Chapter Twelve: Everyone Wants Someone to be a Hitler Youth

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

The term 'Hitler Youth' has become a popular accusation against any group of young people deemed to be radical, and used by both the left and the right.

Glenn Beck called the victims of Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik, Hitler Youth because they were at a camp sponsored by Norway's Labour Party. "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." (1).

And yet Beck himself helps to run youth indoctrination camps, though he prefers to call them "schools".

The Louisville, Kentucky Courier Journal ran a story about the Vacation Liberty School in Danville, Ky., the latest of an expanding roster of "volunteer-run programs for children mostly aged 10-15 that resemble a mix between vacation Bible school, U.S. history and tea party-style conservative ideas that supporters say aren’t taught in public schools." The schools, the story added, are run by Glenn Beck’s Tea Party-friendly 9/12 Project. (2)

And to show that they have not changed their attitudes since the Conservative Movement began, at another in Tampa, Florida: "Children win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the 'banker' will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value." (3) Of course you could also conclude that the gold standard will rot your teeth.

Faytene Grasseschi (Krystow) shocked people recently when she claimed that she wanted her youth movement to be like the Hitler Youth, only this time for good not evil. It might surprise her to know that those German youth also fought against what they saw as moral deprivation, including abortion.

At the time, any woman wanting to terminate a pregnancy, could obtain a pill from a chemical plant (probably Bayer) for 50 marks, so abortions were on the increase. (4)

Even Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who had such a huge impact on Jason Kenney, and is now Pope Benedict XVI, was a former member of the Hitler Youth. (5)

The image to the left is from a front page of the Nazi publication, Der Stuermer.

The headline reads, "Declaration of the Higher Clergy/So spoke Jesus Christ: You hypocrites who do not see the beam in your own eyes. (See Matthew 7:3-5)"

The cartoon depicts a group of Hitler Youth marching forth to drive the forces of evil from the land. The caption under the cartoon reads, "We youth step happily forward facing the sun... With our faith we drive the devil from the land."

Indoctrination of children, is indoctrination of children.

If it Was Good Enough for Baden-Powell

In November of 1922, a Mr. K. Friedrich visited Harvard University to speak to their Liberal Club about post-war Germany.  He gave an animated account of a new phenomenon: the "Youth Movement" or "Gugenelbewegung."

"'The Youth Movement' expresses the new spirit in Germany. It feels that the old life was cold, hard and unprofitable, stifling all the better instincts of the young people of the nation. The old militaristic system could not be called culture.

"It was merely a mechanical perfection, wholly lacking in spontaneity. The 'Youth Movement' is embracing a different theory of values in the educational standard. The tendency is constantly towards a more liberal ideal. Its studies are more and more in the realm of Philosophy, Literature and Religion. The old shackles are being cast off by a new and spontaneous enthusiasm." (6)

When we think of a German Youth Movement, we automatically think of the Hitler Youth, and the disturbing images of indoctrinated children proudly giving the infamous salute.  However, the youth movement actually began before the War, as a vehicle for young people to commune with nature and escape the oppressive regime of Wilhelm II. Their hikes were intellectual and cultural endeavours, as they shared poetry; discussed and debated philosophy, current events and politics. And while many groups had uniforms, more common would be musical instruments and books.

During the war, the movement gained momentum, when shortages in essentials, resulted in many schools being closed; so for children and young adults, these hikes provided their education.  After the war, the groups began to organize and many became more political in nature; some even sponsored by political parties.

The German Zionist Youth Movement

Leo Strauss, the German emigre who inspired the neoconservative movement,  would become an active participant in the Zionist Youth Blau-Weiss, then led by Walter Moses.  And while the group enjoyed the typical hikes in the mountains, they were also very militaristic. Strauss would refer to it as pagan-fascism, and indeed Moses liked to imitate Mussolini, who had come to power in 1922.

It was here that Strauss claimed to have nurtured his authoritarianism, and the concept of a "clique", led by a dictatorial style leader. As early as 1923 he spoke of a preference for a quasi-totalitarianism, and detested “bourgeois” or “liberals” seeking to preserve their lives and comfort.

He would actually try to join the Nazi Party but was turned away because he was Jewish.  Said Strauss of Hitler, his “political theology” was hostile toward “me and my kind”. (7)

You Don't Have to be German to be a Hitler Youth

When civil rights activist, Tom Hayden, (formerly married to Jane Fonda) was a student at the University of Michigan, he became the editor of the Michigan Daily, and one of the founders of  Students for a Democratic Society.  SDS was in direct contrast to Young Americans for Freedom, and the two groups often clashed.

In one article of Hayden's in the Daily, he compared YAF to the Hitler Youth.  They were certainly cult-like, in their attempts to dress and act like William Buckley Jr., and accepted no opposition to any of their arguments, which they like Buckley, were always well prepared for.

YAF responded to Hayden's article in their own newsletter.  "Next to the Twist and barely knee-length skirts, the most fashionable thing of the season is the rousing , vitriolic attack on the so-called 'Extreme-Right'".

Buckley approved of the counter-attack, but privately he worried that  Hayden was right.  The John Birch Society, that was providing funding and moral support to the conservative youth group, had suggested in one of their reports, that if Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 nomination,  they would assemble forces in his [Goldwater's] fascist army. (8)

Leo Strauss would develop a philosophical argument which he called Reductio ad Hitlerum.  What he suggested was that not everything Adolf Hitler did was bad, and using examples like Hitler was anti-smoking, loved dogs and was a vegetarian, we can't automatically think of those things as bad, just because they were associated with Hitler.

Of course Hitler was not a vegetarian, but loved wild game, sausages and caviar, (9) and in 1926, apparently in order to impress Mimi Reiter, a 16-year-old girl, he whipped his dog so savagely that it terrified her. (10)

This does speak to another aspect of neoconservatism. The power to deceive, in order to create a public persona that the masses can get behind.

Strauss is right however, to suggest that not everything Hitler did was bad and in fact the political strategies that the neoconservatives adopted, were like time delayed synchronized swimming.  They followed his path to power, almost to the letter.  I'll be getting into that in more detail, later.

However, Hayden was not off the mark.

Two Burning Images

Undampered by a chilly drizzle, some 40,000 Germans jammed the square between Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University and the Opera House looking at a black mass of criss-crossed logs, insulated from the pavement by sand. A thumping band blared out old military marches. Toward midnight a procession entered the square, headed by officers of the University's student dueling corps in their dress uniforms: blue tunics, white breeches, plush tam o'shanters and spurred patent leather jack boots.

Behind them came other students and a line of motor trucks piled high with books. More students clung to the trucks, waving flaring torches that they hurled through the air at the log pile. Blue flames of gasoline shot up, the pyre blazed. One squad of students formed a chain from the pyre to the trucks. Then came the books, passed from hand to hand while a leather-lunged student roared out the names of the authors:

"Erich Maria Remarque [wild cheering]—for degrading the German language and the highest patriotic ideal!" (Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front, against WWI)

"Emil Ludwig—burned for literary rascality and high treason against Germany."

"Sigmund Freud—for falsifying our history and degrading its great figures. . . ."

On he went, calling out the names of practically every modern German author with whom the outside world is familiar: Karl Marx, Jakob Wassermann, Albert Einstein, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger. Arnold and Stefan Zweig, Walther Rathenau.

... While the flames flared highest, up to a little flag-draped rostrum stumped clubfooted, wild-eyed little Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment in the Nazi Cabinet, organizer of the great midnight bibliocaust. "Jewish intellectualism is dead!" cried he. "National Socialism has hewn the way. The German folk soul can again express itself!

"These flames do not only illuminate the final end of the old etra, they also light up the new. Never before have the young men had so good a right to clean up the debris of the past. . . . The old goes up in flames, the new shall be fashioned from the flame in our hearts. ... As you had the right to destroy the books, you had the duty to support the government. The fire signals to the entire world that the November revolutionaries [German Revolution that overthrew the Kaiser] have sunk to earth and a new spirit has arisen!" All over Germany similar pyres blazed with similar books. (11)

The Nazi youth were driven by anti-communism and anti-liberalism.  The anti-Semitism came about because of the popular belief that the Jews were working with the Communists to take control of Germany.

The conservative youth in the early days, were also fuelled by anti-communism and and anti-liberalism, but while they didn't resort to book burning, an  Indiana chapter of YAF, did make a very public display of burning baskets, alleged to have been manufactured behind the Iron Curtain.

However, there is more than one way to burn a book, or even a basket.  An affiliate of YAF, the Intercollegiate Society Institute, formerly the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, a paleonconservative think tank created by William Buckley Jr., publishes a list of the 50 worst and the 50 best books.

When describing the 50 worst, they use similar language to that of the young Nazis feeding the flames.

Alfred Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male -  "A pervert's attempt to demonstrate that perversion is "statistically" normal."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958) - "Made Americans dissatisfied with the ineradicable fact of poverty. Led to foolish public policies that produced the hell that was the 1960s."

Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) - "[The Church] should therefore strengthen the existing communistic institutions and aid the evolution of society from the present temporary stage of individualism to a higher form of communism." Eek!

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971) - "The hollow soul of liberalism elaborated with a technical apparatus that would have made a medieval Schoolman blush." (12)

And the list goes on.  Can't you just picture them being thrown into the fire?

Even those they don't metaphorically burn, they still use to take jabs at liberal tradition. From their Best list:

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1947) - "... reveals the true intent of liberalism"

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) - " ... her account of the peculiarly modern phenomenon of "totalitarianism" forced many liberals to consider the sins of communism in the same category as those of fascism, and that is no small achievement."

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) - Every day, in every way, things are getting better and better? No, and Butterfield provides the intellectually mature antidote to that premise of liberal historiography." (13)

Sources:

1. Glenn Beck On Norway Killings: Children Like 'Hitler Youth', Huffington Post, July 27, 2011

2. Glenn Beck Group Bills Youth Propaganda Camps as Schools, by Arthur Goldwag, August 9, 2011

3. Glenn Beck hits 'new low'; compares Norway victims to Hitler Youth, The Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2011

4. Germany After the First World War, By: Richard Bessel, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993, ISBN: 0-19-821938-5, p. 248

5. Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth

6. MR. FRIEDRICH TELLS OF "YOUTH MOVEMENT" IN GERMANY, the Harvard Crimson, November 22, 1922, London Times, April 18, 2005

7. Enmity and Tyranny, By: Alan Gilbert, March 5, 2010

8. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, By Rick Perlstein, Nation Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-8090-2858-1, p. 154

9.  Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover, By: Ryn Barry, Pythagorean Books, 2004

10. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, By: Robert G.L. Waite, Basic Books, 1977, ISBN-10: 0306805146

11. Bibliocaust, Time Magazine, May 22, 1933

12. The Fifty WORST Books of the Century, Intercollegiate Society Institute

13. The Fifty BEST Books of the Century, Intercollegiate Society Institute

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

Chapter Eleven: "We as Young Conservatives Believe ...."

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

When William F. Buckley Jr. began his education at the very conservative Yale University, he ruffled more than a few feathers. He began by taking on the school's hierarchy, challenging school policy. Not because it was then a place of injustice - no blacks or women allowed, but because he feared a growing liberal presence, that threatened his natural place in society.

This was not the first incident of this kind for the young Buckley. While attending Millbrook School, an exclusive private institute in New York, he appeared uninvited at a faculty meeting to complain about his teachers' politics, which he believed were too liberal.

Maybe he missed the school's motto before enrolling - Non Sibi Sed Cunctis, which is Latin for "Not for Ones Self but for All", a view he would continue to challenge throughout his life.

The Crusade for Christianity and Capitalism, Not Necessarily in That Order

William Buckley's father, William Frank Sr., was a Texas oil tycoon, who had holdings in many other countries, including Canada. His son's anti-communist leanings came directly from him, which were cemented by his experience as an oil baron in Mexico.

In 1913, military leader Victoriano Huerta, overthrew the democratically elected government of Francisco Madero. Buckley kept out of the conflict, since it had not changed how he conducted his business. However, when Pancho Villa took the field against Huerta, and threatened to expropriate foreign oil holdings, Buckley began to pay attention, and despite the fact that his own country's president, Woodrow Wilson, took the side of Villa's rebels, sending in troops to assist them, Buckley remained loyal to Huerta.

When the rebels successfully ousted Huerta, Buckley funded coups against the new government, aided fleeing priests, and lobbied Washington to intervene against the revolutionaries. In 1921, when one of his agents was caught smuggling guns into Mexico to aid anti-government forces, Buckley was kicked out of the country and his properties were confiscated. (1)

This experience indelibly shaped his worldview, seeing the Mexican revolutionaries as part of a worldwide Bolshevik takeover, and himself as a crusader, fighting a worldwide movement that was against capitalism and Christianity. In foreign affairs, he did not support his country's idea of making the world safe for democracy, but felt that authoritarianism was the best way to keep the masses in line.

He was a member of Charles Manion's America First Committee that had agitated against U.S. involvement in European wars, preferring to take sides in smaller conflicts, that would ensure U.S. control of natural resources, thus keeping communism in check.

During the Spanish Civil War, he enthusiastically backed the dictatorship of  Catholic Francisco Franco, and during WWII, wanted the United States to stand aside and allow Hitler to defeat the Soviet Union, which, according to a visitor to the Buckley home, he saw as "an infinitely greater threat than Nazi Germany." (2)

The Creation of a Philosophical Anarchist

The Buckley children were home-schooled, where they were instructed in the fine arts, and indoctrinated into the religion of the free market.

A regular guest in the Buckley home was the philosopher, Albert Jay Nock, who had created the theory of a Remnant Society. The Remnant, according to Nock, consisted of a small minority who understood the nature of the state and society, and "who would become influential only after the current dangerous course had become thoroughly and obviously untenable", a situation which might not occur until far into the future.

This small minority, of course, was the country's elite, and the "current dangerous course", FDR's New Deal and the "state" as a creature of the "mass-man". In his book, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, Nock claimed that only a few members of society were capable of being properly educated, seeing it as a fact of nature, "like the fact that few are six feet tall" and that "there are practicable ranges of intellectual and spiritual experience which nature has opened to some and closed to others"

The very tall Buckley (well over six feet) admitted that Superfluous Man, was his favourite book, I suppose because it validated his sense of superiority. He was one of the Remnants, a "Nockian counter-revolutionary remnant", who must spend his life fighting a "global contest between Christian individualism and atheistic communism". (1)

In his day, Nock (d. 1945), realized that his thinking would not be accepted by society, and referred to himself as a Philosophical Anarchist.

Buckley, while a gifted writer, was never really a deep thinker. His views were written in stone, and his pedantry, allowed him to effectively challenge those with conflicting ideas. Many liberal intellectuals, drew him into debate, only to find themselves reduced to rubble.

In his book, God and Man at Yale, Buckley debunked "academic freedom" as a screen behind which the faculty was indoctrinating gullible students in liberalism and atheism. He even named the offending professors and exposed what he "supposed to be their brainwashing techniques". "As a believer in God, a Republican, and a Yale graduate," wrote McGeorge Bundy, one of the targeted profs, "I find that the book is dishonest in its use of facts, false in its theory, and a discredit to its author." (3) However, the arguments failed to prevent it from becoming a best seller. In fact, they may have helped to make it so.

Bright Young People With Stars in Their Eyes

During the 1960 Republican convention, a large group of noisy young people, created quite a sensation. Calling themselves Youth for Goldwater, they attempted to take over the Republican leadership and turn the Party into a strict conservative body. Barry Goldwater was their chosen leader, because of his staunch anti-communist, anti-Civil Rights Movement, pro-military and pro-business, views.

However, Goldwater claimed that he wasn't ready, so instead Richard Nixon was given the nod. Nixon of course, lost to a young senator from Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Though they had been defeated in battle, the war had just begun, as a well known conservative activist, Marvin Liebman, recruited the young soldiers for a new kind of army.

Liebman's firm, Marvin Liebman Associates, Inc., provided organizational, fundraising and public relations expertise to the anti-communist and conservative movements, so he worked his magic, becoming a father figure to the young radicals. A meeting was scheduled for September 9, 1960, at William Buckley's Sharon Connecticut estate - Great Elm.

"Let's go for September 9 at Great Elm, in Sharon, Connecticut. That's the Buckleys'—Bill Buckley's—family home, plenty of room." The word went out, and a month and a half after the convention, as summer lingered in New England, a hundred young people gathered at Great Elm, where, over three days, they would lay the foundation of Young Americans for Freedom. (4)

The location was not without its symbolism. Buckley's father, William Sr. chose an area, where as a Conservative Catholic Texan, he would be surrounded by liberal protestant Easterners. They would have to take notice. He no doubt used the same logic when choosing the progressive Millbrook School in New York, for young Will, who immediately took on the establishment.

So while most young people were pushing for equality, an end to nuclear armament and the military-industrial complex; this group of 100 met to push for the exact opposite.

"They're politically minded, some of them active in state and national organizations upholding loyalty oaths, campaigning for the right to work without joining a union, supporting investigating committees in the tradition of Senator McCarthy. "What's special about them," Marvin [Liebman] continued, "is how they feel the call of a mission where Communism is concerned." (5)And they were of the the right sort. "These kids—grown kids; they're in their late teens and twenties—have names like Adams and Baker." (5)

The meeting resulted in the creation of The Sharon Statement comprised of a series of clauses, introduced by the words, "We, as young conservatives believe..."

They could have just as easily been led by the words, "We, as young conservatives don't accept...", because they were against almost everything. Eisenhower, nuclear disarmament, the censor of Joseph McCarthy, the Welfare State, unions, Civil Rights, liberals .... all on the YAF "hit list".

But they did adopt three basic principles: the acknowledgement of God, states' rights (segregation), and the sovereignty of the free market.

On March 16, 1962; Time magazine covered YAF's first major rally at Madison Square Garden. One reader commented the following week: "I attended the Young Americans for Freedom rally at Madison Square Garden and was duly impressed with the rousing example of patriotism. I was a Republican, but am now a confirmed conservative. Perhaps a new political party is what this country needs." WILLIAM H. WISDOM Cherry Hill, N.J. (6)

But another reader was not as impressed with the attacks on the New deal and the Welfare State, and their trumpeted war cries: "Why it should surprise anyone that the bulk of ultraconservatives are under 30 puzzles me. Why not? They missed the Depression, so can't understand the desperation that led to social-welfare bills. Never having been hungry and without work, they can't understand why they should have to pay to help those who are. They missed World War II and Korea, and seem to think that war is some grand chess game. They've lived so long in the soothing syrup of security of job and home that they can't tolerate the insecurity of the cold war. I'd rather be dead than Red, too, but first I'd like a chance to fight the battle without bombs." SHIRLEY PUDAS Charlotte, N.C (7)

Since then, according to a new book - A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement, by former YAF leader Wayne Thorburn: "hundreds of thousands of young conservatives have passed through YAF on their way to becoming conservative leaders -- among them a Vice President of the United States, 26 members of Congress, eight U.S. Circuit Court Judges, numerous media personalities and journalists, college presidents and professors, authors, and leaders of every kind of conservative and libertarian organization in America."

The vice-president was Dan Quayle.

Other important alumni, include, David Keene, President of the National Rifle Association; Michelle Easton, Founder and President of Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; which is promoted by Ezra Levant, Geert Wilders and Sun TV; Christopher Long, now President of the paleoconservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute, begun by Buckley Jr. in 1953; and Richard Viguerie, pioneer of direct mail political fundraising.  They have also helped many Republicans get elected, including Ronald Reagan.

The Republican Party Destroyed

When William F. Buckley Jr. got off his plane in July of 1964, to attend the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, he was greeted by a large contingent of YAF members, detonating confetti bombs and singing "Won't You Come Home Bill Buckley". (8)

Since their formation, four years before, Young Americans for Freedom had grown, and young people dressed like Bill Buckley was a common sight on college and university campuses. He was their hero.

And while they cheered and hooted for Buckley's arrival, a different scene played out for Dwight D. Eisenhower. There Yafers showed their support for Barry Goldwater, holding up signs and chanting "We want Barry", letting the former president know that his support for Goldwater's rival, William Scranton, would not be appreciated.

Throughout the convention, wherever Barry Goldwater went, his noisy young fans went with him, standing in front of both the Confederate flag and the Stars and Stripes. Journalists were shouted down and mowed down, though they did manage to capture a few quotes, including the gem from a Goldwater supporter: "The nigger issue will put him in the White House!" he roared, when asked about the Civil Rights groups protesting outside.

Creating bookends in the Cow Palace, where the convention was held, one side would yell Viva! while the other would promptly answer Ole! Norman Mailer, who was in the crowd, called it a "mystical communion", reminiscent of Seig Heil. (9)

The moderate Republicans, of whom there were many, began to panic. What if Goldwater won on a platform of inequality, union busting and nuclear attacks on perceived enemies? Scranton warned that "Godwaterism has come to stand for a whole crazy-quilt collection of absurd and dangerous positions that would be soundly repudiated by the American people." He was right, although a colleague presented the biggest Question of the day:

"WHAT IN GOD'S NAME HAS HAPPENED TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?" Little did he know that it was going to get a whole lot worse.

One of the young Goldwaterites, was the seventeen-year-old Morton Blackwell, who continues to train young conservative warriors, at his Leadership Institute. He helped Preston Manning create his version of the school, with a $10 million donation from a single corporate sponsor, who asked to remain anonymous.
The strong influence of the American neoconservatives, now has me asking "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME HAS HAPPENED TO CANADIAN POLITICS?", though I already know the answer.

This is what happened.

Sources:

1. The Remnant: William F. Buckley, Counter-Revolutionary, By John Judis, The New Republic, March 26, 2008

2. ibid

3. Columnists: The Sniper, Time magazine, November 03, 1967

4. Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater, By William F. Buckley Jr. , Basic Books, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-465-00836-0, p. 18

5. ibid

6. Letters: Time Magazine, March 23, 1962

7. ibid

8. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, By Rick Perlstein, Nation Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-8090-2858-1, p. 372

9. Perlstein, 2001, p. 382(4)

The Canadian Manifesto: Chapter Three: Laying the Foundation

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

If we had to name one person who had the biggest impact on movement conservatism, it would have to be William F. Buckley Jr.

Before joining the cause, it was being led by cranky old men, but Buckley was able to inspire young people to become political activists.

Stephen Harper once said that the term 'Progressive Conservative', was an oxymoron.  I suppose he was right.

However, "movement conservatism" or the "new conservative", also fit that description.

While they did fight for the status quo, especially in terms of whites being supreme, and the rich maintaining their role as the ruling class, they also wanted to radically change traditional conservatism.

Most radical movements were bottom up, with the poor and downtrodden overthrowing the self serving elite class.  But this one is top down, with the elite class manipulating the poor and downtrodden to secure their positions, and not only hold on to their wealth, but add to it, often at the expense of those suffering the most.

When the Reform Party was first establishing itself as a party for the people, Stephen Harper shocked a reporter when he blurted out "It's amazing what you can get them [the members] to do once you convince them that it's the leader who is telling them".

Populism redefined.

Rebel in Reverse

In 1951, Time Magazine ran a story on William Buckley Jr., referring to him as a "rebel in reverse, a fire-eating youthful conservative". (1)  His first book, God and Man at Yale, had just been published, and was causing a few shock waves in the academic world.

Buckley accused American universities, in particular Yale, of "sabotaging God" and trying to destroy Capitalism.

"the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world . . . [and] the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level." Under the "protective label of 'academic freedom,' " says he, Yale has become "one of the most extraordinary incongruities of our time: the institution that derives its moral and financial support from Christian individualists and then addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of these supporters to be atheistic socialists." (1)

The book was hyperbolic, because at the time only 5 of the 1100 members of the Yale faculty could be defined as atheist or agnostic.  The same five who preached about the excesses of capitalism.  But it didn't matter.  As Harper's mentor Tom Flanagan once said, "It doesn't have to be true, just plausible."

The same attacks on academia by the new right, are being conducted today in Canada by Preston Manning and his centre for destroying democracy.

At Carleton University, a workshop sponsored by Manning's centre, in conjunction with the Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association, instructed those in attendance to take over student elections and organizations.  Documents and tapes were released on Wikileaks.

"Presenters and participants are caught on tape advocating for the creation of front groups for the Conservative Party to masquerade as non-partisan grassroots organizations, influencing the political discourse on campus, stacking student elections with Party members, and conspiring to defeat non-profit organizations because of political differences, all with the intention of hiding their affiliations to the Party in the process.  ... Sometimes you can't attach the party's name to something. You just can't. If it's a really controversial issue on campus or something that might show up in the newspaper, you want to be careful. You just have your shell organization and have the Campus Coalition for Liberty and two other Tory front groups which are front organizations, all of those groups might actually qualify for funding too," said Ryan O'Connor, a workshop facilitator and former member of the OPCCA. (2)

These activities are not confined to Ontario universities, but are taking place across the country.

In the United States, Morton Blackwell, the man who helped Preston Manning to create his school for stormtroopers, also runs a Campus Leadership Training program, promoting the same cloaked activities.  Journalist Jeff Horowitz went undercover, posing as a potential radical, and reported:

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

Blackwell, through another organization called Youth for Western Civilization, is also launching personal attacks on faculty members with progressive ideas.

Retired university professor Michael Yates has written extensively on the topic and says that he's glad he left academia before the worst of it:  "At least I did not have to face the nasty right-wing students who spy on their professors and do the bidding of the professional witch hunters who spew hatred on radio talk shows, and television programs."  It's a new form of McCarthyism.

Recently, two Canadian university professors, complained that they were being targeted.

Two University of Ottawa professors, vocal critics of the federal Conservative government, say they have become targets of a new political intimidation tactic, aimed at using their private, personal information against them.  Professors Errol Mendes and Amir Attaran, frequently castigated as Liberal sympathizers by the Conservatives, were notified in recent weeks of two unusually massive freedom-of-information requests at the University of Ottawa, demanding details of the professors’ employment, expenses and teaching records. (4)

All part of "movement conservatism", better defined as "radical conservatism".  How's that for an oxymoron?

The Foundation of Movement Conservatism is Money

The reason for the success of movement conservatism, is that it was always well funded.  Often dubbed the "revolt of the rich", those at the top were way at the top.  Buckley himself came from a wealthy family, who made most of their money in oil.

His equally wealthy associates sponsored a magazine of "conservative" ideas, called the National Review, where Buckley, before learning to speak in code, rallied the white folks, even promoting the use of violence if necessary, to keep blacks in their place. (5)

Eventually they took over a big chunk of the media, but their biggest success came from something they had decided on six decades ago.  They knew then that to be really successful they would have to take over one of the major political parties, and set their sights on the Republicans.

Sources:

1. Education:  Rebel in Reverse, Time Magazine, October 29, 1951

2. Tory student groups hijack democracy on Ontario campuses, The Dominion, March 14, 2009 

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

4. Tories accused of digging up dirt on 'liberal' profs, By Susan Delacourt and Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star,  February 11, 2011

5. The Conscience of a Liberal, By Paul Krugamn, W. W. Norton & Co., 2007, ISBN: 13 978-0-393-06069-0, p. 103