Calgary School, Chicago School and the Committee on Social Thought

Canada's neoconservative movement has been slow to reach awareness in Canada, though throughout the 1990's, neoconservatism was a term used by many journalists and political pundits, to separate the conservatism of people like Mike Harris in Ontario, Ralph Klein in Alberta, Grant Devine in Saskatchewan and the Reform Party on the national scene; from the more traditional conservatism.

However, since Stephen Harper's "new" Conservative Party came to power, the mainstream media prefer to use the misnomer "Tory". A term that Stephen Harper himself, claimed to detest. "It's not my favourite term, but we're probably stuck with it." (Stephen Harper, Hamilton Spectator, January 24, 2004)

We are more familiar with American neoconservatism (on which our own movement is based), as represented by George W. Bush and his war mongers, and the free marketeers, who push deregulation, low or no corporate taxes, and the end of the welfare state.

However, the political philosophy is not simply about imperial wars or free market theories. It is a complete doctrine designed to change the way that we view the role of government.

Not a government that Abraham Lincoln famously claimed as being "of the people, by the people and for the people", but a government that is only there to serve the interests of profit.

The National Citizens Coalition, of which Harper has been a member for more than three decades, and once served as president, espouses the Milton Friedman theory of eliminating government altogether, except for "policing and the military" (1).

Policing to ensure that the poor don't touch the rich people's stuff, and the military, so we can lay our hands on the stuff belonging to the poor of other nations.

And this theory was galvanized at the University of Chicago, almost 60 years ago.

The Chicago School

In 1963, Time magazine ran a piece about the University of Chicago: The Return of a Giant, where they spoke of the difference a decade had made to the school.

In 1953 the University of Chicago was so close to academic anarchy that its graduate schools refused to honor degrees from its college, and only 141 freshmen entered the place. The limestone Gothic campus was marooned in a sea of slums and muggers; the trustees morosely considered moving the university out of Chicago. To sum up his problems, Chancellor Lawrence A. Kimpton told a story: "A Harvard professor about to come here went to his young son's room the night before they left Cambridge. The boy was praying: 'And now, goodbye, God. We're going to Chicago.'" (2)

What saved the school was a change in direction.

They couldn't compete for the academic liberalism of places like Harvard, so instead chose to create an academic conservatism, "where "classical" Economist Friedrich von Hayek ... [and] conservative Milton Friedman" became "Chicago's answer to Harvard's liberal John K. Galbraith."

However the economics of Friedman and Hayek, were not palpable to most Americans, and since they couldn't be pushed through the barrel of a gun, as happened in places like Chile and Argentina, it became necessary to change the way that people think.

And as sci-fi as that sounds, they set out to accomplish this with scholars, including Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt, who were encouraged to think outside the norm.

The Committee on Social Thought

The graduate studies in unorthodox thinking, had its own outpost:

The oddest graduate school in the U.S. is a far-out arm of the University of Chicago called the Committee on Social Thought. Physically, it is a dingy office under the eaves of the social science building. Its faculty, which includes Novelist Saul Bellow and Political Scientist Hannah Arendt, numbers only eleven. But its goal is as big as the world ... The committee is a generalist's elysium, a haven for "eccentrics" commanded to "think in new areas." If they do, the school gives them the degree of Doctor of Social Thought. (3)

Not all graduates churned out conservative essays, but the ones who did, very much changed the way the U.S. government did business.

In fact, one graduate who studied under Leo Strauss, the late Irving Kristol, called himself the "Godfather of Neoconversation".

He and scholars like him, flooded the market with books and essays, promoting free markets, and the freedom of the individual, including the freedom to be poor and sick, so long as you didn't expect the government to do anything about it.

The Calgary School

The first to use the term The Calgary School, as the Canadian equivalent of The Chicago School, was David J. Rovinsky, who wrote a paper for the Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies, entitled: THE ASCENDANCY OF WESTERN CANADA IN CANADIAN POLICY MAKING.

In the paper he confirms that neoconservatism is more than just an economic theory, but a political argument, and that the Calgary School is part of an "international neoconservative movement".

So while Stephen Harper and his government have adopted the economic principles of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, they represent something more profound.

An increasingly successful attempt at social engineering.

They want to completely change the way we view ourselves culturally and historically.

The rise of the west as a potent force in Canadian political life has had several consequences. It has turned federal and provincial governments toward fiscal conservatism, deficit reduction, and state retrenchment; led a reexamination of policies related to immigration and multiculturalism; and exposed the scope of judicial activism in the wake of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to new political debate. Most important, it has induced the rest of English-speaking Canada to take a new hard line on the question of recognizing Quebec’s distinctiveness in the Canadian constitution, to the point of encouraging the French-speaking province to leave the federation. Western Canada’s embrace of classical liberalism, together with its increasing demographic weight within the country, has the potential to make Canadian political debate in the early 21st century much different, and probably less distinctively Canadian, than it was for the bulk of the 20th. (4)

And The Calgary School is helping to accomplish that.

Like The Chicago School, they challenge civil rights and what they term "judicial activism". In Chicago, law professors "lambasted the U.S. Supreme Court for being "a policymaker without proper judicial restraint. (2)"

And Stephen Harper in 1997, told leading American Conservatives, "And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important ... "

I often quote a line that appeared in the Vancouver Sun several years ago, describing Harper's Reform Party:

"Reform is somewhat un-Canadian. It's about tidy numbers, self-righteous sanctimoniousness and western grievances. It cannot talk about the sea or about our reluctant fondness for Quebec, about our sorrow at the way our aboriginal people live, about the geographically diverse, bilingual, multicultural mess of a great country we are."

The Reformers, or more specifically, the neoconservatives, do not want us to "talk about the sea, our reluctant fondness for Quebec or our sorrow at the way our aboriginal people live".

So instead they create alternative Canadian stories, not the least of which is Calgary School's Tom Flanagan's book First Nations, Second Thoughts. In it he diminishes the importance of our First Nations, reducing them to just another band of immigrants.

But he is not the only Calgary scholar to try to change our history or the way we view ourselves. According to Rovinsky,

A look at classical liberalism among western intellectuals almost necessarily begins with David Bercuson and Barry Cooper. Bercuson, a University of Calgary historian, and Cooper, a political scientist at the same institution, each have a track record of publishing that features interest in neoconservatism and the Canadian west as a region. Bercuson has written a number of pieces on regionalism, and edited Canada and the Burden of Unity. Cooper has co-edited a book of comparative essays on neoconservatism in English-speaking countries and has written a stinging critique of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Bercuson 1977, 1981; Cooper 1988, 1994). Yet they truly established their notoriety with their 1991 book Deconfederation: Canada Without Quebec. They state openly that the most important issue for constitutional reform is the preservation of Canada as a liberal democracy rooted in individual rights. The most significant threat to liberalism in Canada is Queberes call for special status and recognition of collective rights rooted in culture ...

And again to Harper:

"The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum. 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." (5)

This shows that the Calgary School is alive and well in the Harper government. And before suggesting that Harper has abandoned his views on Quebec, we have to remember another Flanagan goal "how to convince Canadians that we are moving to the left, when we are not".

However, there is a more important book written by the Bercuson/Cooper team: Derailed: The Betrayal of the National Dream. In it they lay out the agenda, in a 'head in the clouds' idealism.

Bercuson and Cooper divide Canadian history into periods of good government and bad government, the latter broadly covering the Pearson, Trudeau, and Mulroney governments. Good government essentially refers to a government that worries about economic growth and that assumes that other good things, like national unity and social harmony flow from abundant material wealth. (4)

I guess they didn't hear the old adage that "money is the root of all evil".

Because the problem with this philosophy, is that "abundant material wealth" is concentrated at the top, and the "trickle down" theory, a myth.

It's important to view neoconservatism in the big picture of excessive greed and human suffering.

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, does an excellent job of exposing this. It was written in 2007, before the Wall Street induced "economic crisis", engineered to put the final nail in the coffin of the welfare state.

The Opposition has got to change their strategy, by changing the channel. When was the last time that healthcare was debated? I mean really debated?

When asked, Flaherty will stick to his one liner "we are not going to alter the transfer to the provinces." Not a word on protecting the Canada Health Act, that guarantees the right to universal healthcare for all citizens.

We have to understand that the neocon way is not the Canadian way. It is the American Republican way. The Calgary School way.

"Westerners, but especially Albertans, founded the Reform/Alliance to get "in" to Canada. The rest of the country has responded by telling us in no uncertain terms that we do not share their 'Canadian values.' Fine. Let us build a society on Alberta values." Stephen Harper

Getting rid of Stephen Harper anytime soon, is unlikely, but remember this. The Calgary School is already grooming Pierre Poilievre as his replacement. Oye!



Sources:

1. The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globalization, By Murray Dobbin, James Lorimer & Company, 2003, ISBN: 1-55028-785-0, Pg. 200-203

2. Universities: Return of a Giant, Time magazine, May 31, 1963

3. Universities: Generalist's Elysium, Time Magazine, January 03, 1964

4. THE ASCENDANCY OF WESTERN CANADA IN CANADIAN POLICY MAKING, By David J. Rovinsky, Policy Papers on the Americas, February 16, 1998, Volume IX Study 2

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

The Politics of Obscurantism: First You Obstruct

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

A friend sent me a link to a page on the political concept of Obscurantism, which is characterized by deliberate vagueness in an attempt to obscure the facts. He felt that this best described the Harper government's methods and he's absolutely right.

But it also describes the techniques used by Republican strategists. The same Republican strategists who taught Stephen Harper everything he knows.

And as many people are aware, much of this comes from the mastermind, Leo Strauss, who is said to be the father of the Neoconservative movement. Now and then those in the media will hint at Harper being a Straussian, but when Rick Salutin came right out and said it in a column for the Globe and Mail, he was fired.

Which actually adds further proof that this government is engaged in the art of obstruction and obscurantism. All governments do that to a certain extent, but none before in Canada, had it down to a science.

And in understanding Leo Strauss and his political ideas, while they may originate with Plato's 'Noble Lie', they are actually found in the rise and prolonged success of the Nazi Party. A blueprint for fascism. The definitive Obscurantism.

But I'm not talking about the war or the Holocaust, but simply how the Nazi Party was able to achieve such ultimate control of a nation. And they did it with a minority government.

If you read newspaper or magazine accounts of Adolf Hitler throughout the 1920's and early '30's, they are mostly unflattering and dismissive. They mock Hitler and his thugs. They were not called Nazi's but 'Hitler's Fascist Brown Shirts'.

In fact the term Nazi was not an abbreviation of their name: National Socialist German Workers Party, but a term coined by journalist Konrad Heiden, who followed Hitler for 23 years. He gave them the name when he would march with them in a loose infiltration to get his story. 'Nazi' he said was a Bavarian slang term meaning "country bumpkin" (1).

Time magazine began writing of them as early as 1923, yet they did not use 'Nazi' until 1935. They were simply the 'Fascist Brown Shirts'. And when they first entered the Reichstag, they did everything in their power to 'obstruct' as a means to 'obscure'.

In one parallel, Elizabeth May in her book Losing Confidence, describes some of the obstructive actions of the Harper caucus.

In one memorable Question Period, the question was about the safety of pet food in response to the tragic incident of poisoned pet food from China. The Conservative backbenchers started barking, "Woof, woof. Bow-wow" ... Heckling has also taken a crueler tone. Sexist taunts are more common*. Government MPs have even taken to loud booing of certain Liberal MPs they most dislike, even before a question can be asked. This is particularly the case for women MPs. For a while, whenever Judy Sgro rose to speak, the Conservatives would chant "pizza" in reference to the allegations from a campaign worker that she had violated elections laws by accepting free pizza for her volunteers. Although she was cleared by Elections Canada, chanting "pizza" seems to entertain the Conservatives. (2)

Now from Time Magazine and the behaviour of the Brown Shirts at the Reichstag (Parliament) in 1930.

At women's names the Brown Shirts crowed. "Kikeriki! Kikeriki! Kikeriki!" —German equivalent to Cockadoodle-doo! (Fascists both German and Italian, hold that women are respectworthy as hens, jeerworthy when by entering politics they try to be roosters.) On the first day of the Reichstag session absolutely nothing was done except to call and jeer the roll. (3)

A calculated attempt to obstruct.

And the Harper government continued this obstruction, even creating a manual on how to make sure that Parliamentary committees can't function properly. (4)

I think we need to grow up and start realizing that Neoconservatism is Fascism in it's political strategies. Leo Strauss was a product of this era. He feared Communism and hated Liberalism. As a young boy he became aware of the cruel aspects of Communist Russia when his parents offered safe haven to a group of Russian Jews, escaping a pogrom. They told horrible tales, which as a young Jewish boy, left him wondering if that could happen to him (5). His first brush with anti-Semitism.

As an adolescent he joined the Zionist youth movement, and became a member of the Blau-Weiss. Strauss would refer to it as "pagan-fascism", (6) and their leader, Walter Moses, liked to imitate Mussolini. It was here that Strauss claimed to have nurtured his authoritarianism, and the concept of a clique**, led by a dictatorial style leader.

He had an intellectual relationship with Nazi Carl Schmitt, and in fact it was Schmitt who got Strauss out of Germany before the worst took place. Strauss colleague Hannah Arendt once said that he tried to join the Nazi Party but was turned away because he was Jewish.

If we continue to squirm every time the Harper government is referred to as Fascists, we will never understand what is happening to our country. They are not Conservatives. They are not Tories. They are Straussian Fascists, and one of the documented strategies to gain and hold onto power, is to obscure and obstruct. Because Strauss believed that the people (us) are "intellectually unworthy of knowing the facts and truth about the government."

Footnotes:

*They even heckled Carolyn Bennett when she was discussing H1N1.

** Writer Paul Berman called neoconservatism ‘a clique with a style that is marked by ruthlessness.’ He saw in neoconservatism a dangerous ‘romance of the ruthless,’

Sources:

1. Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 07, 1944

2. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 71-72

3. GERMANY: Br, Time Magazine, October 27, 1930

4. Tories blasted for handbook on paralyzing Parliament, Canadian Press, May. 18, 2007

5. Why We Remain Jews," Lecture delivered by Strauss at the Hillel House, University of Chicago, 1962

6. Leo Strauss's 1923 celebration of "pagan-fascism" , By Alan Gilbert, Democratic Individuality, January 8, 2010

The Fraser Institute's Role

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

"The Fraser Institute is another formerly obscure group whose rise to prominence coincided nicely with the advent of Canada's neo-conservative politicians, and it has been front and centre of the far right's fight to rethink Canadians' political values and beliefs.... the Institute was set up in the same fashion as several other right-wing groups in the United States, employing a core group of researchers and also engaging like-minded neo-conservative academics from other countries to conduct specific studies.

"To further heighten the international and academic cachet of its work, a second board was set up and given prominence in institute literature, deliberately overshadowing the real power and corporate funds behind the organization. While the Board of Trustees represents a Who's Who of the business elite in Canada, it is almost never referred to; instead, the board of advisers has successfully been established as the academic window dressing. (1)

Friedrich Von Hayek, who is thought to be the pioneer of the libertarian movement, originated the idea of setting up fake scholarly organizations to supply authoritative studies demonstrating the superiority of markets over governments in solving all our problems. Why fake, asks Don Gutenstein. "Because a genuine academic organization would not start with a conclusion and then look for arguments and evidence to support it." (2)

The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 by Michael Walker, an economist from the University of Western Ontario and businessman T. Patrick Boyle, then a Vice President of MacMillan Bloedel. Most of the original financing came from the forestry giant MacMillan-Bloedel, who commissioned Walker to attack the NDP government of British Columbia, under then Premier Dave Barrett.

The Fraser has since worked continuously to forge greater ties with the United States, and began;

"... setting up a Centre for Canadian-American Relations to promote greater economic integration of the two countries. Harper has often voiced his support for deeper integration. It's another strategy for reducing the role of government."

"The Fraser has churned out books hyping hemispheric integration for 15 years. These studies make the point that Canadian prosperity is a result of trade with the U.S. and the free-trade agreements. If we want more prosperity, we need more integration. A 1996 publication, Money and Markets in the Americas: New Challenges, for instance, advocated a monetary union. Michael Wilson--Bay Street broker, Brian Mulroney's minister of finance, and Harper's ambassador to the U.S.--contributed a chapter." (2)

When Stephen Harper was helping Preston Manning to create the Reform Party, he visited the Fraser Institute to make sure they were still on board with creating a neoconservative alternative to the current conservative government, and they did not disappoint. In fact many of Harper's MPs were plucked from the Fraser, including Jason Kenney and Rob Anders.

The Fraser also had strong ties with Conrad Black, the man who helped to finance and create Canada's sharp right turn.

Former members of the board of trustees include David Asper, whose family owns CanWest Global, Canada's largest media corporation; Barbara Amiel, wife of Conrad Black; and David Radler, Black's former business partner. (3)

In 2004, Stephen Harper attended the Fraser Institutes 30th anniversary, and payed tribute to the organization that had played such an integral role in the success of the neoconservative movement:

The scene was the glitzy Imperial Ballroom of Calgary's Hyatt Regency, where 1,200 adoring libertarians, conservatives, and reactionaries paid $300 each to hear four prominent conservative politicians--Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, Preston Manning, and Harper--pay tribute to the Fraser's success in pushing political thought in Canada to the right, helping make their careers possible. (2)

Next: Conrad Black's Role - Media Manipulation

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg 420-421

2. Harperstein, By Donald Gutstein, Straight Goods, July 6, 2006

3. Wikipedia

Chapter Sixteen Continued: Armed Intellectuals

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

"Only the ruin of all made him ruler over all." Konrad Heiden

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely politician, and even less likely a world leader. And yet this very ordinary man became an extraordinary public figure, whose face is one of the most recognizable in the western world, even more than half a century after his death.

There have been many books written about his rise to power, using his childhood as an excuse for his later evil.

But I see something else. I see him as more of a protagonist. The central character in a literary plot. The leading actor cast by successful playwright and stage director Dietrich Eckart, who was with him almost constantly after discovering him in a beer hall in Munich.

He taught him how to speak and how to use his arms for dramatic effect. Characteristics that might have been seen as flaws by others, were exploited. Hitler's natural jerky movements, and gravelly voice as a result of mustard gas during the war, all played into the mystique.

His character: Vladimir Soloviev's Antichrist.

And when studying the creation of Adolf Hitler, it's not too difficult to recognize a familiar pattern. He is probably the best case study for the phenomenon of image politics. A chameleon who would become the perfect personification of the leader of many causes, while being the champion of none.

Because the only thing that Adolf Hitler really believed in, was his own greatness.

The Validity of a Movement

When members of the Thule Society came up with the idea of creating a party, it was the natural progression of an organization that was becoming increasingly political. They viewed the lawlessness of post-war Germany as a threat to their cause.

Rape, promiscuity and abortion was on the rise. The grand plan of creating a perfect Aryan race was becoming less attainable. There was a "Jewish conspiracy" to take over the world. They needed a miracle.

But that miracle did not arrive as the result of the efforts of the upper echelon of the Thule Society, who were holding seances to conjure one up; but from one of the lower members who creatively "conjured up" the long awaited saviour of the Teutonic races.

And while the resulting party would be one based purely on ideology - the ideology of a society that dabbled in the occult; the infrastructure for such a party was built through earthly endeavours.

Before assuming power they spent more than a decade creating a shadow government, shaping public opinion and selling the idea of a noble cause. To German citizens they were going to save Germany and to the moneyed people of the Thule Society, they were going to save the Aryan race.

But such lofty goals could not be achieved without a veritable army. An army of what Heiden would call "armed intellectuals".

... thousands of youthful, ex-Army officers were streaming back from defeat to poverty and unemployment in the Weimar Republic. They were "armed intellectuals," war-hardened products of Germany's prewar universities. They became an army of the armed bohemians, of heroes and murderers by conviction .

. . They had lost prestige, social position, ideals—"tossed this way and that way," wrote one of them, "just for the sake of our daily bread; gathering men about us and playing soldiers with them; brawling and drinking, roaring and smashing windows—destroying and shattering" . . . They drew to them the flotsam, the stragglers living on the fringe of their class . . . the unemployed . . . the declassed of all classes .... an upper layer that has lost its hold in society seeks the people and finds the rabble ...

... They found their leader in the lowest mass of their subordinates. The spirit of history, in its fantastic mockery, could not have drawn an apter figure. Raving Dervish ... the [formerly] homeless derelict from the Viennese melting pot ...this man who exhorted them with all the semi-education of his age, using miserable German, defective logic, tasteless humor and false pathos ... (1)

And they would soon draw more foot soldiers from all levels of society. Labourers, teachers, public servants et al; all saw in Adolf Hitler what they wanted to see. A man who represented them.

Gottfried Feder and Party Economics

Just as William Aberhart's Social Credit Party was intent on changing the way that Alberta handled it's finances, the Thule Society that was grooming Adolf Hitler, also had plans to change the way the Germany did business.

As part of his indoctrination Adolf was introduced to another Thule member, Gottfried Feder, and it is said that he finally agreed to join the German Worker's Party after listening to Feder speak. (2)

Feder's lecture was about "Jewish finance capitalism" and he showed an open hostility towards wealthy bankers and spoke of 'breaking the shackles of interest'. He believed that all German banks should be nationalized and he called for the abolishment of interest.

In February 1920, together with Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler, Feder drafted a paper, called the "25 points" which became the party's platform. When the paper was announced on February 14, 1920, more than 2,000 people attended the rally.

And just as Social Credit clubs were springing up across Alberta, a momentum was building for a regime change in Germany. Finally there was a political movement with clear plans to rescue the country from sure ruin.

Chapter Sixteen Continued: The Beer Hall Putsch

Footnotes:

*He would later have to tone down the rhetoric, because of the heavy support to the party by wealthy industrialists and would only become the under-secretary to the minister of economics, when the future Nazi Party formed a government.

Sources:

1. Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 07, 1944

2. Hitler: Profiles in Power, by: Ian Kershaw, Longman House UK, 1991, ISBN: 0-582-08053-3, Pg. 21

The Fraser Institute: From Chickens to Iron Ladies

The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 in British Columbia, to provide alternative policy to what some feared was an attempt to turn Canada into a socialist country.

In it's early days it supported the British Columbia Social Credit Party of William Bennet, and it's founder Michael Walker, even spoke to the Premier's cabinet.

Early influences were Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan's economic advisor, and famed free marketeer, Friedrich Hayek.

Hayek, who became a Fraser Institute adviser, originated the idea of setting up fake scholarly organizations to supply authoritative studies demonstrating the superiority of markets over governments in solving all our problems. Why fake? Because a genuine academic organization would not start with a conclusion and then look for arguments and evidence to support it. (1)

When Walker was first establishing the Fraser, he also got direction from the British; Institute for Economic Affairs, where Margaret Thatcher would later snatch two of her advisers; Alan Waters and Ralph Harris. (2)

The IEA was founded by Antony Fisher, a man who made a fortune after introducing factory chicken farming to Britain. He had read a summary Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and became hooked on free market economy.

Thatcher was also greatly inspired by Hayek, and governed primarily from his theories. The think tank that Hayek suggested Fisher create, became a great propaganda vehicle for her policies.

The concept of these think tanks is brilliant. They register as a charity, entitling them to endowments, and tax free fundraising; yet they serve as a propaganda arm for party politics.

The late author, Pierre Berton, had denounced the institute as reflective of right-wing bias and Mel Hurtig said the Fraser Institute only published reports that espouse its right-wing view of the world. "I never have in the past, nor do I expect to in the future, ever pay serious attention to anything published by the Fraser Institute." (3)

And an article in The Province magazine, seems to support past ties to Social Credit:

The organizations which support the Fraser Institute ... appear to be dominating B.C. politics through their use of the institute as a propaganda and government lobby instrument, says a report released by the Solidarity Coalition.... "Virtually the entire range of big forestry based capital in B.C. has membership linkages of a direct or indirect type with the Fraser Institute.... For the large corporations, sponsorship of the Fraser Institute produces a variety of benefits, both immediate and longer-term. In many instances, there is a direct connection between the policies of the institute and the interests of corporations."

The report concludes that the provincial government "has leaned heavily on the Fraser Institute to provide an ideological rationalization" for its recent program-chopping legislation. (4)

When the Reform Party was being created, Stephen Harper paid a visit to the Fraser, and his relationship with them has been mutually beneficial.

Just a year after the Fraser's anniversary, Harper was prime minister and it was payback time. Buried in his first budget was a provision to exempt from capital gains tax donations of stock to charity. Adding this new exemption to the existing tax credit for donations to charities means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars he donates. Taxpayers pick up the rest.

The Fraser Institute is a registered charity. Of course, not only the Fraser will benefit from this new exemption. There are many thousands of registered charities in Canada, but only a few are likely to see their funding increase. Expect large endowments to come the Fraser's way. The institute's annual budget is $6 million and climbing. Hundreds of newly minted Calgary paper multimillionaires own shares in oil companies that have skyrocketed in value over the past few years.

Their shares will continue to rise as long as the government doesn't apply the provisions of the Kyoto Accord. Now they can help the conservative cause at little cost to themselves. Critics of the Fraser Institute will have to grit their teeth, pay their taxes, and bemoan the fact that they are supporting its work. (1)

Sources:

1. Harperstein, Straight.com, By Donald Gutstein, July 6, 2006

2. Marketing the market, Vancouver Review, By: Jon Steeves, Summer 1992

3. Berton, Hurtig slam Fraser Institute.., Vancouver Sun, September 22, 1987:

4. Fraser Dominates Politics, The Province, October 27, 1983

--------------------------------------------------------------

Continuation:

* The Fraser Institute, Roger Douglas and Revisionist History

How to Create a Business-Financed Propaganda Infrastructure

Think tanks are not a new concept, and have been around for some time. Often associated with institutes of higher learning, they were a vital tool for any government.

Initially, however, their political purpose was to aid legislators with policy proposals, by providing data relevant to their decision-making, prior to putting it into action.

For instance, if they were drafting policy dealing with unemployment, they might commission reports on labour demands, and the potential for providing training programs to meet those demands. That kind of thing.

However, most of the think tanks now, that provide the infrastructure for the neoconservative/reform agenda, work in the reverse.

They are not expected to give advice on policy. Instead, the politicians present their policy, and ask the 'think tank' to sell it, with reports that get fed to the media, or in pamphlets published by the institute. Therefore, any facts and figures must match the finished product, not help to create it.

The number of these so-called think tanks that help to sell the neoconservative agenda, have grown dramatically during the last two decades. And yet many of them are funded by the same industries and foundations.

And their reports are very similar, giving the appearance of a broader consensus, when in fact; they were all just presented with the same foregone conclusion.

One group that has provided a great deal of support to the reform movement, is the Donner Foundation. Right-wing journalist and author, Adam Daifallah spoke of Donner as:

... the lifeblood of conservative research in this country. A decade ago, with a mission to “encourage individual responsibility and private initiative to help Canadians solve their social and economic problems,” and an annual giving budget of over $5 million, the Donner made a huge difference. From 1993 to 1999, under the leadership of executive directors Patrick Luciani and Devon Cross, it provided seed money to start a host of topnotch free-market think-tanks across Canada: the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the Montreal Economic Institute, the Frontier Institute, the Society for Advancing Educational Research (dedicated to promoting charter schools), the conservative The Next City magazine (now defunct), and Energy Probe (a free market–oriented environmental organization). (1)

Perhaps the most influential for the Harper government though has been the Fraser Institute. Before helping to create the Reform Party, Stephen Harper spent a great deal of time at the Institute, and the relationship has grown considerably since then.

Sources:

1. Rescuing Canada's Right, By: Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin, Western Standard, November 8, 2004

Lies and Videotape Help to Pave Canada's Road to Neoconservatism

The above video shows the fall of Robert Muldoon in 1984, as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. After a long meeting with a backbencher, who threatened to vote with the opposition over nuclear-free legislation, Muldoon called a snap election. But with the early use of videotape, he was caught in an obviously inebriated condition, and that image would contribute to his fall.

David Lange would rise to power, and he in turn would choose Roger Douglas as his minister of Finance, a man who would turn the country inside out and upside down; with a series of cuts and massive deregulation.

Roger Douglas was not really a follower of Leo Strauss, though his policies were in line with the Chicago School of Economics. It would probably be more accurate to call him a Libertarian, fashioned after the political philosophy of Frederic Bastiat. He believed in the freedom and responsibility of the individual, and not the cradle to grave responsibility of government to look after it's citizens.

If he borrowed anything from Leo Strauss, it was the necessity of deception.

Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. (1)

Though the Labour Party of Roger Douglas was definitely left-wing, once elected it took a sharp right turn. Douglas would later advise:

"... beware the risks of candid disclosure before a fickle electorate, strike quickly once in power, define a total agenda, establish the essential control agencies, move simultaneously on a variety of policy fronts, embed the reforms as deeply as possible in legal and market channels so as to prevent early reversal, keep your nerve when faced with popular or electoral resistance and allow the programme to do its work." (2)

Stephen Harper learned how to avoid the risks of candid disclosure before a fickle electorate by 2006. It wasn't enough to just erroneously have people believe that he was Tory, to cash in on a 150 year old tradition. He had to keep his future plans from the public.

His electoral platform was more consistent with conservative principles, and he no longer spoke of things that spooked Canadians, that got him in trouble during the 2004 election campaign.

Things like the Belgian model he wanted to adopt, that divided Canadians along cultural lines, instead of by provinces. Two-tier health care was also left off, though he has been steadily moving in that direction.

And he, like Lange and Douglas, had the added bonus of capitalizing on a scandal. In fact a poll taken soon after his 2006 victory, revealed that the majority of people who voted for the Reform-Conservative Party, did so not because of their policies, but to punish the Liberals.

Who knew they could very well end up punishing themselves.

Roger Douglas would be a big influence on our neoconservative government, but the results of his slash and burn policies were devastating for the average New Zealander :

The man who would destroy that protectionist shield was Lange's Finance Minister Roger Douglas, a diminutive, dogged accountant who unleashed free-market policies with such pace that they blindsided most New Zealanders — including Lange. Douglas floated the New Zealand dollar, wooed foreign banks, wiped away controls on credit, foreign-exchange transactions and import tariffs.

The once sacrosanct farmers lost their state subsidies. The effect was akin to a department-store-sale-day stampede. Masses seized the early — and oftentimes false — fruits of Douglas' promarket policies. More than 40% of all adults ended up owning shares on the back of newly available credit; many in fresh and often questionable enterprises. (3)

A lot of people got very rich, but more became horribly poor.

Saskatchewan political economist, Dr. John Warnock, travelled to New Zealand to study the effects of what New Zealanders dubbed 'Rogernomics.' The figures tell a story of devastation - a word used by New Zealand's own agricultural minister to describe the state of agriculture in four years after the 'reforms': A 40 per cent drop in farm income; a 50 per cent drop in the value of farm land; a policy of paying 3,000 farmers incentives of $ 45,000 to leave and the suggestion that another 15,000 (out of 79,000) should follow them.

Unemployment, which had been at 4 per cent before Douglas's reforms, jumped to over 12 per cent in just over a year and is still increasing.

"Douglas completely eliminated regional development grants and subsidies to rural services. Says Warnock, 'They had things like subsidized petroleum - regardless of where you were the price was the same - subsidized train service, bus service, airport service. They privatized all these things and the prices immediately skyrocketed.' A massive de-population of the countryside resulted, and approximately 40,000 New Zealanders per year have since left the country for Australia to find work since 'restructuring' took effect.

This should give you a glimpse into how Canada will look, once Harper's agenda is fully realized. So many things have already been done behind our backs. Many irrevocable.

1. Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception, Jim Lobe, May 19, 2003

2. "The New Zealand Experiment: A Canadian Perspective", By Peter Clancy, Electronic Journal of Radical Organizational Theory, June 1996.

3. 50 Years in the South Pacific, 1979-1989 David Lange, Time Magazine, By Bernard Lagan, October 29, 2009

4. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Author: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 113-114