Gary Bauer's Focus is the Harper Government's Vision

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

Another soldier in the war against American women, who helped to the launch a similar war against Canadian women, is Gary Bauer.

Bauer was with the Moral Majority/Religious Right political movement, that helped to run Ronald Reagan's campaign for President. As reward, he was appointed to the Education Department, as the "family policy" czar, and his first order of business was to "usurp the feminists" (1).

With that accomplished, the Department of Education, then directed the effort to crown the fathers. As Susan Faludi said, "If the "pro-family" movement was "pro" anything, it was paternal power". The same has been said of REAL Women of Canada. (2)

To many, the creation of a "family policy" office would suggest an office committed to helping families with things like financial aid, and medical or legal assistance, but that was not the case. Instead they churned out lectures on how the American family should "behave".

And in a further attack against the Civil Rights movement, Bauer told civil-rights leaders: "The values taught on the `Cosby' show would do more to help low-income and minority children than a bevy of new federal programs. . . . a lot of research indicates that values are much more important, say, than the level of welfare payments."

Not everyone could accomplish what the Huxtables accomplished, with a doctor father and lawyer mother, and that includes most white families. However, the Religious Right's attitude on racial issues has not changed since Reagan's time, as witnessed by their latest offspring, the FAMILY LEADER, and their suggestion that slavery was good for the black family.

However, women and blacks were not the only targets of Bauer's office"

[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general [C. Everett Koop] to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers ..... Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them. (3)

Gary and Carol Bauer: Your Typical American Family

Bauer's office promoted the nuclear family, as laid out in a fifty-two-page diatribe, that senator Daniel P. Moynihan, referred to as "less a policy statement than a tantrum."

"The Family: Preserving America's Future" opens with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: "If the mother does not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a next generation that is worse than none at all." The pages were filled with attacks on "women who work, women who use day care, women who divorce", and "women who have babies out of wedlock".

His "recommendations" to save the family included a list of punishments for girls and mothers: "bar young single mothers from public housing; revive old divorce laws to make it harder for women to break the wedding bonds; deny contraceptives to young women". Mothers who stay home, he suggested, should get tax breaks; "the more babies, the more credits".

With such strong opinions you would think that Bauer and his wife Carole, were living this desired family life. But they weren't.

It comes then as a bit of a surprise to learn that Bauer has subjected his own children to this leftist institution—for nine years. (Bauer called daycares "Marxist")

He can explain it, he says. His use of day care was "different" and "better" because he placed his children in "home-based" day care—that is, an unlicensed center run out of a woman's living room. (It's unclear how this is better: a national review of child abuse statistics at day care centers finds that the most incidents of abuse have occurred at such unlicensed sites.) At any rate, Bauer says, a bit defensively, it's not like his kids went directly from the maternity ward to the day care nursery. His wife, Carol, waited "at least three, four months" before she returned to work. (1)

However, wife Carol remembers it differently:

"Actually, I went back to work six weeks after Elyse was born," says his wife ... At the time of her daughter Elyse's birth in 1977, Carol Bauer explains, she was a top assistant to Congresswoman Margaret Heckler; she couldn't just quit.

A lack of federal assistance programs for mothers also played a role in her decision: "There's no set leave policy on the Hill," she points out. Financial considerations entered into it, too: "We had bought a house and we had a mortgage." And then there was that other impulse that she just couldn't seem to squelch: "It wasn't just economics. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work. I loved work." She laughs. "I mean, when I had Elyse, I literally took my work with me. After I got out of the hospital, I was working the next day at home."

For years, at eight o'clock every morning, the Bauers dropped off Elyse, and eventually their second daughter, Sarah, at day care, put in a full day of work, and then picked up the girls on the way home, usually after six o'clock. The children spent so much time at day care, in fact, Carol Bauer says, that when it came time for Elyse to enter kindergarten, they enrolled her in the school in the center's neighborhood rather than their own. How did the girls feel about day care? "Oh, fine," Carol Bauer says. "They were very happy there. For them it was normal."(1)

Like Beverly Lehaye, one of the founders of REAL Women's inspiration: 'Concerned Women for America', Carol Bauer only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home. When she finally did drop out of the workforce, Bauer found "nesting" difficult, and was only happy when she spent most waking hours doing volunteer work.

Oh, and that "family values" man, Gary Bauer.

He was alleged to have had an affair with a 26-year-old staffer (deputy campaign manager Melissa McClard), prompting nine members of his staff to quit. He denied that it was an affair, but Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, warned Bauer several times "in the clearest possible terms" that he was creating "the appearance of impropriety" by spending "hours and hours and hours behind closed doors with a young single woman."

Canada's "family values" man, Vic Toews, lost his deniability rights, when it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a young conservative staffer, breaking up his 30 years plus marriage.

From Women's Affairs to Foreign Affairs

"For Harper, the courtship of the Christian right is unlikely to prove an electoral one-night stand. Three years ago, in a speech to the annual Conservative think-fest, Civitas, he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence.

"Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue, he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same.

"Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ... " (4)

Gary Bauer continues to work the circuit of anti-feminist, anti-gay conferences, where REAL Women of Canada make regular appearances.

REAL also promotes Bauer's new group: American Values, in his attack on "leftie" judges.

Bauer is associated with Focus on the Family, a group that conservative MPs, Rob Anders and Maurice Vellacott belong to, and who helped Stephen Harper get elected in 2006, on his "anti-same-sex marriage" platform.

But the most alarming activities for Bauer, and indeed most of the Religious Right, is their dramatic shift to foreign policy.

Bauer is a member of the Project for the New American Century, that included neoconservatives like Steve Forbes, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and William Kristol. This group helped to draft the Bush Doctrine.

They have been critical of Obama's decision not to send ground troops to Libya, instead following the UN Resolution, which does not support a "regime change".

The Harper Doctrine has no such limitations, and in fact is very specific that only a regime change will do.

However, even more alarming is Bauer's new pet project: Emergency Committee for Israel's Leadership, an aggressive extension of Christians United for Israel, who support extended military engagement in the Middle East.

Jim Flaherty's pal, Charles McVety, heads up the Canadian chapter.

This group, like most in the movement, are Apocalyptic.

So what does it mean when they not only provide foot soldiers for Harper's war on women, but dictate his foreign policy? Or what Harper himself calls 'putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments'.

Yet another reason why the media has to start paying attention.

Drop the 'Tory' nonsense, and report from the Neoconservative/Religious Right/Tea Party reality.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 263-267

2. "R.E.A.L. Women, Anti-feminism and the Welfare State, By Lorna Erwin, Resources for Feminist Research, 1988

3. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, By D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-19-532666-6

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

When the Foxes Take Over the Hen House

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

Ronald Reagan was a "B" movie actor. By the early 1950's his career was in the toilet and he was reduced to print ads in magazines, and parts in forgettable pictures.

But he had a look and a voice that was homey enough to convince people of anything. And that brought him to the attention of a man named Lemuel Boulware, General Electric's vice president of employee, public, and community relations, who hired Reagan to be his company's spokesperson.

Corporate America was tired of having to give in to worker's demands and wanted to shift public sympathies away from the labour force, to what journalist Murray Dobbin calls "the good corporate citizens".

But first GE had to be seen as the company reaching out to workers.

Over the past few years, few contract negotiations in U.S. industry have been as bitter and bumpy as those between General Electric Co. and the C.I.O.'s International Union of Electrical Workers. With out fail, the I.U.E.'s trigger-tempered Boss James B. Carey peppered the company with shouts of "chiseling," called its offers a "sham" and "an obvious trap." Once, in a crescendo of rage, he bellowed that G.E. was an "aid and ally" of the Communists. Usually G.E.'s negotiator, Vice President Lemuel P. Boulware, gave every bit as good as he got.

This year the script was totally rewritten. After a month of calm discussion, G.E. and the union signed a new five-year contract that made everyone happy. Cooed G.E.'s Boulware: "A splendid settlement." Echoed I.U.E.'s Carey: "A splendid settlement." (1)

General Electric were the good guys. And until his retirement in 1957, Boulware never stopped reminding his workers of how good the company was, and they had Ronald Reagan selling the same notion to the public. This strategy became known as "Boulwarism".

As personnel and press boss at General Electric, Vice President Lemuel R. Boulware, 62, was one of the most controversial labor-relations managers in the history of a new art. A tough, trap-jawed Kentuckian, Boulware was a hard bargainer during contract negotiations and never failed to point out what a company like G.E. did for its employees. Many businessmen considered "Boulwarism" a smart strategy for combating Big Labor, imitated it widely, even though unions bitterly hated it. (2)

The unions began losing the battle for public opinion. And by 1960, when GE had to renegotiate with it's workers it was a whole new ball game. They could afford to be tough because any bad press could be directed at the union bosses.

The milling picket lines, the fire hoses, the club-wielding police were all reminiscent of the bloody strikes of the 1930s. When the International Union of Electrical Workers struck General Electric last week, the company vowed it would keep its plants open for all employees who wanted to work. Both sides knew the vow could lead to violence. It was not long in coming.

The last time G.E. faced a strike of comparable proportions—in 1946—it closed down its plants, but since then it has hardened its policies. Under Vice President Lemuel R. Boulware, who now serves only as a consultant, G.E. developed a broad policy known through the industry as "Boulwarism," in which the company makes an unceasing effort to sell itself to the workers. In bargaining, the company first listens to the unions' demands, then puts all that it is willing to grant in its first contract offer; after that it will make only minor concessions, thus making gains from a strike problematical. (3)

But it wouldn't be enough to simply bust the unions where possible, so they also targeted government, launching a lecture circuit for Ronald Reagan, "as a crusader against big government." (4) The man who had been a liberal all of his life, was now the "spokesman" for neoconservative policies.

So who better to put forward as president when corporate America decided that life would be better if they simply ran the country? Ronald Reagan. The ultimate company spokesman.

And he did not disappoint. In 1981, Congress enacted the largest tax cuts in U.S. history.

GE was one of the biggest winners in the tax cut bill, getting a S283-million tax rebate for the period 1981-83 despite making profits of $6.5 billion. The tax windfall allowed GE to go on a buying spree of other companies, including RCA and NBC. This was a pattern for all the corporate giants as capital investment increased dramatically, with almost all of it going to other countries. In effect, the billions in tax dollars sacrificed by the American people were used to further deindustrialize their own heartland and boost the growth of super-corporations.

And taxpayers would also fund the propaganda that would allow the wholesale dismantling of the industrial infrastructure, because corporations used their enormous tax cuts to buy up media outlets, further shifting public opinion to their cause.

And besides enormous tax cuts to the wealthy, Reagan also allowed CEOs to run the treasury, beginning with Donald Regan, director of Merrill Lynch, who became secretary of the treasury and White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan.

In the following video clip, we see Regan bark at the president, telling him to speed it up. Which begged the question. Who was really running the country?



And Merrill Lynch has done very well indeed. When they were "bailed out" by the American people, 75% of the taxpayers' money given to the firm, was used to pay bonuses to their CEOs.

General Electric also represents the new corporate government:

GE has the resources to develop and promote new political ideas and to organize public opinion around its political agenda. "It has the capacity to advise and intervene and sometimes to veto. It has the power to punish political opponents." And its political opponents are usually Democrats, because like most large U.S. corporations GE has consistently supported the party of business ...

GE nurtures its good corporate citizen image with an $18.8-million fund for its foundations (less than half of 1 percent of its net earnings). But even here much of the money is directly self-serving, going to business think-tanks, business associations, and coalitions fighting government regulation. So the Institute for International Economics lobbies for the corporate line on trade, and the Americans for Generational Equity campaigns for cuts to entitlement programs like social security. GE was a key funder of the Committee on the Present Danger, which propagandized for the massive military buildup of the 1980s, and of the Center for Economic Progress and Employment, which, despite its name, is a front group of industry giants determined to gut product-liability laws.

While corporate Canada always had a voice in political matters, it was Brian Mulroney who first moved lobbyists right into government. And now Stephen Harper has also cut out the middle man.

His first defence minister, Gordon O'Connor, went right from lobbying for military contracts with Hill and Knowlton to helping to decide which of his former clients got to cash in.

Bernard Prigent, the VP of Pfizer, was appointed to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the federal agency that distributes about a billion dollars annually for health research.

Guy Giorno, Harper's former chief of staff, was one of the most influential lobbyists for the oil and gas industry, and his new chief of staff, Nigel Wright, was with the firm given the sole source contract for our new fighter jets.

And if you don't think that corporate Canada is in charge of the country, why are they getting further tax cuts, while Canadian citizens are being told they will have to tighten their belts?

Fascists no longer wear uniforms. They now wear three piece suits and Testoni shoes.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

Continuation:

A Deceptive Democracy: A Confidence Game

Redefining Populism as Fraser Institute Drafts Policy

A Just Society: Oil, Americans and Mythology

The Success of Neoconservatism is Based on Emotionally Fuelled Ambiguity

Sources:

1. LABOR: The Splendid Settlement, Time Magazine, August 22, 1955

2. PERSONNEL: Boulware Bows Out, Time Magazine, September 23, 1957

3. LABOR: Violence on the Picket Line, Time Magazine, October 17, 1960

4. 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. 43-45

Media Manipulation: Journalists or Playwrights?

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

When media mogul Rupert Murdoch, first met Ronald Regan, he was surprised at how old and frail he was. Murdoch had been invited to the White House for a luncheon and Reagan actually fell asleep during the meal. 'The other guests went on eating and the waiters continued to take the plates away'. (1)

Murdoch later described the experience as "awful".

He had backed the Reagan campaign but the man he saw was nothing like the man he had portrayed. How could this be?

In their book Newsmongers, Mary Anne Comber and Robert Mayne, present an interesting theory on election campaigns, comparing them to plays. The stage is set and the actors assigned their roles. It is then up to the media to write their lines, and they rarely allow them to go off script.

Ronald Reagan was billed as the "Great Communicator", and though revisionist history paints him as a much loved man, in fact he was never really that popular, and had a horrible track record. But he could communicate. He knew how to deliver his lines. The media applauded.

A favourite journalistic device is to compare politics to a stage play. Politicians are referred to as actors on the political stage. In any story some politicians have lead roles and others are cast in supporting roles. They give performances and the spotlight tracks them across the political stage. One implication of this device is that it allows journalists to play the role of theatre critic. (2)

Neocons have recognized this and found a way to capitalize on the phenomenon, by creating the characters themselves. They even publish the playbills, also known as "ten percenters".

Stéphane Dion Starring in 'Not a Leader'

When I attended a townhall meeting in Kingston during the 2008 coalition attempt, one of the speakers was a retired professor from Queens University. He had been the head of the political science department and told of how Mr. Dion was one of the most respected men in his field. He was quoted often.

In his book, the Rights Revolution, written in 2000, Michael Ignatieff placed Dion as a leader in the understanding of group rights and multiculturalism. (3) He was also the author of the Clarity Act.

In Losing Confidence, Elizabeth May describes Dion's uphill battle to have the Kyoto Protocol adopted. She reveals how Stephen Harper and Jack Layton colluded to call an election on the exact date of the "opening day of the most important global climate negotiations in history." (4) And simply because they didn't want the Liberals to look good on the International stage.

Forget that it meant that Canada would look good on the International stage. I lost a lot of respect for Jack Layton after reading that.

But despite the ploy, Stéphane Dion would be victorious as a result of the most selfless act of any politician in a very long time.

Dion told the world immediately after the government fell that he now worked for the United Nations. He said he would resume his life as a Canadian politician on December 10, when the meeting was over.

Incredibly, he steered the meetings to the high-water mark of possible objectives, across every issue. I may never have had a happier moment than when the meetings concluded on December 11 at 6:17 in the morning after round-the-clock negotiations. Dion brought down the gavel on the most aggressive possible actions to advance limits in the next commitment period, set to begin in 2013. (4)

Can you imagine Stephen Harper ever sacrificing his own political career for an opportunity to allow Canada to shine?

I may never have been as devastated as when Stephen Harper was elected, knowing he would do whatever he could to stop progress in reducing greenhouse gases. What we didn't see as a further disaster in bringing down the government on November 28 was that it effectively rendered the Montreal negotiations invisible to the Canadian public. The media was off on the typical brainless pursuit of Canadian election as horserace. Policy and science, particularly UN discussions of the climate crisis, were not going to be covered in an election campaign. (4)

And when Dion became the party boss in 2008, Harper immediately went to work, laying out the play's story, and narrowing the dialogue. And despite proving enormous leadership on the world stage, Dion's "character" was that of a bumbling idiot with weak leadership skills.

And Harper, who lacks any real leadership qualities, played the role of the strong commander, who would slay the recession dragon and pull Canadians out of the abyss. One he threw us into.

Benjamin Disraeli once said: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" Harper lacks the skills to motivate and bring out the best in people. He also refuses to share the limelight. He is a one-man show, and those around him, only there for his amusement.

When he was running the National Citizens Coalition his VP, Gerry Nicholls once suggested that there was a problem with a billboard that Harper had designed, but when he shared his thoughts, Harper responded icily "I don't give a f--- what you think." (5)

He feels the same way about us, believe me.

Michael Ignatieff Starring in 'Just Visiting'

After the successful run of 'Not a Leader', our budding playwright was ready for a sequel with the new Liberal leader. And while he needed to downplay Dion's enormous diplomatic success, he now had to destroy Michael Ignatieff's history, as a member of one of Canada's most important families.

So how best to do this? Cast him in the role of a man who only returned to Canada as a matter of convenience. He was 'just visiting'. If he didn't become prime minister he would return to teaching at Harvard, where he headed the Human Rights department.

But in a clever plot twist, despite the fact that most of Ignatieff's career was spent in the UK, where he made documentaries for the BBC, including one that won him a Gemini; worked as a war correspondent, taught at Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, and wrote 17 books, they had to make Canadians believe that he was somehow an American. So they capitalized on a two letter word 'we', that he used to connect with his audience when working in the U.S. (for only 5 years)

And the audience lapped it up. The media held their flashlights, directing the patrons to their seats, and called the play a triumph. Of course they would. They wrote the lines.

And if any among them gave the play a thumbs down, they were dismissed as Liberal hacks and a promise made that they would "never work in this town again."

Time For a New Play

With an election on the horizon, rumour has it that Harper is working on a new play, the working title: 'The Coalition is a Coup'. It's got pirates and everything.

But personally, I'm not too impressed with his skills as a playwright, so I think it's time that Canadians collaborated and wrote their own play.

'Goodbye Stephen Harper'. Catchy, don't you think?

Order your tickets now. It's guaranteed to be 'Sold Out'.

Previous:

Media Manipulation: Setting Agendas and Shielding Your Bum

Sources:

1. Murdoch, By William Shawcross, Simon & Schuster, 1992, ISBN: 0-671-67327, Pg. 197

2. The Newsmongers: How the Media Distort the Political News, By Mary Anne Comber and Robert S. Mayne, John Deyell Printing, 1986, ISBN: 0-7710-2239-5, Pg. 17

3. The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, By Michael Ignatieff, Anansi Books, 2000, ISBN: 978-0-88784-762-2, Pg. 11

4. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 3-5

5. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 12

The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

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

In September of 2009, journalist and author, Murray Dobbin, wrote for the Tyee:

It seems irrefutable to me after 20 years of analyzing the career of Stephen Harper that he is incapable of providing democratic governance. Harper arguably shows some traits of what psychologists refer to as malignant narcissism, a dangerously heightened sense of self importance. Otto Kernberg, a leader in the study of personality disorders, describes malignant narcissism as "extreme self-absorption and insensitivity that often result in a trail of victims -- emotional wreckage left in the narcissist's wake." The victims Kernberg refers to are, of course, individuals, but in our case the principal victim is the Canadian nation -- its humanist accomplishments, its art and culture, the foundation of its science, its international standing and its democratic governance. (1)

At the time I agreed with his analysis, but only superficially. Harper's arrogance was revealed in everything he did, but I didn't really view it as a possible illness.

Then I came across a piece by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, that showed Harper's love of self in a different light. She had been acting as Speaker of the House for the Queens University Model Parliament, and had an opportunity to visit the Government Lobby.

The Government Lobby was a frequent work space when I was Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Environment back in the mid-1980s ... [but] it did not strike me until I walked into the Government Lobby to await my turn as Speaker that I had not been in there since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. It used to have some paintings on the wall. Past prime ministers, certainly a formal portrait of the Queen. Landscapes. I know there was the occasional photo of current Prime Ministers, but when I walked in this time, I felt chilled to the bone.

Every available wall space had a large colour photo of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper at Alert. Stephen Harper in fire fighter gear. Stephen Harper at his desk. Stephen Harper meeting the Dalai Lama. Even the photo of the Queen showed her in the company of Stephen Harper. None were great photos. None were more than enlarged snapshots in colour. They didn’t feel like art. The student with me said it was the same in Langevin Block, the Prime ministers Office. Photos of Stephen Harper everywhere. I will advance no theories as to what this means. ... The one thing I know is that it means something. (2)

This was later confirmed in the Ottawa Citizen. (3)

I bring this up often, because it kinda' freaks me out. I'm a fan of shows like CSI and Criminal Minds, and it reminds of a stalker's lair. Only he's stalking himself. Creepy.

I just finished chapter two of Lawrence Martin's new book, Harperland, and while he is doing a very good job at keeping balance, there are some revelations that help to unravel the complexities of Stephen Harper.

And what's interesting is that the most compelling statements come from insiders. People left in the "emotional wreckage [of] the narcissist's wake", but remain for the most part supportive.

Martin says that Stephen Harper has tried to emulate Pierre Trudeau, not politically, but by replicating the things he used to stay in power for so long. He fails to understand that we liked Trudeau in spite of those things, because he was moving us in the right direction. His legacy is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But even with those whose politics he agrees with, Stephen Harper has always been more concerned with how they achieved and held onto power. In William Johnson's book Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, he speaks of Harper's fondness for Margaret Thatcher.

And yet the story was not "let's study her policies and adopt them". But instead he and his friend John Weissenberger, read all of her election speeches looking for the right phrases to "win". (4)

But there is something else that goes back to the notion of Stephen Harper being the clinical definition of a malignant narcissist.

His friends and colleagues when speaking to Lawrence Martin, used terms like "cold", "He doesn't have human warmth", "sunless", "an emotionless robot". A former classmate called him "aloof" and said that "If there was a social event going on, he'd be the guy in the corner; pen and paper in pocket, looking at us in a kind of condescending way." (5)

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines narcissism as a:

Mental disorder characterized by extreme self-absorption, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and a need for attention and admiration from others ... narcissism is characterized by an unusual coolness and composure, which is shaken only when the narcissistic confidence is threatened, and by the tendency to take others for granted or to exploit them.

Stephen Harper is his happiest when he's at a photo-op. You can see it. He's not acting, so his robotic nature is gone. He's in his element. All of these people focused on "him". All dedicated to making "him" look good. All paying "attention" and filled with "admiration" for "him". His "unusual coolness and composure" are gone, even if only for that brief moment in time.

And we've seen him "shaken" when his confidence was threatened. Look at how he acted in the House of Commons during the coalition threat. Or when Michael Ignatieff was challenging him and he suggested that he had been pouring over old tapes. His confidence was gone and it was visible. What we witnessed was panic.

And there's no argument that he has a "tendency to take others for granted or to exploit them". A common complaint from insiders. Look at how easily he can exploit religion, or the immigrant population for political gain. A man who is not religious and has referred to multiculturalism as a "weak nation strategy", can turn himself into a supporter so easily. He's like a Chameleon, changing colours to suit the situation.

So while he learned the art of the attack ad from Arthur Finklestein, and was indoctrinated by the anti-liberalism, anti-communist crowd; his real passion is power. The ultimate aphrodisiac for the malignant narcissist.

And with that I've come to realize something else. While he does follow the neoconservative principles adhered to by people like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas, I also sense a bit of contempt.

While all three of those people did a great deal of damage, and widened the gap between rich and poor irrevocably, they also had something else in common. They all failed to finish the job they started.

I think that Stephen Harper believes in his condescending, narcissistic way, that he will win. That he will be the first to reach the ultimate goal. He will no longer be a "follower" of Thatcherism, Reaganomics or Rogernomics. Future neocons will follow him, and "Harperism" will be their battle cry.

He may be delusional, but no one has ever accused him of being sane.

And who knows. Maybe if he can hold onto power long enough ....

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper, Unfit to Govern: Few are thrilled to have another election, but we must put it to good use, By Murray Dobbin, The Tyee, September 10, 2009

2. Model Parliament, By Elizabeth May, Green Party, January 26, 2008

3. Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless: Citizens who really want a national portrait gallery in Ottawa can rest easy. The government already has one, By The Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2008

4. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3, Pg. 49

5. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 8

Accountability, Transparency and Words That Work

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

Canada's Access to Information Act was passed into law by Pierre Trudeau in 1983.

Conceived in the late 1970s, drafted and passed into law in the early 1980s, the Act was quite radical in its impact. It created an enforceable right of access for Canadians, subject to limited and specific exceptions, and provided for an appeal process for refusal of access independent of government, first, to an Information Commissioner and then to the Federal Court. Despite ongoing criticism of the legislation, there is no doubt that it has served to slowly but nevertheless effectively strip away much of the natural resort to secrecy which has been one of the less useful legacies to the country of British parliamentary government. In short, the Act established new standards for the release of information which required often reluctant Ministers and bureaucrats to embrace the tenets of open, more transparent government. One cannot pick up a thoughtful editorial, public affairs magazine or throne speech and not find these concepts now heralded as one of the essential bases of the "new", more relevant politics. (1)

The act wasn't perfect but it was a start and has been a useful tool, especially to journalists. It has also been a thorn to many politicians of all political stripes, as they have tried to stall information they'd rather not have made public. But it rarely worked.

Eventually the truth came out, and the fact that they tried to withhold that truth, only made the potential scandal worse.

Then along came Stephen Harper, and he would do more to circumvent the access to information act than anyone before him. But he wrapped it up in language designed to placate a distrustful public. And that language was courtesy of Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

Because while we sought transparency, they instead gave us 'accountability'.

I constantly hear the need for "transparency" coming from members of the financial services industry as well as Members of Congress. But if you asked the American people, accountability is a much higher priority. The fact is, a majority of Americans can’t even explain what transparency actually means. But everyone understands and demands accountability from all sectors of the economy ... and the government. (2)

Those are the words of Frank Luntz and he used the notion of 'accountability' as part of his book: Words That Work. And when I say the notion of accountability, I mean exactly that.

It's interesting that the entire 'Accountability Act', came not from anyone in the legal, civic or justice community, but from a Republican pollster whose job it is to get people elected and keep them in power. And not by being a better or more ethical government, but simply by using words that work. 'Accountability', not 'transparency'.

And it worked for a while. That was until it was determined that this government was the most secretive in this country's history.

Robert Marleau, the information commissioner when Harper assumed power, resigned:

... a few months after issuing a set of failing-grade report cards that blamed those "at the very top" for systematically denying Canadians information about what the government is doing in their name. (2)

And our new information officer, Suzanne Legault, has given the Harper government a failing grade. And while they continue to take Luntz's advice and use the word 'accountability' as much as possible, nothing has changed.

So when David McKie asks recently, the G-20 and G-8 expenses debate, is it really about transparency, we are not the ones to ask. We're not familiar with the term. We've been Republicanized.

What we have recorded to date is about a quarter of a billion dollars. In other words, a fraction of the total bill, which we're told is comprised mostly of security costs born by the RCMP and CSIS. Because of security concerns with those organizations, a detailed breakdown of the remaining costs may never come. If it does, the information, as it was this summer when foreign affairs first released its costs, will be heavily censored. This is not transparency.

You had us until you mentioned the 'T' word David.

Might I suggest you head down to the bookstore or library and pick up a copy of Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, By Frank Luntz. He's co-wrote everything from our Accountability Act to our Environmental Platform. A must read if you want to translate the language of Stephen Harper.

It'll come in handy when we start the debate on health care in this country, up to now a taboo subject for this government. I can hardly wait.

Sources:

1. THE ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT: A CRITICAL REVIEW, Minister of Public Works and Government Services 1994, Cat. No. IP34-6/1994E, ISBN 0-662-22683-0

2. This holiday, pity the poor watchdog, By James Travers, Toronto Star, December 24, 2009

Fabricating a Reason For War by Taking on "New Enemies"

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

"To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson—that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors." Ronald Reagan (1)

When Ronald Reagan first came to power, he had no intention of promoting peace, other than through the Orwellian "Peace Through Strength" initiative. He had been a member of the revived Committee on the Present Danger, whose mandate was to encourage an aggressive foreign policy, to assume control of the world's resources, especially oil. As a result the defense budget was increased to unheard of levels in an effort to build up arms.

When the Reagan administration took office in January 1981, it had little interest in nuclear arms controls or disarmament. To staff its national security posts, the administration drew heavily upon members of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a hawkish group that had led the opposition to Carter-era nuclear arms control ventures. By November, 32 members of the CPD--including Ronald Reagan himself--had joined the administration. CPD member Richard Perle, the new assistant secretary of defense, told the press: "That we and the Russians could compose our differences, reduce them to treaty constraints ... and then rely on compliance to produce a safer world--I don’t agree with any of that." Indeed, as Reagan recalled, "there were some people in the Pentagon* who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war."Reagan’s personal qualms about nuclear weapons were offset by his virulent anticommunism and the hawkish military posture it entailed. (2)

Most members of the CPD were neoconservative followers of Leo Strauss, but they also had the backing of the American Enterprise Institute, whose members include Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol, Michael Novak, Richard Perle and David Frum. (who has since been fired)

And after 9/11, whether you believe it was a conspiracy or not, it definitely provided a very large window of opportunity.

The new Pearl Harbor arrived at 8:46 A.M. on the morning of September 11, 2001, less than eight full months into the Bush presidency .... Bush's first-day response to he attack appeared wobbly but the next few weeks were arguably the strongest of his presidency, highlighted by a well-received speech to Congress and a military move against Afghanistan that was supported by leaders of both parties and most Americans.

But behind the scenes, Bush and some of the PNAC alums immediately saw an opening for also ousting Saddam, strengthening America's presence in the world's main oil-producing region. "Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time," Secretary Rumsfeld scribbled on a pad while the Pentagon was still on fire. "Not only UBL [Osama, or Usama, bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not." By mid-2002, the push for invading Iraq, one of the things not related, was under way, and it became clear how much America and the world had changed. While Reagan had declared publicly that killing civilians in a military response to terrorism was "terrorism itself," U.S. officials spoke in 2002 and into 2003 of a new doctrine of "shock and awe," massive bombing aimed at scaring an enemy population into a speedy surrender. (3)

Sounded good to some, but why were they bombed in the first place?

In his book Lawless World, Philippe Sands, a law professor at University College London, describes the actions of the Bush administration as mounting to "a full-scale assault, a war on law."' This rejection of the rule of law and the global rules created following the Second World War has freed up a boisterous crowd of neoconservatives operating within the U.S. administration to unabashedly pursue policies aimed at enhancing America's global dominance. The administration's plans, the Wall Street Journal noted in March 2005, envision "a military that is far more proactive, focused on changing the world instead of just responding to conflicts" (italics added).' The distinguished U.S. journalist Mary McGrory captured this aggressive U.S. behaviour colourfully in a column in the Washington Post when she described America as the "SUV of nations. It hogs the road and guzzles the gas and periodically has to run over something—such as another country—to get to its Middle Eastern filling station."' (4)

David Frum and the Axis of Evil

While Ronald Reagan brought on members of the Committee on the Present Danger to direct his foreign policy, George Bush recruited directly from the American Enterprise Institute, including the Canadian David Frum, to act as speech writer. He has been credited with creating the term "Axis of Evil", but according to Frum the original speech read "Axis of Hate." With that speech, Frum was hoping to invoke the sentiments of Reagan's "Evil Empire' and FDR's justifications for going to war.

When Bush delivered his first post-9/11 State of the Union address, he stunned many watching by describing Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil." Critics immediately questioned the remark, noting that not only did it seem overly aggressive but there was no evidence that the nations were working
in concert, as was the case with the original "Axis" powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which had signed a nonaggression pact before World War II. (Iran and Iraq, in contrast, had fought a protracted war against each other in the 1980s.)

Delaware Democrat Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, said that America's allies were confused by the resident's "axis of evil" remark, and so was he. "Was it meant to stake out a general notion that we know these guys are bad guys but not the only bad guys? NOr was it meant to be an all-inclusive list? Or was it ... a rhetorical connection between Roosevelt and Reagan—'axis' and 'evil'?" The short answer was, yes.

White House speechwriter David Frum, who authored that section of the speech, said he'd been reading up on Franklin Roosevelt's response to Pearl Harbor, in part because he wanted to learn how FDR had convinced the nation to enthusiastically support the war against Germany when it had been Japan that attacked the United States. He believed that the three nations made up what he called an "axis of hate," and he claimed Bush himself changed it to "evil." (2)

But Frum went beyond simple aggressive speech writing to launching a media campaign, along with Richard Perle, to demonize those he erroneously brought into his "Axis of Hate." Or as Gary Kamiya, in a review of their book, An End to Evil, put it: "Undaunted by the Iraq debacle, uber-hawks David Frum and Richard Perle air their fevered wet dream of a national-security superstate that slaps down uppity Muslims, bombs North Korea, slices and dices civil liberties and scatters the Palestinians like birdseed."(5)

Frum is a member of the Civitas Society, that helps to direct Harper's foreign policy, and a close associate of Jason Kenney's.

From Civitas: (You'll recognize most of the names because they are all tied to the Reform/Alliance/ Conservative Party

Founding President: William Gairdner

Other Past Presidents: Tom Flanagan, William Robson, and Lorne Gunter

Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield, 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, Michael Walker

Frum is the son-in-law of the controversial Peter Worthington and long time associate of Conrad Black. His sister Linda was given a patronage senate appointment by Stephen Harper.

Things in Afghanistan Now Worse Than Ever

With the leaked documents related to the War in Afghanistan, several important things have been revealed.

The most pertinent point for Canadians is that the situation in Afghanistan today is far grimmer than painted in the leaked papers. Obama’s military surge of 30,000 additional troops has not stopped the Taliban from controlling more territory. They are using more roadside bombs and hitting more NATO convoys and bases, even in Kabul. They are organizing more suicide bombing missions and assassinations.

The NATO offensive in Marjah also failed to root the Taliban out of that key district in opium-producing Helmand province. The area remains ungovernable, “a bleeding ulcer,” as the dear departed Gen. Stanley McChrystal called it. The much-touted offensive in Kandahar, designed to bring the entire Taliban-dominated south under NATO/Afghan control, was set for spring, then June, then July. It won’t begin this month, either, as the fasting month of Ramadan starts mid-August. It may not begin until October, if it all, the locals having revolted against the prospect of another American-led war. So much for the Afghans wanting us to liberate them from the Taliban, whom many now consider the lesser of two evils. (6)

I never supported the war in the first place. The Taliban government wanted to negotiate with the Bush Administration, and agreed to turn over Bin Laden if they had evidence that he was behind 9/11, but Bush turned them down flat. He wanted a war.

In fact, there was also an opportunity to create an allegiance with Iran.

What the world didn't know—but was reported four years later in the American Prospect—was that a back channel of cooperation to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and deal with al-Qaeda, which Tehran saw as a threat, had secretly opened between the United States and Iran, and Bush's efforts to sound Reaganesque all but destroyed these links. (A second push for accommodation by Iran did come around the time of the Iraq invasion, but it was also rebuffed.) Rather than encourage and work with moderates in Tehran, the overt U.S. hostility was greeted with the election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president and escalating tensions over its nuclear program. (2)

We are now in a situation where we can't realistically pull out of Afghanistan, even if we wanted to. Harper has simply set a date for retreat, without any peace initiative He wants to "cut and run", meaning that all those lives and all that money was for nothing.

We need to resume our Peacekeeping role, while we rebuild, not simply hand everything over to the private sector as the Harper government proposes.

What a tragic waste

Footnotes:

*Including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld

Sources:

1. Message on the Observance of Afghanistan Day, Ronald Reagan, From the Oval Office, March 21, 1983

2. Reagan and Nuclear Disarmament: How the Nuclear Freeze movement forced Reagan to make progress on arms control, By Lawrence S. Wittner, Boston Review, April/May 2000

3. Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, By Will Bunch, Free Press, ISBN: 978-1-4165-9762-9 5, Pg. 178-179

4. HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT: Canada and the U.S. Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 1-2

5. "An End to Evil" by David Frum and Richard Perle, By Gary Kamiya, January 30, 2004

6. Afghanistan: It’s even worse than you thought, By Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, August 1, 2010

Fate Brings Anthony Panayi to Canada With Fateful Consequences

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

Tony Panayi arrived with his parents to Canada when he was just four-years-old. Of Middle Eastern descent, his father a Greek Cypriot and his mother a Canadian. This was 1965 and by 1972, his parents had separated, and he would spend the rest of his childhood in a high-rise apartment in Toronto.

He cut his political teeth campaigning door to door with his mother for her boss, Ontario Tory MPP Bill Hodgson. However, he was never a Progressive Conservative at heart, and in fact his political beliefs were what is now called neoconservative.

"What I saw on the front of Time magazine, which I read religiously every week, was this failure of the American democratic impulse," he remembers. "Around us was the fall of Vietnam, the emasculation of American power, Watergate .... What I remember was the frontal assault on American power, and the encroachment by communism all over the world. And in Canada, there were the failed experiments of Pierre Trudeau. His economic experiments were a shambles, his anti-Americanism wasn't getting us anywhere, the increasing role of the state in all aspects of our lives was, in my view, creating more problems than it was solving. And then in 1978 you had this woman named Margaret Thatcher, who proved you could turn back some of the awful things done by socialism and set things right again. And then in 1980 you had this guy Ronald Reagan. They showed you could have conservative principles and still win." (1)

Unfortunately, Clement was misguided by his heroes. Margaret Thatcher was a train wreck:

When Margaret Thatcher was elected I started my first year at university. Very quickly in the face of her Reagan-inspired "hard economics" and austerity treatment I saw every possibility of employment at the end of my course evaporate. 3.3 million were unemployed with no hope of a job. The economy went into recession and the dole was being withdrawn unless you could "prove" you were actively searching for work. It ruined millions of people's lives and put millions more into unproductive boredom and hardship. It cost the country £40b in lost productivity and the only thing Margaret did was make it worse. (2)

And Ronald Reagan, while he preached small government, actually expanded the government and his horrible economics made the rich richer and created the most homeless people in the history of the United States. (3) He also increased the debt by two trillion dollars, while increasing federal spending and federal staff. (4)

Nonetheless, Panayi "... arrived at the University of Toronto in 1979 filled with missionary zeal to bring the faith of Thatcher and Reagan to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario ..." (1)

But he also arrived with something else ... a new name. His mother had just married former MPP John Clement, and though already an adult more or less, Tony decided to take his stepfather's name, reinventing himself as Tony Clement.

The same year, 1979, another young man would enrol at the University of Toronto, but would only stay for two months, opting to move to Edmonton to take a job in the mail room at Imperial Oil, the company his father had worked for. This would be his only real job outside of politics. Also an avid fan of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Stephen Harper would go on to help found the Reform Party, lead the Alliance Party and eventually become the movement's first prime minister. (5)

It's unlikely that Clement and Harper met at the school, but Tony did find willing accomplices in fellow students Alister Campbell, Tom Long and Mitch Patten, all sharing the same ideology.

"At a time when the rest of the country was enchanted with the charismatic prime minister [Trudeau] and his vision of Canada, simply being a Conservative was an unusual choice. To be committed to the neoconservative agenda of Thatcher and Reagan during this period was nothing short of suicidal, politically speaking." (6)

And yet this small group of young radicals were able to take over the campus Conservatives, increasing it's membership from being almost nothing to 500, with gimmicks (Clement once dressed in a penguin costume), and aggressive marketing. Did they change minds? It's difficult to know, but they presented a platform that was anything but the status quo:

They believed that governments needed to cut taxes in order stimulate spending and increase individual choice, that they needed to balance their budgets in order to escape the trap of escalating deficits, that they needed to get out of most economic regulation in order to let the market reward winners, punish losers, and generate wealth for everyone. Most important, governments needed to abolish most of their social programs, which took money from people who earned it and gave it to people who hadn't. Such a doctrine was anathema to moderate Conservatives, who felt, as former federal leader Robert Stanfield argued, that the market should not be trusted more than was necessary. (7)

And not content with simply drawing in the conservative minded they also sought to change the views of the left:

Eventually the young PCs at the University of Toronto also decided to take on their left-wing enemies on campus, launching a campaign against a proposal to double the compulsory fees levied against each student in support of the Ontario Federation of Students. The Tories accused the federation of wasting money on a bloated administration, and of worrying more about helping the Sandinistas than representing student interests. (Among other things, the Tories put up a sign in an Engineering building proclaiming "Three dollars will get you the Ontario Federation of Students or seven beers at the Brunswick House. Take your pick.") They won a referendum on the issue in a landslide. (7)

They quickly became a force to be reckoned with:

By the early 1980s, as Mike Harris was first finding his feet as a young MPP, the neo-conservative youth were an increasing power within the provincial Conservatives. Long—a bit older than most of the others, passionate and uncompromising—led the troops. "There were huge fights over who was going to control the campus wing of the party," Long remembers. "That got settled in the late seventies, and for about ten years or so my faction controlled the campus wing." In 1982, Long managed the campaign that secured control for the neo-cons of the executive of the Progressive Conservative Youth Association. Both the campus and youth wings of the party were now firmly led by ideologues of the far Right. These wings were important to the party, both for the influence they wielded at leadership conventions, and for the legions of indefatigable volunteers they supplied during campaigns. (7)

But they would soon move on to bigger challenges as they steered toward taking over not just a university campus, but an entire province.

Why Do Neoconservatives Hate Nelson Mandela?

Sources:

1. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 30

2. 1979: Looking back at the Thatcher era, By Mike Rumfitt, May 4, 2005

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

4. Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, By Will Bunch, Free Press, ISBN: 978-1-4165-9762-9

5. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

6. Jeffrey, 1999, Pg. 164

7. Ibbitson, 1997, Pg. 31-32

Abe Lincoln, Preston Manning and the Reform Movement

In 1982, at the Social Credit leadership convention, candidate Ken Sweigard " ... arrived dressed as U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, wearing a top hat and carrying a walking stick. His entourage, dressed in 1860s style, held placards reading "Free the Slaves" and chanted "Free the economic slaves", a reference to the social credit theory of monetary reform and opposition to the charging of interest on borrowed money." (1)

He lost to Martin Hattersley, but the following year Hattersley resigned when James Keegstra and two others were reinstated, after he had dismissed them due to their anti-Semitic views. Sweigard called Keegstra "a good Christian gentleman".

In later interviews with Keegstra, when he was being tried for hate crimes, after it was revealed that for 15 years he had been teaching his students that the Holocaust was a hoax, he blamed the Jews for killing Abraham Lincoln, calling John Wilkes Booth, a Jew. He wasn't.

In 1997 when Stephen Harper was speaking at a Council for National Policy conference in Montreal he discussed the current state of Canada's Progressive Conservative Party:

The Progressive Conservative party is very much comparable to the Whigs of the 1850s and 1860s. What is happening to them is very similar to the Whigs. A moderate conservative party, increasingly under stress because of the secession [Bloc] movement, on the one hand, and the reaction to that movement from harder line English Canadians on the other hand.

You may recall that the Whigs, in their dying days, went through a series of metamorphoses. They ended up as what was called the Unionist movement that won some of the border states in your 1860 election.

If you look at the surviving PC support, it's very much concentrated in Atlantic Canada, in the provinces to the east of Quebec. These are very much equivalent to the United States border states. They're weak economically. They have very grim prospects if Quebec separates. These people want a solution at almost any cost. And some of the solutions they propose would be exactly that. (2)

Of course the Whig Party would eventually become the Republican Party in a series of coalitions, and Abraham Lincoln would become their first president. He had been a member of the 'Whig' Party in Maryland.

Harper continues:

But I don't use this comparison of the pre-Civil War lightly. Preston Manning, the leader of the Reform party has spent a lot of time reading about pre-Civil War politics. He compares the Reform party himself to the Republican party of that period. He is very well-read on Abraham Lincoln and a keen follower and admirer of Lincoln.

I know Mr. Manning very well. I would say that next to his own father, who is a prominent Western Canadian politician, Abraham Lincoln has probably had more effect on Mr. Manning's political philosophy than any individual politician. (2)

I find that statement to be very compelling. Next to his own father ...

But Stephen Harper was not the only one to have noted Manning's obsession with the Civil War era president:

While still a teenager, he [Manning] read ... Carl Sandburg's multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, who emerged from the backwoods of Illinois to steer his country through the challenge of secession by the southern states and the bloody Civil War that ensued. That fascination with the assassinated American president and the pre-Civil War period has endured, as Manning searches for lessons to be learned and applied to the ongoing threat of Quebec secession.

In particular, he is drawn to the 1858 debates between Lincoln and southern states rights proponent Stephen Douglas, when the future of the union and the principles it should be based on were passionately argued. He claims the same has not happened in Canada, in the days leading up to the last Quebec referendum, and particularly during last spring's federal election campaign. "It seems to me our debate on this subject has been so shallow compared with what has been debated in other countries," says Manning.

After years of debating the national unity issue, many Canadians may find that opinion disingenuous - and self-serving. Others perceive more ominous undertones in Manning's historical interests. Michael Fellman, a professor of American history
at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., accuses Manning of having a "superficial understanding" of the pre-Civil War period - and its consequences.

"The Lincoln-Douglas debates and the rise of the Republican party heightened tensions and contradictions in the United States," he says, "and led to civil war because they couldn't solve the problems of the nation." George Melnyk, a Prairie historian and lecturer at the University of Calgary, wonders if Manning sees himself as a Canadian equivalent of Lincoln. "Personal mythologies are not light matters," says Melnyk, who has known the Reform leader since the 1970s. "If Preston Manning truly believes that he may one day have to play the role of Abraham Lincoln as the preserver of the unity and integrity of Canada, then the scenario of civil war is not farfetched." (3)

I believe that when Ken Seigard dressed as Abe Lincoln it was a publicity stunt, and I probably wouldn't read more into it, except that I do find on many Christian fundamentalist sites, a certain almost hero worship for Lincoln, which I will get to later.

But back to Stephen Harper:

The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican ... The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the
demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level. (2)

That certainly explains the close connection between the Reform Party and the Republican Party. Manning saw them as being of the same political stripe with the same history. Even if most of that history was fabricated.

Continue to Preston Manning and a House Divided

Sources:

1. "Monetary system not part of jet age, Socred leader says", Globe and Mail, July 5, 1982.

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

3. Preston Manning, By: Dale Eisler, Maclean's, September 22, 1997

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

Brian Mulroney, Roger Douglas and a United Front

Brian Mulroney would come to power in Canada, the same year that David Lange became prime minister of New Zealand.

Lange's appointment of Roger Douglas as Minister of Finance, would have an impact on Canadian politics for years, and he would play heavily into the policies of our neoconservative government under Stephen Harper.

Brain Mulroney came from corporate Canada, so naturally the business elite looked to him to make the same "tough choices" as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; who were already well known gurus of the neoconservative movement.

Here, surely, is the most authentic Canadian equivalent to the New Zealand experiment. It was elected to office only two months after David Lange's Labour victory of 1984, winning the largest parliamentary majority in Canadian history. Mulroney himself was the first Prime Minister since the depression to emerge from the corporate class, and his government's first Economic and Fiscal Statement outlined a comprehensive neo-liberal [Libertarian] agenda. (1)

But Mulroney got off to a slow start, in the eyes of the corporate elite and "free marketeers", though the left didn't agree, dubbing him "Reagan on the Rideau".

He would, however, put an end to the National Energy Program, a demand of Western Canada, and a campaign promise. But they would soon wish he hadn't, though you'd be hard pressed to find any Westerner today agreeing with you.

"Oscar Wilde wrote that there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants; the other is getting it. In the fall of 1985, the latter tragedy befell Alberta's oil industry. The OPEC cartel failed to agree upon a world oil price. The result was a global free-for-all among producing nations. Canada's oil and gas producers were caught in the middle. Having recently gained freedom from the NEP, Canada's oil and gas industry was not protected as the price of oil dropped from US $27 per barrel ... to $8 per barrel by August 1986. ... Forty-five thousand oil workers lost their jobs." (2)

Mulroney would try to push through a free trade agreement with the United States, but then Liberal leader John Turner was adamantly opposed. The New York Times reported:

CANADA'S opposition Liberal Party announced last month that its majority in the upper house [senate] of Parliament would block the legislation necessary to implement a free-trade agreement that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, had negotiated with the United States.

In a counter move to try to salvage his treaty, Mr. Mulroney is considered virtually certain to call an early election, possibly for October, and the treaty is likely to be the dominant issue in the campaign.

The trade bill would eliminate all tariffs over a 10-year period and lower barriers to investment and other curbs on trade in agriculture, energy and services. Legislation is moving through the United States Congress, which is expected to pass it before it adjourns for the November elections. (3)

He did in fact call an election, where he would run on the issue of free trade. Spearheaded by the National Citizens Coalition; a group of corporations, spent an estimated $19-million during his campaign, in support of the free trade deal. John Turner didn't have a chance. (4)

The first legislative action of the new government was to abolish the foreign investment screening agency. This was followed by a series of privatizations and de-regulatory initiatives culminating in the two free trade agreements (FTA 1988 and NAFTA 1992). Much more than tariff reduction deals, the latter constituted a virtual economic constitution for the country, limiting or prohibiting sovereignty in areas as diverse as energy pricing, government procurement, delivery of regional and industrial incentive grants, dumping and countervail actions, national treatment for cross border investment, and free trade in service industries. (1)

The free trade deal, that Turner referred to as the "sale of Canada" was devastating for the country. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were lost and more than 11,000 companies became not only foreign owned, but foreign controlled.

But Stephen Harper's newest Buy America/Sell Canada is even more intrusive. Our water has now been privatized and he has sent out tenders to the European Union to privatize our public services at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Footnotes:

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

2. Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, pg. 97

3. John N. Turner; Canada's Liberals Battle the Trade Pact , New York Times, By John F. Burns, August 7, 1988

4. The National Citizens' Coalition loves you - ha! ha! ha!, NUPGE, November 8, 2004.

Exaggerated Fear Where the Real Danger is Panic

The above is part six of the award winning BBC documentary; Power of Nightmares.

From two men, who decades ago had a vision of a corrupt society based on liberalism; the modern day ideologies of Christian extremism and Islamic extremism, have been spawned.

Neoconservatism that demanded a great myth, fueled by religious fervour, and unbridled patriotism; has become a very powerful force.

It is a new force in Canada though. The Harper government is the first to govern under the concept of an elite group, whose goal is simply to control the ignorant masses, while pursuing an agenda where our interests come last; if they make the radar at all.

Will it score it a victory or will Canadians finally realize that the 'big myth' was the notion that a movement of reform to create a corporate theocracy, that began in Depression Era Alberta; represents Conservatism in Canada.

The Tory party that was started by Sir John A. MacDonald disbanded in 2003. Will it start up again? I hope so.

In 2004, Stephen Harper gave a speech to the right-wing Civitas Society:

The state should take a more activist role in policing social norms and values, Harper told the assembled conservatives. To achieve this goal, social and economic conservatives must reunite as they have in the U.S., where evangelical Christians and business rule in an unholy alliance. Red Tories must be jettisoned from the party, he said, and alliances forged with ethnic and immigrant communities who currently vote Liberal but espouse traditional family values. This was the successful strategy counselled by the neocons under Ronald Reagan to pull conservative Democrats into the Republican tent.

Movement towards the goal must be "incremental," he said, so the public won't be spooked.

We need the public to get spooked, not by fantasy enemies, but by the real threat that this neoconservative movement imposes.