Right-Wing Women and Their "Christian Values"

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

The new women's movement, operating within the neoconservative movement, is bizarre to say the least. They are vocal opponents of rights for women, and advocate for a patriarchal society.

And they do this through the broader Christian Right revolution that is influencing many governments, including ours; all done under the banner of "family values" and "Christian values".

So what's it all about?

Hypocrisy is a "Christian Value"?

The catalyst for REAL Women of Canada was Liberal cabinet minister, Judy Erola, who championed women's rights.

For Beverly LaHaye and her Concerned Women of America, it was
feminist leader Betty Friedan.

For Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum, it was power.

Schafly was one of the original anti-feminist voices, who launched a decades long campaign against the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). However, she stepped up her campaign when Ronald Reagan was elected, who himself stated, that he wanted it gone.

Reagan had run for the Republican leadership three times, but was rejected because he was considered to be too extreme, especially with his anti-communist stance.

The third time was the charm, but only because he allowed the Religious Right to handle his campaign, led by the late Paul Weyrich.

Once elected, he was forced to make good on his promises, and allow the "evangelicals" to take a leading role in policy making.

One of those evangelicals was Gary Bauer, who became Reagan's domestic policy advisor. Bauer gave Schlafly and her followers an "in".

Bauer's first order of business, after silencing his staff who were making outrageous statements to the press, was to "usurp the feminists".

Women belonged in the home, popping out babies and propping up papas. Career women were threatening the family, and children in daycare were being "brainwashed".

We get the message. But do they?

Bauer's wife was a career woman, and her children were put in daycare at the earliest possible moment. Carol Bauer claimed that she went back to work the day she came home from the hospital.

Beverly LaHaye once stated that she only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home.

Phyllis Schafly is a Harvard educated lawyer, the author of several books, and twice ran for Congress.

Gwen Landholt, President of REAL Women of Canada, is also a lawyer. I'm pretty sure that's considered to be a career.

In fact, the women involved in this anti-feminist movement, have made CAREERS out of their involvement in this anti-feminist movement. There is a circuit of conferences that they attend, enormous numbers of publications that have to be printed and distributed, websites that need to be maintained, and interviews on radio and television, where they must make an appearance.

And most receive a pay cheque, while preaching against the very thing that they are doing.

So we could then say that hypocrisy is now a "Christian value".

Self Loathing is a "Christian Value"?

Combing through the websites of these anti-feminist organizations, you really get the sense that these people hate women. They have become so focused on raising the males to the level of domestic gods, that they have forgotten the importance of protecting, not only women's rights, which they believe should not exist, but women themselves.

When Statistics Canada released its report on domestic violence, Gwen Landholt went ballistic, claiming that men were often the victims of domestic violence too.

Phyllis Schafly opposes any money going to protect women from domestic abuse, or even raise awareness to the problem.

Feminist ideology about the goal of gender-neutrality and the absence of innate differences between males and females goes out the window when it comes to the subject of domestic violence. Feminist dogma is that the law should assume men are batterers and women are victims.

What nonsense.

Does passing laws against drunk drivers mean that we assume that every driver is intoxicated. It's about protection against those who are.

These right-wing women's movements fear that if we raise too much awareness, it will threaten their idea of the "family". It could lead to too many divorces, if battered women seek a way out.

They blame the woman for everything.

They believe that "single mothers" are a scourge, but what of the men who made them single mothers? The boyfriends who didn't want the responsibility of raising a child? Men who thought they'd found better or simply didn't want to be married anymore?

Their counterparts, like the Promise Keepers take care of that I guess, encouraging men to take responsibility, and not worry if they knock the little woman around now and then. The misogynist females will take care of that by attacking laws that could risk jail time.

They are the man. They are the god. Grunt, grunt!

What a horrible philosophy. You would think that if they really cared about "family values" they would not want to see children raised in an abusive home. But they don't care, just so long as that home includes both a mother and a father.

I shudder to think what some "conservative" women must endure, simply because they fear what would happen if they decided to opt out. Not only fear from the abusive husband, but fear of the wrath of people like Landholt and Schaffly.

So we could then say that "self loathing" in the form of female misogyny is now a "Christian value".

Love of money is a "Christian Value"?

In his new book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, Michael Lindsay reminds us that evangelism is entrepreneurial.

It's big business, and every big business needs a steady cash flow, if the business is to survive.

Lindsay tells us that in order to keep funds flowing, many of these groups need "a devil". Something they can demonize. And the only way they can effectively stave off this "devil" is with your money.

Gwen Landholt, president of REAL Women, stated that Paul Martin did them a huge favour with his same-sex marriage bill, suggesting that they owed him a debt of gratitude. Their membership swelled and the donations soared "for the first time since the abortion debate". (Armegeddon Factor, p. 74)

The Religious Right/Christian Right/Moral Majority is run like a huge multinational corporation, and many people are becoming enormously wealthy because of it. And remember that as "religious" organizations, they pay NO TAXES. They contribute nothing to the public purse, but want to dictate how it is spent.

And the money flows.

Anti-feminism, abortion, the "homosexual agenda". All money in the bank. Doesn't matter what their own personal views may be, it's what they can sell.

I'm reminded of a story told by former evangelical crusader, Charles Templeton, about Billy Graham. Both men did the circuit together, but Templeton was becoming disillusioned with what they were selling, especially the story of creation.

So he went to Graham, and 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." (Farewell to God, p. 7-8)

He didn't have to believe it, he only had to market it.

I have no real problem with Billy Graham, and respect the fact that he was the first modern day "crusader" to remove the ropes that separated black followers at these events. But that does say a lot about the movement.

So we could then say that the quest for money is now a "Christian value".

Racism is a "Christian Value"?

The newest fundraising campaigns for many of these organizations, is the "devil" of Islam, and the fear that Muslims will out breed the white race. Not unlike Harper's National Citizens Coalition, that ran a lucrative campaign in the early 1980s, when they raised the alarm that the Asians would soon out breed white Canadians. They had it all worked out.

Link Byfield, now a member of the Wildrose Party in Alberta, spoke at a REAL Women's conference, where he sounded the alarm over a new set of "breeders".

Mr. Byfield's talk was originally to have been on "The Effect of Feminism on the Media", but he declared that the topic was simply too depressing. He spoke, instead, on his view of "Three Futures for Mankind," two of which are quite dark, while one is bright. Which will become our eventual fate?

Scene I. If Islam Prevails

An invasion by Islam will not be by force of arms, as they do not have the technology for that. The power of Islam is in its birth rate. Islam cannot be removed or replaced, and it grows by way of its large families. In Britain, there are entire Muslim communities, with mosques going up everywhere. Although Muslims share the Christian notion of family, Islam also demands submission. Democracy is a Christian philosophy and, therefore, does not exist or, at best, is only a peripheral force in most Muslim countries.

Link's father, Ted Byfield, was one of the founders of both the Reform Party and the Civitas Society, the policy arm of the Harper government. About as "fundamentalist" as you can get, he once stated that the only thing that government should legislate was morality.

Link Byfield was also one of the founders of the Northern Foundation, which became an umbrella group for Canada's far right.

"... 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." (Of Passionate Intensity, p. 121)

Harper would later say that he was kicked out of the Northern Foundation because he wasn't right-wing enough. (Hard-Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, p.430)

However, I find that hard to believe, since their views are in line with his policies.

When it was learned that neo-Nazis had infiltrated the Reform Party, Harper and his boss Preston Manning claimed not to know. But one, Rob Overfield, insisted that he told the Reform Party leadership, and was assured that they had no problem with it. (Report to the Solicitor General of Canada Security Intelligence Review Committee December 9, 1994)

"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, [Wolfgang] 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." (Web of Hate p. 243-44))

How is Byfield's claim that Muslims will out breed us any different from the Heritage Front or the English Defense league?

Hatred has just gone legit.

Isn't it ironic though, that throughout the 1990s, we could refer to Stephen Harper as being from the extreme right, and his party as neoconservatives. Yet today, just linking him to the Chicago School, will get you fired.

However, I guess we could say that racism is now a "Christian value".

Why Can't Feminists be Christians?

"The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things." Stephen Harper speech to Council for National Policy

Why do these Religious Right groups assume that feminists are Godless? According to John Baldock, who wrote a wonderful book, Women in the Bible:

Apart from a few women such as Eve, Mary (the mother of Jesus) and Mary Magdalene, the women in the Bible are generally eclipsed by their male counterparts.

This state of affairs not only mirrors the status assigned to women in Western society over the last 2,000 years, it also reflects the patriarchal nature of both the Jewish and Christian religions. And yet a closer study of the Bible reveals that women were once regarded as the equals of men rather than subject to them. We read of women who were priestesses in the ancient religions of the Near East, who served as judges and prophets to the early Israelites, and who saved the Jewish people on more than one occasion from extinction at the hands of their enemies. Even Wisdom, which is described in the Book of Proverbs as the 'fountain of life', was personified as a woman. (Introduction)

Religious scholar, Rita Gross, has also written extensively on feminism and religion.

They can be at odds but don't have to be.

So why has feminism become such a catalyst for the right-wing evangelical movement?

It's because if women want equality and careers, they won't be home making babies. It's that simple. It's why they have convinced the Harper government to write tax laws favouring single wage earner, heterosexual, married couples.

Now that across Europe they are raising the alarm about the return of fascism, we should be able to have an adult conversation about it. When I was in my 20s, I became interested in the Nazi movement in Germany, not because I sympathized, but because I was curious how an uneducated gutter rat, was able to become one of the most powerful men in the world.

It did not happen overnight.

If you remove the shadow of the Holocaust, not by denying that it happened, because it very much did and was horrendous, but simply by studying the success of the movement; you can learn a lot.

At the time, people in Germany never thought of Hitler as a dictator. When his party came to power in 1933, most adopted a wait and see attitude, not sure that he could deliver on his many promises.

They grew to like his nationalist stand and his promotion of the military. And they liked the fact that he was trying to create a true German identity. Something they could be proud of.

In Hitler's Beneficiaries, Götz Aly writes that "From its earliest days the Hitler regime favoured families over single people and childless couples." They introduced "joint tax returns for couples" and graduated income tax.

None of these things are wrong, and the promotion of family is not a bad thing, so long as you include all families. Hitler supported a nuclear Aryan-German family. The Religious Right supports a nuclear Judeo-Christian family.

Aly also points out the Nazi love of polls and their use of think tanks to sell their message.

The Holocaust was the result of nationalism run amok.

In Europe, many are seeing a return of fascism, and anti-fascist protest groups are emerging. If Canadians can't see that this new right-wing movement, is a form of fascism, then I'll just call this my "European edition".

Sadly, most Christians in Canada don't share the beliefs of the movement, but the noisy Christian Right, are the only voices being heard.

Harper's War on Women Was Launched in the USA

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

"The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband . . . This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God's design for women."BEVERLY LAHAYE, The Spirit-Controlled Woman

One evening in 1978 Beverly LaHaye was watching television with her husband. On the tube Barbara Walters was interviewing the feminist leader Betty Friedan, who suggested that she represented many women in America.

According to the story that LaHaye has repeated countless times, she immediately sprang to her feet and declared, "Betty Friedan doesn't speak for me and I bet she doesn't speak for the majority of women in this country."

From that day on, or so the story goes, she vowed to rally other "submissive" women who believed, like her, that "the women's liberation movement is destroying the family and threatening the survival of our nation." (1)

Betty LaHaye's husband is Religious Right leader, Tim LaHaye, co-author of the successful Apocalyptic Left Behind book series. He is also a founder of the Council for National Policy, where Harper gave his 1997 speech, where he vilified Canadians and our socialist ways.

Betty LaHaye's "submissive awakening" was in direct contrast to what she had been preaching several years before. Then as a pastor's wife, raising four children, she felt unfulfilled and hated the drudgery of her day to day existence.

One very well-meaning lady said to me in the early days of our ministry, "Mrs. LaHaye, our last pastor's wife was an author; what do you do?" That was a heavy question for a fearful twenty-seven-year-old woman to cope with. And I began to wonder, "What did I do?" Oh yes, I was a good mother to my four children, I could keep house reasonably well, my husband adored me, but what could I do that would be eternally effective in the lives of other women? The answer seemed to come back to me. "Very little!" There was something missing in my life.

In my case it was not the major problems that succeeded in wearing me down; it was the smoldering resentment caused from the endless little tasks that had to be repeated over and over again and seemed so futile. Day after day I would perform the same routine procedures: picking up dirty socks, hanging up wet towels, closing closet doors, turning off lights that had been left on, creating a path through the clutter of toys. (1)

So despite the fact that her children were still young, she returned to work full-time, as a teletype operator for Merrill Lynch. This job she claimed helped her to "gain confidence" and fulfilment.

By 1978 her children were grown and forgetting her life before Merrill Lynch, she decided that she would be the voice of submissive women everywhere.

Lahaye helped to form the group 'Concerned Women for America', drafting women's policy for the Neoconservative/Religious Right movement. CWA also sparked similar organisations in other countries, including our own version 'Real Women of Canada', who have worked in Harper's various parties from the beginning of Reform.

A branch group of Real Women, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families, helped to get Conservative MP Rob Anders elected.

Members of Concerned Women, regularly speak at Real Women conventions, and Canadian members return the favour.

In fact several Conservative MPs have also made the trek to Betty LaHaye's anti-feminist kingdom, including Vic Toews and Stockwell Day.

Given this kind of support for anti-feminism, should we really be surprised that the Republicans are attacking any funding to vulnerable women? That Harper's tax policies ignore single mothers, and pander only to high income households with one wage earner? Or that the Neoconservative government of David Cameron in the UK, is also targeting women in their "austerity" budgets?

This all began when stocking footed Betty LaHaye stood up and vowed to offer an alternative voice for women, who could find happiness if they would just totally submit to their menfolk.

So kick off those shoes ladies and get back in the kitchen where you belong.

As for me, I'm experiencing a case of the vapours. Could just be that my corset's too tight.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 247-249

REAL Women, Promise Keepers and the Promotion of Violence

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

It is a massive masculine shadow,
in a hall or crowded room,
lifting something indistinct up into the resonating night.
ROBERT BLY, "FIFTY MALES SITTING TOGETHER"

Robert Bly is an American author and poet who became the inspiration for the Mytho-poetic men's movement.

Fearing that the women's movement was turning men into "yogurt-eaters", Bly was determined to instead create a cabal of "wild men", who would seek traditional roles for the male species, many based on, believe it or not, Grimm's Fairy Tales.

The tales that portray the powerful king, the handsome prince, the beautiful maiden, and of course the witch determined to destroy them all. (He must have some mother issues)

No "round shouldered" men need apply.

Author Susan Faludi attended one of his few retreats that were open to women and asked why everyone was told in advance to bring a large stone. Bly's spokesperson explained that they were to build a monument to Hermes, but didn't want to go into too much detail, with women present.

An Olympic god. Of course. Patron of shepherds and cowherds. In fact, the spokesman, Walter Bliss, had legally changed his name to Shepherd Bliss, and his profession from army officer to psychologist.

Bly made his appearance to the sound of conga drums, and with the stance of a Viking, reminded those in the audience that he is Norse.

We no longer have images of "real men," Bly says, as the men continue the drum beat. Stereotypical sissies have replaced macho men. "Woody Allen is just as bad—a negative John Wayne," he says, raising his voice to a nasal squeak in imitation. "Men used to make models for what a man is from the Iliad and the Odyssey and places like that."

On the all-male weekend, he promises, he will bring back these role models for male edification: "One of the things we do is go back to the very old stories, five thousand years ago, where the view of a man, what a man is, is more healthy."(1)

A former peace activist, and strong opponent to the Vietnam war, Bly needed a new cause and found it in male bonding.

By the early '80s, he was, he confessed, starting to feel less than manly. "I began to feel diminished," Bly writes, "by my lack of embodiment of the fruitful male—or the moist male." It wasn't his loss of early prominence, however, that he identified as the problem. It was his "missing contact with men" and his overexposure to strong and angry women, including his own mother. (told 'ya)

He feared that he and men like him had allied them­selves too closely with such women, and consequently taken "a female view" of their fathers and their own masculinity. He de­cided he'd made a mistake with his earlier recommendation: "If someone says to me now, 'There is something missing on your feminine side,' I say, `No, what is missing is the masculine,' " Bly told Whole Earth magazine in 1988. He worried that he was only "superficially" manly. Men had awakened their feminine princi­ple only to be consumed by it. They had gone "soft." (1)

So he began running all-male workshops to reintroduce men to "the deep masculine."

This led to wilderness weekend retreats where men dressed in tribal masks and wild-animal costumes, beat drums and rediscov­ered "the beast within." His success inspired scores of imitators, creating a "cottage industry" for the men's movement.

And one of those "imitators" was the Promise Keepers. A New Age Journal article noted that Promise Keepers combined the secular men’s movement (founded by New Age poet Robert Bly) with the political evangelicalism of Pat Robertson. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution stated that: "Promise Keepers combines the Jesus Saves preaching of Billy Graham with the male-bonding message of Robert Bly.

Promise Keepers was brought to Canada by Conservative MP David Sweet. In 2004, when he ran, he posted on his website, the fact that he had been instrumental in creating the Northern chapter.

Women read that, reminded us of what PK stood for, and he lost the election.

In 2006, he got smarter, and removed all mention of the "wildmen" club, only saying that he ran a non-profit organization. He continues to represent Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough- Westdale.

Bly's teachings also fit well with the anti-feminist groups, like REAL Women of Canada, who promoted so-called "family values". Bly attacked not only domineering women, but single mothers.

In short, the Great Mother's authority has become too great. "Men's societies are disappearing, partly under pressure from women with hurt feelings," he writes. Too many women are "raising boys with no man in the house." The single mother's son has become "a nice boy who now not only pleases his mother but also the young woman he is living with."

To restore the nice boy's male identity, Bly proposes, he must quit taking cues from mother and "go down into the psyche and accept what's dark down there." As a key guide to the journey, Bly offers "The Story of Iron John," borrowed from a Grimm's Brothers' fairy tale. In the story, a hairy "wild man" is locked up in an iron cage near the royal castle; the key to the cage is under the queen's pillow. One day the young prince loses his prized "golden ball" when it rolls into an abandoned pond, and he can only relieve it by stealing the key from mother and freeing the wild man. The young man, in the words of Bly's sidekick Keith Thompson, has to take back the power he has given to his mother and get away from the force field of her bed. He must direct his energies away from pleasing Mommy." (1)

At Bly's all-male weekends, the "wildmen" build lairs with plastic chairs, grunting and groaning, and whatever other male sounds they can muster.

Journalist Jon Tevlin, attended a weekend of frolic and fun, run by Bly, at a Bible camp in Mound, Minnesota. On the first night, Tevlin reports that Shepherd Bliss, dropped to his knees.

"Some of you may want to temporarily leave the world of the two-leggeds, and 'Join me in the world of the four-leggeds," he said. One by one, we slid from our orange Naugahyde chairs onto an orange shag carpet ripped straight out of the 1960s. "You may find yourself behaving like these four-leggeds; you may be scratching the earth, getting in contact with the dirt and the world around you."

As he spoke, people began pawing at the ground. . . . "You may find yourself behaving like the most masculine of all animals—the ram," Shepherd said in a coaxing voice. . . . "You may find unfamiliar noises emerging from your throats!" . . . There were gurgles and bleats, a few wolf calls. . .. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shepherd coming toward me, head down, tufts of white hair ringing a bald spot. . . . Meanwhile, I felt a slight presence at my rear, and turned to see a man beginning to sniff my buttocks. "Woof!" he said. (1)

"Woof" indeed!

How to Handle Your Women

As men are given instruction on how to find their "beast within", they are also told how to treat their women, and "wrest the power from their hands".

Inspiration came from objects they were asked to bring from home, including a .380-caliber automatic pistol. A rather odd trophy for a what was called a "battle on the domestic front".

And what if women are not so enthused with their new butt sniffing menfolk?

Promise Keeper's Tony Evans says “I am not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I am urging you to take it back. There can be no compromise here.” .

Robert Bly is not so subtle.

At one seminar, with more than a thousand men in attendance, a man in the audience told Bly, "Robert, when we tell women our desires, they tell us we're wrong." To which Bly responded: "So, then you bust them in the mouth." (1)

People are not taking this movement seriously enough. Stephen Harper is tearing down the Status for Women, and reversing gains made over the past decades.

But the media look at all the women in his caucus, and determine that he is not a misogynist.

If we had to select one photo that would define this period in our history, the following would definitely be in the running.

A frightened Diane Finlay making an announcement, with Pierre Poilievre in a Gestapo style stance, watching on. Women in Harper's party are mere window dressing. They have no power.

When Jason Kenney rewrote the citizenship guide, he all but excluded any contributions made by women.

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa ... It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s, ... It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men."

We are being written out, reduced to the "witches" in Grimms Fairy Tales.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 304-312

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

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

"There is not much point in being minister for the status of women, when women have no status in this country!" Judy Erola

Erola was a cabinet minister in the government of Pierre Trudeau. Feisty and independent, she directed her argument toward the prime minister himself, when the "notwithstanding clause" threatened section 28 of the constitution, guaranteeing equality of the sexes. (1)

Can you imagine anyone in Stephen Harper's cabinet challenging him in such a manner?

But then Erola was no ordinary woman. Canada's first weather girl, breaking the barrier in 1953, and one of the first female network executives, she spent a lifetime fighting for women's rights. She is currently on the board of Equal Voice, an organization which seeks to assist Canadian women in running for political office.

But in 1983, she made waves when she proposed that the tax exemption for dependent spouses, be terminated.

Canada's Christian Right took action, and on September 3, 1983, REAL Women of Canada was born.

Fashioned after the American Religious Right group: 'Concerned Women for America', REAL, which stands for 'Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life', drew in women mainly from the pro-life movement.

It's misleading to call this a woman's movement, because it is clearly a movement that glorifies the male species in our society.

Their stated mission:

1. To reaffirm that the family is society’s most important unit, since the nurturing of its members is best accomplished in the family setting.

2. To promote the equality, advancement and well being of women, recognizing them as interdependent members of society, whether in the family, workplace or community.

3. To promote, secure and defend legislation which upholds what it considers the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage and family life.

4. To support government and social policies that make homemaking possible for women who, out of necessity, would otherwise have to take employment outside the home.

5. To support the right to life of all innocent individuals from conception to natural death.

They claim to be non-partisan, but in fact helped to establish policy for the Reform Party, and constantly criticize the NDP and Liberal parties, on their website and in their publications.

Since Stephen Harper's Reform-Conservatives gained power in 2006, the influence of REAL Women of Canada can be seen in many of their policies, including increased tax relief for single-income families.

And remember that one of Harper's first actions after being elected was to remove the word "equality" from the charter of the NAC.

The Group's Priorities

REAL women claim to represent a silent majority of women within Canada. They promote male headed, single breadwinner families, and believe that women should be homemakers, mothers and wives, in direct contrast to the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and its umbrella organizations.

A key goal of the organization is to denounce the equal rights clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in addition to protesting feminist movements and organizations. They argue that government spending and funding of these feminist organizations was undermining traditional gender and family relations (2)

Other concerns are abortion, universal childcare, and the improvement of the economic situation of women, who may be encouraged to enter or remain in the workforce, while raising children.

Other things they oppose include anti family violence programs, which they claim encourage hatred toward men; no-fault divorce; and protection for gay and lesbian people. (2) As with most conservative groups, they want to return to the nostalgic 1950s when the nuclear family was the only accepted configuration.

I've been organizing my research and plan to compile it all into a series of essays, that I will upload on Scribed.

I'm choosing this government's complete change in direction on woman's issues first, because it's important to understand that with a majority, REAL Women of Canada, will play an important role in determining what funding will be scrapped and what new programs will be implemented.

There have already been many, but we can expect many more, especially when it comes to reproductive rights.

This group may be headed by women, but those women are being directed by men, and my aim is to expose as many as possible.

I also intend to show that REAL Women of Canada is just another cog in the wheel of the American Moral Majority/Religious Right, and the new right-wing movement that is destroying social democracies everywhere.

The Harper government couldn't ignore them even if they wanted to.

When you buy in, you have to accept the entire package, and they have done that to the letter. Every action, every word, comes from the Republican/Tea Party/Moral Majority.

And that includes rolling back many of the gains made by women over the past half century.

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." Rebecca West 1913

I'm blogging the essay in chunks before putting it together for Scribed, and will then post a link.

Sources:

1. Just Watch me: The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, By John English, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-676-97523-9, P. 511

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

Continuation

From Forlorn to Forbearing: Feminism Never Stood a Chance

Harper's War on Women Was Launched in the USA

Allan Bloom Writes Harper's War on Women Strategy

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

REAL Women, Promise Keepers and the Promotion of Violence

Right-Wing Women and Their "Christian Values"

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

Harper's War on Women Was Launched in the USA

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

"The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband . . . This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God's design for women."BEVERLY LAHAYE, The Spirit-Controlled Woman

One evening in 1978 Beverly LaHaye was watching television with her husband. On the tube Barbara Walters was interviewing the feminist leader Betty Friedan, who suggested that she represented many women in America.

According to the story that LaHaye has repeated countless times, she immediately sprang to her feet and declared, "Betty Friedan doesn't speak for me and I bet she doesn't speak for the majority of women in this country."

From that day on, or so the story goes, she vowed to rally other "submissive" women who believed, like her, that "the women's liberation movement is destroying the family and threatening the survival of our nation." (1)

Betty LaHaye's husband is Religious Right leader, Tim LaHaye, co-author of the successful Apocalyptic Left Behind book series. He is also a founder of the Council for National Policy, where Harper gave his 1997 speech, where he vilified Canadians and our socialist ways.

Betty LaHaye's "submissive awakening" was in direct contrast to what she had been preaching several years before. Then as a pastor's wife, raising four children, she felt unfulfilled and hated the drudgery of her day to day existence.

One very well-meaning lady said to me in the early days of our ministry, "Mrs. LaHaye, our last pastor's wife was an author; what do you do?" That was a heavy question for a fearful twenty-seven-year-old woman to cope with. And I began to wonder, "What did I do?" Oh yes, I was a good mother to my four children, I could keep house reasonably well, my husband adored me, but what could I do that would be eternally effective in the lives of other women? The answer seemed to come back to me. "Very little!" There was something missing in my life.

In my case it was not the major problems that succeeded in wearing me down; it was the smoldering resentment caused from the endless little tasks that had to be repeated over and over again and seemed so futile. Day after day I would perform the same routine procedures: picking up dirty socks, hanging up wet towels, closing closet doors, turning off lights that had been left on, creating a path through the clutter of toys. (1)

So despite the fact that her children were still young, she returned to work full-time, as a teletype operator for Merrill Lynch. This job she claimed helped her to "gain confidence" and fulfilment.

By 1978 her children were grown and forgetting her life before Merrill Lynch, she decided that she would be the voice of submissive women everywhere.

Lahaye helped to form the group 'Concerned Women for America', drafting women's policy for the Neoconservative/Religious Right movement. CWA also sparked similar organisations in other countries, including our own version 'Real Women of Canada', who have worked in Harper's various parties from the beginning of Reform.

A branch group of Real Women, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families, helped to get Conservative MP Rob Anders elected.

Members of Concerned Women, regularly speak at Real Women conventions, and Canadian members return the favour.

In fact several Conservative MPs have also made the trek to Betty LaHaye's anti-feminist kingdom, including Vic Toews and Stockwell Day.

Given this kind of support for anti-feminism, should we really be surprised that the Republicans are attacking any funding to vulnerable women? That Harper's tax policies ignore single mothers, and pander only to high income households with one wage earner? Or that the Neoconservative government of David Cameron in the UK, is also targeting women in their "austerity" budgets?

This all began when stocking footed Betty LaHaye stood up and vowed to offer an alternative voice for women, who could find happiness if they would just totally submit to to their menfolk.

So kick off those shoes ladies and get back in the kitchen where you belong.

As for me, I'm experiencing a case of the vapours. Could just be that my corset's too tight.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 247-249

Some Hate Groups Now Working Through the Pro-Life Movement

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

When I first thought about writing a book, it was after reading several on Canada's hate groups.

At the same time, the Religious Right in Canada was gaining prominence and what I found was that the language used by both was almost identical, especially when it came to immigrants, abortion and homosexuality.

I thought I might find some links that would suggest that many of the old hate groups are now hiding behind religion, which gives them far more freedom to say what they want.

But what I found interesting, when researching both, was that they had so many links to the Reform movement, whether they were operating as the Reform Party, the Alliance, the Conservatives or even their original Social Credit identity.

And I am still convinced that many of the old extreme right have found safe haven in both the Religious Right and the Conservative Party of Canada, in part through groups like the Civitas Society and REAL Women of Canada.

The group Stop Racism and Hate Collective have also found some alarming links and posted them under their Myths About Hate Groups. And using the abortion issue as an example:

.... hate groups do not just target people of colour, or Jews, but actively support the most extreme elements of anti-choice groups. A number of former members of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, have direct ties to anti-choice groups. The leader of the Northern Foundation, Anne Hartmann, plays an important role in Realwomen. Barry Wray and Ernie Britskie have picketed the Everywoman's Health Centre in Vancouver. Wray's brother, Dan, was the Grand Titan of the BC KKK in the 1980s and he now is associated with the Pro-Life Association based in Melville, Saskatchewan. Dan also contributes to The Interim - the Campaign Life Coalition's newsletter. Barry Wray, Al Hooper (another long time member of the BC KKK) and Tony McAleer, a former skinhead recruiter, proprietor of the racist Canadian Liberty Net and manager of the racist rock band, Odin's Law, were charged with assault in 1990 an incident in which a passerby objected to them handing out Aryan Nations propaganda. Realwoman BC President Peggy Steachy has also spoken at events with Dan Wray. One meeting was held at the Croatian Cultural Centre and sponsored by the La Rouche organization and Life Gazette. Steachy is the editor of a pro-life newsletter based in Surrey, BC. (1)

1. Anne Hartmann

Rita Anne Hartmann headed up the Ottawa branch of the Northern Foundation and was a founding member, along with Stephen Harper. Many others in the Northern Foundation now belong to the Civitas Society (the non-Neo-Nazi members, only far-right). Anne's husband Paul, who died mysteriously in 1986, was the leader of the Toronto KKK and a confirmed Odonist.

2. Dan and Barry Wray

There is no evidence that Barry Wray was ever involved in the KKK but his brother Dan most definitely was. When Ann Farmer was named leader, not wanting to work under a woman, he created his own group:

Another smaller splinter group was created in B.C., when a provincial organizer named Dan Wray set up a survivalist-oriented Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in rural Aldergrove. (2)

3. Ernie Britskie

In November 1992, Ernie Britskie, long-time associate the Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Resistance Movement and Lyndon LaRouche, allegedly told Kinsella he had given Mr [David] Irving support in Vancouver. (3)

4. Al Hooper

Was prominent in the KKK when Ann Farmer was running the show. He was involved in an attempt to join forces with the Nationalist Party of Canada created and still being led by Don Andrews.

The Stone Mountain unity rally also inspired the Canadian Klan to seek its own alliances with other white supremacist forces. Five days after the Georgia meeting, Farmer and Hooper met with Don Andrews, leader of the Nationalist Party of Canada, to discuss ways of working together. Andrews still scorned the Klan's composition and tactics: "The future belongs to white nationalists of a more intellectual order. We're not interested in flash-in-the-pan media publicity stuff," he said. Still, he was prepared to work with Farmer and Hooper, suggesting "joint statements, tactical alliances, but no union." Farmer talked about "co-operation and dialogue amongst white nationalists ... not an amalgamation of the various groups into a single unit."

From his Toronto jail cell, former Klan leader McQuirter also promoted common action. "I've been writing a lot of letters, proposing and pushing unity," said McQuirter. He still clung to his plans to enter the mainstream political arena: "I'm looking for a political party as a vehicle." * He said a federal political party of the extreme right could find protection under the law. "We can be exempt from the hate law if we're proposing certain political positions. No one could stop a formal political party." Wolfgang Droege shared McQuirter's desire for unity and political action. Before he returned to British Columbia, Droege wrote from prison that there was "a cohesive bond and a potential unity" on the extreme right in Canada and pledged "to co-operate with both the Klan and the Nationalist Party." Droege also talked of building "an effective political force through the normal, legal political process." (4)

5. Tony McAleer

McAleer belonged to the Aryan Resistance Movement, whose logo was a sword-bearing eagle superimposed on a large swastika.

Inside the crudely typed bulletin,Graham and his members ranted about "non-white vermin," the"Jewsmedia," and a well-known Canadian doctor who performs abortions ... The Aryan Resistance Movement was formed by Scott Graham and Tony McAleer, or, as he then called himself, Tony McLean, in 1987. Back then, it had about a dozen skinhead members in and around Mission, with about an equal number in Vancouver. (5)

Now I'm not suggesting that all pro-lifers once belonged to a hate group. The majority did not. However, we can't ignore the evidence that there are a number of hate group members who have found a safe haven within the Religious Right movement. REAL Women of Canada are now directing Harper's policy on the status of women, which pretty much means that Canadian women no longer have any status, and Jason Kenney's assault on the gay community has resulted in an increase in violent attacks on gays.

This government has legitimized hatred and we have to start paying attention.

Sources:

1. MYTHS ABOUT HATE GROUPS, Stop Racism and Hate Collective

2. White Hoods, By Julian Sher, New Star Books, 1983, ISBN 0-919573-13-4, Pg. 183

3. Statement in libel case against Deborah Lipstadt by David Irving, for mentioning him in her book Denying the Holocaust

4. Sher, 1983, Pg. 187

5. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, 1994, Harper Collins, pg. 54

Chapter Thirty-Eight Continued: Odonists and the Western Guard

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

In Bryan Palmer's latest book; Canadas 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era*, he discusses the rise of the "New Left" that brought about social change, engineered primarily by Canada's youth.

This youth surge of course was fuelled as the post-War baby boomers poured into the workforce, universities, and even swelled the ranks of the unemployed.

The predominant issues at the time were Nuclear Disarmament, Peace, which included an end to the Vietnam War; and Canadian nationalism, with a desire to break away from what was deemed too much American influence. One group of young intelligentsia even started the Waffle Movement within the NDP, in an attempt to move the party further left.

Another movement that was not created in the 60's, but found renewed strength was Feminism, with demands for daycare, equal pay for work of equal value, equality in the workplace and other institutions, education around birth control and a campaign against the antiquated abortion laws. This organized women’s movement won some of their demands and influenced many institutions. They were also strong in the Waffle Movement of the NDP, and greatly influenced the party as a whole.

The election of the Liberal Pierre Trudeau, (which became a catalyst to the right) was seen as a positive sign to the left, as he represented social change, and indeed changed the country's social structure tremendously. But we have to remember, that is what the majority of Canadians then demanded.

And just as there was a "New Left" demanding social change, there was also a "New Right" challenging these changes.

The Extremes

Though most on the left and right were moderate, both sides had their radical branches, with some on the left promoting Communism and some on the right, Fascism; the old struggles that helped to create war in Europe.

Indeed Adolf Hitler's Fascist Brown Shirts were created to counter what Hitler and other radicals at the time, deemed to be a rise in socialism and communism, which like the Neo-Nazi groups of later years, they blamed on the Jews and Liberalism.

Two of the most extreme movements in Canada at the time were the Maoists on the left and the Odonists on the right. The first of course were followers of the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, but the Odonists were white supremacists who followed the belief in a true Nordic race, similar to the Aryans of the Thule Society. They followed the Pagan god Odon, and would eventually culminate into a branch of the Canadian KKK.

But one evening in downtown Toronto, in the 1960's, the leader of the Odonists, a tall Norwegian named Paul Hartmann, was walking with his girlfriend and another female, when a group of Maoists, carrying lead pipes wrapped in newspapers for concealment, crossed the street and confronted Paul and the women. They first hit the girlfriend, then pushed the other female acquaintance through a large plate glass window. When Paul tried to defend the women, he was surrounded and hit on the head, rendering him unconscious.

The original story was that the Maoists were defending themselves, but an amateur photographer captured the scene and got a clear image of Paul being hit and the girls being attacked. In the court case that followed, the lawyer for the Maoists argued that since Paul was an Odinist and Odinists believe in "always attacking superior numbers of foes", to explain how he was outnumbered, his clients should be let off. And in fact they were.

However, this was probably part of a bigger picture. On the day this happened there was a Maoist parade on Yonge Street, and perhaps seeing the future leader of the Toronto KKK approaching, they sensed trouble, so went on the offensive.

Neither side was right, but assault is assault, and I'm sure the court's decision only inflamed the group even more.

White nationalist and fellow Odonist, Eric Thomson wrote a story for Paul, called The Awakening, about a young Jewish man who is offered as sacrifice to the pagan god.

The Western Guard and the KKK

Paul Hartmann would go on to join the Western Guard, along with men like Donald Andrews, Alex McQuirter, Armand Siksna and Wolfgang Droege. Originally the Edmund Burke Society, they had changed their name in February of 1972, and expanded their list of enemies from Communists and Liberals, to include Jews and non-whites.

They were also virulently anti-feminist, including opposition to abortion (that would result in a decline of the white race) and anti-homosexual.

When Don Andrews, then head of the Western Guard, was arrested for plotting to launch a terrorist bomb attack on the Israeli soccer team during an exhibition match at Varsity Stadium, Droege and McQuirter did not sit idle. The group had already become interested in the American KKK movement, under it's charismatic leader, David Duke, and after attending a rally and cross burning outside New Orleans, where Duke led his troops in chants "White Power", they approached Duke and told him that they would like to be his men in Canada.

Duke, in turn, provided McQuirter and Droege with the names and addresses of a few dozen Canadians who had contacted him to seek information about the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Rejuvenated, Droege and McQuirter returned to Canada. During the days, McQuirter busied himself with the Canadian militia, while Droege continued his work as a printer; in evenings and on weekends, however, the pair organized on behalf of David Duke. They contacted the men and women on Duke's lists, and held small, secretive meetings at homes around Toronto. In April 1977, the Canadian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan secured some media coverage when Droege persuaded Duke, who was then visiting a group of Klansmen in Buffalo, New York, to tour through Toronto. As expected, the resulting news coverage attracted more recruits. (1)

They were becoming a formidable force and even enjoying a level of legitimacy.

In January 1978, a teacher at Cardinal Newman Roman Catholic High School, in Toronto's suburbs, invited the Klan to speak to his American Civil War class. Recalls Droege: "At that point, we had done a little bit of literature distribution, we had set up a post office box, we had done a few things that had gotten attention behind the scenes. But when we were invited to go to the Catholic high school, it attracted a lot of attention. When we got there, of course, the invitation had been cancelled on us. So we held a demonstration." Among those who participated in the demonstration was Toronto Klansman Paul Hartmann. (1)

Rita Anne Kelly

Paul Hartmann would meet and marry a young woman named Rita Anne Kelly, a University of Toronto Law student, who became a member of the Upper Canada Law Society in 1975. Her brother was also a lawyer and partner in the firm Walton Brigham Kelly**.

Paul, who went from Odonist to Western Guard to the KKK, no doubt had acquired enemies, and died in 1986 "under mysterious circumstances" in the hallway of his Toronto home. His wife, Rita Anne would move to Ottawa the following year, and go on to dabble in far right causes.

The Hartmann family lived in a huge home at 25 Delaware Avenue, in the well-to-do Golden Triangle neighborhood. From there, Hartmann maintained connections with neo-Nazi groups across North America. In March 1990, for example, she wrote to the ultra-violent Confederate Hammerskins of Tulsa, Oklahoma, using an alias she favors, Eleanor Cameron. Out of the same address, Ann Hartmann busied herself with REAL WOMEN OF CANADA. Hartmann, who has a law degree from the University of Toronto, provides legal advice to REAL WOMEN. In April 1989, for example, she gave an anti-abortion speech to a Real women conference at the Radisson Hotel in Ottawa. (2)

Enter the Reform Party

The Reform Party adopted a motion at it's inception, to allow right-wing fringe groups to join them, including Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept***, a separatist party. "In short the party leadership was trying to broaden it's right-wing support while not entirely surrendering it's attraction to fringe elements, at least some of whom were present at the Winnipeg Convention." (3)

This included groups like the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada**** and REAL Women. (Rita) Anne Hartmann joined the Reform Party seeing them as a good right-wing option, but she would also become a founding member of another more notorious group.

The Northern Foundation

"... 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 [now prime minister of Canada]." (4)

According to Kinsella:

The Northern Foundation's president was Ann Hartmann, widow of former Western Guard activist Paul Hartmann. Hartmann had moved to Ottawa in 1987 with her six children, two of whom were skinheads who would go on to recruit on behalf of the Heritage Front in the national capital. (2)

The NF was to be a vanguard for the extreme right, and the Heritage Front was a group co-founded by Wolfgang Droege, that fell under their umbrella:

"Back home, Droege held low-key meetings with his new group in his apartment. They discussed their plans for their new group, and they discussed a name: the Heritage Front. One man, James Scott Dawson, registered the name; another Gerry Lincoln, designed a logo and some letterhead. Then, in November 1989, the Heritage Front went public. Droege, Lincoln and a few others travelled to Ottawa for the founding conference of the Northern Foundation. Droege had chosen a good place for his coming-out party." (5)

As Kinsella notes "not all of the Northern Foundation's members were neo-Nazis", including Harper, but members of the Heritage front would go on to join the Reform Party. In fact, Wolfgang Droege would become the Ontario Policy chair.

The next month, on June 12, 1991, the Reform Party of Canada held a massive rally in Mississauga, Ontario. The event, which drew some 6,000 people to hear Preston Manning, marked the first high profile event for the security group directed by Droege's employer, Alan Overfield. ... On June 13, 1991, several Heritage Front members attended a meeting of Paul Fromm's Canadians for Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR) where Overfield from the Reform Party set up a table to sign people up for the Party. The dates on the membership forms for Droege, Polinuk, Dawson and Mitrevski, however, show that they had joined the Party before that meeting. (6)

Preston Manning would eventually expel them all, including Anne Hartmann.

"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." (7 )

Rita Anne Hartmann would eventually move to Eugene Oregon, and now runs a chain of successful holistic clinics. She seems to have turned her life around and it wouldn't be fair to assume that she still shares these beliefs. However, when her past was discovered in Eugene it did create a stir:

Rita "Ann" Hartmann (alias Elinor Cameron), owner of Rejuvenation Spa in Eugene is the president of the Northern Foundation and the director of Real Women of Canada. Her husband, Paul Hartmann was a member of Cornerstone Alliance (he is now deceased). Her son, Eric Hartmann, is a member of the Heritage Front. All of the above named groups are nazi, white supremacy groups. In 1974, Paul was treasurer of the openly neo-Nazi Western Guard. In those years Paul was known as the "High Priest" of the Revolutionary Odinist Movement, which he described as an "Aryan" religion and a "New Order for our White People". He is also reported to have worked with the Ku Klux Klan at that time.

Rejuvenation Spa, at the very least, should be boycotted. Eric Hartmann is a well known and respected herbalist (maybe not anymore!) in the community. I was shocked to find all this out, but unfortunately it is true. Seeing his name and his mothers name in the neo-right directory (see below) was enough to convince me to stay far far away from Rejuvenation Spa and make sure everyone I know does too. It's crazy that this business, supposedly a welcoming, healthy and healing environment, is run by nazi's. (8)

Rita responded with "I was active in a movement to impeach a former Canadian Prime Minister. The Canadian Government smeared me, my late husband, and even my children - and many other people in the impeachment movement - and continues to do so. End of story. Rita Anne Hartmann." (8)

If they were indeed involved in trying to impeach a prime minister it would have been Brian Mulroney. But they were also involved in trying to protect apartheid in South Africa.

Continued: Ann Farmer and Going Legit

Footnotes:

*Canadas 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era, By Bryan D. Palmer, University of Toronto Press, 2009, ISBN: 13-9780802096593

**Rita Anne Hartmann would recently be in trouble with the Law Society over a trust account of her brother's firm.

***Stockwell Day's father was also a member of the WCC

****One of Stephen Harper's latest patronage senate appointments, Bob Runciman, was then a member of APEC.

Sources:

1. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, Harper Collins, 1994, Pg. 214-215

2. Kinsella, 1994, Pg. 224

3. 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 3, Pg. 115-116

4. Harrison, 1995, Pg. 121

5. Kinsella, 1994, pg 263-264

6. The Heritage Front Affair Report to the Solicitor General of Canada Security Intelligence Review Committee December 9, 1994

7. Kinsella, 1994, Pg. 243-44

8. Eugene business, Rejuvenation Spa, operated by White Supremacists, Portland Independent Media Centre, September 2, 2002