Neoconservatism has a Destructive god and is a Religion of Greed

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

"We must not undervalue our God-given blessings as a nation to such an extent that we let them be taken from us as we sleep." Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie

I've written a fair bit on Leo Strauss, the father of Neoconservatism, whose doctrine has given Canada politicians like Grant Devine in Saskatchewan, Ralph Klein in Alberta, Mike Harris in Ontario and of course our current federal government under Stephen Harper.

However, the neoconservatism defined by Strauss, was not really an economic theory. It was a blueprint for achieving and holding onto power.

Rick Salutin, just before being fired by the Globe, wrote a column: Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? In it he outlines the key ingredients to Strauss's Neocon stew: Secretiveness, Religion, Nationalism, Populism and Contempt.

But what of the economic theories of neoconservatism?

Their conventional wisdom is that if corporations are allowed free rein, with no obligations to workers or community, everyone will win. And even before George Bush proved this to be nonsense, after destroying both the economy and the soul of America, other neoconservative experiments had failed miserably. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas, neocons all, were train wrecks for the countries they governed. And yet Stephen Harper follows their theories like a religion.

Canadian journalist Madeliene Drohan suggested that neoconservatism "allowed the select few to enrich themselves at the expense of many." (1) Very astute.

Dalton Camp, former president of the federal progressive Conservatives, sounded the alarm a decade and a half ago. When answering the question of what neoconservativism looked like, he said "it looked like Hell, " and he meant that literally. A little piece of Hades here on earth, with the greedy wielding the pitchforks.

It has become clear that multinational corporatism and new patterns of cartelization have forever altered the longstanding relationships between business and society, between employer and employee, and between the nation state and the outside world. The result has been what we see around us: structural employment, falling incomes, a vanishing middle class, all in a climate of fear, anger, and disillusion. (2)

And Scott Reid sees a dramatic decrease in the fortunes of the middle class, that have been accelerated with our own federal neoconservative* experiment.

According to research from the Gandalf Group, 50 per cent of Canadians say their financial situation has deteriorated in the past year and one in five Canadians believe it will worsen further. Just this week, Angus Reid reported that household debt ranks as the primary anxiety on the minds of most middle-class Canadians. Fully 43 per cent of the country says their personal finances are in either poor or very poor shape. Unfortunately, people’s impressions are justified. Economists tell us that household debt in Canada has never stood at higher levels. Not in the recession of the early 1990s or the early 1980s. Not even during the Great Depression. Overdrawn lines of credit.

Maxed out charge cards. Borrowing against declining home equity. These are the financial facts of life for most working families. In short, middle-class Canada is struggling to keep its head above water. And it sees waves headed its way. (3)

And part of this problem was Harper and Flaherty mistakenly suggesting that Canada would not feel the pains of other countries because of their great handling of the economy. It was all smoke and mirrors, so now not only have Canadians maxed themselves out buying homes they couldn't afford and spending money they didn't have, but we are still stuck with the rotten paper bought up on our behalf.

The writing was on the wall for Canada when the Reform Party first reared it's ugly head, and though Stephen Harper has been credited with writing their policy, then president of the National Citizens Coalition, claimed that 2/3 of it was cribbed from the NCC handbook. (4)

Plagiarized from the playbook for the revolt of the rich.

Nietzsche put it perfectly, in The Will to Power: "The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men." This is a codicil for the comfortable, the affluent, and the obscenely rich in our time, as it was the inspiration for fascism earlier in our century.

The new order is not without its coterie of apologists and intellectual dandies. Indeed, it even has a political party of its own, called—irony of ironies—the "Reform" Party. Their models and values, as their political heroes, are American—the latter including such established mountebanks as Newt Gingrich, Al D'Amato, and Jesse Helms, and the ubiquitous pair of shabby parsons on the Christian right.

Among these trend-setting followers of the new conservatism, American style, are rising hosts of Canadian imitators and cross-breeders, fervently devoted to the reduction of government and the elevation of the oligarchy.

It seems to me a mistake to call neo-conservatism anything other than the enemy of the society those of my generation built over the years since the war. The differences are irreconcilable; there is no common ground. As a Tory Canadian, neo-conservatism is as alien to me as is Marxism or fascism or dadaism. It rejects the idea of Canada and the ideals that have, for so long, been the inspiration for the kind of society that has become a political wonder of the world.

Peter Lougheed, for many years the all-conservative quarterback in our nation's politics, has warned the Tory party not to set its face against the poor. He has also expressed his unease with the increased "Americanization" of our country.

For some time, while writing the columns in this book, I seemed to be alone in my concerns. This is no longer true. The general and the former Alberta premier may not agree with any of my views, but they share my concerns. They would, I am sure, put things differently; how differently, I cannot know. (2)

There are many of us who now feel like we're alone in our concerns. We know that neoconservatism is destroying our country and we also know that this is not what democracy looks like.

Initially the attack was on the poor, and the religious right was exploited to tell them that their poverty was their own fault. The devout were advised that these "enemies" were poor because God wanted them to be poor. This was Leo Strauss's instructions on how to control the ignorant masses.

But with Harper's agenda in full throttle, it is no longer just the poor who are suffering. The middle class, representing the majority of the population, is in serious trouble.

And yet what does Harper's ideology tell him to do? Provide even more tax cuts to corporations, buy fighter jets and make the supplier's lobbyist his chief of staff to make sure that he money gets into the right pockets, while snubbing his nose at a report with recommendations on helping the disadvantaged.

But not to worry. Neocon senator Hugh Segal advised the Harper government to "temper their message of austerity with compassion." (5)

We're about to be screwed, but they'll be gentle.

Footnotes:

*In many ways I thought that Paul Martin was a neocon, which is why I never voted for him. However, he still felt a moral commitment to assist the most disadvantaged Canadians. Harper not so much.

Sources:

1. Globe and Mail, May 1996.

2. Whose Country is This Anyway? By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 17-19

3. Financially, middle-class Canada is awash in a world of hurt, By Scott Reid, Globe and Mail, September 29, 2010

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

5. Not even a crumb from Harper, By Carol Goar, Toronto Star, October 2, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uniting the Right Was Not About Vote-Splitting

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

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

A later report by Laurence Putnam confirmed the divide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another uncle was Vincent Massey.

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

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

Footnotes:

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

Fraser Institute Paper Reveals That Stephen Harper is Not a Conservative

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

Throughout history there are a great many myths, and of course those myths then become facts and those facts become history. But for our time, one of the biggest myths is the labelling of Stephen Harper as a Tory, and his party as conservatives.

Anyone who has ever voted Progressive Conservative in the past, must know in their gut that this party is absolutely nothing like the Progressive Conservative Party that we are familiar with.

Can you imagine the wonderful Dalton Camp, former conservative strategist, ever working with someone like Stephen Harper? When he first learned that there was a movement to unite the Alliance Party (formerly Reform Party) with his conservatives, he was adamantly opposed, suggesting that the two parties had no common ground and that then leader of the Alliance Party, Stockwell Day, was "viewed by most Tories as embedded in the lunatic fringe." (1)

Lawrence Martin recently asked: Is there an old-style Tory in the House?

Is there a moderate Tory left in this land? There are many, of course. It’s just that they have no voice. They might as well be in cement shoes at the bottom of Lake Nipigon. This year, in particular, it has become evident just how much the old Tories of Robert Stanfield and Dalton Camp and Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark have been vanquished.

During their first years of governance, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives paid heed to the views of that progressive breed. But the party’s hard right now appears, with a few policy exceptions, to have assumed control of the agenda. And that agenda is about keeping out boat people, letting in Fox News, building new jails, reviewing affirmative action, killing the gun registry, playing down climate change, revamping the census and giving more voice to social conservatives.

However, I came across a decade old article published for the Fraser Institute, that lays it all out succinctly. Written by Laurence Putnam, it was entitled: An Analysis On The Differences Between the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada & The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.

I was a bit confused at first, because the Fraser Institute, with people like Jason Kenney, David Frum and Ezra Levant, worked very hard to unite these parties, and yet clearly this report detailed why such a union was wrong.

This analysis has been prepared in answer to pleas from various political personalities in Canada to unite the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. It is the goal of this paper to illustrate, with evidence of past elections, voter migration patterns, an examination of each party's culture and historical evidence to prove that any such unity between these two parties would alienate the moderate support base the Progressive Conservative Party enjoys and which must be captured to form a government.

It is the intention of this paper to successfully show how the Reform Party rose to prominence ... and how the Conservatives can work to ensure that movements such as the Canadian Alliance are not allowed to grow in the future.

What Putnam showed was that this would not be about "uniting the right", because the PC Party was not a right-wing party. I had mentioned this before, that in most ways there was little difference between the Liberals and PCs on policy, so elections were always about platform and personality. But the divide between the Reform/Alliance and the PC was a veritable chasm.

And they knew that.

So why did they do it, and why was it so successful?

I remember years ago reading an article in a May, 1939 issue of Liberty Magazine: Why Germany Will Not Go to War. In it the columnist laid out all the reasons why Adolf Hitler would not declare war in Europe. And what I found interesting was that everything predicted came true, and they lost as a result. And that's becasue what wasn't factored into the prediction was profiteering.

A lot of people stood to become very rich off that war, and they in fact did, including many American corporations. (George Bush's grandfather made his fortune financing the Nazis)

And this union of the right, as erroneously as it was labelled, was poised to make a lot of wealthy people wealthier. That's what neoconservatism is all about. And it's why they plucked Stephen Harper from the National Citizens Coalition, a group financed and run by multi-national corporations.

Stephen Harper himself has said that he got back into politics because he felt that the NCC no longer had any allies in government, with Brian Mulroney gone. And the NCC held his job open for four years, before naming another president. He was now working for them on the inside.

I'm going to break down Putnam's paper into several posts, because there are many startling revelations. I then intend to edit it down for a chapter in my E-Book, but for now the important thing is that Stephen Harper and his people deliberately perpetrated a fraud on the Canadian people, when they engineered a hostile takeover of the PC Party.

It puts so many past quotes and stories into perspective.

What was revealed to the Fraser Institute was that there were no grounds for a union. So instead they changed their strategy. And for that they went to Tom Flanagan, the Calgary School and founding member of both the Reform Party and Civitas Society, Ted Byfield.

Ted Byfield, the unabashed voice of the West since the Calgary School’s professors were pups, sees it another way – in terms Leo Strauss might have approved. “All these positions which Harper cherishes are there because of a group of people in Calgary – Flanagan most prominent among them,” Byfield says. “I don’t think he knows how to compromise. It’s not in his genes. The issue now is: how do we fool the world into thinking we’re moving to the left when we’re not?” (2)

I guess "you can fool some of the people some of the time", but who are they really fooling now? Harper's base has been reduced to those who know and relish the fact that he is not a Tory.

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 381

2. The Man Behind Stephen Harper, by Marci McDonald, From the October 2004 issue of The Walrus

The Creation of Stephen Harper's Sandbox

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

The creation of the Alliance party was the result of efforts by three neoconservative parties: The federal Reform Party, Ralph Klein's Alberta and Mike Harris' Ontario. The creation of the Conservative Party of Canada, came about through a hostile takeover of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

And though there were many warnings about the outcome of a neoconservative takeover, we didn't listen.

The wonderful Dalton Camp, a longtime conservative insider, opposed the notion completely. When he first learned of the attempt to unite the right he was livid, claiming that the conservatism of Stockwell Day "is viewed by most Tories as embedded in the lunatic fringe." (1)

But I think Frances Russel of the Winnipeg Free Press said it best. She felt that this was not going to be a "big tent" party as many were suggesting, but rather a sandbox.

One week into the launch of the latest "great right hope" and the portents are perilous for those who seek a "big tent" party capable of unseating the governing Liberals. So far, the proponents of a united right are making it clear they aren't interested in giving a real option to Canadians. They are only interested in fashioning their own little sandbox where they can play their own narrow ideological games.

Mr. Manning was positively giddy in his article in yesterday's Free Press. He thinks he's finally realized the dream he and his father put into book form back in 1967, the dream to create a party of ideologically pure social and economic conservatism to confront "the collectivist welfare state" that disregards "individual liberties and
responsibilities" and is an affront to "personal salvation."

Moderates within the Progressive Conservative Party must act quickly to ameliorate the harsh, hard-right image of the new party before it solidifies in the public's mind. The Harrises, the Mannings, the Longs -- and the Stephen Harpers -- are not living in political reality. (2)

And she was right, because the only way that Harper has been able to sell neoconservatism to Canada has been to operate in the shadows. Or as his former right-hand man Tom Flanagan once suggested, "fooling Canadians into thinking you're moving to the left when you're not". (3)

Senator Lowell Murray wrote a piece for the Globe and Mail urging Peter MacKay to reconsider.

Stephen Harper called last week for an "electoral coalition" between the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties. If our party's leader, Peter MacKay, goes down this road -- and he seems tempted to explore it -- he will waste precious time and political capital. And he will find it's a dead end.

... The fact is that the two parties are fundamentally different. That they are incompatible would soon become clear to Tory candidates trying to defend Alliance policies, and vice versa, in the unstable electoral cohabitation proposed by Mr. Harper and others. Reform conservatism, which is what the Alliance practises, relies on people's fear of moral and economic decline combined with nostalgia for a Canada that no longer exists. It spoils all the good arguments for the market economy by making a religion of it, pretending there are market criteria and market solutions to all our social and political problems. (4)

And even Norman Spector called it the 'Kiss of Death':

Stephen Harper wants to make "common cause" with newly elected Tory leader Peter MacKay in order to throw the Liberal rascals out of office. The Alliance leader says voters expect the two parties to present a single slate of candidates in the next election.

That's eyewash: Most Canadians -- including out here in British Columbia, where the Alliance traditionally elects the plurality of its MPs -- expect Paul Martin to be their next prime minister. They'd be appalled if Tory/Alliance backroom boys and girls came together to carve up the country for political gain. In truth, the proposal is largely tactical, a cleverly designed kiss of death for the Tories. (5)

What we now have is a sandbox, where Stephen Harper and his schoolyard bullies play their ideological little games, and for anyone who disapproves, they can expect to have sand thrown in their face or get a wedgie from hell.

It took Marci McDonald's book, the Armageddon factor (6), for us to realize what has happened to our country. The American Religious Right has accomplished in four years, what it took them thirty years to do their own country. But they couldn't have done it without willing accomplices, a sleeping electorate and the complete lack of an independent media.

And I don't mean that they have turned us into a 'Christian' nation, though a theocracy is definitely on the horizon.

We've been neo-conned, and I suspect we're about to find out just how painful that really is, as we are now on the verge of losing everything that once identified our country. And unless we can convince the parties on the left to unite for the common good, there may be no turning back.

"When I get through with Canada, you won't recognize it". Stephen Harper

That may be the only time he's ever told the truth, because I barely recognize it now.

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 381

2. Watch for a purge of Red Tories, by Frances Russell, Winnipeg Free Press, 24 October, 2003

3. The Man Behind Stephen Harper, The new Conservative Party has tasted success and wants majority rule, By Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2004

4. Don't do it, Peter: There is no good reason for Tories to climb into bed with the Alliance
by Senator Lowell Murray, Globe and Mail, June 23, 2003

5. An Alliance kiss of death: The Tories should call Stephen Harper's bluff by proposing a common platform for the next election, by Norman Spector, Globe and Mail, June 25, 2003

6. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3