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

In Which a Gaggle of Bankers and Oil Execs Try to Put Children in Their Place

In 1922, a political group was formed called the Sentinels of the Republic, whose aim was to stop federal encroachment on big business.  Of course that's not really how they sold it, but instead vowed to "stop the growth of socialism" and "prevent the concentration of power in Washington through the multiplication of administrative bureaus under a perverted interpretation of the general welfare clause". 

Quite a mouthful.

The Sentinels was actually a right-wing front group for the corporate sector, formed to handle the PR against any government legislation that might impede their ability to become filthy rich.  Or should I say filthier?

One of their first campaigns was to oppose Child Labour Laws, framing it as concern for poor families whose children must work to keep them fed, and stating among other things that they "would prevent children from doing chores at home", and was "socialistic, communistic and Bolshevistic."  A "Commie plot"

Those advocating for children knew what they were up against.  According to Time Magazine in January of 1925:

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Honorary Chairman of the League of Women Voters, told her pro-Amendment following: "The amendment is as good as dead and buried and the obsequies performed, unless something is done about it and done quickly." Experienced observers were inclined to confirm her prediction. The opponents of the Amendment have succeeded to a marked degree in generating a real fear of its consequences. Fear is a tremendously important political asset ... In pushing the idea of the evil consequences of the Child Labor Amendment to the fore, its opponents have placed its proponents entirely on the defensive. (1) 

A classic strategy of the Right.  The Sentinels were part of the noise and their efforts resulted in squashing the Amendment, meaning that companies could continue to exploit children. 

One of the financiers of the Sentinels of the Republic, was J. Howard Pew, the man who helped Ernest Manning with the conservative takeover of the Social Credit Party in Alberta, and who had become a close personal friend of the Premier's.  Pew is also the man, through his Sun Oil (Suncor), to give Canada the tarsands.  A gift that keeps on giving.

The Sentinels would continue to challenge everything from the New Deal to the creation of the Department of Education, until it was determined that they also had a dark side.

According to Our Magazine "The Sentinels of the Republic were a fascist front group funded largely by the du Ponts, the Pitcairn family and J. Howard Pew."  Gerald Colby says in his book: Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (Lyle Stewart, 1984) that:

... the Sentinels of the Republic [were] an anti-Semitic organization which constantly warned the country of "the Jewish-Communist" menace. In 1936 the Senate Lobbying Committee  released Sentinels' files revealing fascist sympathies. "The Jewish threat is a real one…. I believe our real opportunity lies in accomplishing the defeat of Roosevelt." wrote its president, Boston banker Alexander Lincoln to Cleveland Runyon, who replied that the people were crying for leadership: "The Sentinels should really lead on the outstanding issue. The old line Americans of $1,000 a year want a Hitler."

Those Missing Links

Historian Peter Viereck, in a 1955 essay, attempted to piece together the elements of the radical right, and determined that the missing link was Father Charles Couglin, the controversial priest who was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and a sworn enemy of FDR and the New Deal. 

When on a tour of the United States in 1935, to help spread the gospel of Social Credit, Alberta premier William Aberhart, met with Coughlin, coming away with a favourable impression. "He has a keen intellect and is absolutely fearless. He has a correct appraisal of world conditions."  (2)

We have to remember that Social Credit was the only political party to be based almost entirely on the notion of a Jewish Conspiracy (3), and while Aberhart himself claimed not to be anti-Semitic, his sermons suggested otherwise.

"The JEWISH RACE must yet acknowledge that the CHRIST who was crucified to the CROSS of Calvary was the SON of GOD, their MESSIAH. Until they will acknowledge that they must expect the curses of the world and can not expect the Blessings of GOD." (4)

and

Personally, I have little doubt that in working through Jews, the Jewish financial group has sacrificed its own people on the altar of its greed for power and this group is preeminently responsible for the poisonous anti-Semitism which is rampant in the world today. (5)

Aberhart also published three articles written by Father Coughlin in his Social Credit Chronicle, a paper he created to counter what he deemed to be bias against him from the mainstream press.

However, while Viereck saw Coughlin as the missing link that tied the radical right together in the United States, it was actually John Howard Pew, who began the link that tied American Conservatism to the new Canadian Conservatism.

A close friend and confidant of Aberhart's successor, Ernest Manning, Pew had a huge influence on Manning's political theories, and according to the Anti-Defamation League, Pew himself was anti-Semitic, helping to finance not only the Sentinels of the Republic, but several other "conservative" and anti-Jewish causes. (6)  Many of these operated as part of the Christian anti-Communist Crusade.

However, Pew also strengthened the idea of a right-wing infrastructure.  A myriad of think tanks and advocacy groups whose purpose was to promote conservatism while tearing down liberal ideas.

He has been called a philanthropist; a heavy contributor to non-profit groups.  However, following is a list of some of the those groups who benefited from Pew's generosity. 

America First Committee - An isolationist group that lobbied the U.S. government to stay out of WWII, and leave Hitler alone to do his job, which was to destroy Communism.

National Association of Manufacturers: A fascist-linked network of industrialists who were at the heart of many anti-New Deal campaigns. (7)

Christian Freedom Foundation - Sought to "rally the support of Prostentant clergymen for rugged individualism" and for years was "supported almost entirely by J. Howard Pew of the Sun Oil Company and members of his family.  They have contributed well over a million dollars to its operation." (8)

The Foundation for Economic Education - Formed in 1946, it was described as an extremely conservative organization that issued a "huge volume of material aimed at overcoming state interventionism".  Pew was not only a major contributor but was also on their board of trustees.

Christian Economic Foundation - After failing to move the National Council of Churches to the far right, Pew helped create the CEF. In the 1960s, it sowed the seeds of the Christian Right by sending its free magazine, Christian Economics, to clergy across the U.S.

The John Birch Society - And Anti-communist organization still involved with the conservative movement today.

The National Review - Paper of William F. Buckley Jr.

American Opinion magazine - described by the ADL as a radical right, extreme conservative publication, it was the official magazine of the John Birch Society.

Young Americans For Freedom - Activist group that helped to create the Leadership Institute, on which Preston Manning's Democracy centre was fashioned.

Intercollegiate Society of Individualists - A Paleoconservative group that keeps book lists.  Those young conservatives should read and those they must avoid.

Though J. Howard Pew died in 1971, his Pew Foundation continues to support right-wing causes, including: 

American Enterprise Institute: A conservative think tank founded in 1943, that became a home to arch-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Frum, Dick Cheney, and more.  Both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush plucked staff from the AEI

The Heritage Foundation: Created in 1973 by Joseph Coors, and headed by people like Paul Weyrich.

The British-American Project for the Successor Generation: Founded in 1985 by devotees of Reagan and Thatcher, it grooms right-wing U.S. and British youth as leaders.

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: Founded in 1978 by William Casey, who later became Reagan’s CIA director, it promotes privatization, deregulation and cuts to social welfare programs.

It has been said that the conservative movement is very linear, and visiting right-wing sites, many associated with the Tea Party, it's hard not to agree.  The goals are almost identical to those of similar groups established decades ago.  Several still exist and others have seen a revival.

The Sentinels of the Republic are back, and Republican Senator Jane Cunningham, wanted to roll back Missouri's child labour laws suggesting that they are infringing on parental rights.  She should meet Kelly Block.

We only began really paying attention to Canada's conservative movement, when Stephen Harper was named prime minister.  However, his victory was the culmination of sixty years of hard work.

American conservatism is not a good fit for the majority of Canadians.  In fact, it's not even a good fit for the majority of Americans, because it's based on fear, anger, deception and just plain nonsense.

There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.  But today other voices are heard in the land—voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited ... We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. —Excerpt from text of undelivered speech scheduled for presentation in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, by the late President John F. Kennedy.

Sources:

1. Labor:  A 20th Amendment, Time magazine, January 25, 1925

2. Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart, By: David R. Elliot and Iris Miller, Edmonton: Reidmore Books, 1987, p. 213

3. Social Discredit: Social Credit and the Jewish Response, Janine Stingel, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7735-2010-4, p. 13

4. Stingel, 2003, p. 20

5. A Trust Betrayed: The Keegstra Affair, By: David Bercuson and Douglas Wertheimer, Doubleday Canada, 1985, ISBN: 0-385-25003-7, pp. 34-38

6. The Radical Right, Various Authors, Criterion Books, 1963

7. Pew - Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism, J. Howard Pew (1882-1971), By Richard Sanders, Our Magazine

8. Danger on the Right: The Attitudes, Personnel and Influence of the Radical Right and Extreme Conservatives, By Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, Random House, 1964

Adam Smith and the State-Corporate Complex

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

In a videotaped address to the crowd at the Fraser Institute's 30th-anniversary celebration, Stephen Harper showed off his $45 Fraser Institute silk Adam Smith tie, and confirmed he was a big fan of the institute.  In fact, he is such a fan, that he often plucks staff and candidates directly from the conservative think-tank.

The Fraser also had reason to show their appreciation to the prime minister.  Buried in his first budget, was a provision to exempt tax donations of stock to charity, from capital gains. (1)  Believe it or not, the Fraser is a registered charity, as are most of the think-tanks and Astro turf groups working in the shadows of the Conservative Movement.  This new exemption means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars they donate. Taxpayers pick up the rest.

Wall Street uses the same tactics when negotiating salaries for their executives, keeping below any board restrictions, by offering stock instead of salary as part of their remuneration.

The father of modern economics and capitalism, Adam Smith is the patron saint of neoconservatives and his Wealth of Nations, the Bible for the "religion of market knows best".

The Sovereignty of the Consumer

Adam Smith (1723-1790) created the philosophy of the sovereignty of the consumer, believing that the butcher and baker needed no central planning to engage in commerce, since consumers set the price.  In many ways that is true, however, many of the government regulations that are anathema to neoconservatives, came about because the business world sought the government's help in protecting their investments.

Trade marks, copyrights, grants for expansion or research, employee training.  All paid for from the public purse.  Other things like public education and healthcare, also benefit companies by providing an intelligent and healthy labour force.

A perfect example of this, though there are many, is the case of Knott's Berry Farm.

In 1932, the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Plant Industry, received a letter reporting a rumor of a new berry being developed by a Mr. Boysen of Orange County, California.  Using taxpayer money, representatives of the Department of Agriculture, made their way to California, to investigate the possibility of a new product for their growers.

They met with Mr. Rudolph Boysen, then working as a park superintendent in Anaheim, who confirmed that he had indeed been experimenting with a hybrid: the cross between a raspberry, loganberry and blackberry, but was having difficulty with the cultivation.

Intrigued, Walter Knott, whose family sold berries, berry preserves and pies from a roadside stand, asked if he could tag along, when the men made the visit to Boysen's farm.  The abandoned vines were found in the weeds, and since Boysen no longer had any interest in the pursuit, he gave Knott permission to try to cultivate the berry for profit.  He did, made a fortune, and opened his Knott's Berry Farm theme park, which had it not been for the taxpayer funded Department of Agriculture, would have never existed.

Yet Knott added a "Freedom Center" to the grounds, where a former college president and a former minister, toiled full-time spreading the free-market gospel. Knott called it the "One Man's Crusade for Everybody's Freedom." (2) He became a staunch supporter of Barry Goldwater, who was preaching a similar sermon.

Goldwater, the multi-millionaire, who also reaped benefits from taxpayer funded programs, that helped to develop Arizona, and provide consumers for his family's department store chain.

They just don't get it.  "Self -made" men and women, rarely succeed without the "invisible hand" of government and taxpayers.

Actors like Michael Cain and Bruce Willis, are now bemoaning the amount of income tax they pay on their enormous salaries.  But would they get those kind of movie deals without taxpayers protecting them against pirating?  What if there were no government regulations in place, that forbid us from simply copying the film and selling it at a roadside stand?

Consumers determine the price but "big government" tells consumers where they can purchase their ticket or video of the movie.

Masters of Mankind

Did you ever wonder why headlines of a weak economy, run concurrently with headlines of strong profits, often "record profits"?  High unemployment and "record profits"?  Runaway deficit and "record profits"?

It is part of Adam Smith's warning against "the vile maxim of the masters of mankind".  In his day they were the  "merchants and manufacturers," who were the "principal architects" of state policy, using their power to bring "dreadful misfortunes" to the vast realms they subjugated.

Smith was then referring to imperialism and colonialism, especially in India, but today those being subjugated are the 99% of taxpayers propping up the fortunes of the top 1%.  The neoconservatives love to refer to Western nations an "nanny states" because of "generous" social programs, but the current nanny state rocks the cradles of the corporate elite.  Our growth is being stunted because corporations are getting all of the nourishment.

Noam Chomsky refers to this as the state-corporate complex and he says:  "Today the masters of mankind are multinational corporations and financial institutions, but the lesson still applies and it helps explain why the state-corporate complex is indeed a threat to freedom"  (3) and in fact threaten our very survival by not allowing governments to fight against climate change because it could affect their profits.  Even war is now a form of corporate welfare, as it has become so profitable that the corporate sector will never allow peace, especially in the Middle East. 

The most recent economic crisis that has allowed governments to table "austerity" budgets, was created by the state-corporate complex.  The crash was the result of deregulation that allowed Wall Street to gamble with our financial future, yet when the whole thing came tumbling down, the perpetrators were rewarded with taxpayer funded bailouts, while the victims of the crime continue to suffer.

Expect policy to be even further geared toward helping the wealthiest citizens.  On January 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections.  The New York Times said that the ruling “strikes at the heart of democracy” by having “paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.”

It wasn't enough that corporate executives and lobbyists had been moved into the halls of power.  They can now legally buy politicians.

In 2004, in a Supreme Court case fittingly named Harper vs Canada, Stephen Harper challenged the restrictions on third party advertising.  In fact, in 1993, the National Citizens Coalition donated $50,000 to his campaign in Calgary West, on a promise that he would put an end to what they called "gag laws". (4)

The first step toward that accomplishment since being named prime minister, was ending the voter subsidies.  These were put in place by Jean Chretien, to replace corporate donations, making for a fairer system.  It meant less than $2.00 being given to the party of your choice, as reward for upholding our democracy by getting out to vote.

We can expect this term, Harper will make sure that corporations can again buy political favours, and given that the NDP will have trouble getting corporate sponsorship, it will be attempt to create a one-party system.  Another reason why we must rebuild the middle.

The Sovereignty of the Nation

The Fraser Institute is not the only conservative think-tank espousing the theories of Adam Smith.  Many others share the adoration, forgetting that Smith also claimed that "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

One of those think tanks is the Montreal Institute, once headed up by Conservative MP Maxime Bernier.  In a speech he gave just before stepping down to run for the Conservative Party of Canada (Reform-Alliance), he said that "Individual sovereignty is what is important – not sovereignty of the state. Indeed, the sovereign state is, by its very nature, a steam-roller of the individual ... " (5)

And from the Globe and Mail in 2006:

... since being named to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet in February, the rookie 43-year-old MP from Quebec's rural Beauce riding has demonstrated a stern resolve to get government out of the way of business. It is a perhaps an unusual stance for an industry minister.  The holder of that post is commonly seen as the champion of government programs aimed at helping Canadian companies compete with global titans and foster innovation at home. (6)

He would also ask of the interviewer, who expressed concern with foreign takeovers of Canadian companies, especially in the area of telecommunications:  "With economic globalization, is nationality important?", and claimed  "That is the question I'm asking myself now regarding telecommunications."

Stephen Harper shares Bernier's beliefs.  At the G-20 summit in Canada, he claimed that there was no longer any such thing as a Canadian economy, only a global economy. And yet during the last election campaign he said that all party leaders should be focusing on the Canadian economy, and suggested that he alone could preserve it.  In other words, he is the best to handle something that he himself claims not to exist.

At the same summit, when speaking of surrendering our economy to global interests, he said "I know some people don't like it.  It is a loss of national sovereignty."

David Ricardo (1772-1823), another leading founder of modern economics, worried about loss of sovereignty in a global market, hoping that “men of property [would] be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations. These are feelings that I would be sorry to see weakened.”  Even Adam Smith said that "if business turned abroad, England would suffer."

Politicians and captains of interest are losing their commitment to their own countries, in their bid to maximise profits.  They will do nothing to address climate change, despite the fact that it will have a devastating impact on their own children and grandchildren.  They are not stupid, but instead have allowed greed to come before anything and everything else.

Sources:

1.  Harperstein, By Donald Gutstein, Straight.com, July 6, 2006

2. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, By Rick Perlstein, Nation Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-8090-2858-1, p. 127-128

3. The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival, Noam Chomsky, Text of lecture given at the University of Toronto, April 7, 2011

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

5.  The Growth of Government in the 20th Century and the importance of debating ideas, By Maxime Bernier, Bishop’s University, December 3, 2005

6. How Far Will This Free Marketeer Go:  Telecom sector is Bernier's next target for reform? By Konrad Yakabuski, Globe and Mail, September 26, 2006

Chapter Six: Charles Manion and Political Realignment

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

Many political scientists use the term "political realignment" to describe a single election with a major upset.

However, in the context of a political movement, it is something much bigger.  The term means a calculated attempt to realign political parties, to change the ethos of an entire nation.

In the case of the United States, the idea was that instead of moderate Republicans and right-wing Democrats, all moderates would belong to the "liberal" class and all right-wing would be "conservative".

There would be no middle, only two clear choices: right or left.

But to accomplish  this would take time and a lot of political turmoil.

To Party or Not to Party

Clarence E. Manion was one of the men committed to reshaping American politics, to fight FDR's New Deal and what he saw as a communist threat.  Originally a Democrat from Kentucky, he worried that FDR was establishing such a large government, with so many tenets, that it would be easily taken over by the Soviets, with all the necessary offices already in place.

While still a Democrat, he campaigned for Dwight D. Eisenhower, bringing many fellow Democrats into the Eisenhower camp.  He expected to be rewarded with a major cabinet position, but instead was named chairman of President Eisenhower's Commission on Intergovernmental (federal-state) Relations, a job he took very seriously.

During the war he had been a leader of the America First Committee that had agitated against U.S. involvement in the conflict.  " You didn't pay your taxes so that Washington could fight England's quarrels" (1).  Now in his position as an authority in federal-state relations, he would be the prime advocate for the Bricker Amendment (John Bricker R-Ohio), that sought to limit the powers of the President.

Manion believed in the proposed amendment in its purest form, with the requirement of a referendum in all forty-eight states before any treaty could go into effect.  Of concern was the United Nations' Genocide Convention, which conservatives feared "would allow Communist countries to punish the United States for segregation, or the pending treaty to establish a UN World Court, which they feared the Communists would use to shut down every line of resistance against them" (2).

Eisenhower would say that the Bricker Amendment was the biggest threat he faced during his presidency, and with Manion boasting "that he has spoken for the Bricker amendment in all the 48 states" (3), on his return he was promptly fired.  Something many felt that Eisenhower should have done long before.

But Manion supporters saw things differently.  The Fort Wayne Sentinel suggested that: "President Eisenhower finally yielded to the insistent clamor of a vicious internationalist cabal, spearheaded by the New York Times and the Henry Luce Time-Life smear brigade ... "   In a television interview immediately after, Manion said: "Some of the left-wing Communists, who have had an unfortunate effectiveness in this administration,  served notice on me that I would be fired because of my advocacy of the Bricker Amendment." (2)

However, he saw this not as the end but as the beginning.  Without the constraints of the establishment he could now work "to break the Wall Street boys' hammerlock on the Democrats and the Republicans once and for all".

He decided that what was needed was a new party, and came up with a plan.  First he created yet another group:  "For America" which was co-chaired by himself and and another arch anti-communist, General Robert E. Wood.  Its manifesto promised to fight for an "enlightened nationalism" to replace "our costly, imperialistic foreign policy of tragic super-interventionism and policing this world single-handed with American blood and treasure." (4)

They met with several senators, including John Bricker and Barry Goldwater, and even solicited the support of Vice President Nixon, hoping to establish a "conclave of  25 to 50 leading Republicans and Democrats to discuss the whole idea of realignment off the record." (5)

In the meantime, Manion laid the groundwork with a weekly radio broadcast, The Manion Forum, where he warned.  "The leftwing, please remember, is strong, well-organized and well-financed. Many gigantic fortunes, built by virtue of private enterprise under the Constitution, have fallen under the direction of Internationalists, One-Worlders, Socialists and Communists. Much of this vast horde of money is being used to 'socialize' the United States."

Manion also came up with an idea for launching a new party of like-minded "conservatives", before the next election.  For America would present a controversial leader at both the Republican and Democrat national conventions, ones he was sure that the delegates would reject.  He could then convince supporters of both, to choose one, and that candidate would run for the new party.

As a Republican he chose Orval Faubus, Governor of Arkansas, who is best remembered for his 1957 stand against the desegregation of Little Rock public schools during the infamous Little Rock Crisis.  Challenging for the nod from the Democrats, would be General Wood himself.

The idea never got off the ground.  The most that For America could raise was $1,667, not nearly enough for their grandiose plan.

Clarence "Pat" Manion never gave up.  He became a member of the John Birch Society, who helped to select Barry Goldwater as a presidential candidate, was on the advisory board of the American Enterprise Institute and was instrumental in the creation of Young Americans for Freedom.

Meanwhile North of the Border

Canada was not immune to the anti-communist sentiment, and at the same time that Manion was trying to realign American politics, there was a similar movement afoot here.  According to Alberta's long-serving Social Credit MPP, Alf Hooke.

On at least two occasions Mr. Manning told me in his office that he had been approached by several very influential and wealthy Canadians and that they wanted him to head up a party of the right with a view to preventing the onslaught of socialism these men could see developing in Canada. They had apparently indicated to him that money was no object and they were prepared to spend any amount of money to stop the socialistic tide ... Mr. Manning indicated to me also that he was working on a book which he would hope to publish ... in which he would endeavour to outline the views these men represented and recommendations he would make in keeping with their views. (6)

It would appear that most of the money would come from the oil patch, not unlike the money that went into Movement Conservatism in the U.S. 

The book that Mr. Hooke alluded was Political Realignment.  In it Manning laments that the lines had been erased that once separated Conservatives and Liberals, in much the same way that Manion bemoaned the "moderate Republicans" and "right-wing Democrats".

Manning called for a realignment, similar to the one proposed by his American counterpart, nixing the idea of another federal party. 

In the case of Canada's two traditional parties, a number of factors have caused the policies and actions of both to become increasingly divorced from philosophical foundations. The distinctions between the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties are rapidly being reduced to the superficial distinctions of party image, party labels, and party personalities. Many Canadians are convinced, rightly or wrongly, that "there is no real difference between them". The citizen who wishes to cast his ballot on the basis of principles clearly defined and embodied in practical policy finds himself virtually disenfranchised. The fact that voters are thus denied the opportunity to choose between meaningful alternatives relative to the management of their public affairs, represents a serious restriction on the effective exercise of political freedom. (7)

When John Diefenbaker was in office, he was approached by Social Credit, with an interest in a merger.  Diefenbaker toyed with the idea until a member of his caucus, Jim MacDonnell, whose father was a friend of Sir John A.'s; exclaimed that MacDonald  "would now turn over in his grave!" (9)

Manning tried again in 1967 at the PC leadership convention, but Robert Stanfield, a Red Tory, won, and again he was rebuffed.  Instead he had his SC colleague Robert N. Thompson run for the PCs, hoping he could exact some change from within, but while Thompson won his seat, he did little else for the cause.

Manning would have to wait it out.

A Realignment of Another Sort

One issue pressing Ernest Manning was the rise of the CCF under the capable leadership of Tommy Douglas.  Douglas embodied everything that movement conservatives feared, but worse, Douglas was not a "Godless communist" but an evangelical socialist.

And the CCF was going through their own realignment.  Pairing up with the Canadian Labour Congress, they formed the New Democrat Party (NDP), with their own agenda.  According to Nelson Wiseman, the sentiment for a new political alignment was common among those on the fringe of the CCF, but was now more realistic.

Suddenly there was a great deal of enthusiasm for a "formal political realignment".

...the aftermath of the federal Conservative victory of 1958 was an opportunity for Canada's socialists to achieve major party status. A social democratic party, in this view, would gain at the expense of one of the older parties, as had occurred earlier in the century in Britain. "If there is any logic in Canadian affairs ... now is the time when there should be a good chance for a third party to slip in and take the place formerly occupied by the Liberals against the older Conservatives." (9)

After the results of the most recent federal election were announced, Paul Wells reminded Canadians of a piece he had written soon after Stephen Harper was named prime minister, in 2006.  "  ... the contours of the emerging parliamentary battlefield became clearer. It quickly became almost as interesting to watch the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois as to watch the two larger parties. Something big is afoot." (10)

He suspected then that Harper and Jack Layton had teamed up to destroy the Liberals.  Later it was revealed that they had actually formed a coalition in 2004, to take down Paul Martin at the throne speech, as confirmed by a letter released to the public by Gilles Duceppe, who was part of the team. (11)

This should not have been a surprise to anyone, since it was the realization of  two plans, set in motion a half century ago.

What we need now is re-realignment, because this one clearly isn't working.  As promised, when Harper bought out the rights to the federal PC party, he purged the moderates.

"Red Tories must be jettisoned from the party", he said, "and alliances forged with ethnic and immigrant communities who currently vote Liberal but espouse traditional family values. This was the successful strategy counselled by the neocons under Ronald Reagan to pull conservative Democrats into the Republican tent."13)

Just as the middle class is being erased, so to is a place for centrists like myself.  I don't want to choose right or left.  It makes for polarized politics.  We need to pull in all moderates from both the NDP and Liberals, to present a challenge to Harper's American style conservatism.

Whether that's a new party or just a new direction for existing parties, I don't care.  We need to rebuild the middle, which was not "mushy" but served our country well.  A party that can work with big business, not against it, but demand that they play by our rules.

And we need to do it soon.

Sources:

1. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, By Rick Perlstein, Nation Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-8090-2858-1, p. 4

2. Perlstein, 2001, p. 9-10

3. National Affairs: The Gold-Bricker, Time Magazine, February 08, 1954

4. Perlstein, 2001, p. 11

5. ibid

6. 30+5 I know, I was There, A first-hand account of the workings and history of the Social Credit Government in Alberta, Canada 1935-68, by Alfred J Hooke, Douglas Social Credit Secretariat, Chapter 19

7. Political Realignment: Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians, By Ernest Manning, McLelland and Stewart, 1967, 226195, p. 11

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

9. Social democracy in Manitoba: a history of the CCF-NDP, By Nelson Wiseman, University of Manitoba Press, 1985, ISBN: 978-0-8875-5615-9, p. 90

10. From the archive: The secret plot to destroy the Liberals, By Paul Wells, Macleans, May 5, 2011

11. Harper's coalition attacks come back to haunt him, By: Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star, March 27, 2011

12. Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy:  Close advisers schooled in 'the noble lie' and 'regime change.', By Donald Gutstein, The Tyee, November 29, 2005