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

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

Jason Kenney Helps to Unite Reformers and Republicans

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

When I read Marci McDonald's Armageddon Factor, I was surprised that she didn't have more on Jason Kenney. Her book was excellent and connected a lot of dots for me, but Kenny is just as involved with the Religious Right as Stockwell Day. In fact, maybe more so, especially to the American movement. And his beliefs are also just as troubling.

However, while researching another story I came across an old article from Australia, that directly ties the Reform Party and the Republican Party, and in a way that we all missed. I had already written about the close relationship between Preston Manning and Newt Gingrich, but this goes further and deeper, and involves Jason Kenney in a very big way.

I should have seen this before, but I had my light bulb moment this afternoon. So I went over all of my notes and skimmed some old postings, and it was all there. So I'm going to try and put everything in chronological order as best I can. I may have to do it in two or three parts. But it involves the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Christian Coalition and Grover Norquist. A strange combination indeed.

Association of Concerned Taxpayers

About 1987 Jason Kenney leaves St. Ignatius at the University of San Francisco, where he was schooled in far right, neoconservatism. He gains temporary employment with a Saskatchewan MPP, from his hometown of Wilcox, where his father ran a Catholic college.

In 1989, Brian Mulroney began discussing the implementation of the GST, which became a very hot button issue with Canadians. This prompted Saskatchewan resident, Kevin Avram, to start a kind of grass roots organization, to mobilize people against this new tax. (1)

So he attended a conference in Austin, Texas where he met a representative of the “Association of Concerned Taxpayers” which was then headed up by Grover Norquist. So he decided to set up a chapter in Canada, which he simply named the Association of Saskatchewan Taxpayers, which was incorporated on May 1, 1989. Jason Kenney was hired as Executive Director.

Meanwhile, a similar group had started in Alberta called Resolution One. I'm still hunting down information on them, but they may have been connected to Link Byfield. Though not a member of the Reform Party himself (his father Ted was a founding member), he drafted "Resolution One" for Preston Manning, which became the Reform Party's fiscal philosophy. (2)

Link was a founding member, along with Stephen Harper, of the Northern Foundation and is currently involved with the Wildrose Alliance Party. Resolution One became the Alberta Taxpayers Association and they joined with the Association of Saskatchewan Taxpayers to become the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Jason Kenney was named CEO. Rob Anders also claims to have been involved with them at some time as well, according to his resume, when he first ran for public office.

I have a bit more information on the American Association of Concerned Taxpayers, as it relates to Stockwell Day (when he had big hair. Oye!), but I just wanted to follow along with Jason Kenney and Grover Norquist for now.

Norquist had worked for Ronald Reagan, setting up Americans for Tax Reform, as a "think-tank" to sell his tax cutting measures. It was such a success that he kept it going, with branches and affiliates right across the country, including AOCT, on which CTF was fashioned.

In 1988, Norquist was asked to work on the campaign of George H. Bush, and he advised him to stick to one simple message. It was the message that he had adopted for his own anti-tax outfits. Remember the famous "Read My Lips"? That was Grover Norquist.



Well Jason Kenney did all but tell people to read his lips, though Stephen Harper tried it out in 2008. But in 1995 when Kenney was touring Canada, he must have felt the invisible hand of Norquist brushing against his cheek.

"Before the 1995 Budget was brought down .... the CTF sponsored no fewer than eighteen protest rallies across the country whose theme was 'No New Taxes.' These rallies were also deliberately coordinated with others sponsored by the Reform Party and the National Citizens Coalition for maximum affect. "... any casual observer of the CTF's literature cannot fail to note the groups neo-conservative approach to the role of government in general. As well-known tax expert Neil Brooks has stated, the CTF's 'anti-tax rhetoric disguises a view that government should play a minimal role' ... David Perry of the Canadian Tax
Foundation ... notes that much of the group's anti-tax sentiment is based on ignorance of the actual situation in Canada .... a perception of reality, rather
than reality' .... "Many other tax experts ... have also pointed out that the benefits received from government in exchange for taxes have to be taken into account ... Kenney's response to this, however is instructive. 'We only look at taxes, not benefits'.. (3)

And in the same way that Americans for Tax Reform originally propped up Ronald Reagan, it was pretty clear that the CTF were doing the same thing for the Reform Party.

Public-Service union president Darryl Bean has called the CTF 'a front for the Reform Party,' and it is not difficult to understand the source of his accusations. Preston Manning has often been asked to address its anti-tax rallies. At one such event in Pickering Ontario in 1995, media accounts routinely reported some 3,500 Reform Party supporters in attendance, and Manning received a standing ovation. "... (3)

Now this was 1995, and in the fall of that year, Jason Kenney, along with dozens of Canadian conservative Christians thronged to Washington, DC, to attend a major convention of the U.S. Christian Coalition, (4) then headed up by Ralph Reed.

When Robertson's campaign flamed out, political analysts served up a new round of obituaries for the religious right, but once again, the reports of its death proved premature. Even as Robertson nursed a wounded ego, he was hatching his organizational revenge, hiring a fresh-faced young doctoral student named Ralph Reed to build a grass-roots evangelical network, focusing first on the takeover of school boards and town councils before ultimately commandeering the machinery of the Republican National Committee itself. That institutional coup took place almost entirely beneath the media's radar, and by the time it finally caught their attention, Reed's Christian Coalition controlled both houses of Congress and would later play a major role in putting George W. Bush in the White House, not once but twice. (5)

Jason Kenney and his gang came back to Canada with a new agenda. They were going to replicate the success of the Christian Coalition on home turf. In McDonald's book, Armageddon Factor, she states that this initiative was the brainchild of Roy Beyer and Brian Rushfeldt, but Jason kenney was involved in this as well.

... Even more ominous for democratic rights in [British Columbia] is the recent hatching of the B.C. clone of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. With 1.7 million active members and a $25 million (US) annual budget, the U.S. organization has become a formidable lobbying force in American politics, installing its anti-choice, anti-gay agenda and candidates at all levels of government, from school boards to Congress. The B.C. chapter is headed up by Operation Rescue activist Don Spratt, and claims among its founding board members former B.C. Premier and ardent anti-choicer Bill Vander Zalm ... "Advisors" to the new CCC reportedly include Ted and Link Byfield (owners of the ultra-conservative B.C. Report and Alberta Report magazines), Jason Kenny (head of the Canadian Taxpayers Association), and Alex Parachin (head of the Christian Broadcasting Associates in Toronto, the Canadian branch plant of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network). (4)

I'm going to leave it there for now. Most of what I have written here has been covered in other posts, but it's what happens next that is rather surprising, so I want to cover it separately. This just sets the stage.

The media missed this in the U.S. "and by the time it finally caught their attention, Reed's Christian Coalition controlled both houses of Congress" (5) ... this was missed in Canada as well, though one diligent reporter did try to sound the alarm.

While Don Spratt may be telling readers "Nobody has anything to fear from the Christian Coalition," progressive activists and journalists will have to make sure the electorate knows better. (4)

And yet they didn't.

Jason Kenney, Reformers and Republicans Continued

Sources:

1. Kevin Avram, By Troy Lannigan, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

2. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, by Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 99

3. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 416-417

4. The Christian Coalition Comes to Canada, by Kim Goldberg, The Albion Monitor, May 5, 1996

5. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3, Pg. 5

Chapter Twenty-Four Continued: Language Guidance

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

In April of 2006, author and environmental scientist Mark Tushingham, was on his way to a presentation at the National Press Club. He was invited to speak about the science behind a book that had been launched the previous November: Hotter than Hell. But when he entered the elevator on his way to the event, his cell phone rang. It was Rona Ambrose's office and he was told that he would not be allowed to attend the event. Ambrose was the first Environmental minister in the government of Stephen Harper.

Tushinham immediately contacted his editor to tell her the bad news. He worked for Environment Canada, and though the book was a futuristic story and classed as science fiction, Ambrose believed that it would hurt her government's image.

She claimed that he was being billed as a government speaker, despite the fact that the ads for the April 13 Newsmaker Luncheon billed Tushingham as an environmental scientist, with no mention of his employer.

What Mark wasn't aware of at the time was that then Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn had just issued a release stating 15 programs related to the Kyoto Protocol would be eliminated.

Tushingham's editor Elizabeth Margaris told The Hour: "When we asked why [Tushingham's presentation] was shut down, the minister said it was 'bad timing.' But how were we supposed to know that the government was going to make an announcement that they were cutting 80 per cent of Kyoto programs? ... The science within [Tushingham's] book is all in the public domain, there's nothing revolutionary here. Besides, it's fiction. It's written by a scientist about what he envisions happening in the future." (1)

She would later tell CBC Radio: "So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing." (2)

Indeed it was an incredible thing for Canada.

This incident may seem trivial, however, it would become part of broader movement to stifle debate and change the way Canadians think.

Now I know that this was nothing like the massive book burnings that took place in Germany under Goebbels, but the message was clear. This government was not going to address global warming, but instead change the way we felt about global warming. And they would do it one book at a time, one public address at a time. Meanwhile, they would use rhetoric and clever slogans to keep us pacified.

And no one was better at clever slogans and message manipulation than Republican pollster Frank Luntz. He had been involved with the Reform Party for several years and was on a first name basis with our prime minister.

Luntz is famous for what he calls "language guidance'' -- the use of simple messages, carefully tested and frequently repeated, to overcome public suspicions on potentially unpopular policies. [He advised] not to use economic arguments against environmental regulations, because environmental arguments would always win out ... stress common sense and accountability.

"First, assure your audience that you are committed to 'preserving and protecting' the environment but that 'it can be done more wisely and effectively.' Absolutely do not raise economic arguments first.'' (3)

Ambrose would parrot the message: "My mandate is to have accountability on the environment and show real results and action on the environment for Canadians...'' Luntz also advised putting the cost of regulation in human terms, emphasizing how specific activities will cost more, from "pumping gas to turning on the light.'' So Ambrose argued that "we would have to pull every truck and car off the street, shut down every train and ground every plane to reach the Kyoto target. Or we could shut off all the lights in Canada tomorrow.''

And then the huge message that the Reformers have adopted courtesy of Luntz is that "we won't accept targets unless developing countries like India and China also do so."

"The reality is that the Harper government has studied Republican tactics carefully and is implementing them one at a time,'' said Louise Comeau, project director of the Sage Climate Project. (3)

But these tactics are not really Republican. One time girlfriend of Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, herself a respected political philosopher, once questioned whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". Their success depended on directing and exploiting public opinion, and they did it masterfully. (4)

Leo Strauss would also stress the important of controlling the "ignorant masses" as one of the keys to political success and Joseph Goebbels would say: "He who controls the message controls the masses."

This is Neoconservatism 101.

Chapter Twenty-Four Continued: All Quiet on the Western Front

Sources:

1. Catch a Fire: Tories muzzle environmental scientist, By: Julie Fortier, The Hour, April 20, 2006

2. Minister Stops Book Talk By Environment Canada Scientist, CBC Arts, April 13, 2006

3. Bush's Chief Climate "Spinmaster" Tells Harper How It's Done, By: Ross Gelbspam, DeSmog, May 31, 2006

4. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, By: David Welch, Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-203-93014-2.