of David Cameron in the UK, is also targeting women in their "austerity" budgets?

This all began when stocking footed Betty LaHaye stood up and vowed to offer an alternative voice for women, who could find happiness if they would just totally submit to their menfolk.

So kick off those shoes ladies and get back in the kitchen where you belong.

As for me, I'm experiencing a case of the vapours. Could just be that my corset's too tight.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 247-249

Do All Conservative Ministers Live Under a Rock?

Next to "I'm sorry", the most common phrase used by Conservatives, is "I didn't get the memo".

I swear. It's like they have no idea what is going on under their noses.

That's if you believe them, which I don't.

Hackers who attacked two of Canada's federal departments stole classified information before being discovered last January, CBC News has learned. The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.

Six months ago, hackers launched an unprecedented cyber attack on the federal government. In January, the government's computer system came under attack ...
"Indications are that data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised," said a memo written Jan. 31, 2011.

Former Treasury Board president Stockwell Day said he was never told that any classified information was stolen from government computers. "Certainly, on the information that I got, I had full confidence that the systems had moved quickly to shut down, that significant information had not in fact been carried away, and that the ongoing assessment of that by the technicians continues," he told CBC News on Thursday.

I find it hard to believe that he was kept in the dark about something this important.

If the Agenda is Hidden in Plain Sight Why Can it Not be Seen?

There is one item in the Conservative platform that has gone largely unnoticed during this campaign, but may be one of the most important.

It is the establishment of an office of religious freedom in the Department of Foreign Affairs. What does this mean?

In an oft quoted speech to the right-wing Civitas Society, in 2003:

... he [Stephen Harper] outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence ...Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ..." (1)

Many believe, and I have no doubt that they are right, that if given a majority, Harper will criminalize abortion and end gay marriage. But putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments, for holy purposes, is far more alarming.

And adding this to the Conservative platform, is clearly a call out to what he referred to as 'Theocons', to get him his majority, where their wish will be his command. Many have been disillusioned with his failure to legislate their agenda. This may be their last best chance.

Yesterday Jonathon Malloy had an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail: Hidden in plain sight: The Tory evangelical factor

There are many statements made by Mr. Malloy that need to be addressed, beginning with this one: "A prominent Ottawa journalist I consulted said it’s “just a sop to ethnic communities.” But the proposal’s greater impact is among millions of suburban white evangelical Christians, many of whom consider religious freedom a bigger issue than same-sex marriage or abortion."

So this was written for "suburban white evangelical Christians"? It's not about "religious freedoms" at all.

Malloy referred also to the "Coptic Christians in a key Mississauga swing riding", something the media believes that this is all about. I'm familiar with that story, and unfortunately, as is often the case, we only heard one side.

First off, I want to say that what happened to the Coptics was horrible. Six Coptic Christians were murdered in the Egyptian village of Nag Hamadi, sparking riots, and the violence continues today.

However, in situations like this a proper investigation must take place, and before we go in with guns blazing, all diplomatic avenues must first be exhausted.

According to professor of political sociology at the American University of Cairo, Said Sadek, the incident is part of a broader tribal culture, where sex is used as a weapon. And the murder of the Coptic Christians was retaliation for the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl.

In fact a local bishop confirmed that some of his parishioners had received phone calls and threats alleging that Muslims "will avenge the rape of the girl during the Christmas celebrations."

When a rally was held in Toronto to raise awareness to the plight of the Coptics in Egypt, one attended by the Conservative MP Bob Dechert in the "swing riding" of Mississauga, the rhetoric revealed something else.

A Syrian Christian woman told me, "I'm sorry, but white people have to wake up." ... with so many Muslims in Toronto, she has to deal with them as part of her job. When her ignorant Canadian boss told her she had to be nice to them, she said she would be polite but he couldn't make her like them. She said Muslims will be pleasant and get along when they are a minority but, when there are enough of them in the country, they will become forceful and insist on Sharia law.

Yet many who come to Canada, do so to escape that kind of oppression.

It is very dangerous to establish foreign policy that could incite hatred at home. We must demand an explanation from Mr. Harper. What is the intent of this new office established to appease "suburban white Evangelical Christians"?

Malloy also says: "Canadian evangelicals pray regularly for “house churches” in China and other secretive Christian gatherings. One best-selling evangelical book, God’s Smuggler, is about a Dutchman who transported Bibles across the Iron Curtain in his car during the Cold War."

So this is about proselytizing, not rescuing. Something the Geneva Convention forbids. Yet guns have been found, many used by our soldiers, that have scripture engraved into the gun barrels. And Christian groups are pushing for more Bibles in Afghanistan.

We need to pay attention to this people. This is not what one journalist called “just a sop to ethnic communities".

And While We're at it, Let's Cut the Stockwell Day Nonsense

Malloy attacks the Liberals for abandoning Evangelicals, once again bringing up the Stockwell Day incident, when he stated that man roamed with dinosaurs.

Many of the attacks against Day came from within his own party, and they were far worse than humming the Flintstones theme and presenting him with a stuffed Barney doll.

During the 2000 Alliance leadership race when Day was running against Preston Manning, the race became a small holy war. Both men were Evangelical, but Day had created a small army of Crusaders:

Within the religious community, Families for Day was no doubt his strongest supporter. Created by Ron Beyer (head of the Calgary-based Canadian Family Action Coalition) and Garry Rohr .. Families for Day organized an E-mail campaign to sign up new members. Beyer claimed the organization signed up at least 6,000 new party members who voted for Day on the first ballot—approximately the margin of Day's lead over Manning ... (2)

This prompted Manning's team to accuse Day of creating a cult and saying that there was a "Jim Jones Kool-Aid" thing going on. (3) One of Day's people, John Carpay fired back: "I'm upset at the negative campaigning, but I hold Preston Manning responsible. He wears a fake halo and pretends to be innocent. It's rather sickening." (4)

So let's see. A Barney doll or being compared to a cult leader. I can't decide which is more offensive.

Then during the Alliance leadership race in 2002, between Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper, another holy war took place.

One thing is for certain. This is going to be a dirty campaign--perhaps even nastier than in 2000, when the Tom Long campaign was accused of being a homosexual coven and Mr. Day was compared to mass murderer Jim Jones. And despite Mr. Harper's promise to avoid personal attacks--a promise made also by Mr. Day--it was his campaign that drew first blood. (5)

And after holding a "secret" rally at Briercrest Christian college, Harper accused Day of exploiting religion.

Stockwell Day yesterday continued to seek support from evangelical Christians with a barely publicized campaign stop at Canada's largest Bible college, even as one of his opponents warned the Canadian Alliance leadership race risks being "perverted" by a single-interest group. Mr. Day held a campaign rally at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, Sask., an event that attracted hundreds and was not included in the public itinerary posted on the candidate's Web site. He campaigned earlier in the day at the evangelical Victory Church in Moose Jaw, Sask.

... Mr. Harper went public with concerns that Mr. Day is appealing to a narrow base of religious groups -- including orthodox Jews, Pentecostals and anti-abortion Catholics -- in a bid to regain the leadership post he was forced to relinquish late last year. (6)

And yet he is now doing the same thing, allowing a "narrow base" to dictate not only domestic, but foreign policy.

This is why you can't mix religion and politics. And this is why you must separate Church and State. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects all religions. But then Stephen Harper never liked our Charter.

Everyone needs to be protected from violence, based on not only their religious beliefs, but their gender, colour and race. Singling out protection only for Christians who are trying to 'convert' the world, is not something we should be involved in.

But how do we get the media to start paying attention and stop cheering for a Harper majority? It's a puzzle. For Stephen Harper it's all about power and he'll do whatever it takes to hold onto it, including the exploitation of religion and culture.

So again, on May 2, vote and vote wisely. It may be our only hope.

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, By Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2006

2. Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, By Trevor Harrison, Black Rose Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-55164-206-9, Pg. 52

3. Harrison, 2002, Pg. 63

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

5. Strange Alliances, By Kevin Michael Grace, Report Newsmagazine, February 04, 2002

6. Day slips into Bible college for Rally, By S. Alberts, National Post, February 13, 2002

Stockwell Day Leaving Politics? There's a Shock

Stockwell Day has just announced that he will not be seeking re-election, and in fact, may be retiring from politics.

I'm not going to pretend that this is sad news. He's been a horrible MP and a horrible cabinet minister.

Along with Day, Harper is also losing Chuck Strahl, someone I actually liked, and John Cummins.

Are they just getting tired of it all? Having no real function in a government of one?

I would imagine that Stockwell Day hates being called a 'Tory' as much as Stephen Harper does. All those years trying to create a new right wing, and instead their wings have been clipped.

Time for this party to go.

Three Blind Mice and the Think-Tank Dance

Watching our government on the run, trying to justify spending billions of dollars of taxpayer's money on prison expansion, for the corporate sector who will be taking them over, reminds me of The Three Blind Mice. Not sure why, but maybe because it's just so darn comical. And a little sad given the fate of those now tail-less mice.

But you know they're in trouble when the "think-tanks" have to come to their rescue. That myriad of bogus "non-partisan" spin doctors, who draft policy for our hapless horde of ministers.

This time they went right to the top. The Civitas Society, where Stephen Harper laid out his plans for a theocracy and Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Harpo to talk about hockey every 14 seconds if he hoped to ever get a majority.

Jason Kenney hangs out there, as do all of Harper's buddies from his old haunt, the Northern Foundation. I don't think he makes a move without first consulting their Ouija board.

The Three Blind Mice and Canada's Crime in the Streets

1. Stockwell Day - Blind mouse number one. This man only has a high school education and believes that if it isn't in the Old Testament it's not worth discussing. An eye for eye, etc. When the prison expansion plans were announced, the question was why, when Canada's crime rate was the lowest in our history. Their plans will cost taxpayers billions of dollars, not only in the original design and construction costs, but in paying the corporate sector to run them, which is always at least double what we could do it for.

So Stocky in all his wisdom claimed that the prisons were for "unreported crimes". Thank heavens for the Ouija boards, which will replace the gun registry and all other tools used by police. I hear one is being installed in every officer's vehicle.

2. Scott Newark - Blind mouse number two - After Stocky's announcement and the laughter died down, a name began appearing in all the papers, in support of Day. Scott Newark, who agreed with the notion of the mystical criminals lurking in every bush and around every street corner.

He had seen them (insert eerie music). And furthermore, we should listen to him because he is with .... drum roll please .... a "think tank". A "non-partisan think-tank". An "award winning non-partisan think-tank". For now we'll ignore the fact that this award also went to the Koch brothers and their Cato Institute. We're in enough trouble without going down that road, where the real criminals hang out. Suffice it to say that the Koch brothers are backers of the Tea Party, and sometimes walk funny with Stephen Harper's hands in their pockets.

For those who don't know, Newark is a former policy adviser to Day and was once involved in a lobbying scandal, also known as an "unreported crime", bilking taxpayers out of more than $300,000. Oops!

3. Brian Lee Crowley - Blind mouse number three - with Crowley taking time out of his busy schedule to weigh in on the issue, you know they are now in desperation mode. Crowley is the big cheese, founder of yet another "non-partisan think-tank". And if you don't believe they are non-partisan they have christened their new endeavour the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, after Sir John A. from Canada's now defunct Tory Party, and Wilfred Laurier, a former Liberal prime minister.

Crowley is past president of the Civitas Society and founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a group pushing for "deep US-Canada integration with "Atlantica"

I never said they were sane.

According to Wikipedia, the MacDonald-Laurier Institute is "directed by high-profile businesspeople with an emphasis on lowering business taxes, reducing government spending, privatizing the healthcare system and "working toward a common security perimeter with the United States." In other words, they are running the Harper neocon agenda.

Oh, and did I mention that Crowley is also a policy adviser to Jim Flaherty, helping him to draft his budgets, and has been shrieking about lowering corporate taxcuts since he was old enough to go potty by himself.

These guys are so transparent and have the credibility of a gnat.

Study claiming crime on the rise gets shot down by experts

Criminologists say a study that attacks the long-standing measurement of Canada’s crime rate is “highly politicized” and without statistical merit. Crime and punishment appear to be shaping up as a defining ballot question when Canadians next go to the polls, so the statistically unorthodox claim that violent crime is on the rise is noteworthy.

Scott Newark, a former Harper government adviser who counts himself a contributor to the Conservatives’ 2006 justice platform, released the 29-page study last week questioning Statistics Canada’s methodology on compiling crime stats. Newark asserts that “many of the most common conclusions that are drawn about crime in Canada are in fact incorrect or badly distorted.” “Serious violent crime is increasing,” the former executive officer of the Canadian Police Association flatly asserts.

Although Newark’s report for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute was given prominent coverage by both the Globe and Mail and National Post, the wider academic community that relies on the data was not consulted.

Just who exactly is running our country anyway?

Everyone is Missing the Point on Harper's Prison Plans

Once again the Harper government is in contempt of Parliament, this time for not releasing the costs of their new Wild West law and order agenda. The Opposition has a right to know, but more importantly, we have the right to know. The taxpayers who will be getting the bills.

Building quietly on Parliament Hill since November, the issue started when the opposition-controlled House finance committee began asking Finance Canada to hand over statistics on corporate profits – which had been made public in the past. The department denied the request, claiming the information was protected by cabinet confidentiality. In December, the committee received a similar answer from the Justice Department, saying the projected cost implications of the government’s crime bills was similarly privileged.

How are they privileged? The Harperites forget that the government has no money. They only get to spend our money, and we are the only ones who should have the privilege of knowing where it's going.

Coming to their rescue is Scott Newark, a so-called security analyst, who claims that violent crimes are on the rise. Thank you Scott. But you fail to mention my dear that in February of 2006, you were hired by Stockwell Day, who gave you the title of senior policy advisor. And in another revolving door lobbying scandal, left to join the Northgate Group, just in time to begin work on a $312,400 contract awarded by Day's department. And that in fact, you were working for Day when the bidding closed on the contract.

Just how friggin' stupid do you think Canadians are?

For $300,000 you will try to instill fear in the public. Nice try.

I'm so sick of the corruption of this government. The lies, and the secrecy. Next election we need to go Egyptian. Their movement brought people from all walks of life and they won. The anti-prorogation rallies in Canada were the same, as were the prison farm protests.

Every Canadian sick to death of this nonsense has to join forces next election and walk like an Egyptian. That will be our battle cry. Peaceful but focused, armed with our ballots, with one goal in mind. Getting rid of neoconservatism and the Corporate Welfare State.

They pass a law allowing corporations to lie on their financial statements to lure potential investors (victims), but then create a law and order agenda that targets this country's most vulnerable citizens.

If crime really was on the rise, as this bogus think-tank suggests, then we need to go after the root causes of crime. Poverty and lack of education. Building prisons that will eventually be taken over by corporate interests is not the way to go.

Peter Kent, WikiLeaks and Why we Should be Concerned

During the 2008 election campaign, popular CBC radio personality Leslie Hughes, was running for the Liberal Party in the Winnipeg riding riding of Kildonan—St. Paul, against Conservative incumbent Joy Smith. A close friend of Stockwell Day, Smith had managed his successful Alliance Party leadership contest in 2000, for her area.

The day after the deadline for presenting candidates, the B'Nai Brith launched a formal complaint against Ms Hughes, claiming that in an old blog posting she had suggested that 9/11 was the result of a Jewish conspiracy. And they were supported in their claim by Conservative Peter Kent.

It was all nonsense. I have read the blog posting in question, and there is absolutely nothing in it that could be deemed anti-Semitic. See for yourself. She was only reacting to the "friendly fire" death of 4 Canadian soldiers.

But the media had a field day with it and Stephen Dion had little choice but to ask her to step down. She is now suing both Peter Kent and B'Nai Brith and I hope she nails them to the wall. This was a character assassination that not only cost her the election but her career, as few in the media want to hire her now that she is deemed to be anti-Semitic.

Omar Alghabra

Omar Alghabra was a former Liberal MP for the riding of Mississauga-Erindale, and is a wonderful man. I've had the opportunity to speak with him on-line and he is intelligent, funny and a champion of human rights.

But in 2005, immediately after winning his party's nomination, he was the victim of a smear campaign, in which several people claimed that in his victory speech he commented: "This is a victory for Islam! Islam won! Islam Won!" It wasn't true, and those involved were forced to publicly apologize. But that didn't stop neocon insider Tim Powers from trashing him publicly and calling him anti-Semitic.

Omar lost his seat in 2008 to Alliance party faithful Bob Dechert, but will be running again. I am so pleased. Dechert is a disaster.

Canadian Coalition for Democracies

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies was a group founded to incite hatred against Islamic Canadians, in a large part, by erroneously labelling public figures, anti-Semitic. They also lent support to Ezra Levant in his battle over publishing the horrendous Danish Cartoons.

Peter Kent was a founding member and Tony Clement was head of their Advisory Board. They were extremely pro-Israel:

The CCD generally supported the policies of the Conservative Party government of Stephen Harper, and the organization's leadership has urged its members to view support for the Conservative Party of Canada as equivalent to support for Israel. (Wikipedia)

The group also supported the controversial Falun Gong and a continued Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

Other members of the group included:

Michael Mostyn: the Director of Government Relations for B'nai Brith Canada. When Ralph Reed, founder of the Christian Coalition, spoke in Canada to drum up support for Stephen Harper, Mostyn was in attendance and he ran unsuccessfully for the party himself.

Rochelle Wilner: past president of B'nai Brith Canada and the Conservative Party's federal candidate for York Centre.

Naresh Raghubeer: founder and former executive director of the of the CDD. In November 2004, the CCD, along with Stockwell Day, held a press conference calling the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) of having links to the terrorist organization Hamas and of providing financial support to them. Subsequently, IRFAN-Canada filed a defamation claim against CCD officials Alastair Gordon and Naresh Raghubeer, as well as against Stockwell Day. IRFAN-Canada firmly held that the accusations were "false and malicious" and, to paraphrase their lawyer, wanted to clear their name from the allegations.

Raminder Singh Gill: Former member of Mike Harris's government, he has ran unsuccessfully for a spot in the Harper caucus. He has however, been given a patronage position under Jason Kenney, where he acts as a citizenship judge. The same citizenship department that says "no Muslims".

David Harris: is a Canadian lawyer and former senior fellow with the CCD. He was chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and has suggested that Canada's immigration policy encourages the use of Canada as a base for terrorists, and has consistently advocated for harsher Canadian laws to combat terrorism. He is an outspoken defender of the Canadian government's use of security certificates to detain terrorism suspects without trial.

Salim Mansur: is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario and a contributor to the conservative blog Proud To Be Canadian, the same blog where American Anne Coulter has found a home. He is also featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and ran unsuccessfully for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.

Peter Kent and Canwest Global

The late media mogul, Izzy Asper, hated the CBC. And he especially hated Neil Macdonald, the CBC's Middle East correspondent from 1998 to 2003, who contradicted his notion of Israel as a victim.

Macdonald was based in Jerusalem for five years, and was not shy about injecting his opinions on the Arab-Israeli conflict into his reports. His bosses back in Toronto were supportive. "To suggest that most of the world's media are involved in a conspiracy against Israel, it's just a totally extreme conception on Asper's part," declared Tony Burman, then head of CBC News. "There is something profoundly ironic about being told off about media bias by someone like Izzy Asper." This was a thinly veiled reference to the Aspers' practice of urging their papers to publish company-written editorials that expressed their owner's views ... (1)

And MacDonald was appalled that Asper's employees allowed their boss to engage in the suppression of journalism, which only escalated Asper's attacks against him, though he was not surprised.

"I expect more bullying, more bombast, more ideological, anti-journalistic nonsense. I used to work for the newspapers they now own. Several of my ex-colleagues, still there, tell me they find the Aspers' approach to journalism an embarrassment. But they cannot speak publicly. Thank heavens I can." (1)

And the bias in Asper's papers and television reporting didn't go unnoticed by others.

Asper's diatribe garnered him respect among Canada's Jewish community but condemnation elsewhere. British journalist Robert, Fisk, who writes for the Independent and had been a long-time critic of Israeli policies, labelled Asper's speeches "gutless and repulsive. "These vile slanders," he said, "are familiar to any reporter trying to do his work on the ground in the Middle East. They are made ever more revolting by inaccuracies." Fisk specifically took issue with Asper's interpretation of British-Palestinian history—pointing out that, for example, the expression used in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was "a national home for the Jewish people," rather than a "Jewish State," as Asper had suggested.

More to the point, Asper didn't give a damn. He practised what he preached. Canwest Global was "unabashedly pro-Israel," declared Murdoch Davis, who spent several years as Canwest's Winnipeg-based editor-in-chief. He wasn't kidding. (1)

Eventually after fighting for freedom of the press, many of Izzy's journalists just refused to write anything at all about Israel. Peter C. Newman in his book Izzy, says "At the same time, there was no question that the worst form of censorship in this kind of editorial climate was the self-censorship writers and editors applied to their assignments and their copy, usually by avoiding the subject entirely."

But one Canwest Global media personality and executive, had no problem sticking with Izzy's guidelines. His name: Peter Kent. The same Peter Kent who is now the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Americas, in Stephen Harper's cabinet. The same Stephen Harper who allowed Izzy Asper to help write the foreign policy of his Reform Party, in exchange for his financial and communications support. "Izzy pulled out all the stops on that one. He was prepared to invest his personal time and capital for the cause." (2)

Peter Kent and WikiLeaks

Yesterday, one of the WikiLeak documents revealed that the U.S. was angered at Canada's approach to Cuba. Peter Kent was personally named and his office responded by saying that their party's official policy is to not respond to any of the WikiLeak announcements.

Fine.

But when I hear Peter Kent's name, the only Canadian who is possibly more pro-Israel than Stephen Harper, I pay attention.

And bypassing the mainstream Canadian media, who wouldn't be allowed to pursue the story even if they wanted to, I instead went right to the source for any information regarding Canada and this foreign country. And the Israel Resource Review didn't disappoint.

Peter Kent's Canadian tax payer financed job, has been to protect Israel's interests in Latin America.

Kent noted that “ Canada ... has also represented Israel’s interests in Cuba through its embassy in Havana. There is a 1,500-member Jewish community in Cuba and as Kent said “It’s now possible for Cuban Jews to make aliyah.” ... Canada and Israel are also working together to pressure the government of Argentina to make reparations for the botched investigation of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. Kent said Canadian and Israel also have (sic?) are concerned about involvement of ‘Latin American states with Iran.”

And remember, Kent recently suggested that it was not a matter of if there would be a preemptive strike agaisnt Iran, but when. (3)

Canadians are not anti-Israel, but we are rightfully concerned when our Canadian government consistently puts Israel's interests above those of ours. That is not what we pay them for.

We expect a balanced approach to foreign policy, not a one-sided approach that allows another country to get away with horrendous crimes against humanity.

We have got to start paying attention.

But how sad is it that the only one providing us with information to pay attention to, is an Australian activist?

Sources:

1. Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada's Media Mogul, By Peter C. Newman, Harper-Collins, 2008, ISBN: 978-1-55468-089-4, Pg. 254-256

2. Newman, 2008, Pg. 83

3. Canada’s international do-gooder image shattered: Ottawa Loses Bid for UN Security Council, by Eric Walberg, Global Research, October 23, 2010

Judge Rules That a Six-Year-Old Can be Sued. Is the World Going Nuts?

When I first read this, it was on Reuter's Africa, so I thought the story must be coming from some third world country.

But it was the African media rightfully suggesting that this was NEWS!

In New York, a judge decided that it was OK for a child to be sued for negligence.

In a ruling made public late Thursday, the judge dismissed arguments by Breitman's lawyer that the case should be dismissed because of her young age. He ruled that she is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed. The decision also will allow for the lawsuit to proceed against the Kohn family for the incident.

"For infants above the age of 4, there is no bright-line rule," Wooten wrote, adding that the girl had been three months shy of turning 5. Wooten also disagreed with the lawyer's assertion that Juliet Breitman should not be held responsible because her mother was supervising the children at the time.

For infants above the age of 4? When Garry Breitkreuz, back in his Reform Party days, suggested that children as young as 10 should go to prison, we were shocked. When Stockwell Day as leader of the Alliance Party thought that children as young as 12 should be given the death penalty , we kicked him to the curb. Boy, I'll bet Stephen Harper is rewriting our crime laws (again), as we speak.

Is the world going nuts? I mean seriously.

Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto. Republican kooks and Tea Partiers poised to win the mid-terms?

Maybe, I'm being punked.

Or if I pinch myself, I'll discover that it was all a bad dream.

OUCH!

Christians Speak Out Against Israeli Apartheid

In 2003 when Stephen Harper was elected as leader of the Alliance Party, he promised Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day that he would make Israel the cornerstone of his foreign policy, and made Day his foreign affairs critic.

Day had already made it clear that he supported a two state solution.

Recorded in Hansard in 2002, he had this to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The Canadian Alliance position on this matter has always been consistent and has always been clear. The Palestinian people have a right to their homeland in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to the creation of a democratic Palestinian state. The only solution will be a two state solution which involves an exchange of land for peace.

In the short term our government should be advocating that Israel must withdraw as quickly as possible from area A to rekindle the peace process and then in the longer term Israel must withdraw from the vast majority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to secure internationally recognized lines.

But after winning the 2006 election, Harper bypassed Day as Foreign Affairs minister, and took a more aggressive stand, aligning himself with Charles McVety and John Hagee.

In 2006, Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College hosted the first event (Israel You're Not Alone) of a newly created coalition called Christians United for Israel (CUFI). CUFI counts amongst its members such extremists as John Hagee, Pat Roberston and the late Jerry Falwell. In fact, Frank Dimant, BB Canada's Executive Vice President, shared the podium with McVety and Hagee, and thanked them both in these terms: "But we (Jews) and Israel are not alone because of you and the tremendous leadership of Dr. McVety and Dr. Hagee" (Jewish Tribune, May 25, 2006).

And Hagee is very clear, as he leads his followers in a frenzied chant of “Not one inch! Not one inch!”—how much land they intend to see Israel give the Palestinians. Quite different from what Day claimed the Alliance party stood for.

But Stephen Harper only saw this from the perspective of political leverage. According to Lawrence Martin in Harperland:

Though Muslims outnumbered Jews by two to one in Canada, the Jewish community was more politically impactful. Harper was aware, for example, that he stood to gain a major advantage in the Canadian media with his position. The country's largest media empire, Canwest, was controlled by the Aspers, who made no secret of their allegiance to Jewish causes and became enthusiastic backers of Harper on all related questions. (pg. 81)

Foreign policy is not about an attempt at peace, but how his positions affect his own career and relationship with the right-wing media. How terribly sad.

Now the right-leaning Jerusalem Post, formerly owned by Conrad Black, is reporting that a document called Kairos Palestine, which has been translated in Italian, was presented to the Pope.

An Italian edition of Kairos Palestine, a controversial document authored by representatives of Middle East Christian Churches and first presented in 2009, was launched in the Italian capital last week, on the sidelines of a Vatican synod.

And these Christian churches take a different view of the situation than Christians United For Israel.

Among these are calls for “the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel,” efforts defined as “tools of nonviolence,” accusations that Israel is guilty of “clear apartheid” and “racist separation,” ambiguous use of the word “resistance,” which seems to encompass terrorism in statements such as “if there were no occupation there would be no resistance...” and “we respect and have high esteem for all those who have given their life for our nation,” and, finally, criticism of the international community for not accepting “the outcome of democratic and legal elections” in Gaza that were won by Hamas.

And while the Jerusalem Post is suggesting that the document is a promotion of terrorism, their website has a completely different message:

This document is the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine. It is written at this time when we wanted to see the Glory of the grace of God in this land and in the sufferings of its people. In this spirit the document requests the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades. The suffering continues while the international community silently looks on at the occupying State, Israel. Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God. We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace in our region, calling on them to revisit theologies that justify.

So CUFI are promoting a nuclear war, while KP is calling for peace.

I don't pretend to have the answers but it seems to me that peace should always be the ultimate goal. Not jockeying for position at Armageddon.

The Conservative Law and Order Agenda is About Wrath, Vengeance and Punishing the Poor

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

In a "Back to the Bible Hour" radio address, Preston Manning spoke of the "infallible Scriptures" and the "spiritual bankruptcy" of modern society.

This was evidenced, he said, in the increase of "juvenile delinquency, adult crime, drug addiction, drunkenness, adultery, divorce, prostitution, homosexuality and general moral laxity". And the only remedy for a sinful nation was prayer. (1)

Manning was not speaking from an Apocalyptic vision, but simply from a notion of "common sense". Canadians had lost their way. A secular society was creating rampant crime.

And despite the fact that Canada's justice system, while not perfect, was based on fairness; leaning toward rehabilitation as a way of creating a safer society, Manning was convinced that "sin" was on the rise.

You can't rehabilitate "sinners", you can only "save" them.

And that was the basis for the Reform Movement's law and order agenda.

We saw this recently with Stockwell Day. Presented with the facts that crime rates are down, and in fact are now the lowest they've ever been in Canada, he simply ignored it. The "sinners" are out there. If we build the prisons God will lead him to them.

We can only have a moral and just society when all threats are removed and locked away. And when the keepers of the morality are running the country, there will be no more "sin". The devil will have been vanquished.

This is why you cannot base a country's laws on the Old Testament, because a justice system can never be about wrath and vengeance. It's been tried and it doesn't work. Modern society learned long ago that you need to get to the root causes of crime and repair society's ills first. Beginning with poverty, unemployment and homelessness.

Conservatives and Morality

The Republicans, the Religious Right and Fox News have created the same kind of narrow minded thinking. But Chris Hedges has found that this new 'Republicanism', wrapped up in morality, where everyone is responsible for their own actions, is having the opposite effect.

Using Ohio as an example, he suggests that 'moral laxity' comes from despair, not a desire to sin. And this despair more often came from the loss of good paying jobs and the inability of families to make a decent living.

Laborers in the steel mills and manufacturing plants once made an average of $51,000 annually. Those who have moved into the service sector now make $16,000 in the leisure and hospitality sector, $33,000 in health care, or $39,000 in construction. In 2004 [under George Bush], average employee compensation in the United States fell for the first time in 14 years.' Between 2000 and 2004, Ohio lost a quarter of a million jobs and Cleveland became the nation's poorest big city, and young people are fleeing the state in massive numbers to find work.

The bleakness of life in Ohio exposes the myth peddled by the Christian Right about the American heartland: that here alone are family values and piety cherished, nurtured and protected. The so-called red states, which vote Republican and have large evangelical populations, have higher rates of murder, illegitimacy and teenage births than the so-called blue states, which vote Democrat and have kept the evangelicals at bay. The lowest divorce rates tend to be found in blue states as well as in the Northeast and upper Midwest. The state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts, a state singled out by televangelists because of its Liberal politicians and legalization of same-sex marriage. In 2003, 'Massachusetts had a divorce rate of 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.'

Couples in former manufacturing states such as Ohio have to have two jobs to survive. The economic catastrophe has been accompanied by the erosion in federal and state assistance programs, the cutting of funds to elementary and secondary education, the reduction in assistance to women through the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program, along with reductions in programs such as Head Start and federal programs to assist low-income families, elderly people, and people with disabilities who once turned to the government for rental assistance.' Federal abandonment of the destitute came at a time when these communities most needed support. As the years passed and the future began to look as bleak as the present, this despair morphed into rage ... Domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse ran like plagues... (2)

Unemployment, underemployment, poverty and cuts to social programs created "sin", not Liberals or the secular. And the answer is not to lock them away.

But the Reform movement that pushes for stricter laws and more incarcerations, have been led to believe that any problems they might have, or that they see in society, are caused by lack of prayer. And they target the poor and unfortunate.

And that is who will suffer under these new Draconian crime bills. According to Dean Beeby, in his piece: Aboriginals, poor hit hardest by Tory sentencing law:

The preliminary statistics from Justice Canada lend support to critics who warn that Bill C-25, the so-called Truth in Sentencing Act, unfairly targets the poor, the illiterate and Canada's aboriginal community. (3)

And in true Conservative fashion:

The internal study was cited in a secret memorandum to cabinet about Bill C-25, but was not made public as the House of Commons and Senate debated
the proposed legislation. (3)

They were presented with the facts that contradicted their stance, so had to make sure that lawmakers never saw them. The Gun Registry all over again.

I'm not a socialists or a communist, but I think real "common sense" is targeting the causes of crime from an earthly perspective. And that requires believing that all humans have value, and creating a society that puts the needs of it's citizens above ideology.

But Stephen Harper, and indeed everyone involved in this movement on both sides of the border, pander only to the wealthy and self-righteous. In all of his photo-ops, when have you ever seen our prime minister engaging with the poor? His events are staged and by invitation only.

If he doesn't have to look despair in the face, then it doesn't exist.

In his book Waiting for the Wave, Tom Flanagan states that Preston Manning was not an ideologue. However, he does say that Stephen Harper was driven by ideology. But it's not an ideology based on religion, but based on the needs of the wealthy.

This means removing all barriers that prevent the rich from becoming richer and locking away anyone who might want to share in their wealth, not just those who might want to take it. He refuses to accept that if citizens are provided with good paying jobs, adequate health care, education and opportunity, we would all live in a safer society.

He once said of the proposal for enhanced social programs:

“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.” (4)

A rare public figure to oppose money going to child poverty. And yet he has no problem answering "cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “corporate welfare”. Billions and billions of dollars, while asking the rest of us to tighten our belts and promising a new "austerity" budget. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

We don't need more prisons or tougher laws. We don't need fighter jets. We don't need corporate tax cuts. What we need is a new government. And when we get it, we have to fight like hell to have these crime bills removed.

Sources:

1. Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and Preston Manning, By Tom Flanagan, Stoddart Publishing, 1995, ISBN: 0-7737-2862-7, Pg. 6

2. American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 10-0-7432-8443-7, Pg. 42-44

3. Aboriginals, poor hit hardest by Tory sentencing law: internal report, By Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press, September 25, 2010

4. The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997

Stephen Harper, Deceit, and the Exploitation of Religion

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

I was combing through Tom Flanagan's book Waiting for the Wave, which was written in 1995 when the Reform Party was first entering the political arena; and came across an interesting passage.

[Preston] Manning does have an increasing tendency to surround himself with evangelical Christians, not for policy reasons but because a common approach to religion encourages rapport and loyalty. Strikingly, all five officers in the first Reform caucus (nominated personally by Manning) were Evangelical Christians. Yet non-evangelicals such as Cliff Fryers, Gordon Shaw, Stephen Harper, and Rick Anderson have also played key roles as organizers and advisers. (1)

"Non-evangelicals such as ... Stephen Harper"?

It has been suggested by many, including Lloyd MacKey who wrote a book on the topic: The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper, that Harper's route to salvation was a cerebral journal. However, he had to actually call the Conservative leader's pastor to verify that he was a member. I know several Evangelicals and they do not hide their beliefs, but allow them to direct their lives.

Douglas Todd once wrote in the Vancouver Sun:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is damned if he does talk about his evangelical beliefs and damned if he doesn't. If he continues to avoid answering questions about his religious convictions, political observers say he appears secretive, like he's hiding something. But, at the same time, most Canadians do not share the moral convictions of his evangelical denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. (2)

However, I don't think that Stephen Harper shares "the moral convictions of his evangelical denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church." I think the whole thing was a scam and part of creating his public persona. He would never gain the financial support of the Religious Right if he was not seen as "one of them".

He would have assuredly lost to Stockwell Day, who wears his Evangelism on his sleeve.

In fact during the leadership race, Stephen Harper went public with Stockwell Day's exploitation of religion:

Stockwell Day yesterday continued to seek support from evangelical Christians with a barely publicized campaign stop at Canada's largest Bible college, even as one of his opponents warned the Canadian Alliance leadership race risks being "perverted" by a single-interest group. Mr. Day held a campaign rally at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, Sask., an event that attracted hundreds and was not included in the public itinerary posted on the candidate's Web site. He campaigned earlier in the day at the evangelical Victory Church in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Mr. Day lashed out at rivals Stephen Harper and Grant Hill for accusing him of aiming his campaign primarily at devout Christians and opponents of abortion ... Last week, organizers for Mr. Harper went public with concerns that Mr. Day is appealing to a narrow base of religious groups -- including orthodox Jews, Pentecostals and anti-abortion Catholics -- in a bid to regain the leadership post he was forced to relinquish late last year. (3)

But then after winning the leadership, Stephen Harper realized just how beneficial hooking your wagon to the Religious Right could be.

The only route, he [Harper] argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence. Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue, he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same.” (4)

Preston Manning was often accused of bringing religious fanaticism to politics. However, I never really thought of Manning as a fanatic, certainly not in the same vein as Stockwell Day or Jason Kenney. His political views were based on both "the will of the people and the voice of God". (5)

But because he was evangelical, his thought process was based a large part on his personal beliefs. However, Stephen Harper has never really held any personal faith, and I don't think that he was ever himself an evangelical.

In 1995 Tom Flanagan, his close advisor, knew that. Harper was 35 at the time, and yet when he was on the the Drew Marshall program in 2005, he told the host that he had "found Jesus" when he was in his 20's.

In his 20's he was dating Cynthia Williams. In fact they were engaged. But when Harper's Biographer, William Johnson asked her about her former fiance's religious beliefs, she became embarrassed and simply said that they never went to church or anything. (6)

The pastor at the Christian Missionary Alliance told Marci MacDonald that he rarely attends, and he has never met Harper's wife. They were married in a civil ceremony.

Harper's VP when he was with the National Citizens Coalition, also confirmed that his colleague never mentioned his faith. He only called himself a "born again Christian" when it became politically expedient. Leo Strauss would be impressed. Me, not so much.

By pretending to be Evangelical, he misses the basics of Evangelism. Deceit is not a virtue. And by tapping into the worst of fundamentalism, he has painted them all with a fanatical brush, furthering the divide.

I think he always believed he could shed the fanatics once in power, but now he finds that they may be all he has left. Centrists have abandoned him and Progressive Conservatives have realized that this is not a party of fiscal conservatives.

I've asked original Reform supporters if they find the excesses of the G-20 and G-8, or the abuse of tax dollars with the bogus Canada Action Plan, principled. I can't imagine any of them condoning this kind of corruption.

But I'd like to also remind his religious supporters, of something they probably already know in their gut. Stephen Harper is not, nor has he ever been, an Evangelical.

Like almost everything else he claimed to be, this was just another part of Strauss's Big Lie.

It's time for him to make an exit.

Sources:

1. Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and Preston manning, By Tom Flanagan, Stoddart Publishing, 1995, ISBN: 0-7737-2862-7, Pg. 9

2. Why Stephen Harper keeps his evangelical faith very private, By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun, September 10, 2008

3. Day slips into Bible college for Rally, By S. Alberts, National Post, February 13, 2002

4. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006, Pg. 2

5. Flanagan, 1995, Pg. 3

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