Yes, I’m scared of Stephen Harper!

Written By: FurGaia
Date: 2006-01-03 23:39:00
<a href="/article/233956320-yes-im-scared-of-stephen-harper">Article Link</a>

In his essay <a href="http://www.daifallah.com/rcr.htm">Rescuing Canada's Right </a>, Adam Daifallah writes: <blockquote>For a blueprint for change, Canadian conservatives need look no further than south of the border. A well-funded conservative infrastructure, acting as a support network for the Republican party, has been instrumental in that party's victories in the U.S. Over time, this infrastructure has successfully made conservative ideas a major force in the national discourse. It did not develop out of thin air, however, but only because American conservatives were willing to make it happen. […] The result was a vast conservative network that spent more than $1 billion in the 1990s alone. Money went to fund such influential policy organizations as The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute—all of which played crucial roles in the advancement of conservative ideas in the eighties, shoring up support for Ronald Reagan's presidency (the current Bush administration would later loot the think-tanks to fill various government posts).</blockquote> Daifallah does a very good job of summarizing the coming together of this formidable apparatus that will end up in what we see today in the Bush Administration. But Daifallah does not tell us that such an apparatus is already installed and fully functional on Canadian soil, parts of which have been established with seed money from US conservative think tanks (1) and money from the Donner Foundation (2). Indeed, such financial input appears to be much prized, to wit this excerpt from the <a href="http://www.aims.ca/library/crowley10th.doc">Atlantic Institute for Market Studies</a>: <blockquote>The late <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Antony_Fisher">Tony Fisher</a> presided over our efforts in spirit. We opened our doors on the strength of [a] $15,000 cheque from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Atlas_Economic_Research_Foundation">Atlas Economic Research Foundation</a> that he helped to found. That was soon followed by a major grant of nearly a half million dollars, then the largest single grant ever given by the Donner Canadian Foundation, one of this country’s largest charitable foundations, and we had the financial resources to get going. $5,525,000 in 10 years!</blockquote> In 2001, in an article entitled <a href="http://www.aims.ca/inthemedia.asp?typeID=4&id=298">AIMS major generator of new policy thinking</a>, Michael Bliss wrote: <blockquote>Three power centres are capable of generating the energy Canada needs to renew itself politically. The first is the national network of think-tanks and media. The phenomenon has not been well studied but for some years Parliament, the universities and the national civil service have been increasingly upstaged as centres of political discussion by organizations such as the C.D. Howe and Fraser institutes, the Conference Board of Canada, the Institute for Research on Public Policy, the Business Council on National Issues, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the Donner Foundation, the two national newspapers and the more thoughtful radio and TV shows.</blockquote> Now when we take into account that the US conservative think tanks supporting those operating on Canadian soil, to all intents and purposes as their outposts, that those US think tanks are for the most part behind the conservative movement’s hijacking of the Republican Party, that genuine republicans like <a href="http://www.mypartytoo.com/">Christine Todd Whitman</a> are trying desperately to reclaim their party, that their efforts are being countered by organizations such as <a href="http://www.rinohuntersclub.com/">the RINO Hunters Club</a>, it is not difficult to understand why Stephen Harper and his brand of conservatism scare the hell out of me! Is it so far-fetched to extrapolate that the same strategy used to overcome the Republican Party in the US will be used to get rid of the true Conservatives who have chosen for now to put their trust in Harper? Once those have been booted out, who is to stop Harper and his group from implementing here in Canada all those fearsome policies espoused by those US Far-Right think tanks and rich donors that have been dishing out their ideology and funds to them all those years? In <a href="http://www.notacolony.ca/101104A_The_Man_Behind_Stephen_Harper.htm">The Man Behind Harper</a>, Marci MacDonald ended thus: <blockquote>To those who are unnerved by that prospect, Byfield offers no cheer. "Those people who said they're dangerous -- they're right!" he says. "People with ideas are dangerous. If Harper gets elected, he'll make a helluva change in this country."</blockquote> --------- (1) <a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20041219215655189">Think Tanks</a> (2) <a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050407152604889">The Donner Foundation</a> [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on January 4, 2006]

Mr. Harper and the influence that certain organisations have over the Conservative Party are frightening because of their regressive social outlook. They are made much less frightening by the prospect that it is highly unlikely that, even if they do manage to win this election, their prospects of more than a very thin minority are minimal.

Outside of the regressive social policies of the Conservative Party, they are really not much different than the Liberals. The push for deep integration and over-riding need both Harper and Martin feel to act as toadies for multi-national corporations drives their policy. Frankly, I find both options equally frightening.

And so you should be. I can understand your fear because the average Canadian is slowly waking up to the fact that you left wing fearmongering whiners have hijacked the political agenda under the Liberal watch and we are going to take our country back. Be afraid, very afraid because we Conservatives are not afraid to fend for ourselves, a concept you lefties fear worse than death itself.

Bush has the widespread support of American conservatives (who outnumber American liberals), Harper has the widespread support of Canadian conservatives and we'll see in a few weeks how that compares to Liberal support.

If you don't like democracy, just keep voting for the Liberals, they are doing a fine job of turning a democratic deficit into a totalitarian surplus. You do know that some guy in Montreal was in jail for 4 days just because he heckled the PM durring this campaign, right?

As for supposed American funding, show the proof, I don't think they care enough about Canada to get that involved.

The Liberals are going down, and it will be the best thing to happen to Canada in my lifetime when they do.

Oh, and if you weren't so blind to the mote in your own eye, you would be scared of a governemnt that helps itself to the hard earned money of the citizens to funnel it to their pockets, their friends, and their lobby groups. You would be afraid of government that feel entitled to power and free to abuse it.

The liberano's belong in JAIL not ruining the country.

Thanks BOO, aka Stephen Harper's royal asswipe, for your educated comments.

I too am worried Mr. Blair about Harper's economic polcies, but we pretty well know what we'd get, although were he to win it would be a minority and the other parties would not try to curry favour with voters by not letting him pass anything to extreme.

Regarding social policy, many Canadians do oppose things like the charter of rights and freedoms, (which we never voted for) which led to gay marriage and others gender and visible minority rights we never supported. Stephen Harper is supported by many otherwise economically "moderate" in this regard.

I've had it with the B.S. fearmongering. The Liberals are not much better and they'd had like 14 years.

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"A Liberal is someone who refuses to take his own side in a fight".

-Robert Frost

I should also add Harper WOULD spend more money on our military--something that is MORE than needed. The Liberals are an embarassment.

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"A Liberal is someone who refuses to take his own side in a fight".

-Robert Frost

Truth hurts and Liberals are in for a world of well deserved pain, get used to it. Chew on this while you're at it: <a href="http://www.f1blogs.com/attack-ad-remix.wmv">http://www.f1blogs.com/attack-ad-remix.wmv</a>

and those are your thoughts?

I neither fear nor respect trolls

...and the people pay the bills.
...and this money for the military will allow the Military to what?...
protect the poor and homeless??
rectify hospital wait times?
run the bankers off?

Canada is out-gunnedgive arms dealers money won't change that!

as the title states ........Yes, I’m scared of Stephen Harper 
 
and so you should be...........we will be sold out to the american neo-cons..... 
 
some facts on harper, i have posted this before , a must read...be scared , be very scared 
 
Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy 
 
Close advisors schooled in 'the noble lie' and 'regime change'. 
 
What do close advisors to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement. 
 
Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity. Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us. 
 
In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of "regime change." 
 
Strauss defined a regime as a set of governing ideas, institutions and traditions. The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, who secretly conspired to make the invasion of Iraq a certainty, had a precise plan for regime change. They weren't out to merely replace Saddam with an American puppet. They planned to make the system more like the U.S., with an electoral process that can be manipulated by the elites, corporate control over the levers of power and socially conservative values. 
 
Usually regime change is imposed on a country from outside through violent means, such as invasion. On occasion, it occurs within a country through civil war. After the American Civil War, a new regime was imposed on the Deep South by the North, although the old regime was never entirely replaced. 
 
Is regime change possible through the electoral process? It's happening in the U.S., where the neocons are succeeding in transforming the American state from a liberal democracy into a corporatist, theocratic regime. As Canada readies for a federal election, the question must be asked: Are we next? 
 
The 'noble lie' 
 
Strauss believed that allowing citizens to govern themselves will lead, inevitably, to terror and tyranny, as the Weimar Republic succumbed to the Nazis in the 1930s. A ruling elite of political philosophers must make those decisions because it is the only group smart enough. It must resort to deception -- Strauss's "noble lie" -- to protect citizens from themselves. The elite must hide the truth from the public by writing in code. "Using metaphors and cryptic language," philosophers communicated one message for the elite, and another message for "the unsophisticated general population," philosopher Jeet Heer recently wrote in the Globe and Mail. "For Strauss, the art of concealment and secrecy was among the greatest legacies of antiquity." 
 
The recent outing of star New York Times reporter Judith Miller reveals how today's neocons use the media to conceal the truth from the public. For Straussians, telling Americans that Saddam didn't have WMD's and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, but that we needed to take him out for geopolitical and ideological reasons you can't comprehend, was a non-starter. The people wouldn't get it. Time for a whopper. 
 
Miller was responsible for pushing into the Times the key neocon lie that Saddam was busy stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. This deception helped build support among Americans for the invasion of Iraq. Miller was no independent journalist seeking the truth nor a victim of neocon duplicity, as she claimed. She worked closely with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff and responsible for coordinating Iraq intelligence and communication strategy. Libby is a Straussian who studied under Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, and before that, deputy secretary of defense, where he led the 'Invade Iraq" lobby. Wolfowitz studied under Strauss and Allan Bloom, Strauss's most famous student. 
 
Miller cultivated close links to the neocons in the administration and at the American Enterprise Institute, the leading Washington-based neocon think tank. AEI played the key role outside government in fabricating intelligence to make the case for invading Iraq. Straussian Richard Perle, who chaired the Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee until he was kicked off because of a conflict of interest, is a senior fellow at AEI and coordinated its efforts. Miller co-wrote a book on the Middle East with an AEI scholar. Rather than being a victim of government manipulation, Miller was a conduit between the neocons and the American public. As a result of her reporting, many Americans came to believe that Saddam had the weapons. War and regime change followed. 
 
'Regime change' in Canada 
 
As in the U.S., regime change became a Canadian media darling. Before 9-11, the phrase appeared in Canadian newspapers less than ten times a year. It usually referred to changes in leadership of a political party or as part of the phrase "regulatory regime change." Less than a week after 9-11, the phrase began to be used in its Straussian sense, as if a scenario was being choreographed. 
 
From 19 mentions in Canadian newspapers in 2001, regime change soared to 790 mentions in 2002 and 1334 mentions in 2003. With the Iraq invasion accomplished that year, usage tailed off in 2004 (291 mentions) and in 2005 (208 mentions to November 10). 
 
There's one big difference between American and Canadian Straussians. The Americans assumed positions of power and influence in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The Canadians have not had much opportunity to show (or is that hide?) their stuff. That may change with a Harper victory. 
 
Paul Wolfowitz's teacher, Allan Bloom, and another Straussian, Walter Berns, taught at the University of Toronto during the 1970s. They left their teaching posts at Cornell University because they couldn't stomach the student radicalism of the '60s. At Toronto, they influenced an entire generation of political scientists, who fanned out to universities across the country. 
 
Two of their students, Ted Morton and Rainer Knopff, went to the University of Calgary where they specialize in attacking the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They claim the charter is the result of a conspiracy foisted on the Canadian people by "special interests." These nasty people are feminists, gays and lesbians, the poor, prisoners and refugee-rights groups who are advancing their own interests through the courts at the expense of the general public, these Straussians allege. 
 
The problem with their analysis is that the special interest which makes more use of the courts to advance its interests than all these other groups combined -- business -- receives not a mention. Deception by omission is a common Straussian technique. The weak are targeted while the real culprits disappear. 
 
Harper's mentors 
 
Harper studied under the neocons at the University of Calgary and worked with them to craft policies for the fledgling Reform Party in the late 1980s. Together with Preston Manning, they created an oxymoron, a populist party backed by business. 
 
Ted Morton has turned his attention to provincial politics. He's an elected MLA and a candidate to succeed Premier Ralph Klein. But he did influence the direction of right-wing politics at the federal level as the Canadian Alliance director of research under Stockwell Day. 
 
When Harper threw his hat in the ring for the leadership of the Alliance, Tom Flanagan, the Calgary School's informal leader, became his closest adviser. Harper and Flanagan, whose scholarship focuses on attacking aboriginal rights, entered a four-year writing partnership and together studied the works of government-hater Friedrich Hayek. Flanagan ran the 2004 Conservative election campaign and is pulling the strings as the country readies for the election. 
 
Political philosopher Shadia Drury is an expert on Strauss, though not a follower. She was a member of Calgary's political science department for more than two decades, frequently locking horns with her conservative colleagues before leaving in 2003 for the University of Regina. 
 
Strauss recommended harnessing the simplistic platitudes of populism to galvanize mass support for measures that would, in fact, restrict rights. Does the Calgary School resort to such deceitful tactics? Drury believes so. Such thinking represents "a huge contempt for democracy," she told the Globe and Mail's John Ibbotson. The 2004 federal election campaign run by Flanagan was "the greatest stealth campaign we have ever seen," she said, "run by radical populists hiding behind the cloak of rhetorical moderation." 
 
Straus and 'Western alienation' 
 
The Calgary School has successfully hidden its program beneath the complaint of western alienation. "If we've done anything, we've provided legitimacy for what was the Western view of the country," Calgary Schooler Barry Cooper told journalist Marci McDonald in her important Walrus article. "We've given intelligibility and coherence to a way of looking at it that's outside the St. Lawrence Valley mentality." This is sheer Straussian deception. On the surface, it's easy to understand Cooper's complaint and the Calgary School's mission. But the message says something very different to those in the know. For 'St. Lawrence Valley mentality,' they read 'the Ottawa-based modern liberal state,' with all the negative baggage it carries for Straussians. And for 'Western view,' they read 'the right-wing attack on democracy.' We've provided legitimacy for the radical-right attack on the Canadian democratic state, Cooper is really saying. 
 
A network is already in place to assist Harper in foisting his radical agenda on the Canadian people. 
 
In 2003, he delivered an important address to a group called Civitas. This secretive organization, which has no web site and leaves little paper or electronic trail, is a network of Canadian neoconservative and libertarian academics, politicians, journalists and think tank propagandists. 
 
Harper's adviser Tom Flanagan is an active member. Conservative MP Jason Kenney is a member, as are Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Michel Kelly-Gagnon of the Montreal Economic Institute, the second and third most important right-wing think tanks after the Fraser Institute. 
 
Civitas is top-heavy with journalists to promote the cause. Lorne Gunter of the National Post is president. Members include Janet Jackson (Calgary Sun) and Danielle Smith (Calgary Herald). Journalists Colby Cosh, William Watson and Andrew Coyne (all National Post) have made presentations to Civitas. 
 
The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee is not mentioned in relation to Civitas but might as well be a member, if his recent column titled "George Bush is not a liar," is any evidence. In it, Gee repeats the lies the Bush neocons are furiously disseminating to persuade the people that Bush is not a liar. 
 
Neo-con to Theo-con 
 
The speech Harper gave to Civitas was the source of the charge made by the Liberals during the 2004 election -- sure to be revived in the next election -- that Harper has a scary, secret agenda. Harper urged a return to social conservatism and social values, to change gears from neocon to theocon, in The Report's Ted Byfield's apt but worrisome phrase, echoing visions of a future not unlike that painted in Margaret Atwood's dystopian work, A Handmaid's Tale. 
 
The state should take a more activist role in policing social norms and values, Harper told the assembled conservatives. To achieve this goal, social and economic conservatives must reunite as they have in the U.S., where evangelical Christians and business rule in an unholy alliance. 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. 
 
Movement towards the goal must be "incremental," he said, so the public won't be spooked. 
 
Regime change, one step at a time. 
 
 
 
also some facts on Paul Martin and what he stands for.....we have american agents in our government 
 
 
<<a href="http://paulmartintime.ca/where_paul_stands/>">http://paulmartintime.ca/where_paul_stands/></a>;

I feel many Conservative voters think most Canadians are willing to forget why we got the Chretien liberal government to begin with - his name was Brian the country killer Mulroney. He lead a government as dirty or dirtier than the current liberal party of Canada. Canadians sent them packing with only two seats awarded.

Today's Conservative party is still all the bad things the Mulroney Conservatives were. Canadians have not forgotten. They may have stabbed themselves by voting Liberal, but in my estimation we went from bad to bad so nothing much changed.

A Conservative minority government will be extremely short lived as their policies are in direct conflict with the majority of Canadians. The Conservative cheer squad here forgets that they may form a minority government with as low as 25% of the total vote. As soon as they try to enact legislation that the other 75% don't want, it is election time once again.

Vote Green and be done with failed Liberals and Conservatives. They have had their chances and their track records speak for themselves - a trail of misery, deceit, theft, lies, porkbarreling, failure, selling out...

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If there was ever a time for Canadians to become pushy - now is the time - for time is running out on this nation called Canada.

As is said elsewhere 'good government is not PARTY government'. Party politics divide people into 'cheerleaders', we see it above from both parties-both ideologues are in it 'to win'. That politics is no game and that 'people SHOULD be scared' is simply insane doesn't register. Of course people will anonymously write all kinds of things they'd never say out loud.

When ANY small group wants control of everything then people are right to be unnerved. This is true of ALL political parties in Canada. How many liberals here SUPPORT the liberals because they are stalwart ethical guardians of our society? Yeah, right. How many conservatives were saying the same wonderful things about Stockwell Day?

Of course we can't omit the fact that there are people out there who genuinely want to HURT people, but they are in the minority. Of conservative policies, in comparison to the states, they are not that different from liberals. Both want to 'crack down on crime', however, the feds have limited recourse there, so most provinces have already done it for them. Child porn legislation the liberals passed was virtually identical to what the conservatives were advocating, with only one difference-which the conservatives had to jump on to show that they weren't the same as liberals.

Take a look at 'howdtheyvote.ca'. For you conservatives all the evidence is right there, virtually every bill had unanimous support of liberals AND conservatives. What many are now aware of is that the liberals are now conservative, what conservatives simply haven't discussed or accepted is that the conservatives are liberal! A government cheque for enrolling your kid in sports?? How much more bleeding heart liberal can you get!