And finally on Hate Groups Being Validated by the Conservative Movement

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

"Nothing has done the electoral and moral credibility of liberalism more harm than the failure to take this attack seriously" - Michael Ignatieff, University of Toronto, 1998

The final part of the documentary: White Power USA: The Rise of Right-Wing Militia in America, is simply an interview with the filmmaker and author of the book Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, Chip Berlet.

Berlet relays the same message that Michael Ignatieff did more than a decade ago. There is a great harm in not taking this attack seriously.

When the Reformers first hit the Hill in 1993, the Toronto Sun referred to them as a "bunch of dung kicking rednecks" and the media asked "who are these yokels and who voted for them?"

We; myself included, never took them seriously. Every horrendous remark and action just left us shaking our heads. When the party was infiltrated with the Neo-Nazi Heritage Front, no one was surprised, except the Heritage Front themselves.

"The expulsion enraged the Heritage Front, which saw the Reform Party's policies as very similar to, if not indistinguishable from, its own. How could a party that went on record opposing immigration policies that "radically alter" Canada's ethnic make-up turn around and shun a group like the Heritage Front, Droege asked, when the Heritage Front supports the very same approach? Privately, spokesmen for B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress admitted that Droege had a good point." (1)

My gut reaction is often to laugh, but I'm not laughing now. The Religious Right, the Conservatives (Republicans and CPC), and the far-right have created a volatile and toxic mixture. We have to start taking them seriously.

I've been writing about this and a new youth movement that is carrying on many of the same activities, and included a posting on Kyle Bistrow. My initial reaction to Kyle was that he was a hate monger, but after reading more about him and watching an interview, I saw something else.

Kyle emailed me and we corresponded a bit, and I think he's a smart kid with so much potential. He's now considered to be an up and comer in the Republican party and I hope by the time he wins a seat, and he will; that he's softened a bit. He's not a neo-Nazi, and not really even racist. He's just fighting for what he believes in. And I think for many people in all of these movements, their motives are just as genuine.

But it's the people who are exploiting them, and tapping into their fears, who really need to be exposed.

Murray Dobbin wrote a posting on Harper's new Fox News, and the thought that Canada will now have a station like that is appalling. The Glenn Beck's of the world are the real threat because they legitimize this stuff.

...The man in charge of developing the network – and getting it past the CRTC – is Tory* Teneycke – formerly Stephen Harper’s junk yard dog in charge of intimidating and manipulating the media.

You might recall seeing him on the CBC which shamefully hired him as a “commentator” less than a year after he left Harper’s employ (in violation of CBC rules). Like most of the communications types in Harper’s stable he specializes in bullying and attack-dog tactics, the very same approach honed over years on Fox news in the US.

Don Newman, CBC columnist and former host of Newsworld’s ‘Politics’attacked the idea characterizing Fox news in the US as “hugely polarizing.” Fox “mainly spews out propaganda that is dangerously misleading and often factually wrong….It specializes in drive-by attacks and misrepresentations, and is positively Orwellian at times, claiming to be ‘fair and balanced’ while implying that its competitors aren’t. (2)

Sigh.

Footnotes:

* Should be Kory. He was a "storm troop' for Preston Manning, part of a group that went around raising hell at Liberal campaign offices.

1. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, 1994, Harper Collins, pg 243-244

2. Canadian nightmare: Fox News North, By Murray Dobbin, June 21, 2010

Still More on Hatred Being Validated by Conservative Movement

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

The above is part three of the documentary White Power USA: The Rise of Right-Wing Militia in America, that discusses the resurgence of the hate movement, now validated by the Conservatives in both the U.S. and Canada. The filmmaker suggests that many so-called anti-immigration movements are simply the re-packaging of white supremacists.

We see how this group reels people in by focusing on the economy and jobs, and then once inside, it becomes 'White Power'. But what alarmed the narrator even more was when the leader of the group started making references to 'Jesus'.

I mentioned in part two, a Canadian anti-Immigration site that fits this profile to a 'T'. It's called Immigration Watch Canada, and though the founder and director, Tim Murray, is from Vancouver; most of the links and data come from American anti-immigration sites, and include many references to the 'Tea Parties'.

IWC was founded in 2003 but only picked up steam when another anti-immigration, anti-multicultural group was elected, now calling themselves the Conservative Party of Canada.

Like their American counterpart, they lure you in with economic arguments:

We believe (based on the federal government's own economic research and Canada's own previous tradition of adhering to labour absorptive capacity) that
there are limits to the number of workers of any type that a country needs or can absorb. Present immigration levels in Canada pay no attention to the principle of economic absorptive capacity, ignore a real unemployment level of over 2 million and seem to assume that Canada can admit a virtually limitless number of new workers.As a result, immigration levels have far exceeded Canada's economic absorptive capacity. In effect, they are an historical anomaly. Adhering to labour absorptive capacity in the past has meant that when Canada needed workers from outside its borders, it looked for those workers. When it did not need them, it did not look for them.

They then go on to talk about "Asian Invasions", a "Multicultural Holocaust" and claim that "Mexican Refugees Compete With Homeless For Housing."

And of course, they also bring in the big guy, JC himself.

MOHAMMED WAS NOT ANOTHER JESUS - The purpose of Patrick Grady's novel "Royal Canadian Jihad" is to teach Canadians about Islam. It is also to warn them about the potential dangers of some Muslims who have settled in Canada. It is definitely not another version of the harmless Muslims portrayed in CBC Television's "Little Mosque On The Prairie".

IF JESUS WERE LIVING IN CANADA, WHAT NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS COULD HE MAKE?Most parts of the world have just celebrated another anniversary of the birth of Jesus the Christ. However, as Christians are aware, only 2 of the Gospels actually describe Jesus' birth and all four of them leave readers to
deduce, almost completely, what Jesus did in his formative years. Although Jesus' adult life is often portrayed in soft, sentimental terms, he had a very strong edge. In particular, he had a low tolerance for hypocrites. Ironically enough, a number of Canada's high immigration advocates invoke Jesus to justify their views and to declare their similarity to Jesus. But if Jesus were living in Canada today, we suspect he would feel very uncomfortable standing alongside these self-proclaimed humanitarians : In fact, we suspect he would make the following immigration-related resolutions at the beginning of 2009 ...

Yes I'm sure Jesus would separate individuals by skin colour and look at all the land in Canada and say "there is no more room".

But there is even more to this story unfortunately, that again should raise alarms. Murray also writes for an online paper called Canada Free Press. The only thing Canadian about it is the word 'Canada' in their name. In fact the sub-title is "Because without America there is no Free World."

They run a countdown until Obama leaves office, reminiscent of Harper's National Citizens Coalition who did the same for Jean Chretien. They promote the tea parties and one of their editors also writes for Fox News and Glenn Beck!!!

And another, Chase Clift, is "a 9th grade student living in a suburb of Austin, Texas attempting to write but have started as a social network editor along with CFP as well as pushing the Southern Secessionist movement in which he is a mere volunteer. Chase is currently working with the Confederate Liberation Society."

Loon Watch says of the founder of Southern Secessionist movement, Bob Beer: In this case we have Bob Beers writing for the Canada Free Press which surprisingly gets a lot of traffic while peddling in some of the most hate filled and racist commentary on the Internet...

"Most hate filled and racist commentary on the Internet?" In Canada?

And they also speak of our little Texas ninth grader: "Yet, why do so many take the Canada Free Press seriously? Their social networking editor is a ninth grader by the name of Chase Clift who in his spare time likes to volunteer for the Southern Secessionist Movement and also works for the Confederate Liberation Society which extols the virtues of the Confederacy and revisits history to condemn Abraham Lincoln. The Society’s goal is “an official Peace Treaty signed with the United States of America and a swift transfer of all powers to the government of the Confederate States of America.”

Oh and of course if you want to rent out speakers, one of them is Dr. Tim Ball. I know all environmentalists just went into the fetal position. Ball (Friends of Science fame) is the kook that the Fraser institute hired on Harper's behalf to convince Canadians that Global warming wasn't real. Apparently Mr. "Colossal Fossil" just wasn't getting the job done.

The Canadian media ignored the threat of the Religious Right until it is now almost too late to do anything about them, and they are ignoring this underlying resurgence of hate groups. They hide behind anti-tax, anti-immigration and (pseudo) "Christian" rhetoric, but their message is always the same. If you are not white, male and their version of a Christian, you have no place at the table.

Konrad Heiden, Nazis and Social Credit

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

Konrad Heiden was a popular journalist who covered the rise of the Nationalsozialism (National Socialism) movement in Germany.

This populist crusade was spreading like a prairie fire in the 1930s, but after hearing it's leader speak in the beer halls of Munich, Heiden became alarmed at the message.

And when the followers of this charismatic and powerful speaker began to march in the streets, Heiden led university students in protest against them.

It was he who gave this future ruling party a nickname that would stick with it even today. He called them 'Nazi', a Bavarian slang term for "country bumpkin." (1)

Often writing under the pen name "Klaus Bredow", Heiden tracked Adolph Hitler for 23 years, and even after he was forced to flee to the United States, he would continue to sound the alarm, and actually predicited the 'Final Solution'.

In his book, "The New Inquisition", published in New York in 1939:

"To drive 600,000 people by robbery into hunger, by hunger into desperation, by desperation into wild outbreaks, and by such outbreaks into the waiting knife -- such is the cooly calculated plan. Mass murder is the goal, a massacre such as history has not seen -- certainly not since Tamerlane and Mithridates. We can only venture guesses as to the technical forms these mass executions are to take. In his book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler suggested that the people to be killed be kept "under poisonous gas"; however, he speaks of a mere twelve to fifteen thousand. Doubtless the destructive instinct in the ruling class of the regieme has grown in the meantime..."

Social Credit and the Nazis

There are many books written on Social Credit, including several linking the movement to the Reform Party under Preston Manning and Stephen Harper.

However, I don't know if the history of the Social Credit crusade has been examined in it's latest form: The Conservative Party of Canada, which arose from the populist movement of William Aberhart.

And the populist movement of William Aberhart emerged simultaneously with the populist crusade of Adolph Hitler and his Nationalsozialism. Both were based on antisemitism and the notion of a Jewish conspiracy theory.

But as I've said before; at the time Adolph Hitler was much admired by the western world, and was in fact the Time magazine "man of the year" for 1938. So while Harper's authoritarian and secretive style is pure Aberhart, it is steeped in early Nazi ideology (not the Holocaust, which is a separate issue)

Harper was Never a Tory but a Socred

In his book; Blue Thunder: The Truth About Conservatives from MacDonald to Harper, Bob Plamondon attempts to trace the history of the party from Sir John A. MacDonald to Stephen Harper. However, as many of us know, the party under our current prime minister, never evolved from Sir John A. at all.

Former conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker, once toyed with the idea of bringing the Socreds into his party, which prompted a member of his caucus, Jim MacDonnell, whose father was a friend of Sir John A.'s; to exclaim that he "would now turn over in his grave!" (3)

When Dalton Camp learned of earlier attempts at a merger of the Progressive Conservative party with the Alliance, under Stockwell Day, he said of Day that he "is viewed by most Tories as embedded in the lunatic fringe."

And when Peter MacKay sold out the Progressive Conservatives by disbanding the party and joining his handful of MPs with the Reform-Alliance, longtime MP, Flora MacDonald stated that it was:

... the demolition of a historic 150-year-old institution that has done so much to build this country ... The party's future lies not in some right-wing alliance that would violate the progressive and moderate traditions of its former leaders, but with a renewed emphasis on the values that the great majority of Canadians feel represent their views." (4)

So Plomondon's attempt to rewrite history falls short, simply because he should have subtitled his book: The Truth About Conservatives from MacDonald to MacKay: The End!

This blog is actually my research for a book I'm currently writing under the working title: Aberhart and Harper on Crusade, but that won't be the title I publish it under, if I eventually do. I intend to dedicate it to Flora MacDonald ... oh, and my family ... who have had to endure years of my yammering about politics.

I have copyrighted this body of work, which doesn't mean you can't use it for personal research, provided the credit is given to 'Emily Dee' with links to this blog. You can click on all images to find their source, many of which are also copyrighted. I won't be publishing them with my work, unless I first obtain permission. I can't draw worth a lick, so won't attempt my own illustrations, though I do enjoy a bit of photo-shopping.

Sources:

1. Books: Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 7, 1944

2. Wikepedia, Konrad Heiden

3. One Canada: Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker, 1956 to 1962, John G' Diefenbaker, the MacMillan Company of Canada, ISBN: 0-7705-1443-X, pg. 3-4

4. Flora MacDonald’s Comments, The Toronto Star, November 14, 2003