A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada I've been reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, and what I find interesting, is that American Imperialism over the past half century or so, has followed a pattern.
One laid out by the Chicago school and Milton Friedman. And it was done under the guise of fighting Socialism/Communism, but was really about taking over the economics of other nations, for corporate interests.
In an attempt to combat the socialist principles of leading Latin American economist Raul Prebisch, the Chicago School offered free market courses at a Chilean university.
This was the brainchild of Albion Patterson, director of the U.S. International Cooperation Administration in Chile, and Theodore W. Schultz, chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, who called on Friedman to work his magic.
The two men came up with a plan that would eventually turn Santiago, a hotbed of state-centred economics, into its opposite—a laboratory for cutting-edge free-market experiments, giving Milton Friedman what he had longed for: a country in which to test his cherished theories. The original plan was simple: the U.S. government would pay to send Chilean students to study economics at what pretty much everyone recognized was the most rabidly anti-"pink" school in the world—the University of Chicago. Schultz and his colleagues at the university would also be paid to travel to Santiago to conduct research into the Chilean economy and to train students and professors in Chicago School fundamentals. (1)
Friedman and his gang would also bring the media on board, and not surprisingly, the president of their largest newspaper, El Mercurio, would become Augustus Pinochet's economic minister after the U.S. led coup.
However, another important step in trying to turn the Southern Cone , and indeed the rest of the free world, to the right, came from another faculty member at the Chicago School, Friedrich von Hayek.
Hayek had come up with the notion of the corporate funded free market think tank, that he suggested should "present themselves as civil society". They churn out report after report, poll after poll, all to promote corporate interests.
And Chile was no exception. The most prominent are Libertad y Desarrollo (now the Latin American institute) and Centro de Estudios Públicos , both heralded as the saviour of Chile (next to Milton Friedman, bombs, guns and assassins).
In it he not only praises Libertad y Desarrollo and Centro de Estudios Públicos , but also Canada's own Fraser Institute.
... the Fraser Institute in Canada, ranked today as the best market oriented institute outside the United States. Fraser has a huge influence in a Canada which is overcoming the US in economic freedoms, transparency, and several other areas.
But who is this Alejandro Chafuen?
He is the past President of the Atlas Foundation and a Senior Fellow at the Acton Institute. In fact the Acton Institute was started with funds provided by the Atlas Foundation, and is an extension of the Religious Right.
Atlas was, and is, a major sponsor of the Acton Institute run by former faith healer, evangelical, gay community organizer, and now Catholic priest, Bob Sirico. Sirico ran fundamentalist faith healing meetings until he came out as gay. Then he moved on to the Metropolitan Community Churches and started running the Gay Community Center in Hollywood ... Acton officials got heavily involved in the debate on gay marriage. With Sirico back in the closet (though some conservatives don’t think so) the position they have been taking has been to pander to bigots on the Religious Right.
The Atlas Foundation also helps to finance the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which was started in 2002, by Conservative MP John Weston. The CCF has ties to the Harper government and Canada's Neoconservative movement.
Donald Gutstein wrote an excellent book: Not a Conspiracy Theory, in which he exposes the myriad of think tanks and foundations propping up the Harper government. Gutstein tells us to follow the money, and the few connections I provided above, are only a tip of the iceberg.
If we are going to engage in non-violent civil disobedience, it's important to know what we're up against. The media is constantly quoting polls and reports from these groups, to defend or explain this government's policies.
We have to do what Gutstein suggests and follow the money. Google the name of the group or the person quoted. It won't take long to find they belong to some corporate funded think tank or "advocacy" group, many with planted MPs.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (Jason Kenney) The Fraser Institute (Jason Kenney, Rob Anders) The Montreal Institute (Maxime Bernier) The Civitas Society (Jason Kenney) The National Citizens Coalition (Stephen Harper and Rob Anders)
The list is endless.
Once you trace the origin, email the columnist or own the comments section. Our best weapon is education, including the education of the media. Maybe if we become enough of a pain, they may start providing some balance.
Brigette DePape started something here, putting her job on the line to make a statement. But its not enough to simply "stop" Stephen Harper. We must fight against the entire movement, before it destroys us.
Sources:
1. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, By Naomi Klein, Vintage Canada, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-676-97801-8
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
The Tea Party in the United States is being called a grassroots movement. The voices of the people.
But like the Reform movement, this is just another vehicle for the corporate world, who risked losing their scheduled "Bush tax cuts".
So working through the Republican Party, they have managed to shift the United States even further to the right. To a spot just right of sanity.
But while the Tea Party may be steeped in Orange Pekoe, those funding and benefiting from the clinking teaspoons, prefer champagne and caviar.
According to Linda McQuaig:
Back in 1980, when Ronald Reagan launched his campaign for a right-wing revolution in America, David Koch was a disgruntled billionaire who thought Reagan wasn’t far enough to the right. Today, Koch is still a disgruntled billionaire and still convinced the Reagan revolution hasn’t gone nearly far enough in cutting taxes on the rich, dismantling the welfare state and gutting government controls on business.
But today, as Americans vote in their mid-term elections, Koch is no longer in the political wilderness. After pumping more than $100 million into arch-conservative political organizations over the past 30 years, he (and billionaire brother Charles) now appear close to pushing U.S. politics significantly further to the right — even though the wealthy elite is already richer and more powerful today than it’s been since the 1920s. Through their Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch brothers have micromanaged the rise of the purportedly grassroots Tea Party movement. (1)
And that's not all the Koch brothers have been behind. When an organization founded by one of Harper's MPs, John Weston, and former Stockwell Day supporter, John Carpay, launched attack ads in the US against Obama's healthcare plan, the Koch Foundation, through their Americans for Prosperity, helped to pay the bills. You can read all about it here.
And using foundations to fund these movements is clever, because it means that while they warble against "taxes" the donations these foundations contribute is tax deductible, so those warbling taxpayers are funding their own demise.
We have the same thing in Canada. The Griffith Foundation for starters, donated $ 100,000.00 tax deductible dollars to the Fraser Institute. (2) The same Fraser Institute that helped to launch the Reform party. Jason Kenney and Rob Anders are both alumni.
And when Stephen Harper came to power he immediately changed the rules to make it even easier for these groups to benefit from our tax dollars.
Just a year after the Fraser's anniversary, Harper was prime minister and it was payback time. Buried in his first budget was a provision to exempt from capital gains tax donations of stock to charity. Adding this new exemption to the existing tax credit for donations to charities means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars he donates. Taxpayers pick up the rest. (3)
In his book Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, Trevor Harrison speaks of the assorted think-tanks that helped to advance neoconservatism in Canada. When we were still allowed to call it neoconservatism.
The Fraser Institute was founded in British Columbia in November 1974 by Michael Walker, the son of a Newfoundland miner. Walker, holder of a doctorate in economics from the University of Western Ontario, started the institute with the monetary support of BC's business community, which was still reeling from the NDP's election in 1972. By 1984 the institute was operating on an annual budget of $900,000, funded by some of Canada's largest business interests, including Sam Belzberg of First City Trust, Sonja Bata of Bata Limited, A.J. de Grandpre of Bell Canada, and Lorne Lodge of IBM Canada.
The Fraser Institute also boasts impressive conservative credentials. The institute's authors include Milton Friedman [Ronald Reagan's economic adviser] and Herbert Grubel, while its editorial board includes Sir Alan Walters, former personal economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher. Finally, William F. Buckley Jr, brother-in-law of BC Socred bagman Austin Taylor, is a favourite guest speaker of the institute.
In short, the Fraser Institute is a conservative think-tank heavily funded by the corporate sector. Like the National Citizens' Coalition [Stephen Harper was president of the NCC when he left to run for leadership of the Alliance Party] , the Fraser Institute has steadfastly used its position to advance the neo-conservative agenda, an agenda liberally sprinkled with such Reaganite buzzwords as fiscal restraint, downsizing, and privatization. (4)
We are funding our own demise.
And these "think-tank" "astroturf" groups are growing. Dennis Gruending revealed several new ones, all with ties to Stephen Harper.
· the Manning Centre, created by Preston and his wife Sandra to train people how to succeed at conservative politics;
· the Ottawa-based Institute for Canadian Values, which has as its executive director Joseph Ben-Ami, a former political organizer for Stockwell Day.; and
· the Ottawa-based Institute for Marriage and Family, created by Dr James Dobson’s powerful US Focus on the Family (Canada), to provide socially conservative research and advice.
. the Hamilton-based Work Research Foundation (WRF), vice-president of research, Ray Pennings, was an unsuccessful Canadian Alliance candidate in the 2000 federal election.
The emergence of all these organizations might indicate that Canada is now seen as fertile territory for the think tank industry. If so, we all (and unions especially) should brace for an onslaught of “free market” propaganda. The challenge for progressive groups is provide better information and to distribute it widely within the community. (5)
2. Behind Closed Doors: How the Rich Won Control of Canada's Tax System, By Linda McQuaig, Viking Press, 1987, ISBN: 0-670-81578-7, Pg. 57
3. Harperstein, Straight.com, By Donald Gutstein, July 6, 2006
4. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 48-49
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
In 1971 a student newspaper, the Ubyssey, ran a story about a university professor who had made some seemingly racist comments to a local paper, resulting in calls for his dismissal.
A stormy controversy involving charges of racism against a history professor has erupted at the usually placid University of Western Ontario. Things came to a head Wednesday night when professor Kenneth Hilborn invaded a students meeting discussing demands for his dismissal and was involved in a scuffle with one of his denouncers .
The demands for the firing of the tenured professor arose from an article he had written, which appeared in the London Free Press. In this article Hilborn attacked those who support what he termed "terrorists" in South Africa . He said that the best way to end the apartheid system in that country was by a process of "erosion" . This could best be accomplished, the article went on, by increasing the prosperity of the white ruling class in South Africa . (1)
One of the first rules when covering a story is to follow the money, and in following the money to the Canadian Constitution Foundation*, one of their financial backers is Professor Kenneth Hillborn, an early Reform Party member who was (is?) on the president's counsel of the National Citizens Coalition**. He was also involved with a group called the Canadian South-African Society.
"The 300 members of CSAS (Canadian South-African Society) were mainly from large corporations, but there were also academics, churchmen and a Quebec Superior Court judge. One of these is Professor K.H.W. Hilborn of the University of Western Ontario on London. He was on the board of directors and is a regular contributor to the right-wing foreign affairs magazine 'International Conservative Insight.' He is one of the people honoured in the Northern Foundation's Northerner magazine, and is on the president's council of the National Citizens Coalition. A recent member of the Reform Party, Hilborn hopes Reform foreign policy will be fleshed out with all this orientation towards the likes of the ANC (Nelson Mandela's party) with it's strong Communist component ... foreign aid should go only to countries not practicing socialism ..' (2)
The Northern Foundation was a vanguard group set up to establish a network of far-right organizations, born out of Reform's decision to allow extremists to join their party.(3)
"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (4)
What the Canadian South-African Society, of which Hillborn was a member, did, was defend apartheid in South Africa:
"(CSAS) was founded to bring together Canadian and American subsidiary business interests in South Africa ...Their profit levels are high - often twice their returns in companies ventures in Canada - due to their ability to pay low wages and almost no benefits to black labour.' (that's what this was really about) "Most of the thirty member board are from Ontario ... a few were from the west ... one of these was Norman Wallace of Saskatoon ... a founding member of the Reform party ... He set up Eagle Staff Import Export Ltd. to further business ties with South Africa.
"Wallace created considerable controversy in 1987 when he and others involved in a group called the Indian Business Development Association put up money for a South African tour for five Saskatchewan Indian leaders ... intended to give the Pretoria regime a public relations weapon - using aboriginal conditions in Canada to demonstrate the Canadian government's hypocrisy. (5)
Besides being a staunch defender of South African apartheid, and defender of whites to make money, Hillborn has also, like the CCF, been an advocate for "free speech." He has had a long association with people like Paul Fromm***, and his book; The Cult of the Victim: Leftist Ideology in the '90s, can still be purchased on Fromm's C-Far website. In fact Paul Fromm wrote the preface.
Hillborn has also fought diligently against the rights of First Nations, which has earned him a spot on the Nizkor list of those associated with hate groups.
In 1997 when there was a move to make the title of "Masters' more gender neutral, Hillborn spoke out against it.
A second motion was also passed which, if accepted by Senate, would allow current Western masters degree holders the option to change their degree to a magisteriate. "It's a non-existent word for a non-existent problem," said Kenneth Hilborn, Western history professor and Senator. "[Magisteriate] is not in any established dictionary. It's feminist clap-trap." (6)
"Feminist clap-trap". I like him already
I do support the right to free speech and academic freedom on campus, but it's important to expose the money and power behind many of these organizations, like the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who back up the Reform-Alliance Conservative movement.
Is their fight for freedom of speech part of an advocacy group that would allow organizations like C-Far to attack our immigrant communities? Many of the groups that fell under the Northern Foundation umbrella were actually neo-nazi. Will this open the door to overt anti-semitism?
There was a reason for the adoption of human rights commissions, and people like John Carpay, Ezra Levant, John Weston and even Dr. Hillborn, need to understand what they were. These ridiculous lawsuits and constitutional challenges threaten to change who we are as Canadians.
*The Canadian Constitution Foundation was the brainchild of Reform-Conservative MP John Weston. He stepped down as the head of CCF to run as an MP, and Reform-Alliance-Conservative insider, John Carpay has taken over the reins. "The Ontario Health Coalition described the CCF as an “extremely right-wing” legal advocacy group that uses the Charter of Rights to promote a conservative agenda, including the end of medicare. "In 2005 Weston talked to the Calgary Herald about his counter intuitive approach to the Charter, which has typically been praised by the liberal-left and attacked by the political right. “It’s here, there’s not much point in wishing it weren’t. Now, we need to make it mean what it is supposed to mean,” Weston told the Herald. “Conservatives must reclaim it for conservative values.” "To that end, the CCF and Weston fought the federal Liberal government in the courts, challenging the Nisga’a Treaty ... The CCF is also funding a class action legal challenge to medicare in Alberta and an individual action in Ontario."" (7)
**The National Citizens Coalition is a rather secretive right-wing advocacy organization, heavily financed by corporations. They were initially established to put an end to Canada's medicare system. Stephen Harper has been a member for three decades and has served as both it's president and vice-president.
***Paul Fromm was a Toronto high school teacher who was fired when a video surfaced of him at a Hitler's birthday celebration giving a Nazi salute to a Confederate flag. He was allowed to sell memberships to C-Far at Reform Party assemblies.
2. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Author: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 104
3. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 115
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
The late Charles Templeton (1915-2001), evangelical turned agnostic; wrote a book Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith. In it he describes his journey from a popular Christian crusader, and colleague of Billy Graham, to his eventual abandonment of organized religion.
At a stage in his life when he was beginning to have doubts about his faith, he went to his friend Graham, expecting some spiritual guidance.
He asked him how he could accept creationism as 'fact' when there was irrefutable evidence that the world had evolved over millions of years. Graham, an intelligent man, told him "I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power." (1)
So even if Billy Graham, the scholar, pondered the scientific proofs of evolution, he chose to focus his beliefs on the words in an ancient text, because it was better for business.
Templeton and Graham would eventually part ways, but not because Templeton was losing faith, but because he exposed the enormous amount of money that TV evangelists were pocketing from the collection plates.
He would eventually become an agnostic, because he realized that there was no single god, who was the true God. "We worship the gods of our predecessors." (1)
I often say that the Religious Right has inspired me to become a born again atheist, but I suppose I'm an agnostic, because I do believe there is something bigger than us. But if there is indeed a God, I doubt he'd be pleased that the so-called Christian Conservatives have abandoned him to worship on the alter of the almighty dollar.
Show Me the Money
Classically Liberal, a Libertarian blogger, tells the story of Bob Sirico, once a gay rights activist, and now a Catholic Priest. According to Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute:
One often hears priests, preachers, and rabbis endorse an activist government able to solve social, economic, and perhaps even moral problems. Fr. Sirico offers a powerful challenge to this conventional wisdom. Religious principles, he says, require that men and women be free to practice virtue or vice, and freedom in turn requires a limited government and vibrant free-market economy. (2)
What the hell? I don't remember that in my Catechism. According to 'Classically Liberal', Sirico was given money from the Atlas Foundation and several other right-wing groups, to start up the Acton Institute, a right-wing think tank, run by a priest who believes in the faith of a free-market economy. Just what god is he following? Nieman-Marcus?
Atlas was, and is, a major sponsor of the Acton Institute run by former faith healer, evangelical, gay community organizer, and now Catholic priest, Bob Sirico. Sirico ran fundamentalist faith healing meetings until he came out as gay. Then he moved on to the Metropolitan Community Churches and started running the Gay Community Center in Hollywood ... He was also one of the first ministers in the country to perform gay marriages as early as 1975. Sirico’s outfit started out as an organization that was going to sell free market ideas to the religious community.
Acton officials got heavily involved in the debate on gay marriage. With Sirico back in the closet (though some conservatives don’t think so) the position they have been taking has been to pander to bigots on the Religious Right.
.... All of them forget that their beloved Father Bob performed same-sex marriages. And in one press interview at the time Sirico told the reporter “I’m hoping to be married to a beautiful man in Los Angeles whose work is translating for the deaf.” By 1977 Sirico was listed by the LA Times as the “organizer of Libertarians for Gay Rights. (3)
Apparently the good father Bob is still living a gay lifestyle, while telling his followers "not to comply with rules and laws forcing them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences." I guess hypocrisy is now a virtue.
Classical Liberal believes that this trend began when the Atlas Foundation abandoned it's original Libertarian ideals and began preaching the gospel of the wealthy Templeton family.
Over the years institutions evolve, change or slide away from their original purpose. It is inevitable, sometimes good, and sometimes not so good. One depressing change in recent years is with the Atlas Foundation. Atlas began as a libertarian-oriented, free-market foundation that was there to help think tanks around the world with similar purposes.But in recent years Atlas has begun to heavily rely on one specific donor or family, that is the money coming from John Templeton’s foundation or estate. As they have taken millions and millions from Templeton they started pandering to Templeton’s religious bias and prejudices. (3)
One group that falls under the virtue of hypocrisy and the Atlas Foundation, is the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Started in 2002, by a devout Religious Righter, John Weston, they take on cases that challenge the Constitution, in hopes of creating "a limited government and vibrant free-market economy", as handed down from God as the eleventh commandment.
But just in case we doubt they are devout, they will end abortion, same-sex marriage and public health care, while passing laws that allow us to call each other horrific names. Which brings me to the twelfth commandment: "Thou shalt abandon common decency and basheth all gays."
If you go to their website and read their mission statement, they lie and steal in the first paragraph. First off they claim to be non-partisan, despite the fact that their new chief, John Carpay was a long time Stockwell Day supporter, and is currently part of the Fraser Institute and the Manning Centre, both duct taped to the Reform-Alliance-Conservative movement. (did I mention that their founder, John Weston, is a Harper MP?)
And the fact that they are listed as non-profit, meaning they escape paying taxes, but have money seeping from their pores, brings me to the thirteenth commandment: "Thou shalt fooleth some of the people, some of the time ..." Amen. Sources:
1. Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith, By Charles Templeton, McClelland & Stewart, 1996, ISBN: 0-7710-8422-6, Pg. 7-8
2."Religion and Freedom." Heartlander. By Joseph Bast, Heartland Institute. January 1, 2007
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
John Carpay is the co-founder of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, referred to by Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre (ECP) as "Canada’s leading organization fighting the enemies of freedom in Canada’s courts." Up until recently, ECP's director was Timothy Bloedow, legislative assistant to Maurice Vellicott.
Carpay has been a long time Stockwell Day supporter, and is part of his Reconstructionism team. Though he once ran as a Reform Party candidate but lost, his partner and co-founder of CCF, John Weston, is now one of Harper's MPs, and like Harper, these men and CCF are committed to demolishing Canada's Health Care system. To do this they take on constitutional challenges, including that of Shona Holmes. (1)
The Mysterious Case of Shona Holmes
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is one of the groups behind the organizing of the infamous and band of the ignorant, Tea Party rallies in the United States. Funded primarily through the Koch foundation, a conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas, chemicals, minerals, ranching, and securities, they have also launched campaigns against climate change, regulating the tobacco industry and the size of government.
Their Director is Art Pope, an ex-legislator who has been dubbed "The Knight of the Right". Pope has created several "organizations to sway public opinion, monitor the legislature, develop grass-roots political efforts and bring court challenges" and he has spent "millions of dollars on a network whose purpose is to move North Carolina to the political right." His goal was to purge the North Carolina state House of Representatives of Republican moderates. (2)
In mid-2009, Americans for Prosperity launched an advertising and advocacy campaign opposing U.S. health care reform: Patients United Now. According to talk show host Rachel Maddow:
They're experts at fake grassroots campaigns that promote corporate interests. Americans for Prosperity is the group that ginned up anti-stimulus rallies earlier this year. They also organized what they called the "Hot Air Tour" to campaign against the whole idea of global warming. They were the ones who sent Joe the Plumber around the country to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act, which is pro-labor legislation.
One other thing about Americans for Prosperity, their most visible spokesman, is a man named Tim Phillips. He is the President of the organization and we've asked him to come on the show to talk with us about the group. Tim Phillips got his start in fake grass roots with a firm called Century Strategies, run by Ralph Reed. Century Strategies is famous for having duped Christian groups into lobbying for energy deregulation. You know, like the Bible said.They were doing that at the behest of Century Strategies' client, Enron. Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed were later made even more famous in the Jack Abramoff scandal, for duping Christian groups into lobbying against gambling. But only in areas where these guys happened to have competing gambling interests as clients.These guys are the pros. (3)
And of course much of the funding comes from Koch Industries through a network of think tanks and non-profit groups.
John Carpay, who is also involved with the Fraser Institute and Preston Manning's the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, is a regular speaker at an affiliate of Koch, the Atlas Experience, where like Stephen Harper, he preaches to the American conservatives on the evils of the Canadian identity.
So who better to call on when they wanted to launch another "fake grassroots campaign", than their buddy John Carpay and his Canadian Constitution Foundation, and he knew just who would be up for the job. An Ontario woman named Shona Holmes, who claimed that had she not gone to the U.S. for surgery, she would have died. Did I mention that she "claimed" she needed this life surgery? (Holmes is second from right in the photo below, taken with Republican Party brass.)
Holmes was featured on a number of ads suggesting that Obama was looking to replicate the Canadian system, and just how damaging that would be. However, columnist David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "a single-payer Canadian style insurance system is not part of any leading reform proposal as the ad suggests". Media Matters for America called the ad "Strong on emotion and weak on facts.
So who is Shona Holmes and is her story true?
"What many Canadians don’t know is that Ms. Holmes has a lawsuit against the Ontario government, which has not been filed, to recoup 100 thousand dollars for her 2005 trips to the Mayo clinics to remove a Rathke’s Cleft cyst. The suit is also a challenge to single tier care and the Canadian health system. She is one of two plaintiffs, the handlers behind it are The Canadian Constitution Federation. After doing the commercial and a talk show circuit in the US Shona Holmes publicist told CBC News, she was now declining interviews." (4)
According to American journalist Ian Welsh, the entire thing was a hoax:
On the Mayo Clinic's website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it's somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes' "brain tumour" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."There's no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it's a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks. (5)
The following video represents one of Americans for Prosperity Tea Party chats, where they are trying to use fear mongering, even suggesting that Obama would engage in the genocide of senior citizens. But as one person suggests after the video: "It's really too bad there are so many uneducated people. End of life counseling is done all the time and in fact, check your private insurance policy, cuz it's in there. I worked for an attorney and we wrote living wills all the time - and guess what? We never killed anyone."
What this speaks to more than anything is the enormous ties between the Republican Reconstruction team and Canada's Religious Right. John Weston, the MP who helped to found the Canadian Constitution Foundation, also belongs to the Christian Legal Fellowship, that challenge our Constitution, taking on court cases based on religious freedom.
Sources:
1. New MP profile: West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky's John Weston. Vancouver Sun. October 18, 2008
2. "The knight of the right: Ex-legislator Art Pope has quietly built a political network to advance his conservative vision for North Carolina", By Rob Christensen, Raleigh News and Observer, January 29, 2006.
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
In 2004, a twelve-year-old Ohio boy, James Nixon, won the right to wear a T-shirt to school, that read: Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder ", after his parents sued the school, who asked him not to. (1)
His case was handled by the Alliance Defense Fund, who challenged the courts, not on freedom of speech, but freedom of religion. They used the protection of religious freedom to justify hatred and exploited a child to do so.
A student at Sheridan Middle School in Thornville won a federal court ruling Thursday allowing him to wear a shirt to school that insults homosexuals, Muslims and abortion-rights supporters.
On Sept. 1, 2004, the first day of school, seventh-grader James Nixon wore a T-shirt that read on the front, "INTOLERANT. Jesus said ... I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6". On the back, the T-shirt read, "Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder! Some issues are just black and white!" (2)
Marlin Maddoux and the Alliance Defense League
One of the founders of the American Defense League who came to the aid of young James Nixon, was Marlin Maddoux (1993-2004), a pioneer of Christian radio broadcasting.
Newspapers usually describe the ADF, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., as a "conservative" group but give little additional information. USA Today even called the ADF "a legal alliance that promotes religious freedom...."
Critics say a description such as that doesn't even begin to tell the story. Far from supporting religious liberty, the ADF champions the exact opposite: It was formed by a band of television preachers and radio broadcasters to advance the Religious Right's perspective in the courts.
The ADF, watchdogs at Americans United say, champions a radical agenda to destroy the wall of separation between church and state. It even has close ties to the most extreme faction of the Religious Right--a movement that wants to create a harsh fundamentalist Christian theocracy in America.
Since its founding, the ADF has played a role in nearly every church-state case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court and many lower federal courts. Since 1994, the ADF has directly or partially funded cases dealing with government aid to religion, religion in public schools, abortion, gay rights and religiously based censorship. Throughout, the organization's goal has been the same: merge religion and government. (3)
Maddoux was also a member of the Council for National Policy, which appear to represent the pro-military arm of the Religious Right. It was at a conference of the CNP, held in Montreal in 1997, where Stephen Harper was invited to deliver a speech tearing down the Canadian identity.
He told this group of 'muscular' Christians that: "your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world." (4)
Another founding member of ADL is James Dobson, the man who created Focus on the Family. Dobson provided the seed money for a Canadian branch of Focus, started up by Stephen Harper's deputy chief of staff, Darrel Reid. He also indirectly poured thousands of dollars into Harper's election campaign, focusing on the issue of same-sex marriage, which became one of Harper's election promises (to scrap Bill C-38).
Dobson is also a founding member of the Council for National Policy with a strong belief in creating an aggressive theocracy in both the United States and Canada.
From the beginning, the ADF was clear about what it wanted to achieve. Its founders announced the group's formation in 1994 with a huge direct-mail campaign aimed at fundamentalist Christians. Maddoux and five other high-profile Religious Right leaders endorsed the effort: James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family; Bill Bright, president of Campus Crusade for Christ; D. James Kennedy, a television evangelist and head of Coral Ridge Ministries; the Rev. Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association; and Larry Burkett, president of Christian Financial Concepts (now Crown Financial Ministries), a fundamentalist-oriented financial services company.
In a letter soliciting donations for the ADF, Dobson wrote, "By pooling resources, substantial amounts of money can be channeled into a critical aspect of the civil war for values---namely, the legal battle in our nation's courts for the sanctity of life, the defense of religious freedom, and the preservation of traditional family values." (3)
And as you can see from their own website, James Dobson is indeed a founding member of the Alliance Defense Fund.
Cindy Silver and the Religious Right
During the 2006 election campaign, when Ralph Reed suggested that the Religious Right in Canada bring forward as many Christian nationalists (extremists, fundamentalists) as possible, one they hand selected to run was Cindy Silver.
Silver was a lawyer with the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Canadian franchise of the Alliance Defense Fund, and one of her most prominent clients was Focus on the Family Canada, then run by Darrel Reid, Stephen Harper's deputy chief of staff.
She had the endorsement of former Reform Party MP, Sharon Hayes, who is best remembered as the woman who issued a press release on her House of Commons letterhead, that accused the Chinese of eating fetuses, urging Liberal ministers attending the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to reject "Chinese government policies that endorse the mandated one-child policy, the murder of inmates for body parts and the alleged consumption of human fetuses as health food." (5)
She also presented a petition to Parliament in 1997, asking the government not to overturn the rights of parents to engage in corporal punishment.
These people draw to the attention of the House that section 43 recognizes the primary role of parents in raising and disciplining their children, that the federal government is under pressure from various sources including the UN to change section 43, that the removal of section 43 would strengthen the role of bureaucrats and weaken the role of parents, and that the government now continues to fund research by people opposed to its removal.
These petitioners request Parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their own conscience and beliefs and to retain section 43 in Canada's Criminal Code as it is currently worded.
Cindy Silver shared those views and as part of a letter to the editor wrote:
"... properly administered corporal punishment educates children to the dangers of disobedience, defiance, selfishness, sassiness, cruelty to others and actions that put the child's life in danger. It teaches them self-control and respect for authority - two characteristics necessary in socially responsible children." (6)
But what concerned the citizens of North Vancouver-Surrey, where Silver was running, was her views on things like abortion and homosexuality. In 2003 she had appeared before a House of Commons committee, as a private citizen, (not representing her client Focus on the Family), and made the following statement:
During the marriage trials, it became evident that EGALE and their partner groups for challenging marriage are not simply seeking equal benefits before and under the law, but are really seeking to ensure and expedite broad social approval for same-sex unions and, by implication, for homosexual conduct. It is really this that is at the heart of the marriage challenge. It is an attempt to use the disciplinary power of language to exact change in people's beliefs and attitudes regarding the moral nature of homosexual conduct.
Sharon Hayes now sits on the board of directors of Focus on the Family, so it shows just how connected they are to James Dobson, the Council for National Policy, and the American Religious Right.
Christian Legal Fellowship:
As mentioned above, Christian Legal Fellowship is the Canadian franchise of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that challenges the constitution based on freedom of religion, by using legal justification for endorsing hatred toward mostly gays, Muslims and women's advocacy groups.
They also oppose anything that will stand in the way of corporate interests.
A member of Stephen Harper's caucus, and one of the hand picked social conservatives of the Religious Right, is also a lawyer with CLF and has founded a spin off organization the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
Weston is the founder of the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF). He said he founded the group in 2002 to promote and uphold the rights of Canadians against governments that undermine the rights of individuals.
Weston’s foes on the political left use more critical language to describe the CCF goals. The Ontario Health Coalition described the CCF as an “extremely right-wing” legal advocacy group that uses the Charter of Rights to promote a conservative agenda, including the end of medicare.
In 2005 Weston talked to the Calgary Herald about his counterintuitive approach to the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] ... “It’s here, there’s not much point in wishing it weren’t. Now, we need to make it mean what it is supposed to mean,” Weston told the Herald. “Conservatives must reclaim it for conservative values.” (7)
His group was behind the attack ads running in the U.S. against President Obama's health care plan, by using one of their clients Shona Holmes, to embellish a story of a "life threatening" illness. (8) Weston's partner, who is now running the Canadian Constitution Federation is John Carpay, an old Reform Party candidate, who is also involved with the Fraser Institute and Preston Manning's the Manning Centre for Building Democracy.
What I find rather disturbing about this movement, is their heavy use of military terms to describe domestic initiatives.
A medieval knight in jousting attire stared from the badges of delegates to the national conference of the Christian Legal Fellowship (CLF). The language of battle resonated through the late September proceedings and permeated the pages of the event program.
Carefully selected verses from Scripture buttressed the conference theme. "Therefore take on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm" (Eph. 6:13). "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love" (1 Cor. 16:13,14).
"As part of a national grassroots association of Christian lawyers, you have aligned with a band of faithful Christian professionals--servants of the most high--committed to standing guard for Canada, its religious freedoms, its traditional family and sanctity of life," writes CLF executive director Ruth Ross. "You have also demonstrated Christ's love, compassion and righteousness to a lost and hurting world." (9)
Marcie McDonald also revealed something else about the group after attending one of their conferences. The guest speaker was Benjamin Bull of the American Defense Fund, who after showing a rather alarming video, sheepishly apologized by saying "It works one way with donors, and another way here." (10)
Ah yes, there it is. "Donors". What it usually boils down to with the Religious Right: MONEY! Self righteous sanctimoniousness is a very lucrative business indeed, not that this group doesn't believe that they are at war. As James Dobson stated in that "fund raising" letter: "By pooling resources, substantial amounts of money can be channeled into a critical aspect of the civil war for values ..."
Unfortunately those "values" include racism, sexism and discrimination, which fall under their "freedom of religion". The religion of hate, that justifies a twelve-year-old boy wearing a T-shirt that reads: "INTOLERANT. Jesus said ... I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14:6". [On the back] "Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder! Some issues are just black and white!" (2)
Sources:
1. The God Delusion, By Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006, ISBN: 13-978-0-618-68000-9, Pg. 23
3. The Alliance Defense Fund's hidden agenda: how a TV preachers' front group is bankrolling the legal crusade to block same-sex marriage, Goliath Media, June 1, 2004
