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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Conflicting Commandments, Abortion, Homosexuality, and Mormonism



Why do religions become so complex and often contradictory? It is because all religions evolve. They begin with a founder and a few simple all-encompassing principles. Once the founders are gone, those who follow add their interpretations, legal rulings, and thoughts of the times, as well as rules for things not originally considered. This happened in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and even traced in the Bible and the works of Mormonism.

God gave humans one rule to begin with. It was a rule we had to break in order to evolve, but it did protect our innocence. When we failed to obey, god gave us more rules, partly because we couldn’t grasp all that the one rule had encompassed unless it was broken down. Then these got broken down, creating specific rules for specific times until there were rules for everything. In my church, we were given dietary recommendations known as the Word of Wisdom. Most did not live by it and so you had a church of priesthood holders being drunk and disorderly. Thus, it was made a commandment and a dietary law.  When Jesus came, he said that he fulfilled all these laws and again gave one all-encompassing principle, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” This was then added upon by the Catholics until priests, who once were expected to be married, were leading celibate lives and avoiding fish on Friday, while the church was selling free passes out of the Hell they largely made up, torturing those who didn’t fall in line, and burning people at the stake.

I don’t think scripture was ever meant to be a book of literal truth. Scripture is writing that contains spiritual wisdom expressed as memorable stories, not historic or scientific fact. Like with most tales, they are based in fact as adapted, interpreted, misunderstood, and altered intentionally by those who recorded, translated, or chose to include them in the present collection. Scripture is influenced by the times and societies and purposes of those who passed them down. The specifics aren’t meant to be universal, but to relate to the reader at the time of the writer. This makes me hopeful that the Book of Revelation’s descriptions of the extent of the death and damage might be somewhat a matter of perspective. Back then a few million people and the Mediterranean seemed like the entire world. These days, they are a fraction. The impression and words chosen by the writer were such that would make sense to the people of the time, not scientific explain or accurately forecast the future.  Also, due to the need to preserve faith and doubt for the test of life, scripture itself cannot be used as objective proof. It is designed to foil certainty.

As part of the test of life - a test of our free will without the sure knowledge of god’s presence to keep us in line - as well as a result of conflicting interpretations and agendas, some scripture contradicts or appears to contradict itself in places. Because we are here to exercise and deal with the consequences of free will, god gives us choices in all that we do, including between his rules when they become mutually exclusive. Why we make the choice and what we learn from doing so is what really matters.

Mormons are taught that each of us is responsible for our own spiritual development. Others can help, but only we can make the decision and deal with the consequences in our own lives. We are to help, not judge or condemn or persecute. My faith is one where everyone must meet the requirements of a priesthood holder because everyone will be one eventually. Thus the requirements are pretty strict. This includes the discouragement of homosexuality.

Personally, I believe that homosexuality was not labelled a sin because it is evil or an abomination, but because the original small tribes, to whom these laws were given, couldn’t afford to have ten percent of their population as non-reproductive if they wanted to survive and grow in number. This may also be the reason for the guttural distaste many experience around the subject - our genes ruthlessly compel us to reproduce and thus discourage the behaviour. It doesn’t mean that the person is evil or defective, just a genetic dead-end in traditional terms (of course modern science and social arrangements can get around this now). However, it becomes part of that person’s test of life, just as with any major trait, whether personal or biological. It means, for example that you can’t be a member of my church because you can’t be a priesthood holder. That’s not a judgement on the person, just a fact. Just like a four-foot tall person will not be an NBA star. However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be member of any church, or even a holder of the priesthood in a church that so allows.  You can’t be part of my group, but I can’t be part of a gay one either. Reality has limits.

If marriage is defined as Holy Matrimony, then I am against all civil marriages. However, that boat sailed a long time ago when the state took over the ceremony. Once there were civil marriages, the principals of egalitarian democracy demanded that all be able to participate. It was a done deal. I’m not against the principal of homosexuals being able to form legal families and participate in social rights and responsibilities; I’m only against it being lumped in with Holy Matrimony.  That is a religious ceremony/sacrament and is open only to members of that religion. This isn’t discrimination as no one is forced to be a member and can go find another group, free choice is not restricted and no benefits of the wider society are denied. It’s just a club to which you cannot belong, no more than I can rightly belong to the NAACP. I can be allied with their causes, but I’m just not one of their constituents. Perhaps it’s mostly semantics, but I’m a writer so words are important to me.

I’d also like to say a word about abortion. Scientifically speaking, the moment a human life begins is conception, when the genes of the parents combine into a unique human genome and begin replicating. After this point you are technically terminating a human life. Before this point is when birth control applies. After this point, you are not using a tool of contraception and you are not performing a simple medical procedure, you are choosing one life over another. The choice must be clear.

I believe in a woman’s right to make this choice, after all it is her life. But she must be clear that she is making a sacrifice. If she keeps the child, she sacrifices of herself. If she terminates the pregnancy, she is sacrificing that life for her own. Either way, a sacrifice is involved if abortion is being considered. It should be a decision never made lightly and as rarely as possible. I’m not against abortions, but I have heard of individuals who seem to treat the procedure similar to visiting the dentist, using it multiple times. Once or twice might be argued as the results of horrible mistakes or accidents of contraception, but having more disregards the seriousness of what is at stake and shows a disregard for life - both the woman’s life and those she is ending. Sex without responsibility is a fantasy. The decision for birth control should be made before, not after the act.




I’d also like to address some hatred and misinformation that I’ve seen in comments on the web about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.



·         About it being a cult. By definition a cult is organized around and tightly controlled by a charismatic leader who is unquestioned. Our church is based on personal revelation and direct questions to god, and the responses we believe that we get which forms, at least for me, part of our personal testimonies.  We are told to question everything in order to seek our own answers and to pursue knowledge, including science. And if you’ve ever seen any of our leaders or heard them speak, charisma isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Everyone who has been baptized (which we do at 8 which is what we believe to be the Age of Responsibility when free choice and sin become possible) can cast their vote by show of hands to sustain or object to each leader, including the prophet who leads the church. Even one objection is treated with importance and can potentially leader to the rejection of the person for the position (which is completely voluntary and unpaid).  We try to pick our leaders and other roles of responsibility through prayer, inspiration and council, but everything in the church came through humans and is thus vulnerable to their faults and errors.

·         That we worship aliens. Coming from a Catholic background, I found the notion that we are evolving beings on the same path as much more advanced beings that were call gods much more scientifically satisfying than merely being toys of an infinite unknowable thing called God. Our church teaches that Heavenly Father was a being like we are now and that I is possible for some of us to become like him. All of us will evolve, but the test of life, determines how high we will rise by determining our temperaments and talents and ability to handle power responsibly. This keeps someone like Hitler from rising to the top, though he will evolve to the next stage along with everyone but the devil and his demons, who shall never gain physical form., but Hitler will stay at that stage while the rest of us progress to the next when we’re ready, each of us continuing to develop on the level to which we’re most suited as we help spread the process throughout the cosmos.  The idea that Heavenly Father lives on another planet makes more sense to me than in some otherworldly plane, and the idea of gods who continue to evolve gets rid of the stupidity of the torture  represented by the orthodox idea of unending heavenly perfection or eternal damnation.  The cosmos itself is evolving, with beings like us as its consciousness.
It also gives me a purpose for mortality that makes sense. Our ability to handle free will and its consequences is being tested under conditions where we are uncertain that god exists and we seem to be the ultimate authority and power, before we become such in truth. How we handle free will, conflicting choices and rules, successes and failures, and the physical and mental crosses each of us bears, as well as the rest of life’s complexity. How we treat each other, when Father is not around. And what we learn from the entire experience.  What you learn is more important than if you broke or followed an individual rule, but the choice over that rule is part of the learning process.  
Heavenly Father is an individual entity similar to us, not beyond all understanding. He is omniscient and omnipotent in comparison to us. He is interested in our progress and doesn’t interfere with our learning unless absolutely necessary. He grants prayers, but sometimes with the answer “No”, because it would interfere with the test or our progress, or because he knows there is something better coming.  He doesn’t take our loved ones from us, he welcomes them home when they return, and we believe that what you might call heaven and hell are basically mental attitudes possessed by spirits waiting on Earth to be reunited with their bodies when we evolve to the next stage, bodies powered by spirit and thus immortal.
Oh, and we also believe there is a Heavenly Mother, she just not part of the official Godhead of the Trinity because, although she also has the priesthood, men need it more than women do for our progression. That’s why we must carry the responsibility in mortality and women get it automatically in the next life.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Stephen Harper - The Ugly Canadian

Below is an article from Now Toronto  and a publisher's website description of a book describing just how hypocritical giving Harper a Statesman of the Year Award was. He loves everything about the Ugly American so much he wants to turn us all into them.

Frontlines

Yves Engler on Stephen Harper’s humanitarian award

By Yves Engler

At a ceremony in New York City on Thursday (September 27), the NY-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation will present Stephen Harper with its World Statesman Of The Year award, honouring him as a “leader of integrity who has earned the respect of his people for his commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights and peace.’’

What’s this? Sorry, but far from being a world statesman, Harper has shown a distaste for multilateral diplomatic forums. In fact, he’s designed Canadian foreign policy to please the most reactionary, short-sighted sectors of the Conservative party’s base: evangelical Christian Zionists, extreme right-wing Jewish leaders, Islamophobes and the military-industrial complex, not to mention mining and oil executives.

Harper’s foreign policy is responsible for a long list of global crimes. His government was complicit with coups in Honduras and Paraguay, supported Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Lebanon and deployed troops rather than our Heavy Urban Search and Rescue teams to post-earthquake Haiti.

Additionally, Harper has repeatedly expressed support for controversial Canadian mining operations and has blocked efforts to have Ottawa regulate mining corporations’ behaviour abroad.

The Conservatives have made Canadian society much more militaristic by increasing the Canadian Forces budget, size and cultural standing, and the PM continues to deploy 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan as well as special forces despite the fact that most Canadians want to bring the troops home.

Another element of Harper’s bad foreign policy regards the climate. With hundreds of thousands already dying annually in poor countries due to climate disturbances, the pro-tar-sands Conservatives have lobbied aggressively against international efforts to curtail carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Similarly, Harper withdrew Canada from the Kyoto Protocol and has blocked progress on setting minimally serious targets for reducing CO2 emissions.

Canada has repeatedly been crowned by civil society organizations with the “colossal fossil” at international climate negotiations for being “the country that has done the most day after day to prevent a climate treaty.” That’s the only award our prime minister deserves.

Oh, and by the way, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, he of the vicious 1973 Chilean coup, will present our PM with the Appeal of Conscience prize.

Yves Engler is the author of The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy (Fernwood).


The Ugly Canadian

The Ugly Canadian

Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy

Yves Engler

Stephen Harper’s foreign policy documents the sordid story of the Canadian government’s sabotage of international environmental efforts, a government totally committed to tar sands producers and a mining industry widely criticized for abuses. Furthermore, this sweeping critique details Harper’s opposition to the “Arab Spring” democracy movement and his backing of repressive Middle East monarchies, as well as his support for a military coup in Honduras and indifference to suffering of Haitians following the earthquake that devastated their country. The book explores Canada’s extensive military campaign in Libya, opposition to social transformation in Latin America and support for a right-wing Israeli government. With an eye to Canada’s growing international isolation, The Ugly Canadian is a must read for those who would like to see Canada adopt a more just foreign policy.

Praise for the book...

”Stephen Harpers’ government has fundamentally changed Canada’s foreign policy in a way most Canadians do not understand. The notion of the Ugly Canadian may be hard to accept but it is true and I for one am deeply grateful to Yves Engler for this important book.”- Maud Barlow, National Chairperson of the The Council of Canadians

”A damning chronicle of Stephen Harper’s international misdeeds.”–Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia

”Ugly Canadian is a well written, thoroughly researched, powerful indictment of the Harper government’s radical shift to the right in foreign policy. Whether it is demonstating callous indifference to global eco-issues, taking an absolutist pro-Israel Middle East stance, meddling militarily in Libya, Haiti and Afghanistan, or rebirthing the notion of a warrior spirit, Canada can no longer be considered a peace loving middle power. This book is more than a wakeup call, it is a call to arms for Canadians to take note of where we are headed on the international stage–before it is too late.”–Scott Taylor, Editor Esprit de Corps Magazine

”One of Yves Engler’s previous books helped give me the idea to hold a Stop Harper sign in Parliament. This book provides rich evidence why Harper must be stopped.”–Brigette Depape (rogue Senate Page)

Contents

Introduction • Tar Sands Diplomacy • Mining the World • Against the Arab Spring • Bombing Libya • Best Friend of the Israeli Right • At War with Iran and Lebanon • Canadian Warrior • Lying About Afghanistan • Militarizing Post-earthquake Haiti • Stopping Social Change in Latin America • Conclusion: Making Foreign Policy an Election Issue

About the Author

Former Vice President of the Concordia Student Union, Yves Engler has been dubbed “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I.F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “ever-insightful” (rabble.ca) and a “Leftist gadfly” (Ottawa Citizen). His six books have been praised by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, William Blum, Rick Salutin and many others. 

”Yves became a foreign-policy expert by working as a night doorman in Montreal...He’s in the mould of I. F. Stone, who wasted no time with politicians, who all have an agenda, but went instead straight to the public record.”
- Rick Salutin, Globe and Mail

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Harper is Incapable of Diplomacy

Harper's neoconservative ideolgy requires confrontation, accusation, division, diversion, shutting don the communication channels between the government and the people, and refusing to acknowledge facts contratry to the iideology. It is no wonder that he has been systematically cutting our ability to communicate, reason, and cooperate with the tsrest of the world whlile increasing funding for special projects like the F-35, for our "defence". Just like G.W. Bush. Bush managed to take his country from the highest it's ever been in wealth, power, and world good-will, following 9/11, to the hated retch that Obama has had to nurse. Canada is currently highly ranked economically and in world good-will. Harper has been hard at work trying to change this. He idelizes the Repblican afterbirth called the "Neocons", and is as blind as they were, and still are, to the havoc they caused. Of course, they don't listyen to facts. They channlellenge them with personal attacks and lies,while cutting the funding that produced them. Thy do the same with theose who would use the inconvientnt facts of reality to stop their neolioberal destruction. Harper is cunning, not smart. Like Bush, he was at best a mediocre student, but in Harper's case one who was encouraged to try a different career than economics by his economics school. He is a dull inteleect who I doubt fully grasps his worhsipped ideologies of neoconsevative politics and neoliberal economics. He certainly refuses to see how much damage they've caused world-wide. ....

Ah Ha! That's why he's cutting our diplomatic budget during a very dangerous and complex time in world history, he doesn't wasn't to hear about it. If he doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist.

I've been saying that Harper is Canada's Bush since he first formed a government during the minority days, before he became King Harper Hypocrite. I don't know what more proof is needed to wake people up. If history repeats (and when has it even done that?), Harper will destroy Canada economically, socially, environmentally, diplomatically, and constitutionally. Torture anyone? Harper's already encouraging CSIS to use information gained by it, while calling environmentalists "terrorists", and those who opposed him as "child pornographers", two groups obviously deserving torture. Neoconservatism sees everyone as enemies of the faith. Neoliberalism sees everyone as competitors whose weaknesses are to be exploited, and government merely as a part of the free market, rather than as its leadership and service provider. Rather than economiucs being a tool for a government, a nation and its people, they beome its tools. The moral vacuum of the Market Society is formed, a black hole swallowing civiliaztion.

We must get rid of Harper and these destructive ideolgies as soon a law allows. Under our insane system, that means as soon as he lets us by calleing an election. Fortunetly there's a limit of five years or we'd never dig him out. He must not get wo majoritites.

Look to the south if you want to see what's at stake. That's what Bush did and what Harper will do. 

Fail him before he fails us.



Thorium - A Suggestion for Iran

Thorium is a far better nuclear fuel source than uranium, more efficient and abundant without the chance of meltdown, but it can't be weaponized. The United States should be jumping up and down suggesting it. Iran can have nuclear power, as they claim to be developing, and we can avoid another nuclear state in the Middle East. Based on its history, even if Israel wasn't there, if two states in the area developed it, the entire place would become a radioactive wasteland. There are too many who seeing dying and taking others with them as a good way to go. Not to mention too many brutal dictators willing to use them on their own people. The countries that have them now, world-wide, shouldn't have them either. Their only possible good use is in blasting asteroids while they are deep in space to change their trajectories, but as they are set up now, that isn'tt possible. We'd rather be able to obliterate each other and "salt the earth" for any who survive, than use our most powerful weapons for planetary defence - something it is certain we will need because there's a lot of big rocks flying around us unseen. It is one of my proofs for the existence of a god that it hasn't happened to us yet. The odds are against us.

See my post on Thorium - The Safer Nuclear Fuel that the Arms Race Buried
that draws from the website of Thorium Energy Alliance. 

Also see SuperFuel 

Below is an interview on CBC's Quirks & Quarks

Thorium, the Super Fuel


super_fuel.jpg  
Even among supporters of alternative energy, there is agreement that nuclear power might have to be part of the solution to rising greenhouse emissions, at least in the near future. But especially since last year's disaster at the Fukushima plant in Japan, support for building new nuclear reactors has fallen. Now, in his new book, SuperFuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future, writer Richard Martin makes the case that what we need is a new type of reactor, using a different radioactive material than uranium. And that material is thorium. He argues that using thorium in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor would be greener, safer, cheaper and more efficient than our standard uranium-based reactors. And the material can't be used for nuclear weapons.  He predicts that thorium-based reactors will take off in the coming decade in places like China and India, while North America remains tied to its nuclear past.   
 

Related Links

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Monday, September 24, 2012

Saudi Arabia - The Tyrants Our Governments Support


Saudi Arab is a kingdom, a monarchy that subjugates its people and because they have oil, western governments treat them like one of the good guys. They are not. They are one family ruling a nation because of an accent of birth. They subjugate women and sponsor terrorists. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, as was Osama Bin Laden, who attacked the US because it allies with the Saudis. Thousands died then and since for what was basically a family squabble over power and religion, a family squabble in which the Bushes were intimately involved.

The Saudis are what all monarchies are, an anachronism that needs to end, to die in the waste-bin of history.
Only their oil keeps them in power and close to western powers. The hypocrisy of the West's behaviour undermines democracy across the Middle East. The Saudi's certainly don't want it within their border.

The following are a collection of videos and articles about the evil running rampant in Saudi Arabia and the shameful responses by the West, including the support the Harper tyranny has demonstrated for these dictators. They are birds of a feather.

Saudi Arabia and Western Hypocrisy
Madawi Al-Rasheed: Washington is calling the worst repression in the Arab world "evolving reform"

“Chop Chop Square” by Adam St. Patrick | The Walrus | May 2009
Inside Saudi Arabia's brutal justice system. Chop Chop Square - apostates, dissidents, 'witches', and many other undesirables are routinely rounded-up & beheaded by our charming 'friends' in the medieval Saudi Kingdom.

Modern Slavery in Gulf Countries
Adam Hanieh: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states created a super exploited migrant work force after facing a radicalized Arab working class in the 60's

Saudi Arabia's Migrant Slaves
Migrant slaves in the medieval Saudi Kingdom

Canada StrengthensTies with Saudi Arabia | Global Research
Stephan Harper’s Conservatives have strengthened military, business and diplomatic ties with one of the most misogynistic and repressive countries in the world.

Flying the Flag, Arming the World
John Pilger did a documentary back in 1994 examining the role of UK and US governments arming and propping up repressive puppet regimes all over the world, particularly the Saudi Kingdom.

Canadian Fascism

This is a re-posting of an article on Aberhart and Harper on Crusade, tracing the history of neoconservative neoliberalism in Canada. 

Monday, July 5, 2010


The Roots of Canadian Fascism: From Bad Boys to Worse Men


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


In the early 1980's, a grade thirteen student from Etobicoke, while at home on Christmas break, was listening to the radio, tuned into the upstart Toronto station: CKEY. On that day, the guest on their popular talk show was right-wing journalist Peter Worthington.

Listening to the exchange, this young man found that he could identify with Worthington, one of the staunchest critics of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

So he called into the station and on air suggested that the Liberals had turned into socialists, to which Worthington replied: "That young man speaks for millions of Canadians." (1) According to John Ibbitson it was at that moment when Guy Giorno's political thought took a sharp right turn. (2)

However, I think that may have oversimplified things. Though his father had been a delegate at the Liberal convention that named Trudeau as leader, Guy was probably drifting to the right before this.

"I had become increasingly disenchanted with Trudeau's arrogance. At the time the Liberals had railroaded metric down our throats, and I wondered what next? In the summer between grade twelve and thirteen, I had won a four day holiday at Camp Enterprise, a pro-business initiative sponsored by the Rotary Club. Up until then I had bought the Liberal idea that big business is bad. My attitude was starting to change." (1)
According to the Camp Enterprise literature, they " ... believe in the private enterprise system as a critical element of strength in the broadest, soundest governmental structure yet developed by man. It is on this foundation that Camp Enterprise was founded ..."

This now right-wing ideologically driven young man would go on to attend St. Michael's College, where according to Ted Schmidt, his name was bandied about, as a contributor to the right-wing Catholic Digest: "... a veritable house organ for the then Cardinal Carter*, mixed as it was with Cold War politics, slavish pro-Rome obeisance and one-note social activism - the anti-abortion movement." (1)

Reading Giorno's neo-con rants I used to wince - 'Nelson Mandela was espousing violence, unions have too much power, doctors should have the right to double bill', the list goes on. "How could they give a guy like this space in a Catholic paper?" I remember thinking ... [now] Giorno is one of the most powerful insiders in the Ontario Tory government. (1)
That was written in 1997. Schmidt continues:

Most Ontarians have never heard Giorno's name, but every one's life is going to be irrevocably changed by what he has in his head. Slowly, journalists are twigging to his favoured place in the Tory Constellation. (1)
In fact many in Queen's Park, though they knew of him and his unprecedented power, could not have picked him out in a crowd.
Guy Giorno himself continued to play a crucial role as policy director of strategic planning. Viewed by ministerial aides as a "true believer" who toiled at the centre of the web, he could be rigidly inflexible if departmental initiatives failed to conform to his expectations ... After three years at Queen's Park, the man ... described as the "intellectual heart" of the Harris government was still unknown to many**, including Liberal House Leader Jim Bradley, who allegedly asked to have him pointed out at a Queen's Park Christmas reception. (3)
And with Giorno's ideology and power, came an authoritarianism that was quite alien to what was supposed to be a democratic government. And every one's life is still being irrevocably changed "... by what he has in his head."


Another Young Head Gets Filled


The notion that Guy Giorno or Stephen Harper could have been thought of as "bad boys", would no doubt make their former classmates laugh out loud.

But it was not booze, drugs or rock and roll that directed their fall from society, but hard right politics. Introduced to William F. Buckley by his friend John Weissenberger, Harper's neo-Liberal views began to form while a student at the University of Calgary.

He was already a member of the National Citizens Coalition, when Preston Manning, with a lot of corporate money, set out to start the Reform Party. And at the opening assembly, the powers that be, arranged for Harper and his friend Weissenberger, to sit at a table with David Somerville, then president of the National Citizens Coalition.

The NCC was started by Colin Brown to fight against Tommy Douglas and Medicare. Initially Brown only placed full page ads in major newspapers, condemning public health care until he read a little book, called Political Realignment, written in 1967 by Ernest Manning, with the help of his son Preston. Brown immediately arranged to meet the Mannings and it was Ernest who encouraged him, instead of just paying for ads which could be forgotten, to instead set up a non-profit "free enterprise" advocacy group.

Ernest Manning also opposed Tommy Douglas, stating that "Giving to the individual societal benefits such as free medical care ... breeds idleness... causing a break down in his relationship with God ... where the state imposed a monopoly on a service ... the sinful philosophy of state collectivism scored a victory." (4)

Brown hand picked David Somerville, who was a columnist with the Toronto Sun, when Peter Worthington, the man who made Giorno "see the light" (by pushing him into the darkness), was editor.

However, the National Citizens Coalition was only a stepping stone for Harper. It was another group that he became involved with, that was far more disturbing.

The Northern Foundation:


"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), ... author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (5)
And:

"‘The Northern Foundation was established in 1989, originally as a pro-South Africa group . . . lists among the founding members of the Foundation both William Gairdner and Stephen Harper ... " (6)
Their first order of business was to fight for the continuation of apartheid in South Africa, but they took up many causes of the right-wing movement, including the fight against gay rights.

The foundation's magazine carries a half-page ad in every issue for The Phoenix, a pro-white South Africa magazine, and regularly solicits support from members on special causes, from property rights to English language rights. Attacks on homosexuals and homosexual rights are frequent, including a call in the Winter, 1990 edition for "No Special Privileges for Homosexuals," which carried a special financial appeal for the fight against "tax dollars going to homosexual activists."

In its Spring, 1991 edition, it lists "thinkers and activists who are working for freedom." Among them are: David Somerville, of the NCC; Judy Anderson, of REAL Women; Ted Byfield; Link Byfield; Richard Pearman, who led the fight to have Sault Ste. Marie city council declare the city "English only"; Kenneth Hilborn of the NCC and pro-South Africa groups; columnist Barbara Amiel (
Conrad Black's wife); and Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute. (6)
According to Dr. Debra Chin in the Canadian National Newspaper, "Toronto: Sun columnist Peter Worthington [has] been affiliated with the Northern Foundation." She also states that:
Corporate mass-media owners would seek to remake Mr. Harper and the Conservative Party from being ultra right, into a fabricated image of a non-threatening "moderately conservative" party ... “He [Mr. Harper] had little trouble doing so, as the media had been largely muffled by one fact: press baron Conrad Black, then reaching the height of his powers was also a member of the Northern Foundation and equally shy about having it publicly known ... Journalists feared incurring his wrath as he employed many of them at the time, and was a potential employer for those whom he didn’t employ. Had they made the membership list public, Mr. Black would have been exposed." (7)
Now apparently, according to Stephen Harper, he was kicked out of the group for not being right-wing enough and would refer to them as "Quasi-Fascists". (8) Fair enough.

However, I'm not sure that I believe him, and I'll tell you why in two words:

Civitas Society:


According to their own website:

Founding President: William Gairdner

Other Past Presidents: Tom Flanagan, William Robson, and Lorne Gunter

Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield, Michel Coren, Jacques Dufresne, Tom Flanagan, David Frum, William Gairdner, Jason Kenney, Gwen Landolt, Ezra Levant, Tom Long, Mark Magner, William Robson, David E. Somerville, Michael Walker

Let's break it down a bit:

William Gairdner - was a founding member of the Northern Foundation

Tom Flanagan - was the Man Behind Stephen Harper

Lorne Gunter - was with Ted Byfield's Alberta Report that helped to launch the Reform Party

Ted Byfield - helped to found the Reform Party and was the father of Link Byfield, a founding member of the Northern Foundation

Michael Coren - Is a notorious homophobe. Quotes of Coren's include: "While everything human must be done to find a cure for this plague [Aids], it is hard to deny that the majority of sufferers in North America contracted the disease through perverse sex ... Nobody cared very much about these men and women before AIDS was brought to North America and, frankly, nobody cares very much now."

David Frum - former George Bush speech writer who coined the term "axis of evil". He was also behind uniting the right and is a longtime associate of Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day. His sister Linda was one of Harper's patronage senate appointments and his father-in-law is Peter Worthington.

Gwen Landolt - is the president of REAL Women of Canada, and spoke regularly at Northern Foundation functions.

Tom Long - was a member of the Mike Harris government and one of the authors of the horrible Common Sense Revolution. He was also a member of what was referred to as the "Little Shits", along with Guy Giorno, Deb Hutton (Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak's wife) and Tony Clement. (1)

Mark Magner - was a member of the Canadian Alliance National Council, (The Alliance Party of Canada board) that included Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day.

David Somerville - Ex-president of the National Citizens Coalition.

Guy Giorno is also a member and in 2003 at their national conference, gave a presentation entitled "Transplanting Provincial Successes to Ottawa".

They are almost the same group as the original Northern Foundation. And if Stephen Harper wasn't right-wing enough for them, why did they invite Republican Pollster Frank Lutz, to instruct him on how to win a majority? And why is he a regular speaker at their "private" functions?

Now personally I don't care who belonged to what group. What I do care about is the fact that Guy Girono and Stephen Harper, were both indoctrinated when young into the neoconservative philosophy, which Harper himself described as "quasi-fascism', and are running this country with the help of the Civitas Society, the "new" vanguard group of the extreme right.

Guy Giorno-- or Double G, as he's known in government circles -- is probably the most powerful man you've never heard of. The 44-year-old former lawyer is the Prime Minister's [Stephen Harper's] chief of staff, a position he also used to fill for former Ontario premier Mike Harris. He is closer to the Prime Minister than any other individual in government and his counsel is sought on decisions that affect millions of people and billions of dollars. (10)
Both men are driven by pure ideology. And as warned by Ted Schmidt in 1998, when speaking of Guy Giorno: "... every one's life is going to be irrevocably changed by what he has in his head." (1)

This is not your parent's Conservative Party. Harper has already suggested at the G20 that nations must adopt a neo-Liberal (neoconservative) platform. When speaking at the Reform Party assembly in 1991 he stated that Canada should drop the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security, and had no business providing what was then called unemployment insurance (now EI). He also told the NCC that "It's high time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."

He bailed out our banks to the tune of 200 billion dollars so that they could provide their execs with an 8 billion dollar bonus. This is the party of big business, while the rest of us just get in their way.

I for one am not ready to be "irrevocably changed" by what is in their heads. Are you?

Footnotes:

*Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter (1912-2003) was a key player in the pro-life movement during the Trudeau years when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being drafted.

**"When Guy Giorno, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, made a rare public appearance recently to testify before a House committee looking into government secrecy, even some veteran Parliament Hill news photographers needed to have him pointed out so they would know which way to aim their lenses."(6)

Sources:

1. The Man Behind Mike, by Ted Schmidt, NOW Magazine, January 8-14, 1998

2. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, Prentice Hall, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 76

3. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 170

4. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, Pg. 9

5. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 121

6. Dobbin, 1992, Pg. 100-101

7. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper demonstrates continued ultra right wing affiliations by blocking pro social justice Toronto candidate, by Dr. Debra Chin, Canadian National
8. Jeffrey, 1999, Pg. 430
9. Judging Giorno, By John Ivison, National Post, February 20, 2010

10. Guy Giorno: national man of mystery, by John Geddes, MacLeans, May 31, 2010