Reconstruction, Redemption, Deliverance and Resurrection

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Conservative Movement Took Over My Country

On December 24, 1865, six young men, one of them the editor of the local newspaper, and several veterans of the Confederate army, formed the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, in opposition to post Civil War Reconstruction, which would give freed slaves and poor whites, democratic rights.

Taking their name from the Greek kuklos, meaning circle or band, they began as little more than a social club for "disaffected, wealthy young whites".

However, with the support of many prominent southerners, including Gen. John C. Brown, who would go on to become governor of Tennessee and president of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, the Klan would become "the shock troops of a displaced Southern aristocracy determined to undermine a new popular order and restore the old way of life." (1)

The first Grand Wizard, was Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Confederate army, a wealthy slave trader; and the first order of business was to prevent as many of the 700,000 freed former slaves, who had registered as new voters, from casting their ballots.  To do this they often resorted to bloodshed.   Yet despite the violence, 17 African Americans were elected to the General Assembly, 15 Representatives and two Senators.

The gains would be short-lived however, when the Compromise of 1877 initiated the period known as Redemption, which reduced  voting by blacks with the passing of more restrictive electoral and voter registration rules.  By 1900, they had lost the right to vote in every state in the South and not a single elected black official remained in office.

Ironically, it was the Democrats who were then working to restore and maintain white supremacy in the South, until Democratic President Lyndon Johnson stood up for civil rights in 1968, even though it meant losing the Southern vote. 

Deliverance

There is no doubt that the Klan played a major role in breaking the Reconstruction forces. Beatings, whippings and outright assassinations, helped to terrorize, both blacks and poor whites, who were seeking democratic reform.  The Klan also set fire to newly-built schoolhouses and killed teachers of former slaves.

However, once the plantation owners and southern aristocrats were back in power, the Klan's services were no longer required, and their membership dropped considerably, until they ceased to exist, except in the minds of the ex-hooded riders.

It would be several decades before the KKK would be called back into service, this time to deal with the social upheaval brought about by the Great Migration.

Beginning in 1910, African Americans left the South for the North in search of manufacturing jobs, 1.6 million in all between 1910 and 1930.  Because it was so many in such a short period of time, the new arrivals encountered significant discrimination.  Meanwhile, in the South, many poor farmers were being forced to move to urban areas for work and found that work at factories owned and run by migrated Northerners, mostly Jews.

An event would take place in 1915 that would give the Klan the incentive and support, to rise up again.

The Knights of Mary Phagan

Fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan had been working since she was ten.  Her last job was at the National Pencil Company in Atlanta Georgia, where she worked 55 hours per week for a wage of $ 4.05; about a third of the national average.

On April 21, 1913, she was laid off, and on April 26, returned to the factory for her final pay, amounting to $ 1.20.

She was seen going in but not coming out. 

At about 3:17 a.m. the following day, her body was discovered by the night watchman, who called the police.

Unceremoniously dumped in the basement, battered and bruised, with wrapping cord around her neck, and her dressed hiked up; the police believed that she had been raped and then strangled so that she couldn't name her attacker.  After speaking with co-workers, they began to build a case against the company's superintendent,  Leo Max Frank.  Some of the girls had suggested that Frank was a bit of a flirt.

Though there was no physical evidence implicating him, the media spun the story to suggest that it was open and shut.  They even allowed the testimony of a black man, Jim Conley, to be entered against a white man,  a unique event in this region at the time.  But then that white man was a Jew.

Jim Conley was in all likelihood Mary's killer.  He was drinking heavily that day and was looking for cash.  Mary's purse with her wage packet was never found, and in later years, descendants of Conley claimed that he was indeed responsible.

So why was Frank convicted instead? 

Atlanta had the largest Jewish community in the South, many prominent business owners.  Frank himself was originally from New York, a graduate of Cornell, and president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith.

By contrast, many of the white Protestant citizens in the region were poor, uneducated farmers, who had left near destitute conditions in the Georgia countryside to find work in the city, and for many that work meant toiling for Jewish bosses.  The resentment was there, if not always visible.

Now they were being given an opportunity to put one of them in their place.  Jim Conley was a poor drunk who posed no threat to their standing as descendants of the "conquering race", while Frank was a symbol of the "foreign" exploiter making money from the labour of their children. 

Originally given the death sentence, the judge, who had doubts that Frank committed the crime, commuted  his sentence to life in prison.  Publisher Tom Watson, fanned the flames of anger, calling on the citizens of Georgia to take justice into their own hands and inflict the death penalty on this "Yankee Devil."  A virulent racist, he hurled anti-Jewish epithets at Frank, while making wild, unsubstantiated charges.

What happened next, was predictable.  On August 17, 1915, a caravan of eight vehicles with 25 armed men, arrived at the Georgia State Prison where Frank was being held. Calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan, they cut the telephone lines, surprised the guards and kidnapped Leo Frank.

At Frey's Grove near Mary Phagan's girlhood home, they hung him. Photographs were taken but newspapers refused to publish them since they implicated many prominent citizens. Frank's body was put on public display and postcards made of the lynching sold by the thousands. "Justice" was served.  The white Protestant was still boss.

Resurrection

After the sensationalized trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank, William Joseph Simmons, of Harpersville, Alabama, son of an original Klansman, decided that it was time to do something to protect the white Protestant heritage of America.  He claimed to have interpreted a pattern in the clouds as a divine command to save their honour.  (2)

He had watched D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and was drawn to the heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was Simmons who led the charge on October 16, 1915, up Stone Mountain, to burn a cross in honour of Mary Phagan, the young girl that Frank was wrongfully accused of murdering.

Cross burning was not a practice of the first Ku Klux Klan.  Griffith borrowed the idea from the Scottish Clans, who had burned crosses as a method of signalling from one hilltop to the next.

Simmon's cross burning, highly visible to the surrounding area on that fateful night, was the symbol of a religious rebirth, and the Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was brought to life .  It was to be a fraternity of native-born Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Protestants who would rid the country of at least the influence, of Blacks, Jews and Roman Catholics, or anyone else who "didn't belong".

Tom Watson, the publisher who had helped to incite the mob that lynched Leo Frank, had already began calling for the Klan's reorganization, creating an interest, and in 1920, with the help of the Klan, he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

The Leo Frank case, also resulted in the creation of the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith, (3) the nemesis of the Ku Klux Klan and other like-minded groups.

Making a Mountain Out of a Mountain

Stone Mountain as the site for the first Klan cross burning was not without meaning.  Long held as a sacred place by indigenous groups, Creek and Cherokee leaders used the peak for political gatherings and religious rituals.

If Simmons was going to resurrect the Klan, he had to reclaim the mountain for white Protestants. 

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum, a Klan member himself, was charged with turning the mountain into a memorial to the Confederacy*, and began carving enormous images of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson, right into the granite dome. (4)

Virginia Governor and promoter of the project, Elbert Lee Trinkle (in suit), shown shaking hands with  Borglum in 1923, described Stone Mountain as "consecrated ground that God himself has raised up", a "mecca of glory," a "sanctuary of truth," 'and a "sermon in stone," where the South's "golden age ... defied the future"  ( 4). It was no longer a holy place for the First Nations.  It had been conquered.

Gutzon Borglum would go on to create another masterpiece, again on sacred aboriginal ground, that would become one of the most visited sites in the United States:  Mount Rushmore.  Long a catalyst to the Native community, who still own the land**, the memorial was again a tribute to white supremacy.

Borglum had apparently been on Stone Mountain that fateful night and was a staunch anti-Semite and well known bigot.  His granddaughter inherited his papers, and says that she is often embarrassed by the things that he wrote.

Some have wondered why he would then include Lincoln on the carving, given that it was he who freed the slaves.  However, Abraham Lincoln was not really anti-slavery.  In fact, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, called Lincoln "the white man's president".   Lincoln only began to listen to the abolitionists, mid-way through the Civil War, when he realized that emancipation could speed victory for the North.  Almost 200,000 black soldiers then joined the fight.  Besides, the Klan themselves, are not pro-slavery, only pro-white Protestant. 

The  idea of this group was that they stood for the Glory of the United States.  Its Manifest Destiny.

Footnotes:

*Stone Mountain is now a popular theme park, fashioned after Gone With the Wind.  In 1995, the state privatized the management of the park, partnering with Herschend Family Entertainment, a Christian company that operates Dolly-wood and a number of theme parks in Branson, Missouri.

** The federal government has made several attempts to buy the land, but all offers have been refused by the indigenous people, since it goes against their religious beliefs to buy or sell land. 

Sources:

1.  White Hoods: Canada's Ku Klux Klan, By Julian Sher, New Star Books, 1983, ISBN 0-919573-13-4, p. 20

2. J. Edgar Hoover and the Klu Klux Klan, By R. J. Stove, National Observer, No. 47, Summer 2001

3. Website Names Alleged Lynchers of Leo Frank, Cobb Online

4. Grounding religion: a field guide to the study of religion and ecology, By Whitney Bauman, Taylor & Francis, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-4157-80162, p. 213

Fusion or Confusion? Why I Think the Conservative Movement Will Self-Destruct

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

I read an interesting paper by Mytheos Holt, a neoconservative intellectual, I suppose you'd call him; that discusses the fusion of right-wing groups, that currently make up the nucleus of the conservative movement.

It was simpler in the beginning, because there were primarily just two: libertarianism and traditionalism.  However, in their quest for power, two additional cells were added to the mass: neoconservatism and paleoconservatism.
 
The Libertarian promotes individual freedom and the freedom to make money without government restrictions, like product safety standards or environmental regulations.  They believe that the market will dictate safety standards, because if their product kills people, no one will buy it.  I'd sooner know in advance if using that product could kill me, not wait for additional research or a new marketing strategy.
 
The Traditionalist wants a return to moral standards, which they see as only being possible in a Judeo-Christian society.  This should clash with Libertarianism, because it dictates how a person can live.  In many ways, organized religion is a form of collectivism, since members are expected to conform to a set of standards laid out by the hierarchy of the Church, which is like a regulatory board.  This political group is more often referred to as the Christian Right or Religious Right.
 
The Neoconservatives believe that they are the intelligentsia of the movement. They create the ambigous policy statements that are designed to mean different things to different people.  And despite the fact that movement conservatives claim to detest "elites", these people are elites.  Wealthy and well educated puppet masters.  As Paul Krugman says in his Conscience of a Liberal, becoming an intellectual in this movement is a good career choice.  You will never be unemployed, moving into government when conservatives are in power, and into right-wing think-tanks when they're not. Neoconservatives are followers of Leo Strauss.
 
The Paleoconservative is committed to creating a society with a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant hierarchy (WASPs).  Their views fit well with the Religious Right.  Frank Schaeffer, son of Francis A. Schaeffer, whose book A Cristian Manifesto is believed to be the blueprint for the Religious Right, confirms that the movement was always about race.
 
Paul Weyrich agreed, saying that it was not the abortion issue that mobilized them, but the end of segregation.  Weyrich was not only a founding member of the RR, but also a Paleoconservative.  He helped to create The Council for National Policy, which is a kind of vanguard group, for all four elements of American conservatism.  In Canada, the Civitas Society plays that role.
 
How Do You Sort it All Out?
 
With so many conflicting elements, how do you sort it all out?  It can't be easy.
 
To appease the Libertarians, Stephen Harper has placed Maxime Bernier, the former head of the libertarian Montreal Institute, into his cabinet, and allows the Fraser Institute to draft policy. 
 
To appease the Religious Right, he has moved their members into every nook and cranny of his government. In April, Le Devoir, published a piece on: Religious Fanatics in the Conservative Party (April 7, 2011).

They tell of a Liberal MP who was going into anaphylactic shock. Instead of providing medical assistance, three Conservative politicians, "Mark Warawa, Jeffrey Watson and Blaine Calkins, approached the sick woman, knelt down, placed their hands on her head and ... began incantations and prayers." Says Les Devoir:

This story is not widely known on the Hill, and for good reason. Those who witnessed the scene were shocked by this counter-productive religious reflex (the crowd was keeping the MP from breathing), but they are reluctant to condemn it for fear of being accused of intolerance.

They can get away with anything under the protection of religion. Others speak of members in almost constant prayer and some who even speak in tongues. (And you thought it was just Jason Kenney)

To appease the Neoconservatives is not that difficult. The Ezra Levants and David Frums get more media exposure than Paris Hilton.

And finally to appease the Paleoconservatives, he has taken Canada down perhaps the most dangerous path yet. He is allowing the Monarchist League to begin the transformation of our country, from one with a vast cultural heritage, to one whose history begins with Confederation. This not only ignores the contributions of those who were here centuries before the Anglo-Saxons, but also those who came after. We will be transformed from our wonderful cultural mosaic, to a work of still life.

Where is the Commonality?

Mytheos Holt discusses the clashing of views held by the four cells of the conservative movement.

Traditionalism has been taken over by religious conservatism, or what conservative writer Kathleen Parker refers to as the "evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP."  ("Letting Go of God." Washington Post. November 19, 2008)

David Frum was fired from the American Enterprise Institute for criticizing the Republican's stance on Obama's healthcare plan.  Tom Flanagan was exiled from the Harper government for writing his book Harper's Team, even though he cut out almost half of it. (Harperland, Lawrence Martin, 2010) Gerry Nicholls, Harper's VP when he was president of the National Citizens Coalition, was fired when he publicly criticised our current prime minister.

Holt believes that there might be "too much individual freedom", that is creating a paranoia with the movement.

...because each of the four sectors of the movement views their compatriots as potential traitors, each of them believes it is absolutely essential that the problematic elements be tossed out before ideological war can be made on liberalism, since traitorous urges will inevitably manifest themselves on the battlefield. This paranoia induces a state of ideological paralysis, in which each of the different factions of conservatism find it impossible to build upon each others’ insights, for fear of accidentally accepting a liberal narrative. (The Unchanging Republic: Prospects for a New Conservative Fusion, by Mytheos Holt, 2010)

Their only commonality is a hatred for liberalism and it consumes them.  In his book Harperland, Lawrence Martin tells of speaking with a foreign leader, who claimed that while he openly criticizes his political opponents at home, he was quite taken aback by Stephen Harper, who he claimed actually "hates" his.  What he must think of us.

The very word 'liberal' ignites an hypnotic induction that no amount of clapping will wake them from.  But as Holt suggests, since the movement began, the character of liberalism has changed dramatically, yet the conservative arguments against it have not.  They have only turned their arguments against each other, in their quest to find the perfect conservative specimen.

So can a fusion held together with hate survive, or will it undergo a fission, breaking apart as each pursues its own agenda?

Maybe the real question is not will it, but when?

The Canadian Manifesto 11: God, Guns and Gays

Throughout the 1990s, especially the early years, the Canadian Reform Party and the American Republican Party were forging ties, that have proven to be lasting.

They share policies, initiatives, staff, and even financing.

One name that comes up often is Morton Blackwell, founder of the Washington based Leadership Institute, where young conservatives are trained in the art of political guerrilla warfare.  Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed are all graduates of his program.

Blackwell was co-founder of the Moral Majority, and was Ronald Reagan's liaison with the Religious Right.  He once claimed that the Evangelical community was "the greatest tract of virgin timber on the political landscape."

It was Blackwell who invited Stephen Harper to speak at the Montreal conference of the Council for National Policy, an organization where foreign affairs and religion are mixed, and made to fit the Old Testament.  In other words, they promote perpetual war.

Blackwell was also called upon by Preston Manning to help him establish a Canadian branch of the Leadership Institute, giving birth to the Manning Centre For Building Democracy.  A dubious title for a training centre that teaches the art of undermining democracy.

His U.S. counterpart was more than happy to help out, saying that he offers his services for free, to any groups "trying to be conservative in the U.S. sense of the word". (1)

About God's Love of Guns

One of the advisers at the Leadership Institute is James Inhofe, the Republican senator from Oklahoma.  In 1994, the Republicans were determined to sweep the mid-term election, so pulled out all the stops.  Frank Luntz left the Reform Party and helped to draft the Contract With America, while Republican leader Newt Gingrich, studied Preston Manning's anti-government campaigning

The Evangelical army that had put Ronald Reagan on the throne, were once again mobilized for action and every right-wing group in the country was on speed dial.

But perhaps the most important factor in the success of the Republicans then, was when they put a gun in God's hands and changed the profile of a religious activist, from one wanting to do what was right, to one so filled with hatred that it now consumes them.

Because 1994 was the year when the National Rifle Association found a loophole in the election financing laws, and began to interfere in the democratic process.  They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to target Democrats who supported gun control, in particular, the Brady Act.

One campaign that was fought with NRA ammo was that of Inhofe, who was running against the incumbent Dave McCurdy.  With graduates from the Leadership Institute, including our own Rob Anders, McCurdy was shell shocked.

The NRA’s PAC spent more than $150,000 in independent expenditures to run television and newspaper advertisements and put up billboards denouncing McCurdy in addition to the $9,900 it gave directly to Inhofe, just under the maximum $10,000 allowable under FEC regulations. The NRA also spent thousands of dollars more urging its Oklahoma members to turn out for Inhofe. It was an all-out attack that turned the tide against McCurdy. (2)

Inhofe ran on a campaign of 'Gods, Guns and Gays', a slogan later borrowed by the Republican National Committee.  However, most NRA sponsored ads did not mention guns at all.  In one TV spot, they showed McCurdy at a distance and then zoomed in to reveal that he was wearing an Aids ribbon.

The same kind of gunfight took place across the country, as the NRA took up the cause for Republican hopefuls.  Christine Todd Whitman, the woman who loaned out her Common Sense Revolution to Mike Harris in Ontario,  garnered $ 200,000 in free ads.

Recognizing a good thing when they saw it, Harris's team then sent a letter to the Canadian branch of the NRA, the National Firearms Association, promising to do what he could to kill Bill C-68, and the Gun Registry.  The NFA published the letter as an encouragement for their members to get out and vote.

This was not the organization's first foray into conservative politics.  They had been active supporters of the Reform Party, and made a huge impact in 1997, when Reform became the official opposition.  According to the book Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics:

During the campaign, the NFA's political clout was put at the disposal of the Reform Party. In a memo to supporters, NFA president David Tomlinson noted that the only party offering a "trustworthy promise of an immediate turn toward dumping the Liberal game plan, revoking Bill C-68 and bringing in a completely tweeked firearms control system that will ... favor our firearms community is the Reform Party." Using images of war and battle, Tomlinson exhorted any member who was not a political activist to "get off your butt and become one".

During the 1997 election, signs bearing the somewhat ambiguous message "Remember Bill C-68 When You Vote" were a common sight in rural areas where gun ownership is concentrated. Part of the National Firearms Association's (NFA) extensive and ambitious campaign to defeat the Liberal government and the gun-control legislation it had supported. These signs signalled widespread discontent over firearms legislation in parts of the country.

He [Tomlinson]called on NFA supporters to work for, donate money, goods and services to, and promote the Reform Party". Tomlinson himself was president of a Reform Party constituency association in Edmonton. NFA activists apparently heeded Tomlinsons call. Messages posted on the organization's website throughout the election reflected considerable involvement in Reform campaigns,. Activists compared notes about the travails of keeping Reform signs in place, boasted about their campaign activity and contributions, and called for volunteers to help at local Reform offices.(3)

The New Right movement has many "signals" and according to David Kuo, the term "believers' is assigned to anyone believing in three things: the end of abortion, the end of gay rights, and the right to carry a gun. In an oped piece Harper wrote in 1995, he claimed that Reform was about "Gays, Guns and Government Grants".

He was a "believer".

Gun Control is Not a Liberal Issue

In their effort to make everything liberal evil, the New Right has called gun control, besides a feminist plot to destroy their masculinity (honest), a 'liberal folly'.  However, the idea of gun control, was actually a conservative priority.

Richard Nixon once said that "guns are an abomination," and went on to confess that  "Free from fear of gun owners' retaliation at the polls, he favored making handguns illegal and requiring licenses for hunting rifles."

George Bush, Sr. banned the import of "assault weapons" in 1989, and promoted the view that Americans should only be allowed to own weapons suitable for "sporting purposes."

When Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, he signed the Mulford Act in 1967, "prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one's person or in a vehicle, in any public place or on any public street." 

Twenty-four years later, Reagan was still pushing gun control. "I support the Brady Bill," he said in a March 28, 1991 speech, "and I urge the Congress to enact it without further delay." 

After all, the act was put in place because he was shot, and named after the man who died protecting him.

Republican Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, actually sued 26 gun manufacturers in June 2000, and his police commissioner, Howard Safir, proposed a nationwide plan for gun licensing, complete with yearly "safety" inspections.

Another Republican, New York State Governor George Pataki, on August 10, 2000, signed into law what The New York Times called "the nation’s strictest gun controls," a radical program mandating trigger locks, background checks at gun shows and "ballistic fingerprinting" of guns sold in the state. It also raised the legal age to buy a handgun to 21 and banned "assault weapons," the sale or possession of which would now be punishable by seven years in prison. (4)

In Canada, the first aggressive gun control, was at the request of then Ontario Conservative Premier William Davis.   After a student opened fire at the school his daughters attended, killing one teacher and injuring 13 students, he sent his attorney general, John Clement, to Ottawa to meet with the Liberal government.

Armed with a petition bearing thousands of names of Brampton residents, demanding better gun control, Clement met with federal Justice Minister Otto Lang and Solicitor General Warren Allmand to review possible amendments to the Criminal code. (5)

Though Clement failed to get re-elected, he is credited with the passing of  Bill C-51 in 1977, that came into affect on January 1, 1978:

The two biggest changes included requirements for Firearms Acquisition Certificates (FACs) and requirements for Firearms and Ammunition Business Permits. Other changes included provisions dealing with new offences, search and seizure powers, increased penalties, and new definitions for prohibited and restricted weapons. Fully automatic weapons became classified as prohibited firearms unless they had been registered as restricted weapons before January 1, 1978. Individuals could no longer carry a restricted weapon to protect property. Mandatory minimum sentences were re-introduced. This time, they were in the form of a 1-14 year consecutive sentence for the actual use (not mere possession) of a firearm to commit an indictable offence. (Wikipedia)

And for the record, John Clement is Tony Clement's stepfather.

Gun control is not a partisan issue.  It is a Canadian issue.

This past election, gun lobbyists were again out in full force.  Mark Holland, former Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering, was targeted by several groups, including Gun Nutz.  The Conservatives wanted him gone because he had been a vocal supporter of both the Prison Farms and the Gun Registry.

What does it say for the future of our democracy, when those wanting to create a Canadian "Gun Culture", can affect the outcome of an election?  And what does it say for Christianity, when the devout are behind them?

Using Romans 13 that establishes the "boundaries of governments", they are now advocating that we all should be armed.  And they wonder why people are leaving churches in droves.  How is this inspiring to anyone?

The truth of the matter is, that the New Right saw an opportunity for support from gun lobbyists, who are financed by gun manufacturers.  The potential outcome of the end of gun control, is not important.  Only the money and the power.

Conservative insider, Tom Flanagan, said that Stephen Harper wrote the Reform Party gun policy, only stopping short at calling it a right to bear arms.  This has nothing to do with long guns, or farmers, but is to appease those who want bigger and more lethal handguns, and want the right to carry them anywhere.

They claim that the streets will be safer.

If that were the case than the United States would be the safest country in the world.

It's not.

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, p. 104-105

2. Political Snipers, By Robert Dreyfuss, American Prospect, September 21, 1995

3. Rebuilding Canadian Party Politics, By R. Kenneth Carty, William Paul Cross, Lisa Young, UBC Press, 2000, ISBN: 978 0774 807784, p. 99-100

4. Don't Blame the Liberals for Gun Control, by Richard Poe, Studies in Reformed Theology, Volume 11, 2001

5.  Another School Shooting, Thoughts From up Here, March 22, 2005

The Canadian Manifesto 10: The Exploitation of Religion Has Many Victims

David Kuo was a foot soldier in the Evangelical army that stormed the White House for George W. Bush. He eventually came to realize that his role was purely political, and that the Bush administration had no intention of honouring their promises.

At a particularly bad time, when his spirits were at their lowest, Kuo was asked by a senior official what they could do to fix things.

"For starters", Kuo said, "you could stop calling us the f...ing faith-based group". They had been reduced to an annoyance and diminished through profanity.

Kuo, like many others, had been led into politics by people like Ralph Reed and Karl Rove, believing that he could make a difference.  His "faith-based" priority was to end abortion, but he also wanted to eradicate poverty, improve education and set higher moral standards for politicians.

Instead he spent his time polishing Bush's halo and fundraising for the Republicans.  So he resigned and wrote a book of his experiences; Tempting Faith: An inside Story of Political Seduction.

Kuo advises that Evangelicals need to take a time-out from political activism, and re-connect with their faith. 

I have seen what happens when well-meaning Christians are seduced into thinking deliverance can come from the Oval Office, a Supreme Court chamber, or the floor of the United States Congress. They are easily manipulated by politicians who use them for their votes, seduced by trinkets of power, and tempted to turn a mission field (politics) into a battlefield, leaving the impression Jesus' main goal was advancing a particular policy agenda. I know: I've seen it, I've done it, I've lived it, and I've learned from it. (1)

"Little Platoons" of Soldiers for Christ

“To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind."  Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

One of Kuo's bosses and mentors was Chuck Colson, who rallied his troops under the battle cry:  "Storm the battlements for Christ!" 

Using Edmund Burke as inspiration, an army of political Evangelists would have to create "little platoons" that could be easily mobilized to bring down the enemy.

Of course, this meant different things to different people, and for David Kuo, an enemy he was inspired to destroy was poverty.  What he found instead was that he had been inducted into an army trained to attack the poor.  He referred to them as "little platoons against the welfare state".

Using terms not unlike those used by Harrisites (Mike Harris) and Harperites, he had allowed himself to be convinced that only "tough love" would heal the nation, and that the only way to get people off welfare was to make them work.  (2)

When Mike Harris first ran in Ontario, he promoted the same thing, prompting many on social assistance to vote for him, believing that he would help them find a job.  Instead they had their benefits slashed by 22% and were left to their own devises, looking for jobs that never existed, and would never exist.

More "tough love" was aimed at single mothers, especially those who had children out of wedlock.  "Welfare needed to stop paying people to have illegitimate children and needed to be a much tougher way of life". (2)  Spoken by someone who has never had to live as a single mom on the meagre welfare "hand out".  It doesn't get much tougher than that.

In Ontario under Harris, John Baird became so ruthless that it resulted in the death of a singe mom, who was trying desperately to claw her way out from under the welfare system.  His reaction:  Oops!

The "faith-based" crew saw the government undermining God, by providing services that ought to be left to the Church and their "little platoons".  Yet churches and poverty have co-existed for centuries, so clearly that strategy wasn't working.

Conservative activists love to quote Edmund Burke as inspiration, often citing:  "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".  However, that quote cannot be found in any of Burke's writings.  The closest attribution comes from Tolstoy's War and Peace.

An actual quote of Burke's, is the one they should be paying attention to:

"The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.”

"Faith-based" Organized Crime

One area in which George Bush's "faith-based" group hoped to have an impact, was in the allocation of government grants.

Conservative Republicans were in the midst of derailing carefully laid plans. One thing they wanted was more Charitable Choice—that is, a broader range of religious charities eligible government grants ...  Now, with a conservative evangelical president in the Oval Office, with Republicans controlling the House and nearly the Senate, some conservatives thought it time to allow "real" faith-based groups to receive federal funding. In short, they wanted to allow groups that aimed to convert people [my emphasis] to a particular faith to be able to receive direct federal grants which was far beyond what Charitable Choice was actually intended to do.

They also wanted numerous large federal grant programs converted to vouchers so that grant recipients could have access to plainly religious groups. Finally, they wanted to give religious groups receiving public funds an unfettered right to hire and fire people based not only on their professed religion but on whether they lived according to the "rules" of their religion ( no gay Catholics, pork-eating Orthodox Jews, bug-killing Jainists, leather-wearing Buddhists, or drinking Christian fundamentalists). They wove these objectives together into a single, highly partisan bill. It wasn't exactly the legislation-free bipartisanship that Brother John had hoped for. (3)

This was not charity, but proselytizing, and taxpayers were being asked to fund it, despite the fact that unless they adhered to the stringent requirements, they would see no benefits.  Only the corporate sector and the "God for the creation of personal wealth" elite few, would cash in.  A perfect example of this, is one I already provided, that is taking place in private (for-profit) corporate prisons.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to "save" instead of rehabilitate prisoners.*  Cha ching, cha ching.

Another priority for "faith-based" was a change in the tax laws that would make it more appealing to donate to charities.  That too got lost in the shuffle.

In my third day on the job, President Bush signed the tax cut that had been one of his top priorities .... There were cuts in capital gains taxes (p: from the sale of stocks and land). The inheritance tax was with the exemption slowly increasing to $3.5 million ($7 million for couples) .... But something was missing: the president's promised $6 billion per year in tax credits for groups helping the poor. Those tax credits had been the centerpiece of compassionate-conservative efforts for years and the centerpiece of the president's own compassion agenda during the campaign. The best estimates projected that the proposal would create more than 11.7 million new givers throughout the country, stimulate an additional $14.6 billion in charitable giving in the first year and more than $160 billion over ten years, and increase current giving levels by 11 percent.  Unfortunately, those charity tax credits weren't listed by the White House as must-haves, so the House skipped over them. (3)

Bush's changes only benefited the already wealthy, or soon to be wealthy, as couples could now inherit up to seven million dollars without paying a dime.  This hurt charities, because it meant that there would be no incentive to give some of it away, as a means to avoid paying tax.  The wealthy recipients could just keep it all, and usually did.

The National Council of Churches spoke out against the 2001 Bush tax cuts, that favoured the rich as a means to "balance the budget".  Their General Secretary Rev. Dr. Bob Edgarru, said that "There’s no budget surplus if there are still people living in poverty."

As millions of people – parents and children, the elderly, people with disabilities and the working poor – are driven to seek charity to meet their most basic needs, we are appalled that the focus of attention in this Congressional session is not on meeting their needs; rather, it is on tax cuts that will mostly benefit the affluent."  (4)

The tax cuts and changes to tax laws, actually hurt legitimate charities, because the corporate sector only found a new way to not only avoid paying taxes, but also to obtain government grants.  What I like to call "Faith-based organized crime".

And those "little platoons" were demobilized, only to be called to action again, when they were needed to fight another election.

So Again, What Does This Have to do With Us?

Kuo tells us that prominent Republican pollsters like Frank Luntz and John MacLaughlin, advised that issues should be framed in such a way as to appeal to "religious conservative voters".

Frank Luntz has worked with the Reform-Alliance-Conservative Party for many years, and was the one who told Stephen Harper to talk about hockey as much as possible, to sell himself as a man of the people. (5)

John McLaughlin is the ad man who handled campaigns for the National Citizens Coalition (where Harper was president) and according to his 2004 bio:

John McLaughlin has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for twenty years. During this time he has earned a reputation for helping to guide underdog Republicans and conservative challengers to victory. He has worked across America and internationally in hundreds of campaigns.  Within the past year, John McLaughlin has helped elect Iain Duncan Smith, the leader of the Conservative Party (United Kingdom); Stephen Harper, the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party (Canada); Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore; and a historic 30-seat Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. (6)

Stephen Harper digested the "Bible according to Republican strategists", and has tapped into the vote-rich and cash-rich, Religious Right.

He has also tapped into the Bush Doctrine, not only when it comes to an aggressive foreign policy, but also in the creation of tax measures designed for the well-to-do.

However, there may be something else on the horizon, when it comes to corporate run and taxpayer funded charities.

Well known Reform-Alliance-Conservative insider, Gerry Chipeur, (also a Republican insider), wrote an op-ed piece for the National Post, soon after the Harper government announced that they would be taking their lead from George Bush's "cutting red tape" initiative (massive de-regulation), and resurrecting Mike Harris's "Red Tape Commission".

Without mentioning that the sweat on his brow came from a backroom meeting with the Harperites, hammering out their plan of attack, he outlined ten ways that Harper could cut the public out of public policy.

Targeted was Health Canada, Agriculture Canada, the CRTC, The Canadian Wheat Board (already gone), Canada Border Services (being handed over to the Americans), Fisheries and Oceans, Parks Canada ....

But one mentioned by Chipeur was removing Revenue Canada's oversight from charitable organizations.  This no doubt comes from complaints by people like Faytene Grasseschi Kryskow, who was turned down for charitable status because prayer gatherings are not classed as charity.   Apparently there have been many quasi-religious groups with the same complaints.

What Chipeaur suggested was that only CIDA should be involved with charities.  We all know how that works, when Bev Oda altered a contract AFTER it was duly signed. 

However, I see this as being a major problem.  Without Revenue Canada being involved, how do we know what are legitimate charities and what aren't?  Corporations could set up their own charities, with the money going right back into the corporation.

They could also donate to AstroTurf groups, and receive a charitable donation, despite the fact that that AstroTurf group was created be them to promote their own interests.

The National Citizens Coalition could not only apply for charitable status, but receive CIDA grants for questionable activities.

And all of this could be funnelled to the Conservative Party.

The media and the Opposition have to stay on top on this before we end up a one party/one religion state.

And the public have to separate the legitimate charities and community churches, from the Religious Right money machine. Many Christians who got involved in the associated political activism, may not yet realize as  David Kuo did, that they are being used.

According to Lloyd Mackey, in The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper, our PM was "saved" after being introduced to the writings of C.S. Lewis.  This claim is made by many in the New Right movement.  However, Kuo found a passage in a Lewis book, that frightened him, and helped to make him realize that what he was doing was sinful.

If the Tea Partiers could read, they might learn something here to.

The passage is from the Screwtape Letters, near the end when Screwtape advises his cousin:   

Let him begin by treating patriotism ... as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the "cause," in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce ... Once he's made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. (7)

Footnotes:

 *I was told recently that an old cell block at Collins Bay Pen/Frontenac Institute, that was destroyed during a riot years ago, is being renovated to possibly be used as a "repent or regret for profit" rehabilitation centre, to replace the Prison Farms.  I hope not.

Sources: 

1. Tempting Faith: An inside Story of Political Seduction, By David Kuo, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 13: 978-0 7432-8712-8, p. xii

2. Kuo, 2006, p. 59

3. Kuo, 2006, p. 160-165

4.  "RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY FOR RESPONSIBLE TAX POLICY" IS LAUNCHED, National Council of Curches, April 5, 2001

5. American Strategist teaches Tories tips on keeping power, Canwest News Service, May 7, 2006

6. Catholic Citizen Announcement, February 10, 2004

7. Kuo, 2006, p.57

The Canadian Manifesto 9: Retribution and the Bottom Line

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a British politician, best known for his work to abolish the slave trade. He helped to pass legislation that imposed fines of £100 on shipowners, for each slave found on board.

It backfired, because when these men saw authorities approaching, they simply threw the slaves overboard.

However, he is said to have been a hero of Abraham Lincoln's, and instrumental in putting an end to slavery in both the United States and across the pond.

Wilberforce is now a favourite of the American Religious Right for several reasons. One being the fact that he was a conservative, the second that he had devoted his life to prayer, and of course the whole anti-slavery thing suggesting that prayer and conservatism are positive influences on society.

However, much of the success of this New Right movement, has been based on their ability to rewrite history.

Wilberforce was involved in the anti-slave movement, but not because of his Christian charity, but rather that it was politically expedient. Prime Minister William Pitt was under a lot of pressure by the abolitionists, and needed a cover.

Interestingly imperialism’s ‘great saviour and hero’ Wilberforce was not amongst the original grouping. Nor did he end up joining the society of his own volition or as a matter of conscience. Instead he was ‘recruited’ and sent into the abolition movement by the then Prime Minister William Pitt. The fake cover story about his moral and religious conviction compelling him to work for the abolition of slavery was made up later. (1)

In fact, in 2010 the historian Stephen Tomkins discovered documents that suggested Wilberforce actually permitted the buying and selling of slaves, despite new regulations he helped to pass.

"After abolition, the British navy patrolled the Atlantic seizing slave ships. The crew were arrested, but what to do with the African captives? With the knowledge and consent of Wilberforce and friends, they were taken to Sierra Leone and put to slave labour in Freetown." (2)

Wilberforce really had little to do with the end of slavery in the British colonies. Most slaves freed themselves in a series of revolts.

However, there is another reason why the Republicans like Wilberforce so much. He was one of them, profiting off the misfortune of others. The Wilberforce family made their money in the wool and cotton business, so raising the possibility of slavery coming to an end, drove up the price of their commodities. (3)

Today he would be a Wall Street banker.

Chuck Colson: From Watergate to "Faith Based" Justice

Charles "Chuck" Colson, was a former member of the Nixon Administration, and one of the "plumbers" of the Watergate break-in.  For his role in the crime, he was sent to prison, serving just seven months.  For a man who had earned the reputation as Nixon's "hatchet man", and was known to keep "enemy lists" as a Washington power broker, this was a devastating blow.

Not only was he pushed out of the inner circle, but he was reduced to playing the role of a common criminal.

The story goes that a corporate buddy of his gave him a copy of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, and after reading it, Colson gave his life over to Jesus.  The media was not convinced, seeing it as a ploy to garner a lighter sentence.

I'll tell you his story and you can be the judge.

Using William Wilberforce as his guiding light, Colson created the Wilberforce Forum, a conservative Christian think tank, promoting the teaching of Intelligent Design (Creationism as opposed to Evolution), and established the Evangelical Prison Fellowship, to "save" his fellow man.  Or so we are told.

Please read on.

Stephen Harper and Corrections Corporation of America

After taking an interest in the Save the Prison Farm movement, I began to attend lectures and information seminars, dealing with the rise of corporate, for-profit prisons.  There is a consensus that the Harper government's new "law and order" strategy is geared toward the privatization of our prison system.

The way it works is that taxpayers fund the construction and/or expansion of jails and penitentiaries, which when completed, are then turned over to the corporate sector to operate.

One name that comes up regularly, is the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest stakeholder in the business of Penance for Profit.

In 2007, Craig Jones of the John Howard Society, said in an interview, that he feared that Stephen Harper was moving in that direction.  He had hired Robert Sampson, former correctional minister under Mike Harris in Ontario, who opened the door to the privatization of the province's jails.  The experiment was a disaster.  His Penetanguishene "super jail" was closed after revelations of flawed security, inadequate prisoner health care, and higher re offending rates. (4)

And the money taxpayers were supposed to save?  It cost us $80 million to build and the promised jobs were all low paying, minimum wage, that did nothing to "pay for itself", from accelerated income tax revenue. (5)

But this won't stop Stephen Harper.  Once he makes a decision, he sticks with it, come hell or high water.  He was elected to promote corporate interests and corporate interests he will promote, especially if they are  those of American corporations.

But let's take a closer look at Corrections Corporation of America, to decide whether or not we want to replicate their business here.

In June of 2000, Ken Silverstein wrote in Prison Legal News. 

What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.

Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone. Investors in Wackenhut Corrections Corp. have enjoyed an average return of 18 per cent during the past five years and the company is rated by Forbes as one of the top 200 small businesses in the country. At Esmor, another big private prison contractor, revenues have soared from $4.6 million in 1990 to more than $25 million in 1995. (6)

And what of the product they are offering?

Roughly half of the industry is controlled by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which runs 46 penal institutions in 11 states. It took ten years for the company to reach 10,000 beds; it is now growing by that same number every year ....

To be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled. Industry experts say a 90-95 per cent capacity rate is needed to guarantee the hefty rates of return needed to lure investors. Prudential Securities issued a wildly bullish report on CCA a few years ago but cautioned, "It takes time to bring inmate population levels up to where they cover costs. Low occupancy is a drag on profits." Still, said the report, company earnings would be strong if CCA succeeded in ramp(ing) up population levels in its new facilities at an acceptable rate". (6)

This explains the Harper government's horrendous crime bills, that will put people behind bars for the slightest of offenses, and keep them there.    According to the ACLU's National Prison Project:  "Private prison companies have also begun to push, even if discreetly, for the type of get-tough policies needed to ensure their continued growth. All the major firms in the field have hired big-time lobbyists."

Crime and punishment is no longer decided by criminologists or the justice system, but by corporate lobbyists, who in the United States are now pushing for "chain gangs".  According to Rev. Edward Pinkney in Michigan:  "In many states there is a move to remove gov. administration of prisons and privatize them for corporate profit. The labor of the prisoners belongs to the state but when the state transfers their interest to a private corporation, the labor of prisoners belong to the corporation. A corporation will run the lives of prisoners and decide how they shall labor and what they shall labor at. Do you see chances for profit here?" (7)

Kind of puts Tim Hudak's meanderings into perspective, doesn't it?

Several videos reveal the way that these private prisons operate.  Many are now being investigated for promoting criminal activity behind bars, inadequate health care, high re offending rates, and lax security.

Fight- Corrections Corporation of America

Sex abuse

Privatization of Punishment

Exposed Prison Big Business

Oh But it Gets Worse.  Back to Chuck Colson

Conditions in these prisons are deplorable, but a new scheme appears to be making an attempt to change that.  Prison Fellowship, started and run by Chuck Colson, advocates for prisoners and their families, with a faith-based alternative.

One experiment in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa; gives a country club feel to a facility notorious for horrendous living conditions.

The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks.  More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions.  There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway.  Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms. (8)

They even have private baths with porcelain sinks.  Just like home.

But there's a catch.  You have to be "saved".

... the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks "to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems" and showing inmates "how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past." (8)

And before you light the lamps and sing Hallelujah, the program appears to be just another way to get taxpayers to pad the pockets of the corporate sector, and the Corrections Corporation of America is ready to elevate Colson to sainthood.

... the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison management company, with 65 facilities and 71,000 inmates under its control, is substantially expanding its religion-based curriculum and now has 22 institutions offering residential programs similar to the one in Iowa. And the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs at least five multifaith programs at its facilities, is preparing to seek bids for a single-faith prison program as well. (8)

What was revealed in these prison programs, was just another abuse of taxpayers money.  Using government grants to establish the InnerChange, Prison Fellowship was sued by Iowa taxpayers and inmates.

In ruling on that case, Judge Pratt noted that the born-again Christian staff was the sole judge of an inmate’s spiritual transformation. If an inmate did not join in the religious activities that were part of his "treatment," the staff could write up disciplinary reports, generating demerits the inmate’s parole board might see. Or they could expel the inmate.

And while the program was supposedly open to all, in practice its content was "a substantial disincentive" for inmates of other faiths to join, the judge noted. Although the ministry itself does not condone hostility toward Catholics, Roman Catholic inmates heard their faith criticized by staff members and volunteers from local evangelical churches, the judge found. And Jews and Muslims in the program would have been required to participate in Christian worship services even if that deeply offended their own religious beliefs. (8)

These religious organizations, operate with little or no scrutiny, despite the fact that they received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

And What Does This Have to Do With Us

Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship has gone international, and though operating in Canada for several years, it would appear that their activities are being accelerated.  News from Offenders Aid and Rehabilitation Services (OARS) in South Australia:

Local media has been covering the proposal by Prison Fellowship SA to develop an overtly Christian wing in one of the South Australia prisons.   Whilst this may seem a good idea on the surface of it, OARS SA is not generally supportive of this notion.   Prison Fellowship International has been advocating this approach for many years and a number of such services have been implemented in the United States and Canada.  The evidence about the success of this approach is not strong, and some Governments appear to have used Churches and or their associated NGO's to fund services that should rightly be funded by themselves.   In advocating for such a prison wing in Canada recently, Prison Fellowship Canada, among other things, suggested that "We would not require someone to be a professing Christian to enter but we certainly would expect them to be respecting the values and principles that we would be engaged in." 

This underscores the essential dilemma for me.   It is the clear experience of OARS SA that one needs to be very careful about offering redemption to people who are incarcerated and have very few alternatives or hope.  It can be be potentially very damaging in the long term, and it is possible that false conversions happen simply to get some support.   Another potentially negative factor is the damage caused when an elite or special wing is structured in any prison that provides opportunities not available to everyone. (9)

When the Harper government closed the Prison Farms, they claimed that they had other rehabilitation programs in mind.  Is this what they meant?

In Canada, Prison Fellowship does a lot of good work, but they can't be an alternative to time tested rehabilitation programs.  And they should only be one of several other initiatives.

During the last election campaign, the Conservatives focused on Human Trafficking, even suggesting that Michael Ignatieff was in favour of the horrendous practice.  However, what Ignatieff was opposed to was the part of the bill allowing those 'rescued" to be incarcerated for up to a year, including women and children.

Researching private prisons and Chuck Colson, I discovered that even immigrant detention centres are going corporate.   Immigrants for sale, while reports of wholesale abuse, sexual and physical, in these facilities are on the rise.

And Corrections Corporation of America run several of them. 

All part of the Prison Industrial Complex.

So is Chuck Colson a saint or a sinner?  He has certainly wormed his way back into the halls of power.

Some have compared him to Francis Schaeffer, the unwitting architect of the Religious Right, but Schaeffer's son disagrees.  He says that Colson is nothing like his father, and is just another opportunist cashing in on religion.

We have to remember that everything Stephen Harper does is motivated by the profit margin, for those who have put him in power.  (He still refuses to tell us who financed his leadership bid to take over the Alliance Party, Now the CPC)  And the majority of his policies are not only motivated by Republican policies, but many are also written in the USA.

It shouldn't be this hard for the Canadian media to keep us informed.  Why do I  have to let my fingers travel around the world, just to try and figure out what Stephen Harper and his Christian Right is up to?

The crime of media silence.  Is there a corporate funded detention centre for those guys?

Sources:

1. The Story of the Caribbean People, By James Ferguson, Randle Publishers, 1998, ISBN-10: 976812377X, p. 132

2. William Wilberforce was complicit in slavery, Stephen Tomkins, The UK Guardian, August 3, 2010

3, Will the Real William Wilberforce Please Stand Up, Pan-Afrikan Society of London South Bank University, 2007

4. Stephen Harper opens door to prison privatization, By Alex Roslin, Straight Goods, November 22, 2007

5. Experiment in private prison, Penetanguishene, By Mirko Petricevic, Kitchener Waterloo Record, September, 13, 2000

6. US: America's Private Gulag, by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News, June 1st, 2000

7. For profit chain gangs in Michigan? Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, December 17, 2008

8. In God's Name: Religion for Captive Audience, with taxpayers Footing the Bill, By Diana B. Henriques and Andrew Lehren, New York Times, December 10, 2006

9. OARS SA, CEO Blog, December 16, 2009

The Canadian Manifesto 7: From the Book of Genesis

The idea of a "new conservatism" took root after World War II, ignited by the fear of Communism. But it was Irving Kristol, a former Trotskyite, who first promoted the idea of creating a political movement under the banner of Neoconservatism.

A confirmed Straussian, it was Kristol who suggested that they team up with the Religious Right, following Leo Strauss's axiom that religion was necessary to control the masses.

According to Shadia Drury in her book , Leo Strauss and the American Right:

...Kristol shares Strauss's view that a healthy dose of religious enthusiasm is indispensable for transcending the nihilism that is at the root of America's troubles. He is so convinced of the political utility of religion that he is blind to the immoderate nature of groups such as the Moral Majority of Jerry Falwell or the Christian Coalition of Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed. Kristol has encouraged the Republican party to embrace the religious right; and the party has been listening. (1)

Stephen Harper has also been listening, telling his followers to forget the tired wish list of the fiscal conservatives, and embrace the ideology of the social conservatives, or what he calls "theocons", as a route to holding on to power. (2)

It's important to understand that the tenets of religion are immaterial. Both Kristol and Strauss were Jewish, and Strauss himself claimed not to understand Christianity, believing it to be rather foolish.

Says Drury: 'Strauss believes that a healthy society is one that is bound together by a single authoritative truth that provides the citizens with shared values and a common way of life'.

He saw an irresolvable conflict between the interests of the individual and the interests of society, and felt that the conflict could only be resolved,

...by lies and deceptions, and that the greatest among these is religion. The reason is that human beings are selfish and self-centered and will not be willing to sacrifice themselves for others in the absence of belief in a god who punishes the wicked and rewards the just. Further, Strauss believes that the existence of such a god cannot be established by reason or philosophy. The gods of "shuddering awe" are necessary to civilize humanity and to turn natural savages into husbands, fathers, and citizens. What is needed is something grand enough to capture the human imagination, something magnificent and majestic, something splendid and sublime, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.(3)

And yet we are witnessing the results of too much religion that has manifested itself in terrorism, both foreign and domestic.

Following Francis Schaeffer's belief in the necessity of a Northern European* (which includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand) revolution to turn this cabal of states into a Christian theocracy, the Neocons have selected that particular religion, while bringing Judaism along for the ride, with both fighting the forces of Islam, in what they call "a clash of civilizations".

Recently, Stephen Harper claimed that 'Islamicism' is the biggest threat to Canada. The religion. And he promises to bring back tough Patriot Act style legislation, no doubt targeting all who practice the faith.

In Canada.

It breaks my heart.

So What's Wrong With a Christian Nation?

Nothing. Many former leaders have been guided by faith. Tommy Douglas was Evangelical and gave us universal healthcare. J.S. Woodsworth was Evangelical and gave us prison reform. Lester Pearson was Evangelical and gave us the peacemakers.

Harry Stevens, a cabinet minister in the government of R.B. Bennett, followed what he referred to as "Christian economics". (4)  He fought against corporations who were destroying small business, and headed a Parliamentary Committee and Royal Commission, investigating the practices of chains like Simpsons and Eatons, referring to them as "big shots".

William "Bible Bill" Aberhart, also embraced the war on "big shots", lamenting so much "poverty in the midst of plenty", during the Great Depression.

But today's Christian Right movement is different.  It is embraced by "big shots" and defined by corporate greed, war profiteering and righteous indignation.  They hate any form of liberalism, socialism and even democracy, which they believe is over rated.  Instead, it is being replaced with what they call "authoritarian democracy", where you must not demand, but obey.

The National Citizens Coalition, that Stephen Harper left to run for the leadership of the Alliance Party, not only promote a free market (with no pesky regulations or need to pay taxes), but endorse the notion that government should only be responsible for foreign policy and defense. (5)  The religious side of our government, led by men like Ted Byfield, feel that the only thing government should regulate is morality.

I can't imagine living in a country like that, though I suppose we might have to get used to it, if the left can't get their act together.

But What if We Don't Go to Church

There are many radicals in the movement, who would like nothing better than for "Northern Europe" to become a church-going nation (?), led by the United States.  Jeffrey A. Eisenach, formerly with the now defunct,  Progress and Freedom Foundation, takes it even further, as they must reclaim the world for Christianity.

Should the world fail to understand this messianic role of the USA, there will be need of recourse to “compelle intrare,” based on which Saint Augustine approved forcible joining of heretics to the Church.

However, Strauss suggested that political leaders didn't really need to go to church or practice any faith, so long as they understood the importance of using it to manipulate.

When researching his book, Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, William Johnson interviewed Harper's former fiancee, Cynthia Williams.   When asked about his faith she became embarrassed and said that they never went to church or anything.  (6)  Harper's VP at the National Citizens Coalition, Gerry Nicholls, confirmed this, but said that Harper did have strong "spiritual" ideas. (7)

Ezra Levant has denied that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, was a Christian fundamentalist, because he never went to church.  But you don't have to go to church to believe in something, and the manifesto he created made it clear that Europe must return to it's Christian roots.

The New York Times referred to this new doctrine as a "civilizational war that represents the closest thing yet to a Christian version of Al Qaeda." 

I suspect that Harper's Evangelism is more political than ecclesiastical.  He is one of The Chosen.

OK.  So Whose Version of Christianity Do We Obey?

Ronald Reagan moved Evangelicals into his government at an alarming rate.  Stephen Harper has done the same.  The idea is to restructure our laws to fit with The Old Testament.  I get it.

But Christian sects are often at odds with each other, in how they interpret the Bible.

In his book, Faith in the Halls of Power, D. Michael Lindsay discusses this, using as an example, the Aids crisis.  Gary Bauer, Reagan's family values czar, felt that Aids was God's punishment for homosexuality.  However, C. Evertt Koop, partner of Francis Schaeffer and Reagan's Surgeon General, disagreed.  He thought it his Christian duty to help, and the Koop Report promoted safe sex, including the use of condoms, anathema to many in the movement.

Harper appears to have painted himself into a corner on this issue.  He refused to attend an International Aids Conference and scrapped plans to build an Aids vaccine plant, in favour of bullet factory, though he cashed in on a photo-op with Bill Gates, who was willing to help finance the former.

Part of this neocon/Religious Right mandate, is to remove the teaching of evolution from classrooms, and replace it with Creationism.  But again, whose version?

According to John Baldock (Women in the Bible), there are at least two versions. 

In weaving together two accounts of the creation of the universe from different traditions, the opening chapters of Genesis offer us contrasting images of the nature of the relationship between man and woman. In the first account, which dates from C-400BC and is the more recent of the two, the relationship is seen as one of equals for we are told that God 'created humankind asleep he removed one of his ribs and made it into a woman. Whet the man saw her, he said, 'she shall be called Woman [Hebrew] in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them'. ... However, in the second account, which is dated to I000-900BC, we are told that God first created 'the man', then the plants, animals and birds. He then caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep he removed one of his ribs and made it into a woman.

This is why we need the separation of Church and State.  It's that simple.  And we need the truths of science, not "noble lies".  Everyone should be allowed to practice their religion freely without being put on a list.

The neocons tell us that they are doing "God's work".  But looking at the Tea Party and the new right's addiction to war and greed, have they ever considered that this might just be the devil's handiwork?

Just a thought.

Footnotes:

*The idea of a 'Northern European' Christian movement, comes from the Reformation when Northern Europe, with the exception of Ireland and pockets of Britain, turned Protestant, and southern Europe remained Catholic, while Central Europe fought holy wars for the remainder.  The belief is that the "colonies" were won by the Protestants.

Sources:

1. Leo Strauss and the American Right, By Shadia B. Drury, St. Martin's Press, 1999, ISBN: 0-312-12689-1, p. 19

2. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

3. Drury, p. 11-12

4. Reaction and Reform: The Politics of the Conservative Party Under R.B. Bennett 1927-1938, By Larry A. Glassford, University of Toronto Press, 1992, ISBN: 0-8020-7673-4, p. 139

5. The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globalization, By Murray Dobbin, James Lorimer & Company, 2003, ISBN: 1-55028-785-0, Pg. 200-203 2

6. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

7. Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper Me and the NCC, By: Gerry Nicholls, Freedom Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-9732757-8-0

Rod Bruinooge: Prophet or Profit for the Lord?

Rod Bruinooge is the Conservative MP for Winnipeg South. His bio claims that he is a businessman, an amateur film maker and computer games designer. All true.

He is also a Metis and the Harper government loves to hold him up as an example of how enlightened they are. Drawing in aboriginal candidates helps them to shed their old image of being harsh toward Canada's First Nations.

Unfortunately, Bruinooge is not an aboriginal member of Parliament, but a Member of Parliament who happens to be of aboriginal descent. In fact the Native community has never endorsed him.

During the 2004 election, Bruinooge and party leader Stephen Harper were the targets of a protest by aboriginal activists, including David Chartrand of the Manitoba Métis Federation.

In 2006, though Bruinooge was a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, that organization endorsed his Liberal opponent, Reg Alcock. He beat Alcock by just 111 votes.

At the First Nations General Assembly in Nova Scotia in July 2007, Bruinooge described the Paul Martin government's Kelowna Accord on aboriginal investment as nothing more than an "expensive press release". This statement was strongly criticized by Assembly of First Nations leader Phil Fontaine. The deal had been hammered out over five years, and one of Harper's first acts as prime minister was to scrap it.

Fontaine argued that the accord "was designed to eradicate poverty in First Nations communities and make Canada a better place."

William Davison of the Indian Métis Christian Fellowship, who works with urban aboriginals in Regina, said he wasn't surprised that the Tories chopped the funds. But he said the billions promised in the Kelowna Accord would have gone a long way to helping improve the lives of aboriginals in Canada.

"I work with a lot of hopelessness and despair within the aboriginal urban community dealing with traditions and cultures and dealing with those trapped in the streets," Davison told CBC News.

Hardly a simple "press release".

Instead, as a member of Canada's Religious Right, Rod Bruinooge has focused most of his attention on re-criminalizing abortion, validating feminist Gloria Steinem's claim, that the neoconservatives believe that "life begins at conception but ends at birth".

Child poverty rates are on the rise in Canada. In November of 2009, Vipal Jain wrote in the Toronto Star:

One in nine Canadian children, more than a million, live below the poverty line according to the 2008 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada ... “For many families, it’s very difficult to get out of poverty. There isn’t enough money to feed the children, clothe them properly, or even enough money to pay for the bus fare or to look for a job,” says Grant Wilson, President of Canadian Children’s Rights Council. It’s even harder for new Canadian children and aboriginal families as they are at a greater risk of living in poverty. (1)

UNICEF confirms the plight of many First Nations children. From their 2009 annual report:

Aboriginal children are among the most marginalized children in Canadian society. Despite some advances, in almost any measure of health and well-being, Aboriginal children – including First Nations, Inuit and Métis -- are at least two or three times worse off than other Canadian children. As children, they are less likely to see a doctor. As teens, they are more likely to become pregnant. And in many communities, they are more likely to commit suicide.

This disparity is the greatest children's rights challenge facing our nation.

The Canadian Press reported that:

... infant mortality rate for native babies in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand is up to four times that of non-native newborns, says a groundbreaking new study ... Dr. Janet Smylie, a researcher who works through St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto, says the international replication of startling native health gaps among such diverse populations suggests social deprivation – not genetics – is to blame.(2)

The Native Women's Association of Canada, post that "our infants are challenged right from the start, and that our infant mortality rates are equal to developing countries such as Chile, Sri Lanka and Fiji, and higher than Latvia and Lithuania."

If Rod Bruinooge was really pro-life and an "aboriginal" MP, he would be doing something for these children, instead of exploiting his heritage for political gain.

When First we Practice to Deceive

When Dr. Henry Morgentaler was slated to receive the Order of Canada, many in the pro-life movement came out in opposition.  It's a divisive issue.

Fortunately, the honour remained, and Morgantaler was rewarded for his work in offering safe abortions.

Most of the Conservatives didn't see it that way, but Rod Bruinooge went above and beyond.  He was behind a poll that appeared on Lifesitenews, suggesting that "56% of Canadians Oppose Morgentaler Order of Canada".

The poll was commissioned by Lifesitenews, and conducted by KLRVU polling.  But what they don't mention, is the fact that KLRVU polling is run by Allan and Katherine Bruinooge.  Rod's brother and his wife.

Prophet or Profit?

Canadian dominionist, Faytene Kryskow, has called Rod Bruinooge, a 'Prophet for the Lord', because of his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.  Her organization, 4MY Canada, threw their support behind his election campaign, and continue to endorse his political career. (3)

But just how righteous a man is he?

In an alleged shady deal with a former Brian Mulroney crony, Gary Thomas Brazzell, Bruinooge showed that he could play the game.

It began with a patronage appointment in 2007.  According to WaverleyWest:

There was a recent Tory appointment that the WFP [Winnipeg Free Press] missed, as they always seem to miss it. That man is the one Manitoban who got plum appointments from both Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. That man is Ladco Board Member and former Rod Bruinooge lawyer Gary Brazzell. (4)

Ladco is one of the primary owners of  Waverley West development (35%).  Bruinooge lobbied hard for the Waverley underpass, which would be beneficial to Waverley West.

Less than two years after the Kenaston underpass finally ended traffic mayhem on one major south Winnipeg artery, the area's MP says it's time to do the same thing on Waverley ...  (Waverley West is a project of ladco) And Winnipeg South MP Rod Bruinooge says his government is prepared to pony up its share of the cash." (Senior Manitoba minister Vic Toews has signalled to me that should the province come on board, the federal government will be there," Bruinooge said.

"My interest now is in convincing the premier they should also come to the table." Bruinooge said the additional 30,000 homes in the Waverley West subdivision makes the underpass at Waverley a desperate need."A lot of people don't use Waverley because they can't count on it," Bruinooge said. "It's been a constant burden." (5)

But was Bruinooge really concerned with congestion, or something else?

Seems that the MP owed Brazzell a favour.  A Waverley West watchdog group provides a bit of background:

December 2, 1998 Lawyer Gary Thomas Brazzell is made a director of Abject Modernity Internet Creations.   Its president is Rodney Bruinooge (now the MP for Winnipeg South.)

December 23, 1998 Brazzell buys 25,000 shares of Abject stock.

December 23, 1998 Brazzell provides share certificates to Bruinooges’s step-brother’s co-worker.

February 1999 Brazzell provides share certificates to an uncle of Chantale Marion (Bruinooge’s wife). They had been backdated to December 23, 1998.

Brazzel had actually once been removed from the Ladco board for questionable business practices.

From a report by the Manitoba Securities Commission:

C1. BRAZZELL acknowledges and agrees that he acted contrary to the public interest in that he: (a) traded in securities without having been registered and without prospectus in contravention of sections 6 and 37 of the Act; (b) facilitated or permitted the purchase of shares by a number of investors under the sole name of one investor, so as to minimize the number of apparent investors in an effort to purportedly rely upon the private company exemption under section 19(2)(i) of the Act; (c) failed to ascertain whether the company in question was in fact a private company as defined in the Act, thereby causing shares to be traded in reliance upon such exemption, when the exemption was not so available; (d) facilitated or permitted the purchase and sale of securities in ABJECT in the name of one investor, when he knew or ought to have known that the shares were intended to be purchased by a number of other investors in addition to the investor so named. Brazzell will pay the Manitoba Securities Commission $3,000 plus costs for his actions.

Is Rod Bruinooge really a "prophet for the Lord"?

I'd say he's just another self serving Conservative politician.

Sources:

1. Rich Nation, Poor Children, by Vipal Jain, The Toronto Star, November 20th, 2009

2. Native infant mortality rate four times non-natives', By Sue Bailey, Toronto Star, March 30, 2009

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

4. Gary Brazzel gets federal appointment to the Intellectual Property Office (CIPO),  Trade-mark Agent, March 2, 2007

5. Time for Waverley underpass: Tory MP, By Mia Rabson, Winnipeg Free Press, June 16, 2008

Continuation:

What is Rod Bruinooge's Private Members Bill Really About?