So What Does a Communist Smell Like?

Just when you thought the neocons couldn't get any nuttier, with Brian Lilley of Fox News North calling the Ottawa Press Gallery Communist sympathisers, and Tea Party's Ben Shapiro believing that Sesame Street was a pinko indoctrination of children; Toronto City Councilor, Giorgio Mammoliti, is on a hunt for Communists, who according to him, would be anyone opposing Mayor Rob Ford's budget cuts.

He's started a Facebook page: Save the City. Support the Ford Administration, which has just over a thousand "red hunters". (I wonder if the Ford Motor Co. knows that they are using their logo?)

If you want to know how to hunt down a Communist though, apparently they give off an odour of vodka and borscht. Who knows?

But Mammoliti swears that he'll sniff them out.

"... I will be monitoring their comments,” he said, “and if I get a smell of communism, they’re off the page.” Asked by a laughing reporter how he would smell communism, Mammoliti laughed and said, “Only Mammoliti has that keen sense of smell.”

Clearly the only sense he still has that's working.

What is the endgame for these people? Do they really hope to recreate a "red scare"?

When the Neoconservatives claimed that they wanted to take us back to the 1950s, they weren't kidding. Joseph McCarthy lives again.

What next, book burning?

Of course, Ford plans to close down the libraries in Toronto, which will give Mammoliti's nose a rest. Far too many subversive texts.

This red baiter also claims to support only those who truly work for a living. Don Cherry told Fox News North that university professors had never worked a day in their lives.

So who else would be on the list of non-workers?

Teachers? Social workers? Nurses?

When Tony Clement was in the Mike Harris government he attacked nurses with a vengeance. Stockwell Day did the same when with Ralph Klein in Alberta.

Do YOU have a real job?

It's funny, when I wrote of my ordeal at a Harper rally in Kingston during the last campaign, when I was finally able to get to my car, I noticed that on the front seat I had a copy of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that I had just picked up at a library sale.

I also own a copy of Das Kapital.

Can I expect a hard rap on the door? Someone sniffing me when I walk down the street?

I think these people are going to "crazy" themselves out. At least I hope so.

In the U.S. people are already turning off the Tea Party nonsense, since their obvious involvement with the "debt crisis" fiasco.

And we see what is happening in the UK, in reaction to their austerity budget, against the backdrop of a multi-million dollar royal wedding.

The future is looking bleak.

Has the Ottawa Press Gallery Joined Big Bird's Red Army?

The late Dalton Camp, former president of the now defunct federal Progressive Conservative Party, tells a story in his book: Whose Country is This Anyway, of a group of young conservatives who had disrupted a speech by Jean Charest.

Charest at the time, was leader of the federal PCs.

The loudest among them, accused him of being a Communist. He was, this bombastic young man claimed: "Saying Communist things, expressing Communist sentiments and generally sounding like a Pinko". (p. 27)

What brought on this accusation, was Charest's concern for the homeless and unemployed. That's all it took. "Pinko" notions for sure.

Camp only mentions that the man was 25 and an officer with the Conservative Youth. I've often wondered if it was John Baird, because he fit the description, being just that age when the event took place. Baird had already been arrested in Kingston for disrupting a campaign stop by former Liberal premier of Ontario, David Peterson.

Baird went on to win a seat under Mike Harris, helping to make sure that no "Pinko" ideas prevailed. In fact, the Harris government created the most homeless people in the history of the province, and John Baird gutted social services with the help of Enron's accounting firm.

But I digress.

Brian Lilley of Fox News North is seeing "red" these days, literally. In an attempt to create a bit of "controlled controversy", he accused members of the Ottawa Press Gallery of having a "soft spot" for communists.

It began with his "outing" of Nycole Turmel, the interim NDP leader, as not only being a member of the Bloc, but also of the Quebec Solidaire, a Communist party, according to Lilley, made up of Marxists, Trotskyites and "radical feminists".

He's got the lingo down anyway.

Quebec Solidaire is a Quebec separatist party, but they are hardly communists. They are social democrats concerned with the environment, women's issues and globalization.

Lilley was hoping to generate rage from the reporters on Parliament Hill, but instead only invoked laughter. He made a complete ass of himself.



And remember, Lilley refers to the Toronto Star, as the 'Red Star'.

Just another right-wing voice for Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Lilley's sister station, Fox News, is accusing Newsweek and other "Pinkos" in the media, of hating Michelle Bachmann.

There is nothing the left fears more than a conservative, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun woman. Throw in the fact that she’s intelligent and attractive, and sorry excuses for men, like Bill Maher, will be hurling vulgarities at her in no time.

The problem with Michelle Bachmann, is that she gives women a bad name. She wants to be the President of the United States, but is ignorant of its constitution and has publicly stated that her husband "commanded her" to become a tax lawyer.

What will he "command her" to do if she heads up the most powerful country in the world? I shudder to think.

But this kind of nonsense resonates with Fox viewers on both sides of the border.

However, I think I saw Susan Delacourt Talking to Mr. Snuffleupagus

I posted before on U.S. Conservative personality Ben Shapiro, and his new book: Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV

In it he claims that Sesame Street promotes multi-culturalism, collectivism (sharing) and other "pinko" notions.

I always knew there was something more to Big Bird's relationship with his no eared furry friend. I mean what kind of name is Aloysius Snuffleupagus? A commie for sure.

I'll bet he lost those ears during an interrogation.

However, we can't just dismiss Shapiro as another right-wing nut. I mean he is, but he's a well financed right-wing nut.

His book was published by Broadside Books, which is owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch of course, is the man behind Fox News, and it was he who helped Stephen Harper to launch Fox News North.

Broadside Books is the official publisher to the Tea Party.

Is This a Laughing Matter?

Brian Lilley closes his segment by saying that his accusations of Communist leanings had hit a nerve with the Ottawa media, who were "touchy" on the subject. He didn't hit a nerve, so much as a funny bone, but we do have to take this "commie" stuff seriously, because there are people out there who believe it.

Remember, Anders Breivik, though he railed against Islam, went after politicians and affiliates of the Labour Party in Norway. Killing children before they grew up to be "lefties".

He also saw a "conspiracy among the media and political elite" to silence his views.

The women's movement hit a snag in the early 1900s, when their leaders were accused of being engaged in Communism. This made it difficult for them to find work or be published.

A list of Americans suspected of Communism, include: Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, New Deal Liberals, Democrats, Critics of McCarthy and McCarthyism, American Civil Liberties Union and Civil Libertarians, Rock and Roll musicians, Gay activists and gays and lesbians, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, Librarians and Library patrons, Union leaders, Film stars and Hollywood writers, University Professors and public school teachers, scientists, some Artists and Painters, Feminists and leaders of the women's movement, Peace Groups, The Girl Scouts, American Writers and Playwrights, etc., etc.

And those targeted by Joseph McCarthy were not laughing.

I'd like to think that Canadians are smarter than this, but then I thought we were too smart to elect Reformer Harper, and we will have had at least a decade of the neocon before he will be voted out (I hope).

(Do you think the neoconservatives are "breeding like rabbits"?)

So is Brian Lilley really the next Joe McCarthy? Hardly.

I see him as more of a Charlie McCarthy. A funny little puppet who makes us laugh.

But if you see Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus lurking about, be on your guard. Who knows what they're cooking up.

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 Women and Their "Christian Values"

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

The new women's movement, operating within the neoconservative movement, is bizarre to say the least. They are vocal opponents of rights for women, and advocate for a patriarchal society.

And they do this through the broader Christian Right revolution that is influencing many governments, including ours; all done under the banner of "family values" and "Christian values".

So what's it all about?

Hypocrisy is a "Christian Value"?

The catalyst for REAL Women of Canada was Liberal cabinet minister, Judy Erola, who championed women's rights.

For Beverly LaHaye and her Concerned Women of America, it was
feminist leader Betty Friedan.

For Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum, it was power.

Schafly was one of the original anti-feminist voices, who launched a decades long campaign against the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). However, she stepped up her campaign when Ronald Reagan was elected, who himself stated, that he wanted it gone.

Reagan had run for the Republican leadership three times, but was rejected because he was considered to be too extreme, especially with his anti-communist stance.

The third time was the charm, but only because he allowed the Religious Right to handle his campaign, led by the late Paul Weyrich.

Once elected, he was forced to make good on his promises, and allow the "evangelicals" to take a leading role in policy making.

One of those evangelicals was Gary Bauer, who became Reagan's domestic policy advisor. Bauer gave Schlafly and her followers an "in".

Bauer's first order of business, after silencing his staff who were making outrageous statements to the press, was to "usurp the feminists".

Women belonged in the home, popping out babies and propping up papas. Career women were threatening the family, and children in daycare were being "brainwashed".

We get the message. But do they?

Bauer's wife was a career woman, and her children were put in daycare at the earliest possible moment. Carol Bauer claimed that she went back to work the day she came home from the hospital.

Beverly LaHaye once stated that she only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home.

Phyllis Schafly is a Harvard educated lawyer, the author of several books, and twice ran for Congress.

Gwen Landholt, President of REAL Women of Canada, is also a lawyer. I'm pretty sure that's considered to be a career.

In fact, the women involved in this anti-feminist movement, have made CAREERS out of their involvement in this anti-feminist movement. There is a circuit of conferences that they attend, enormous numbers of publications that have to be printed and distributed, websites that need to be maintained, and interviews on radio and television, where they must make an appearance.

And most receive a pay cheque, while preaching against the very thing that they are doing.

So we could then say that hypocrisy is now a "Christian value".

Self Loathing is a "Christian Value"?

Combing through the websites of these anti-feminist organizations, you really get the sense that these people hate women. They have become so focused on raising the males to the level of domestic gods, that they have forgotten the importance of protecting, not only women's rights, which they believe should not exist, but women themselves.

When Statistics Canada released its report on domestic violence, Gwen Landholt went ballistic, claiming that men were often the victims of domestic violence too.

Phyllis Schafly opposes any money going to protect women from domestic abuse, or even raise awareness to the problem.

Feminist ideology about the goal of gender-neutrality and the absence of innate differences between males and females goes out the window when it comes to the subject of domestic violence. Feminist dogma is that the law should assume men are batterers and women are victims.

What nonsense.

Does passing laws against drunk drivers mean that we assume that every driver is intoxicated. It's about protection against those who are.

These right-wing women's movements fear that if we raise too much awareness, it will threaten their idea of the "family". It could lead to too many divorces, if battered women seek a way out.

They blame the woman for everything.

They believe that "single mothers" are a scourge, but what of the men who made them single mothers? The boyfriends who didn't want the responsibility of raising a child? Men who thought they'd found better or simply didn't want to be married anymore?

Their counterparts, like the Promise Keepers take care of that I guess, encouraging men to take responsibility, and not worry if they knock the little woman around now and then. The misogynist females will take care of that by attacking laws that could risk jail time.

They are the man. They are the god. Grunt, grunt!

What a horrible philosophy. You would think that if they really cared about "family values" they would not want to see children raised in an abusive home. But they don't care, just so long as that home includes both a mother and a father.

I shudder to think what some "conservative" women must endure, simply because they fear what would happen if they decided to opt out. Not only fear from the abusive husband, but fear of the wrath of people like Landholt and Schaffly.

So we could then say that "self loathing" in the form of female misogyny is now a "Christian value".

Love of money is a "Christian Value"?

In his new book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, Michael Lindsay reminds us that evangelism is entrepreneurial.

It's big business, and every big business needs a steady cash flow, if the business is to survive.

Lindsay tells us that in order to keep funds flowing, many of these groups need "a devil". Something they can demonize. And the only way they can effectively stave off this "devil" is with your money.

Gwen Landholt, president of REAL Women, stated that Paul Martin did them a huge favour with his same-sex marriage bill, suggesting that they owed him a debt of gratitude. Their membership swelled and the donations soared "for the first time since the abortion debate". (Armegeddon Factor, p. 74)

The Religious Right/Christian Right/Moral Majority is run like a huge multinational corporation, and many people are becoming enormously wealthy because of it. And remember that as "religious" organizations, they pay NO TAXES. They contribute nothing to the public purse, but want to dictate how it is spent.

And the money flows.

Anti-feminism, abortion, the "homosexual agenda". All money in the bank. Doesn't matter what their own personal views may be, it's what they can sell.

I'm reminded of a story told by former evangelical crusader, Charles Templeton, about Billy Graham. Both men did the circuit together, but Templeton was becoming disillusioned with what they were selling, especially the story of creation.

So he went to Graham, and asked him how he could accept creationism as 'fact' when there was irrefutable evidence that the world had evolved over millions of years. Graham, an intelligent man, told him "I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power." (Farewell to God, p. 7-8)

He didn't have to believe it, he only had to market it.

I have no real problem with Billy Graham, and respect the fact that he was the first modern day "crusader" to remove the ropes that separated black followers at these events. But that does say a lot about the movement.

So we could then say that the quest for money is now a "Christian value".

Racism is a "Christian Value"?

The newest fundraising campaigns for many of these organizations, is the "devil" of Islam, and the fear that Muslims will out breed the white race. Not unlike Harper's National Citizens Coalition, that ran a lucrative campaign in the early 1980s, when they raised the alarm that the Asians would soon out breed white Canadians. They had it all worked out.

Link Byfield, now a member of the Wildrose Party in Alberta, spoke at a REAL Women's conference, where he sounded the alarm over a new set of "breeders".

Mr. Byfield's talk was originally to have been on "The Effect of Feminism on the Media", but he declared that the topic was simply too depressing. He spoke, instead, on his view of "Three Futures for Mankind," two of which are quite dark, while one is bright. Which will become our eventual fate?

Scene I. If Islam Prevails

An invasion by Islam will not be by force of arms, as they do not have the technology for that. The power of Islam is in its birth rate. Islam cannot be removed or replaced, and it grows by way of its large families. In Britain, there are entire Muslim communities, with mosques going up everywhere. Although Muslims share the Christian notion of family, Islam also demands submission. Democracy is a Christian philosophy and, therefore, does not exist or, at best, is only a peripheral force in most Muslim countries.

Link's father, Ted Byfield, was one of the founders of both the Reform Party and the Civitas Society, the policy arm of the Harper government. About as "fundamentalist" as you can get, he once stated that the only thing that government should legislate was morality.

Link Byfield was also one of the founders of the Northern Foundation, which became an umbrella group for Canada's far right.

"... 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, p. 121)

Harper would later say that he was kicked out of the Northern Foundation because he wasn't right-wing enough. (Hard-Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, p.430)

However, I find that hard to believe, since their views are in line with his policies.

When it was learned that neo-Nazis had infiltrated the Reform Party, Harper and his boss Preston Manning claimed not to know. But one, Rob Overfield, insisted that he told the Reform Party leadership, and was assured that they had no problem with it. (Report to the Solicitor General of Canada Security Intelligence Review Committee December 9, 1994)

"The expulsion enraged the Heritage Front, which saw the Reform Party's policies as very similar to, if not indistinguishable from, its own. How could a party that went on record opposing immigration policies that "radically alter" Canada's ethnic make-up, turn around and shun a group like the Heritage Front, [Wolfgang] Droege asked, when the Heritage Front supports the very same approach? Privately, spokesmen for B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress admitted that Droege had a good point." (Web of Hate p. 243-44))

How is Byfield's claim that Muslims will out breed us any different from the Heritage Front or the English Defense league?

Hatred has just gone legit.

Isn't it ironic though, that throughout the 1990s, we could refer to Stephen Harper as being from the extreme right, and his party as neoconservatives. Yet today, just linking him to the Chicago School, will get you fired.

However, I guess we could say that racism is now a "Christian value".

Why Can't Feminists be Christians?

"The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things." Stephen Harper speech to Council for National Policy

Why do these Religious Right groups assume that feminists are Godless? According to John Baldock, who wrote a wonderful book, Women in the Bible:

Apart from a few women such as Eve, Mary (the mother of Jesus) and Mary Magdalene, the women in the Bible are generally eclipsed by their male counterparts.

This state of affairs not only mirrors the status assigned to women in Western society over the last 2,000 years, it also reflects the patriarchal nature of both the Jewish and Christian religions. And yet a closer study of the Bible reveals that women were once regarded as the equals of men rather than subject to them. We read of women who were priestesses in the ancient religions of the Near East, who served as judges and prophets to the early Israelites, and who saved the Jewish people on more than one occasion from extinction at the hands of their enemies. Even Wisdom, which is described in the Book of Proverbs as the 'fountain of life', was personified as a woman. (Introduction)

Religious scholar, Rita Gross, has also written extensively on feminism and religion.

They can be at odds but don't have to be.

So why has feminism become such a catalyst for the right-wing evangelical movement?

It's because if women want equality and careers, they won't be home making babies. It's that simple. It's why they have convinced the Harper government to write tax laws favouring single wage earner, heterosexual, married couples.

Now that across Europe they are raising the alarm about the return of fascism, we should be able to have an adult conversation about it. When I was in my 20s, I became interested in the Nazi movement in Germany, not because I sympathized, but because I was curious how an uneducated gutter rat, was able to become one of the most powerful men in the world.

It did not happen overnight.

If you remove the shadow of the Holocaust, not by denying that it happened, because it very much did and was horrendous, but simply by studying the success of the movement; you can learn a lot.

At the time, people in Germany never thought of Hitler as a dictator. When his party came to power in 1933, most adopted a wait and see attitude, not sure that he could deliver on his many promises.

They grew to like his nationalist stand and his promotion of the military. And they liked the fact that he was trying to create a true German identity. Something they could be proud of.

In Hitler's Beneficiaries, Götz Aly writes that "From its earliest days the Hitler regime favoured families over single people and childless couples." They introduced "joint tax returns for couples" and graduated income tax.

None of these things are wrong, and the promotion of family is not a bad thing, so long as you include all families. Hitler supported a nuclear Aryan-German family. The Religious Right supports a nuclear Judeo-Christian family.

Aly also points out the Nazi love of polls and their use of think tanks to sell their message.

The Holocaust was the result of nationalism run amok.

In Europe, many are seeing a return of fascism, and anti-fascist protest groups are emerging. If Canadians can't see that this new right-wing movement, is a form of fascism, then I'll just call this my "European edition".

Sadly, most Christians in Canada don't share the beliefs of the movement, but the noisy Christian Right, are the only voices being heard.

Will Canada Survive Another Recession?

News on the economic front is that we could be heading toward another financial crisis.

Canada survived the last one, because of measures put in place by previous governments. Measures that would not have been there, if Harper had had his way when Leader of the Opposition, because he pushed Paul Martin to deregulate the banks.

Fortunately, he didn't listen.

We learned through Wikileaks, that Flaherty and Harper really had no plan for the economy, only hoped that their expensive taxpayer funded ad campaign (more than a quarter of a million dollars), dubbed the Canada Action Plan, would lead us to believe that they did.

They had no plan B.

And since then, they have been steadily deregulating, so what will this mean for us?

We're bombing for oil on the credit card and have committed to massive military spending on hardware.

When Harper made a rare public appearance to take a stab at Nycole Turmel, my husband and I both said "My God. Does he ever look awful". He was pale and nervous, without his usual arrogance.

He looked worried.

Now I know why.

A Neocon Barbeque Cooks up a Plate of Ignorance

If you are wondering what Stevie is up to this summer, besides bombing for oil, wonder no more. He's cooking up neocon burgers, hold the lettuce, with his buddy Rob Ford.

I hope their insurance covers having both those men at the same event. Talk about high risk.

Harper is praising Ford for "cleaning up" something that wasn't really messy in the first place. But it soon will be.

Ford plans to close the libraries (can't have people reading. They might get ideas), sell the zoo and cut back on police. This after campaigning on putting more cops on the beat.

From an interview with the Globe's editorial board during his campaign:

Question: Do you honestly believe that adding police officers is a good use of money when the crime rate is dropping?

Ford: "I don’t think we can ever have enough police officers. Do you want 22 extra politicians ... or do you want 100 police officers? And a majority of police have said, I’d rather have 100 police officers. I truly believe that we can run this city with 22 politicians".

Neocons don't need politicians, only salesmen, because everything will be sold. Everything. If Tim Hudak helps to create the perfect storm in Ontario, there will be nothing left.

What little Mike Harris left us with, will be gone. Ford's father was a Harris MPP, so he learned from the master.

Yesterday, the big topic of conversation was that the interim federal NDP leader, Nycole Turmel, was a card carrying member of the Bloc.

This on top of learning that several new NDP MPs are Quebec sovereignists and that Jack Layton had promised that if he was ever prime minister he would repeal the Clarity Act.

Harper made a rare public appearance to state that the leader of a federal party should be committed to Canada.

This from a man who has erased our borders and sold us off to the Americans a piece at a time.

So even if every single NDP was a separatist, they would still be far more devoted to Canada than Harper ever thought of being.

I so dread these next four years.

Sorry Ezra. He's Not Just a Man in a Suit

While Ezra Levant and Sun Media "protest too much", the links between the Harper government, the English Defense League and the international patriot movement, which includes the Tea Party Express, continue to mount.

In the following Sun TV segment, Levant once again goes after the "anti-Israel, pro-terrorist" CBC. This time for suggesting that the Jewish Defense League was a terrorist organization.



Levant lists those on the U.S. State Department roll, which does not include the JDL.

That's because the JDL is on the FBI's list of domestic terrorist organizations. And for good reason. According to their files, the JDL has been involved in plotting terrorist attacks within the United States, including:

The two terrorist plots prevented by law enforcement in 2001 were being planned by domestic extremists. Ronald Mike Denton was planning to attack his former place of employment, the Chevron Oil Refinery at El Segundo, California, when he was arrested in March 2001. In December 2001 Irving David Rubin and Earl Leslie Krugel, members of the extremist Jewish Defense League, were arrested as they were in the final stages of planning attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the local office of U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa.

Both were charged in the incident.

The JDL was also involved in a letter bomb incident that killed an office worker.

LOS ANGELES -- A California court has sentenced to life in prison William Ross, who, together with the American-Israeli couple of Robert and Rochelle Manning, was charged in a 1980 mail-bomb killing.

The sentence closes a case that aroused strong emotions and protests among Orthodox and nationalist groups in Israel and Los Angeles and has dragged through the federal courts since 1988. According to court testimony, Ross, a member of the Jewish Defense League, enlisted the Manning couple, also JDL members, during the 1970s to construct and mail a booby trap.

So Mr. Levant. Meir Weinstein (aka Meir Halevi, aka Marvin Weinstein) is not just a man in a suit, and the Jewish Defense league is indeed a terrorist organization.

I've posted on them and their close relationship with the Harper government before.

Who is the JDL?

The Jewish Defense League was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City in 1968, and has been listed as a "right-wing terrorist organization" and a "hate group". They have been involved in the bombing of Arab and Soviet properties in the U.S, alleging that they were "enemies of the Jewish people".

Besides creating the JDL, Rabbi Kahane was behind the Kach Party in Israel, which was eventually banned as racist and undemocratic. They were behind the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, a terrorist attack on unarmed Muslim Palestinians, while at prayer, killing 29 and wounding another 125.

Meir Weinstein, the national director of the Canadian branch of the Jewish Defense League, joined the JDL, at the age of 20, after reading the book Never Again written by Meir Kahane.

And though he denies involvement with the Kach Party, despite the fact that both share a clenched fist logo, his inspiration, Rabbi Kahane, was behind both groups.

After the Rabbi's assassination in 1990, the Kach movement split in two, creating the Kach and Kahane Chai. And for Ezra Levant's information, both of these are on the U.S. State Department's anti-terrorist watch list, as well as Canada's.

So he might want to rethink his claim that his buddy Weinstein, is just "a man in a suit" who hates terrorists.

The English Defense League

In January of this year, Weinstein and the Canadian JDL, held what they called their "first" rally in support of the English Defense league. According to the National Post:

A “support rally” for the controversial English Defence League is scheduled to take place at the Toronto Zionist Centre on Tuesday night. Tommy Robinson, the EDL leader, will speak at the rally through an on-line hookup. It is believed to be the first Canadian rally for the EDL.

“I am disappointed that the JDL would support an organization whose record in the U.K. is one of violence and extremism,” said Bernie Farber, CEO, of the Canadian Jewish Congress. “This is more than unwise and I sure hope they reconsider this decision.”

The rally took place as planned.

Meir Weinstein, announced recently that his group would ally with the British organization, which is known for violence and extremism ...The JDL said it is forging ties with the British group to "take a stand against the forces of political Islam."

In an online hook-up with English Defense League founder Stephen Lennon, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson, the Briton said Canadians "need to wake up. The Islamicization of your country is on its way." The Canadian Jewish Congress has opposed the alliance between the two rightist groups, saying that while Islamic fundamentalism is "a real threat," combating it with "generalized hatred against Muslims, as does the EDL, is only a recipe for fuelling more conflict.

Republican candidate, Rabbi Nachum Shifren, travelled to England to speak at a rally, calling the targets of their hatred, "Muslim dogs", and Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, expressed support for the EDL, comparing it to the American Tea Party movement.

True "patriots" one and all.

Tommy Robinson is right.

Canadians do need to "wake up". But not to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, but to the threat of home-grown terrorist organizations, that have aligned themselves with our current government.

And thank you Ezra Levant.

I've spent days researching the EDL, Geert Wilders and Anders Behring Breivik, pouring over hours of video. But my best links come from you.

Maybe you'd do less damage to Harper's credibility, if you just stopped talking.