The New anti-Abortionists: Young Political Activists or Youthful Vigilantes?

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

The inspiration for the Moral Majority/Religious Right, in the United States, was the central government's passing of anti-segregation laws. However, the art of political activism by the movement, came from a man by the name of Francis Schaeffer.

If we are to understand the Harper government, we have to accept that everything they do or have done, comes from the U.S. Republican/Tea Party/Religious Right.

I could stop searching for these links, and instead focus on their truly Canadian-based actions, since it would be a much shorter list. The only problem is, that I haven't found any.

The election of Ronald Reagan in the U.S., gave the evangelical activists an "in". The election of Stephen Harper has done the same in Canada, and as Marci McDonald reminds us in The Armageddon Factor, they will now be a permanent fixture on Parliament Hill.

Francis Schaeffer and How the Evangelicals Stormed the Bastille

Reagan's 1980 victory, gave rise to many quasi-religious organizations, like Focus on the Family, who helped to finance Harper's 2006 victory, by placing radio ads on over 100 Canadian stations, against same-sex marriage. Harper's rallying cry.

The Canadian chapter of Focus on Family, was started by Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, Darrel Reid. The executive included two top ranking officials from their American parent organization, and $1.6 million from Dobson himself (Armageddon Factor, p.86), who claimed to be concerned with Canada's moral decay.

However, the notion that evangelicals should play a more active role in politics, came from Francis Schaeffer, the man who coined the term, or at least made popular the term, "secular humanism".

He believed that putting people above religion was wrong, and he was determined to do something about it. So he established a commune in Switzerland, L'Abri (shelter), devoted to Christian thought and activism. (There is a Canadian chapter on Bowen Island in B.C.)

When Michael Lindsay was researching his book: Faith in the Halls of Power, he found that many Religious Right leaders that he interviewed, had either visited the commune or had been heavily influenced by Schaeffer's writings.

One of the first campaigns that Schaeffer ignited, was the anti-abortion movement, that mobilized his followers to take action. It was perhaps the first time that orthodox Catholics and Protestants united for a common cause.

Gwen Lanholt, now president of REAL Women of Canada, was part of that movement.

And as a founding director of the Civitas Society*, the policy arm of the Harper government, she has a great deal of influence with the powers that be.

Youthful Vigilantes

Brian Lilley recently interviewed a young woman, named Alissa Golob, on his Fox News North/Sun TV Byline.

Golob is an anti-abortion activist, involved in a campaign to "shock" people into joining her cause, by posting images of aborted fetuses (emblazoned with a swastika). I've mentioned this in another post, because of yet another American inspired group, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who had taken up the cause.



Golob believes that the graphic image campaign will work the same as MADD's (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) images of car wrecks and the police's of gang violence. However, they are about self-preservation.

No doubt the signs will impact some, but most of us have an idea of what an aborted fetus looks like.

However, this isn't really about the abortion debate, but the modus operandi of this new youth movement, attached to the broader neoconservative movement.

Golob brings up the work of her American counterpart, Lila Rose, a young woman who believes that abortions should be performed in the public square, so people can see how gross they are.

That may sound a little nuts, but Rose's involvement draws attention to a larger issue.

The benefactors.

Lila Rose is a graduate of Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, (so is Rob Anders and Karl Rove) and friend of James O'Keefe. O'Keefe was involved in the demise of ACORN, an organization that worked for the poor, especially African-Americans. The Neocons wanted it gone.

So two young activists, O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, went undercover to discredit the organization, and though their videos were later determined to be "highly edited", they were able to paint the non-profit group as "pimps".

But they couldn't have pulled it off without the help of Fox News and Andrew J. Breitbart. You might remember Breitbart as the one responsible for destroying the career of Anthony Weiner.

This has gone from political activism to dangerous vigilante justice against their perceived enemies. They want to destroy anyone and everything associated with a progressive and just society.

For Lila Rose, it's Planned Parenthood. She helped to perpetrate a hoax against PP, to "prove" that they were sex traffickers.

Where Does Alissa Golob Fit in to All This?

At the beginning I mentioned Francis Schaeffer, who inspired the Moral Majority/Christian Right. Schaeffer was a dominionist, who believed that before the Second Coming of Christ, the U.S. must be returned to a Christian nation.

Canada's dominionism, aka reconstructionism, is championed by people like Darrel Reid and David Sweet (amoung many, many others), both involved in the Work Research Foundation, and Redeemer University. (Sweet also Canadian founder of Promise Keepers)

Redeemer University, a private for-profit school, received three million from the Harper government as part of the Canada Action Plan.

Alissa Golob is a graduate of Redeemer, one of many of her fellow students, turned activists for the movement. And while she claims to be pro-life, it's pretty clear that she is just anti-abortion. She does not encourage birth control or "safe sex".

Because those are some of the best defenses against abortion.

Better access to contraception, higher quality sex education and shifting social norms have contributed to a 36.9 per cent decline in Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate between 1996 and 2006, according to a report released today by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.

Other initiatives that Golob could adopt would be eradicating poverty and improving health care.

But that will never happen.

The group that Golob works for, Campaign Life Coalition, also has Planned Parenthood in their crosshairs.

The Harper government has already defunded them at home and abroad.

The Campaign Life Coalition also had a hand in the success of Stockwell Day, by selling 130,000 memberships to the Alliance Party, on his behalf.

So do you see what we're up against?

Fox News, the American Religious Right and Stephen Harper. Jagged lightening, rumbling thunder and gale-force winds.

Batten down the hatches, because it's going to be one hell of a storm.

Footnotes:

* Civitas Society: Founding President: William Gairdner (Reform Party)

Other Past Presidents: Tom Flanagan (Reform Party and Calgary School), William Robson, and Lorne Gunter

Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield (Reform Party), 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 (National Citizens Coalition), Michael Walker (Fraser Institute)

Update on Young Americans for Freedom

After posting on Kyle Bristow and Young Americans for Freedom, I received an email from their director Jordan Marks. He updated my information and added a few corrections.

1. Kyle Bristow is no longer with YAF
2. Leadership Institute does not run YAF. We have our own offices and our own recruitment staff.
- Morton is an alumni and there likes to promote YAF.
3. We are not like Youth for Western Civilization, they are folks that broke from YAF when their ideology was not being advanced through our organization.
4. We do not advance, but fight hatred, bigotry, and racism.

I'm glad he took the time to respond to my post and am pleased that they purged their organization from people like Kyle Bristow, whom I don't think is a bad sort, just terribly misguided.

I like to see young people getting involved in politics, but get very discouraged when I read about the antics of groups like Youth for Western Civilization and similar on Canadian campuses.

I can now promote YAF and a large group of young Evangelicals who have adopted social gospel philosophies.

I'll still be following this movement closely and will post positive along with the negative. Thank you Mr. Marks.

Morton Blackwell, Kyle Bristow and Young Americans for Freedom

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

"As long as we, as a society, continue to bury our heads in the sand, hope that all of this nastiness will just go away, ask "can't we all just get along," without getting up off of our apathetic asses, without turning off the damned TV, without allowing ourselves to be duped and hoodwinked by our so-called leaders - we are about as useless as windshield wipers on a cat's ass." Nicole Nichols

I love the above quote from an American blogger who is one of several tracking a new youth movement, that is being legitimized by the Republican Party in the U.S. and the Conservative Party in Canada.

It has been getting very little media attention, especially here, as they are all being treated as isolated incidents. Yet most can be traced to two places. The Leadership Institute under Morton Blackwell and it's Canadian counterpart, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, who are both training political activists. Karl Rove and Rob Anders graduated from Blackwell's school, so that gives you some idea of what they teach.

But more than simply rabble rousing, many are becoming increasingly racist, sexist and virulently homophobic. Morton Blackwell is also a founding member of the Council for National Policy and of course Preston Manning from the Manning Centre is the founder of the Reform Party. His name is being tossed around as our next Governor General. A BIG mistake!

In the book, The Colour of Democracy, Racism in Canadian Society, the authors point to the Reform Party in particular. After suggesting that the (neo-Nazi) Heritage Front* is not as big a threat since they are small in number, and "...can to a certain extent be ignored ... such thinking is also evident in the doctrines of the Reform Party, who won a substantial number of votes in the federal election of 1993 and who hold 52 seats in Parliament." (1) One of those 52 seats, was held by a man named Stephen Harper.

Young Americans for Freedom

Young Americans for Freedom was created in 1960, as one of the many anti-Communist organizations of the period, and aligned themselves with William F. Buckley. They opposed the civil rights movement, and, in 1962, gave their first annual Freedom Award to segregationist South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond. Though they supported Nixon they were never really partisan, preferring to simply be called conservative and later adopted libertarian policies.

On college campuses they were referred to as the 'Shock Troops', often challenging anti-war protesters, and as the new right wing, counterbalanced the "hippies" who were more prevalent during the period. YAFers wore ties and had trimmed haircuts, but their lapel pins were B-52 bombers in the shape of a peace symbol. Their activism was mostly described as "dirty tricks" and they dubbed themselves the "prankster truth squad".

In 1970 a member of the Young Republicans, who had been touring colleges in Illinois, met up with the YAFs and sought their help with a little scheme. A man by the name of Alan Dixon was running as a Democrat for state treasurer, and was planning a gala event to officially open his campaign office in Chicago.

The Young Republican, using a false name, posed as a supporter to gain access to the campaign headquarters, where he ran off with some official letterhead. With the help of YAF, he printed up 1,000 invitations for the grand opening, giving the correct time and place but adding "Free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing".

They then fanned out and distributed the invitations to a hippie commune, at a rock concert, in a soup kitchen and among the drunks in the Chicago bowery. On the night of the event as guests all dressed to the nines were mingling with the upper class, van loads of the unwashed arrived, destroying the evening for many.

Dixon still won, but when George Herbert Bush, then on the Republican National Committee, got wind of it, he told the Young Republican to immediately go and apologize. But according to Dixon, Karl Rove never showed. It would not be the last time he discredited the party, and under another George Bush, a stunt like that would be child's play.

Kyle Bristow and Young Americans for Freedom

The photo to the left is of Kyle Bristow and Ron Paul. Bristow would become the leader of Young Americans for Freedom at Michigan State University, as the group, which had not been heard much of for some time, now took a new direction.

The Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell and the Republican National Committee have taken them over and there are now more 20 YAF organizations on campuses across the country, most of them started in the past five years by Leadership Institute-trained activists.

One of them is Kyle Bristow who interned there for a summer, and instead of simple pranks, his activism included organizing a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” a “Straight Power” demonstration to protest a proposed local civil rights ordinance protecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals from discrimination, with signs that read “End Faggotry” and “Go Back in the Closet.” He also administered two racist online groups — “True American Patriot” and “Jobs a White Man Won’t Do”.

He also arranged to have controversial figures like Paul Fromm, British National Party Chairman Nick Griffin, and other white supremacists speak on campus. And while such events drew protest, as he knew they would,Kyle believes all press coverage is good coverage, and while 10,000 people who read what he has to say will be disgusted, one or two will be intrigued. He’s using the media coverage to reach those one or two people at a time and that’s what concerns me about YAF, because what he’s articulating is dangerous.” (2)

But there is another reason for this, which I've mentioned in my other posts on the subject. It's something called 'Controlled Controversy' that is taught at Blackwell's training school. When you look at the headlines or heaven forbid, watch Fox (I've only seen the videos on Youtube), the news is always about the reactions, rarely if ever about what caused those reactions. That's how this works. You can get away with anything once you've achieved the reaction you desired in the first place.

Nothing Bristow* or any of the others do, is illegal, but it's troubling, as there is not merely an attempt to shift universities to the right, but also an underlying motivation to make racism, homophobia, etc., acceptable. And though these groups are clearly extreme, the only ones who have been given that handle are the ones who speak out against them.

Another youth group engaged in the same kind of activities, is Youth for Western Civilization, again under the direction of Blackwell's Leadership Institute. They have actually been legitimized by the Conservative Political Action Conference, and debuted there in 2009. Tom Tancredo also helps them out when they need to stir things up. Tancredo was a YAF when he was younger, and is now an outspoken critic of immigration and multiculturalism.

We need to be more diligent and tell university students to watch out for things like this. If their statements or actions are outrageous, they are intended to make you mad, and once you're mad, your reaction becomes the story.

Hate groups are definitely making a comeback in the Right-Wing revolution and are now main-streamed by the Republican/Conservative parties.

Footnotes:

*The Heritage Front belonged to the umbrella group, the Northern Foundation (Stephen Harper was a founding member). Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege, was also a member of the Reform Party and was once their Ontario policy chair. He used his members to act as security for Preston Manning when he spoke in Ontario. According to Dr. Debra Chin, Harper himself arranged this.

**Bristow is no longer at MSU but is now considered to be an up and comer in the Republican Party.

Sources:

1. The Colour of Democracy, Racism in Canadian Society, By Frances Henry, Carol Tator, Winston Mattis, and Tim Rees, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995, ISBN: 0-7747-3255-5, Pg. 24

2. Black Hats on Campus, by David Holthouse, Southern Poverty Law Center, January 16, 2008

3. ‘Right-Wing Youth’ Group Debuts At CPAC, by David Holthouse, Hate on Campus, February 26, 2009

From John Birch to the Tea Parties. The Far-Rightists Have Made a Comeback

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

I mentioned in relation to the Council for National Policy, how one of the founders was Nelson Bunker Hunt, who is now also running the John Birch Society.

I wanted to introduce him for several reasons, but mainly to show the connections to past far-right organizations that have now embedded themselves in the Republican/Conservative parties.

Another founder of the Council for National Policy is Morton Blackwell (1), the man who is behind the Leadership Institute. Preston Manning's Manning Centre for Building Democracy, runs a youth program fashioned after that of the Leadership Institute, which trains young Republicans/Conservatives in political activism, and that horrendous activism is now playing out on university campuses in Canada.

I have a lot more on that to share, but for now I just wanted to make some comparisons to the activities of the John Birch Society and what is happening in the U.S. with the ridiculous Tea Party movement. They have not created a new phenomenon, but simply revised the 1960's Bircher movement, complete with it's rampant racism.

In 1961, Time Magazine published a lengthy expose on the John Birch Society and other similar, that were creating havoc in the country, which brings the whole teabagger's notion of "Obama is a Socialist" nonsense into context.

An attractive Dallas housewife sees little of her neighbors these days. "I just don't have time for anything," says Mrs. Bert Shipp. "I'm fighting Communism three nights a week." In Hollywood Hills. TV Commercial Producer Marvin Bryan spends his spare time working for the local Freedom Club, which is dedicated to opposing "compromisers" in local and national government and to smoking out liberals in the community. Says Bryan: "We don't want to coexist with these people. We don't want our children to play with their children." At a Freedom Forum meeting in Greenwich, Conn., 800 citizens recently paid $5 apiece to sit through a day of patriotic films, speeches on dialectical materialism and attacks on the U.S. State Department, federal income tax, philanthropic foundations and Harvard University. Questions to speakers were written out, explained Mrs. Charles Chapin, one of the meeting's sponsors, in order to screen those coming from Communists who might be in the audience. (2)

At the latest Tea Party rally, and indeed at all of them, they said this of Obama:

"His mother was a Communist. His father was a Communist. His grandparents were socialists. He had Marxist professors. He taught a course in college on Saul Alinsky. He was friends with William Ayers." According to Jackson, another clue that Obama is a Leninist is that he used the phrase "spread the wealth" in his conversation with Joe the Plumber. "That is a direct quote from the Communist Manifesto," she insisted." Except that, in reality, it is not, although 1930s populist Huey Long did promise to "share the wealth." (3)

Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, lost credibility when he called Eisenhower a Communist. Now this seems to be quite acceptable.

Back to 1961:

These are only a few of the manifestations of a U.S. phenomenon: the resurgence of ultraconservative antiCommunism. Hundreds of groups and subgroups—with such names as Project Alert, Americans for Constitutional Action, Survival U.S.A. and Crusade for American ism—have popped up across the U.S., in some cases springing from nothing to several thousand members almost overnight. More than 100 anti-Communist study groups are being conducted in Dallas alone. Because their membership is sometimes secret and usually heavily interchangeable with other groups, no sure estimate of their strength is possible.

The far-rightists intend to figure in as many congressional campaigns as possible
next year. California's Representative John Rousselot, a member of the John Birch Society, is talking of running for the Senate in the 1962 G.O.P. primary against Incumbent Thomas Kuchel. Arkansas Congressman Dale Alford has already begun to use far-right material in a buildup against Senator J. William Fulbright. Says Indiana's Clarence Manion onetime dean of Notre Dame Law School and a veteran anti-Communist lecturer and writer, who claims to have 350 Conservative Clubs in operation: "I've never seen anything like this. As one who has faced a great many empty seats in recent years. I'd say the whole atmosphere has changed in recent months." No Room in the Middle .... (2)

McCarthyism is definitely making a comeback, and just as in 1961, there is no room in the middle. The Conservative movement has gone to the far-right.

The John Birch Society is now one of the sponsors of the Conservative Political Action Conference, showing that we have come full circle. Do we really want to return to those days?

The rightists rally citizens to their banner in many cases by stressing a belief in nondenominational Christianity as part of their platform. "This war we're in," says South Carolina's Senator Strom Thur mond, "is basically a fight between the believers in a Supreme Being and the atheists." Thus, the rightists' two principal poles of attraction, anti-Communism and religion, are impeccable—and subject to a good deal of emotionalism. But the ultras do not stop there.

... In everything that he finds displeasing in modern society and political life, the ultra sees evidence of Communist plots and subversion. With a dogmatic either-or attitude, he broaches no disagreement. "You're either for us or against us," says James E. Gibson, senior vice president of California's Leach Corp., which makes electronic components. "There's no room in the middle any more." And the ultra, dissatisfied with the current political order, usually works outside normal political channels (2)

You're either with us or against us. Where have we heard that before? "Taliban" Jack Layton can attest to what that feels like.

Sources:

1. 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. 103-104

2. Organizations: The Ultras, Time Magazine, December 08, 1961

3. At the Tea Party Rally: Obama 'the Communist', By Walter Shapiro, politics Daily, May 2010

Controlled Controversy at Dalhousie With Jared Taylor

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

There is a growing trend in this country to challenge our hate crime laws, by inviting some of the most controversial speakers to our universities in the hopes that there will be protests.

And when the inevitable protest happens, the news becomes about that, rather than the message that is being delivered, that got people so riled up in the first place.

Most recently it was Ann Coulter and the "controlled controversy" surrounding her visit became the debate, ignoring the question of whether or not it was OK to Muslim-bait.

What we should have also questioned was why a Danish hate group was sponsoring her visit, and why a member of Stephen Harper's staff was arranging the pre-show party.

Forget that Ezra Levant and David Frum had their fingers it, both bosom buddies of Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day.

These 'free speech' gurus love it when the hateful messages are not directed at them or their beliefs, but when they are they scream bloody murder. George Galloway is an excellent example of that.

However, before Coulter's visit there was another 'controlled controversy" on a University campus, when Jared Taylor, a notorious white supremacist was invited to debate a professor of black studies. Why they purposely chose Dalhousie, I don't know, perhaps it's because there is rather large black community in Halifax.

The organizer, Brian Boothe, claimed that he had hoped that the Dalhousie professor David Devine would win the debate, thereby proving that racism is wrong. Divine was under the impression that Taylor was a legitimate expert, and wasn't prepared to debate a devoted racist, who had honed his skill, by simply not listening to a thing anyone had to say that would contradict his already firmly entrenched opinions.

When word of the debate circulated around Halifax, the public outcry forced the professor to cancel the debate, but Taylor showed up anyway, garnering a lot of media attention, especially when after handing out hate literature on the street corners, he was attacked by a group who clearly wanted him out of town.

In its reaction to Mr. Taylor's brief visit last week, Halifax failed on almost every measure. Prof. Divine did not check his background before agreeing to debate him as an intellectual peer, an omission that later forced him to publicly refuse to debate. The media courted Mr. Taylor, then shunned him, then courted him again, turning a non-story into a near-scandal; and citizens stooped to mob violence and an anonymous e-mail that read: "Next time he comes, we're going to cut off his head." "Must be Muslims," Mr. Taylor said.

Literally overnight, this coincidence of failures transformed a harmless kook handing out fliers in a Maritime snowstorm into the hottest interview in Halifax. He is now hailed on the Internet among like-minded American "paleoconservatives" as a martyr for free speech in the face of aggressive Canadian political correctness. Even the local papers that refused his ads turned around and defended his right to get his message out.

"I felt very sad that someone of the calibre of Prof. Divine, with all the best of intentions, fell into that trap," said Dr. Mock, a psychologist who was once dubbed the "hate hunter" for her expert testimony on neo-Nazi tattoos. "It's an old Klan trick.... They can't be refuted because their lies are propaganda and the arguments are circular and conspiratorial." (1)

See how easily the story shifted from being about a white supremacist visiting Canada and handing out hate literature, to being about the actions of those who protested his racist messages, and Canada's arbitrary laws against freedom of speech.

The situation was handled all wrong and Jared Taylor was made a hero.

The anti-defamation League has actually covered similar situations involving Taylor and the company he keeps. Mobs follow him everywhere, and he knows just the right bombastic comments to fuel their ire. You can listen to the Taylor in the following video.



Jared Taylor and the Leadership Institute

Taylor has been linked with the Youth for Western Civilization movement, funded by Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute. He regularly gives them a plug in his American Renaissance newsletter.

However, he was also supposed to speak at a conference they were holding at the Institute on race and conservatism:

The forum was titled "Race and Conservatism" and was sponsored by the Robert A. Taft Club, a paleoconservative organization that was run by fellow Leadership Institute member Marcus Epstein. It was held at a satellite building for the Georgetown University Law School in Claredon, Va., having been moved at the last minute from its original location at the Leadership Institute building after calls from the Southern Poverty Law Center and One People's Project gave reason for concern. The panel included Jared Taylor, the editor of the white supremacist American Renaissance newsletter who is planning a conference of white supremacists in the Washington DC area next month, and John Derbyshire of the conservative periodical National Review.

According to a post on the white supremacist website Stormfront* at the time when it was still planned to be held at the Leadership Institute, it was just going to be Taylor and Derbyshire discussing the role of race in policy decisions and the racial future of the Republican party. After the controversy that prompted the Leadership Institute to close its doors to the forum, Kevin Martin of the black conservative organization Project 21 became a last-minute addition to the panel.

Approximately 40 persons attended this forum, the majority of whom, among them a longtime associate of Taylor's, Professor Michael Hart, were well-known in white supremacist circles. Other Leadership Institute members were also in attendance. (2)

We have to be vigilant here, because freedom of speech is one thing, but speech promoting hatred is something altogether different. Someone argued with me once that that our soldiers had fought and died for our freedom, so that we could speak our minds. But I'm pretty sure they didn't enter battle so that we could call each other names. It was hatred that put them on those battlefields in the first place.

Jared Taylor was told that the debate had been cancelled, but came to Canada anyway, with the intent of stirring up trouble. Then when trouble did find him, the media glorified him as a martyr for free speech. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Footnotes:

*Stormfront has a hate forum and a radio show that is a favourite with white nationalists.

Sources:

1. How not to handle a genteel racist. Fussing over his last-minute travel plans, David Divine, James R. Johnston chair of Black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University, seems a worldly fellow, not at all the poster child for naivete on racism, By National Post, January 27, 2007

2. HEY JAMES O'KEEFE, ABOUT THAT WHITE RACIST FORUM YOU ATTENDED IN 2006... By Dan Smeriglio, New Rogue's Gallery, January 30, 2010

The Curious Case of Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe

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

"Everyone knows that for certain breeds of dogs it is customary to cut their tails short when they are a few weeks old. Every time you clip the puppy's tail it hurts. It hurts. You might traumatize the puppy for life. The moral is that if it's your tail that's being clipped, you want it clipped once. But if you get a chance to clip your opponent's tail, clip that puppy as often as you can." (1) Morton Blackwell

Those on the right in Canada are lauding the fact* that Preston Manning has created the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, fashioned after the Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell. Both also have Campus Leadership training programs, where young conservative radicals are trained in the clipping of tails.

Has your student government been overrun by extreme left-wing students? Is freedom of speech being infringed upon on your campus? Are groups on campus using student money to further a left-wing agenda? Do you want to get organized and fight back?

Then the Manning Centre’s Campus Leadership Training is for you. Campus Leadership Seminars introduce aspiring political leaders on campus to the principles and practices of effective political involvement.**

And one of their former teachers at Blackwell's school, shows how it's done.

James O'Keefe and the destruction of ACORN

James O'Keefe is one of two young people who recently achieved spectacular results exposing ACORN. His revelations crippled one of the left's most powerful organizations. With training and a little financial help from the Leadership Institute, James O'Keefe started in 2004 an independent conservative student newspaper, The Centurion, at Rutgers, a large state university in New Jersey. James fought the liberal administration at Rutgers.

... James went to ten different training schools of the Leadership Institute. The Institute hired him for a year (2006-07) to help conservative students around the country form their own campus publications. He conducted 75 training programs for LI. Among the useful things James learned at LI was: "Don't fire all your ammunition at once."

In September 2009, each day for five days James released new videos exposing ACORN's outrageous practices. The roof caved in on ACORN. Obviously, the impact of his work would have been much less if James had released all those videos at the same time. Now James is a national conservative hero, and I believe he will write his own ticket to a future career doing just what he loves to do. (2) Morton Blackwell

O'Keefe certainly did write his own ticket, but not before destroying an organization that advocated for affordable housing for low and mid-low income families. Barack Obama acted as their attorney as this was a cause he also embraced.

O'Keefe And his cohort Hannah Giles, went 'undercover' at the organization. Apparently she posed as a prostitute, and introduced James as her boyfriend. They came away with five videos, released on five consecutive days, to painfully clip the dog's tail. With the help of Fox News and the controversial Andrew J. Breitbart (shown in centre of photo with O'Keefe and Giles), they made public unsubstantiated accusations against ACORN of tax evasion, human trafficking and sexual abuse.

As a result, the organization had their federal funding cancelled and were forced to close their doors, much to the detriment of vulnerable Americans.

And what about those dog clipping videos?

On March 1, 2010, the district attorney for Brooklyn concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the Brooklyn ACORN office. An investigation report by California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. released on April 1, 2010 found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Bernardino to be "severely edited" and did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees, with the Attorney General stating "things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality." The report also stated, ""Even if O'Keefe and Giles had truly intended to break the law, there is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in that illegal conduct." As of April 2, 2010, the other ACORN videos have not been released to the public in their full, unedited form, leading to speculation that the videos have been heavily edited to distort what happened during the tapings ***

Breitbart is also one of the 'Tea Party' gang, keeping company with the likes of people like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Where are They Now?

Hannah Giles is actually a minister's daughter, who was in journalism school when she met O'Keefe on Facebook. From Fox: "Why go after ACORN?" Giles asked. "Because I love America, I love God, and corrupt institutions don't help that." And yet it turned out they weren't corrupt at all, and she merely made them look corrupt with what the attornery general called "severely edited" videos, because they believed in helping those less fortunate. Giles is being sued, but not to worry; all the heavyweights in the Religious Right are stacking up the greenbacks as we speak.

And as for O'Keefe, he moved onto bigger and better things.

Yesterday, conservative activist James O'Keefe was arrested for allegedly plotting "to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in downtown New Orleans." O'Keefe was arrested along with Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan. (3)

You can read the FBI report here. I know you're thinking 'Watergate', and so am I. But then Morton Blackwell did once work for Richard Nixon.

Footnotes:

*One of them is Tasha Kheiridden, co-author with Adam Daifallah of the book Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Daifallah was one of the students involved with Mike Harris's attempt to take over student unions on Ontario campuses.

**From the Manning Centre's promo for their Campus Leadership Training Program.

*** Wikipedia

Sources:

1. My Right-Wing Degree, Jeff Horwitz, May 24, 2005

2. The Leadership Institute Connection to James O’Keefe, By Morton Blackwell, Campus Reform.org, October 15, 2009

3. O'Keefe's three alleged accomplices: Conservative activists Dai, Basel and Flanagan, By Eric Hananoki, Media Matter, January 26, 2010

Give me Liberty or Give me Aaron Lee-Wudrick

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LEAKED TAPE EXPOSES TORIES SPONSORING STUDENT
GOVERNMENT TAKEOVERS AND ATTACKS ON NONPROFIT
ORGANIZATIONS AT CAMPUSES ACROSS ONTARIO

Audio files, photos and transcripts leaked to the website Wikileaks.org has exposed the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) as hosting workshops dedicated to teaching Campus Conservatives how to take over student governments and defeat perceived enemies including the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).

These files and photos, gathered from a series of workshops occurring in early 2009 on campuses across Ontario, provide evidence that, with the apparent support of representatives from both the Ontario Progressive Conservatives and the Conservative Party of Canada, the OPCCA is attempting to covertly influence the political climate of Ontario’s university campuses.

Presenters and participants are caught on tape advocating for the creation of front groups for the Conservative Party to masquerade as non‐partisan grassroots organizations, influencing the political discourse on campus, stacking student elections with Party members, and conspiring to defeat non‐profit organizations because of political differences, all with the intention of hiding their affiliations to the Party in the process.

This apparent attempt by the Conservative to interfere with student governance and undermine non‐profit organizations is ethically troubling. We urge students, journalists, and citizens alike to take action on this issue and keep our campuses free from influence‐peddling by political parties so as to uphold a strong and healthy forum for democracy. (1)

This was especially troubling given the fact that this had already been tried in Ontario, at least as far back in as 2002, when Mike Harris and the OPCCA also tried to take over student unions.

Aaron Lee-Wudrick and the Campus Coalition for Liberty

In the medium term, we want these groups to take over student governments defend against left wing organizations and create new right wing groups ... We also want to change the social atmosphere of the school ... we want the majority of students to leave college more right wing than when they arrived.

This will include hosting speakers and debates, hosting and attending conferences, holding protests and educational events, producing publications, creating social events, and all other activities that will further the organization’s mission. (2)

The above mission statement, however, is not from this new Canadian campus movement, but from it's U.S. counterpart, Youth for Western Civilization.

YWC is funded by the Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell's, as part of their Campus Leadership Program. According to CLP's director Dan Flynn:

Unlike chapter-based political organizations, CLP clubs are unaffiliated with either the Leadership Institute or each other. According to Blackwell, this trait offers a serious advantage: "No purges." The clubs' independence also comes with the benefit of plausible deniability. "You can get away with stuff that you would take a lot of flak for doing in the College Republicans," (3)

"This will include hosting speakers and debates, hosting and attending conferences": Speakers hosted by the OPCCA include Richard Ciano, founder of the Conservative Campaign University, and former National Vice President and National Councillor (Ontario) for the Conservative Party of Canada. Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo. Ryan O'Connor, 9th VP of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Kevin Wiener, Student Senator at Queen's University and candidate for National Council of the Conservative Party of Canada, Aaron Lee-Wudrick, Blogger and Campaign Manager for M.P. Peter Braid. Chris McCluskey, Program Coordinator for the Manning Centre for Building Democracy and Nick Bergamini, Student Councillor at Carleton University. (4)

By Aaron Lee-Wudrick's own admission:

"... even though [Ryan O'Connor] was the forced neutral [as Student President] and me as the Tory president, It was all orchestrated obviously behind closed doors, and it actually worked out well because it looked like different groups of stakeholders, like I'm the outsider coming in, and you guys were just the responsible student government and we had other members of council, a guy he appointed to council, he got speaking rights but he wasn't an elected member, but just as another voice at the table, it made it look like there were all kinds of different corners where in fact we were all on the same team. (5)

And Ryan O'Connor confirms:

Pretend the Campus Coalition for Liberty is a large organization ... We had branches at five campuses. Yeah, we had five people; one at each of five campuses. And they're all Tories! ... I founded a chapter of the Campus Coalition for Liberty. It was a guy with a computer and a press release. (5)

Aaron Lee-Wudrick:

If Norman Finkelstein comes to campus, find your allied groups ... get [the Jewish students' association] involved ... if it's a radical feminist who's very pro-choice, [your allies are] going to be the pro-life people on campus.

... Find out what those rules are [for fee referendums], and in some cases that's a pre-issue for you to worry about. So let's say there are no rules. You can, the year before, say you had a three-year-plan, the next year you could -- without mentioning anything about PIRG -- get a referendum process in place which says, if you are able to collect three percent of all signatures of the student body, then you can trigger a referendum. Very few people in the abstract would oppose that, because they'd say "oh, that's a great idea" ... and then, a couple of years later, use it to bring forward the issue ... You will be surprised at what people will sign if you put it in front of them, especially if you put it in benign terms.

... Campus Radicals for Action on Zimbabwe Yes, or something like that, they were a great shell group. Feel free to use Campus Coalition for Liberty, that's ours so we have a logo and everything. You can use it now and it would be like established in 2002 ... we joke about these shell organizations, and some of you might think "well, isn't that a little bit disingenuous? Aren't you just inflating your numbers, isn't that kind of underhanded and sneaky?" My answer to that is no, not really, because that is exactly what the left does ... I'm just trying to level the playing field. (cite?)

... Use groups that might be jealous of what OPIRG gets ... that's how you pitch it, just look up the president of the chess club, and say "hey, how come you don't get money, wouldn't it be fair if we all did?" and build allies that way. (5)

Ryan O'Connor :

When Aaron was doing the petition campaign, which "I knew nothing about;" I was printing them in my frickin office in student government, of course I knew about it, of course we were behind it, I couldn't take a public position on that issue because although I wasn't running for reelection, this was three months before the end of my mandate, that's sort of the picking your battles ... if we had made them an issue, no Tory would ever get elected to student government again ... All the Tory [student] councillors were all voting the same way, and all had the same speaking points, it was really hilarious and really transparent, but you have to do what you have to do. We had a game. (6)

Aaron Lee-Wudrick :

Why do we go to the conventions, right? Sure, there's the all-important constitutional amendment section. But there's also the hospitality suites, right. And that's part of the fun of all this. And there's nothing wrong with that.

... Don't make [your campus club] a partisan organization ... There's ways to get around [the rules] ... start a club called Friends of Liberty or something like that, register with OPCCA as a conservative club. It's a separate registration when you register for the party, you get recognized separately, and then register with the student association.
...
Yeah we had a front group like that: the Campus Coalition for Liberty. It was really just a front for the conservatives, but it gave us like two voices. Two organizations support this, the Young Tories and the Campus Coalition for Liberty, which is the same thing ... Don't think that the Party doesn't like that, because they do. They're things that will help the Party, but it looks like it's an organically-grown organization and it just stimulated from the grassroots spontaneously. They love that stuff.

And they don't have to bear the burden of having any of it attached to their name. Remember all of the Rallies for Democracy* ... that's just an example of how big those things can get. (6)

Aaron Lee-Wudrick was not only, by his own admission, involved in this covert student movement, but he was President of the Legal society. This brings a lot of things into question, especially since this man is also now a lawyer, though one comment on a forum about Aaron after mentioning his profession, claims that he is not a lawyer "in that way" but in the "Liberty" way; so I assume that means constitutional challenges.

You can listen to the tapes here. Just scroll down to the two items with MP3 in brackets.

Footnotes:

* Rallies for Democracy were protests against the proposed 2008 coalition.

Sources:

1. OPCCA workshop on how-to takeover student governments, Wikileaks, March 13, 2009

2. Youth for Western Civilation, Defending the West on Campus, Mission Statement

3. My Right-Wing Degree, By Jeff Horwitz, May 24, 2005

4. LIST OF KNOWN SPEAKERS AND NOTABLE PARTICIPANTS AT OPCCA TRAINING SESSIONS, OPCCA workshop on how-to takeover student governments, Wikileaks, march 13, 2009

5. SELECTED QUOTES FROM AUDIO FILE ", workshop on how-to takeover student governments, Wikileaks, March 13, 2009

6.SELECTED QUOTES FROM AUDIO FILE "shellgame, workshop on how-to takeover student governments, Wikileaks, March 13, 2009

Did Peter Kent Interfere With Student Elections at York University?

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

In 2005, journalist Jeff Horwitz went undercover at the Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell's, and enrolled in a seminar, part of their Campus Leadership Program.

One recent Sunday, at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, a dozen students meet for the second and final day of training in grass-roots youth politics. All are earnest, idealistic and as right wing as you can get. They take careful notes as instructor Paul Gourley teaches them how to rig a campus mock election.

It's nothing illegal -- no ballot stuffing necessary, even at the most liberal colleges. First you find a nonpartisan campus group to sponsor the election, so you can't be accused of cheating. Next, volunteer to organize the thing. College students are lazy, and they'll probably let you. Always keep in mind that a rigged mock election is all about location, location, location.

"Can anyone tell me," asks Gourley, a veteran mock electioneer, "why you don't want the polling place in the cafeteria?" Stephen, a shy antiabortion activist sitting toward the rear of the class, raises his hand: "Because you want to suppress the vote?" "Stephen has the right answer!" Gourley exclaims, tossing Stephen his prize, a copy of Robert Bork's "Slouching Toward Gomorrah." (1)

That is just one of the techniques that would be future conservative leaders are taught at the Institute.

There is no better place to master the art of mock-election rigging -- and there is no better master than Morton Blackwell, who invented the trick in 1964 and has been teaching it ever since. Blackwell's half-century career in conservative grass-roots politics coincides neatly with the fortunes of the conservative movement: He was there when Goldwater lost, when Southern voters abandoned the Democratic Party in droves, and when the Moral Majority began its harvest of evangelical Christian voters. In the 1970s, Blackwell worked with conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie; in 1980, he led Reagan's youth campaign. Recently, he's been fighting to save Tom DeLay's job.

Over the last 25 years, more than 40,000 young conservatives have been trained at the institute's Arlington, Va., headquarters in everything from TV makeup for aspiring right-wing talking heads to prep courses for the State Department's Foreign Service exam. Classes are taught by volunteers recruited from the ranks of the conservative movement's most talented organizers, operatives and communicators. (1)

The Canadian conservatives are now hoping to cash in on Blackwell's success and indeed the [Preston] Manning Centre for Building Democracy, also offers a Campus Leadership Training Program. Manning's Centre was started with a ten million dollar anonymous corporate donation, and is fashioned after Blackwell's model. (2)

And with the rise of Conservative party interference in student politics at universities across the country, it's important to expose this new trend.

It's not unusual for a political party to speak to students, but this kind of interference is unprecedented.

Peter Kent and York University

Students at York University cried foul when federal Conservative MP Peter Kent and Ontario Conservative MPP, Peter Shurman got involved with their election, hoping to bring forward a "... conservative, pro-Israeli" candidate.

"The Conservative party has no authority at all for getting involved in student politics and neither does the York administration. We're an incorporated, independent body," charged Krisna Saravanamuttu, who was elected president of the York Federation of Students in the controversial vote. "Prime Minister Stephen Harper's foot soldiers are deliberately interfering with student elections to help candidates more friendly to their policies.""I find it bizarre for a federal minister (Kent is Canada's minister of state for foreign affairs in the mericas) to try to interfere in a student election," said CFS chair Shelley Melanson. "If students were concerned about the election process, there are mechanisms on campus for expressing those concerns."

In one email to Tiffin at 2:14 a.m. the night of ballot counting, Kent's special assistant said he was there on campus and was concerned nobody from the university was monitoring the process. (3)

The campus conservatives had suggested that the election was rigged, but it was not up to the government to step in. The university is mandated to handle these situations. However, this is all part of movement conservatism, where every element of society is dragged in.

Sources:

1. My Right-wing Degree, By Jeff Horowitz, May 24, 2005

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

3. Stop meddling, students tell Tories: MPPs deny they were trying to sway York election results, By Louise Brown, Toronto Star, July 6, 2009

Stirring it Up at the University of Manitoba

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

In April of 2009, democratic reform minister, Steven Fletcher, appeared at the University of Manitoba to discuss the initiatives of his government.

Though sponsored by the Campus Conservatives, his talk was open to all students and was well attended.

However, much to the surprise of the crowd, he spent very little time on democratic reform, but instead attacked the university's student union and the school newspaper.

On Thursday, March 19, the University of Manitoba Campus Conservatives held an open event that was advertised to the public as a talk at the University of Manitoba with the Honourable Steven Fletcher, minister of state (democratic reform). The event was attended by both minister Fletcher and sitting MP for Winnipeg South, Rod Bruinooge. I attended this event in the hopes of hearing about Fletcher’s new mandate on the government of Canada’s opinion on state, and more importantly on democratic reform. Was I ever mistaken.Although towards the end of the forum, Fletcher did answer a select few pre-determined questions actually regarding Canadian democratic reform, the event did not focus on democratic reform as the posters advertised, but rather focused almost entirely on student union politics.

Steven Fletcher sat as UMSU president at the end of the 1990s for two consecutive terms, so clearly, he’s no stranger to the politics on university campuses. But as a representative of the constituents of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia and as sitting minister for the government of Canada, especially the minister of democratic reform, he has no business in the affairs of independent and democratic students’ unions and federations.

Minister Fletcher, on several occasions, went into rants where he referred to UMSU and the Canadian Federation of Students, my representatives, as a bunch of left-wing crazies, the “loony left,” and “loony tunes.” The minister further went into rants about the free press and independent students’ newspapers referring to the Manitoban as a socialist rag. He then began encouraging young Conservative members to take over students’ unions to promote the Conservative ideology. At several points in his talk, incoming UMSU president-elect Sid Rashid, who was also in the audience, challenged Fletcher on his clearly biased statements regarding current UMSU policies and procedures.

What is the government doing meddling in the affairs of independent and democratic student unions? This is not only offensive but completely inappropriate. ... The recent event held at the University of Manitoba further adds to the damning evidence that the Conservative Party, the current governing party of Canada, is engaged in a national campaign to advance their partisan agenda and undermine the role of democratic student organizations. (1)

The Winnipeg Free Press reported on the incident as students at the University demanded an apology. Fletcher told the paper, "I think Conservative values are student values," Fletcher said. "I was there to speak about the Conservative party and the role Conservatives play on campus. I wasn't asked to be there in a general way." (2)

But this was just part of a trend as members of the Harper government have been encouraging conservative students to take over student unions, infiltrate clubs, and establish front groups to further their cause. This again coincides with Morton Blackwell's Campus Leadership Program which has been mimicked by the Manning Centre's Campus Leadership Training Program.

Blackwell's institute has launched a website, billed as:

“CampusReform.org will dramatically increase the number of battles fought against leftist abuses on college campuses this year,” said Morton Blackwell, Leadership Institute founder and president. “And based on long experience, conservative students will win most of those new battles as they identify, expose, and combat leftist abuses and bias.” “CampusReform.org will dramatically increase the number of battles fought against leftist abuses on college campuses this year,” said Morton Blackwell, Leadership Institute founder and president. “And based on long experience, conservative students will win most of those new battles as they identify, expose, and combat leftist abuses and bias.” (3)

And if you want some idea of what that means, combating "leftist abuses and bias", when University of Manitoba students were engaged in their annual day of protest, with the Target Poverty campaign, campus Conservatives, under the direction of provincial conservative MLA, Hugh McFadyen, did whatever they could to stop the event, even forming a human chain to prevent their progress toward the legislature. They were clearly hoping for a physical confrontation.

Nov. 5 was another student Day of Action in Manitoba. This one was important because it linked issues facing students directly to broader societal concerns with the Target Poverty campaign, as well as linking up the organizations representing students with a broad cross-section of anti-poverty activists and civil society organizations in Manitoba. It’s a new tactic, and it really opens the door to building broad coalitions of activists, student unions, and other civil society organizations to confront the neoliberal* policies which have affected us all over the past couple decades. I would say that it was moderate success, in that new ground was broken and new spaces for resistance were opened up for people from diverse political backgrounds to unite and fight for a better world.

But, the latest Day of Action also featured the sorry spectacle of Hugh McFadyen and the University of Manitoba Campus Conservatives “teaming up”, presumably against students rallying against poverty. Or, as the Campus Conservatives called them on their website, a “army of pinkos”. (4)

"An army of pinkos?" I must admit, I haven't hurt that one in a while.

Apparently the Conservative Party has also been funding student elections and interfering with the democratic process on campus.

... the next big push by the University of Manitoba Campus Conservatives (UMCC)–who are well connected and appear to be well funded–will be to get partisans elected in 201o at the Students’ Union. The UMCC connections reach right to the Federal government via high profile alumni such as Steven Fletcher, current Minister for Democratic Renewal and former Manitoba Students’ Union president. (5)

Well if it means getting rid of "pinkos" who are fighting against poverty, I suppose it's a noble cause.

Footnotes:

*Neoliberalism is also referred to as neoconservatism.

Sources:

1. The True Hidden Agenda: Steven Fletcher's Recent Talk on Campus, By David Safruk, University of Manitoba, The Manitoban, April 5, 2009

2. MP Fletcher's talk stirs campus storm: Cabinet minister rejects apology demand, By: Mia Rabson, Winnepeg Free Pres, April 18, 2009

3. CampusReform.org launches TODAY! By Tabitha Hale, Leadership Institute, September 15, 2009

4. A look at Campus Conservatives in Manitoba, By Brian Latour, Canadian Dimension, November 15th 2009

5. Conservatives poised to make a move at University of Manitoba? Campus Conservative Watch, November 16, 2009

Preston Manning, Morton Blackwell and a Questionable Youth Movement

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

In March of 2009, a Conservative Party workshop was held at the University of Waterloo. A student who attended was clever enough to take a tape recorder and what was revealed from the meeting was a clandestine attempt to take over student unions, by setting up a series of front groups.

Audio recordings, photographs and documents that were leaked from a recent Conservative Party student workshop in Waterloo expose a partisan attempt to take over student unions and undermine Ontario Public Interest Research Groups (OPIRGs) on campuses across Ontario.

At a session held in early February by the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, campus Conservatives, party campaigners, and a Member of Parliament discussed strategies to gain funding from student unions for the Conservative Party and ways to run for—and win—positions within student unions. (1)

This operation is one of the strategies taught at the Manning Centre's Campus Leadership Training program. From their website:

Has your student government been overrun by extreme left-wing students?

Is freedom of speech being infringed upon on your campus? Are groups on campus using student money to further a left-wing agenda? Do you want to get organized and fight back?

Then the Manning Centre’s Campus Leadership Training is for you. Campus Leadership Seminars introduce aspiring political leaders on campus to the principles and practices of effective political involvement. Topics for these seminars include:

»The Fundamentals of Campaigning
» Political Communications
» How to run an effective Campus Club
» How to win campaigns on campus
» How to build effective coalitions

The Manning Centre is the Canadian spin-off of the Leadership Institute of Morton Blackwell's, and like Blackwell's is funded by wealthy corporate interests. Manning's donor who provided ten million dollars in seed money, preferred to remain anonymous (2), but Blackwell's backers include the DeVos family of Amway fame and Richard Mellon Scaife, an American billionaire with oil, aluminum and newspaper interests.

Famous alumni include Karl Rove and Ralph Reed, the man who came to Canada to teach our Religious Right how to get Stephen Harper elected. He is the founder of the Christian Coalition that is affiliated with other Right-wing Christian extremist organizations, like Focus on the Family, all falling under the umbrella of the Council for National Policy. Reed made headlines recently when he was embroiled in a scandal involving casinos and Jack Abramoff.

Another graduate of the school is Reform-Conservative MP Rob Anders, who is also a member of Focus on the Family. Morton Blackwell helped to found both the Religious Right and the Council for National Policy in the U.S. Ander's former legislative assistant, Trevor Cazemier , was an invited guest at a conference held by the Council for National Policy in 1998, and was sponsored by Republican strategist, Mark Montini. (3) Stephen Harper had spoke there the year before (4).

According to Marci McDonald there are 700 Canadian graduates of Blackwell's school all working for the movement in Canada. (2)

The Leadership Institute is also running the same kind of clandestine operations as Manning, under their Campus Leadership Program.

The structure of Blackwell's Campus Leadership Program is simple. The Leadership Institute trains promising conservative college graduates over the summer and dispatches them to campuses in the fall with a mandate to start conservative student organizations. Need $500 and some ideas to start a combative right-wing campus publication? The institute would love to help you.

Unlike chapter-based political organizations, CLP clubs are unaffiliated with either the Leadership Institute or each other. According to Blackwell,this trait offers a serious advantage: "No purges." The clubs' independence also comes with the benefit of plausible deniability. "You can get away with stuff that you would take a lot of flak for doing in the College Republicans," says CLP director Dan Flynn. (5)

What these institutes teach is a kind of guerrilla warfare using several duplicitous techniques, including something called controlled controversy. I'm going to show some examples in this chapter, from both the Canadian and American groups.

Continued: Ann Coulter, Tom Tancredo and a Little Controlled Controversy

Sources:
1. Conservative Party strategy to take over student unions exposed, By Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen, Editor-in-Chief and Nora Loreto, News Editor, Ryerson Free Press, March 16, 2009

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

3. Tysons Corner meeting, CNP, Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, McLean, Virginia, May 1-2, 1998

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

5. My Right-wing Degree, By Horwitz, May 24, 2005