Antinominalist Anarchism

I came across this site of a Christian Anarchist, now I know some people think being a Libertarian Communist is a contradiction or oxymoron, well how's about being a Christian Anarchist.

Actually there is a long tradition of just such radical ideas, it is called antinominalism, and it infected many of the rebels and adventurers that set about leaving England in search of the new world. It literally means to only obey the laws of God as you interpret them to be.

So I would say my namesake below is actually a practising antinominalist.

I'm Gene and I call myself the Christian Anarchist. I started in the 60's as a liberal hippie type and later became a Republican after I started to pay taxes. I became unhappy with the republicans and their talk of small government while they were increasing every program they could so I became a libertairan. Some time later I decided that I was not a libertairian either so I tried to determine exactly what I could label myself. I didn't fit into any party that I knew of. My strong belief in Christianity put me out of most groups who deny God's presence. I did not acknowledge any authority with eminated from man as I believe strongly that "all men are created equal". If we are all equal with equal rights, I could not see how anyone gets "extra" rights to rule others. My only conclusion was that no one has the right to rule over me. This is the definition of an anarchist so I started calling myself a "Christian Anarchist". I believed that I had invented the phrase, but after punching it into Google, I found several great links that express exactly what I feel, that no earthly authority is over man, only God is over man.

Other forms of Christian anarchism would be Tolstoy and the Catholic Workers movement of Dorothy Day. And the current activists in the Christian Peacekeeper Teams. Though these latter 'Christian' Anarchists are really the school of pacifism, rather than antinominalism. Anarchism is the ultimate big tent movement.

The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy advocated what has come to be known as anarcho-pacifism or Christian anarchism. He argued that Christians were obligated to be pacifists, and that pacifists, in turn, were obligated to be anarchists — since government is based on the use of force. Tolstoy was influenced by Henry David Thoreaus writings on civil disobedience. Tolstoys own writings on pacifism and non-resistance converted Gandhi to pacifism. In the modern era, theologians such as Mennonite John Howard Yoder and United Methodist Stanley Hauerwas have been strong advocates for Christian pacifism. Both have strengthened the pacifist argument with sophisticated philosophical underpinnings, grounded in the Bible and the life, words, and person of Jesus Christ. All words on Pacifism

Antinominalism can be called spiritual anarchy, and was considered by early church fathers as an essential element in some Gnostic Heresy's (hence the term used for the study of heretical ideas and the history/herstory of heresy is heresiology) .

Scholars refer to the ethical systems of the Carpocratian kind as antinominalism, that is, the belief that you needn’t observe either laws or the Ten Commandments because you’ve been made free of them by the grace of God. As long as the Savior has redeemed your sins, and the grace of God is in operation, then you are at liberty to have your own way. [Pocket Encyclopaedia of Mysteries]

As I wrote in reply to yet another religious anarchist, who asked the question can you be a Muslim Anarchist? And he was.These same heretical ideas appear within Islam as Sufism, coming as it did from Perisa (Iran) and the earlier religious theology of Zarathustra, or Zoraster .

And as part of the late 19th Century 'New Life' movement in England, which embraced lifestyle anarchism, socialism, homosexuality and feminism (Edward Carpenter being one of the better known proponents of this movement) moving to small villages, living a cooperative communal life, there was an embracing not only of an immanent Christianty and imminent revoultion, but a deep moral and sspiritual socialism as well. The New Life movement was influenced by Emerson's Transendentalism, as well as by mystical christianity and the socialist ideal of the brotherhood of man.

A basic history of the CROYDON BROTHERHOOD CHURCH

Back in the 1890's, there was an "Anarchist Church" that believed and practiced the following:

In only eating food that was co-operatively grown and ran its own shop and horse drawn distribution network,

They were vegetarians,

Ran a hostel for the homeless in your local pub,

Operated a cooperative tailors and Dressmaking,

Also a cooperative laundry, in a poor part of the town.

Believed in Free union without marriage,

Some wore "rational Dress" and others went on to become pioneer nudists.

Listened to lectures on:

Dangers of vaccination

vivisection

LETS schemes and the abolition of money

Pacifism,

Living in community, and the history of Utopian communities

Utopian Science fiction

Some would not use the railways as they were destroying the countryside; they cycled or walked distances of 100 miles or more.

Henry George and Land reform,

Communism, Anarchism, Unions, Guilds.

Kropotkin himself adovacted on behalf of persecuted Anabaptists, especially the Russian Doukhobors whom he advised to go to Canada and the U.S. to escape Tzarist persecution for their pacificsm. Anabaptists arose from the early peasant wars in Germany, as a Protest Sect, protestantism, against both Luthers principality of Princes of the Church and against the Papacy. And some Anabaptist sects are antinominalists, believing not in a church, or a divine law but rather a direct communication with God, that neither Church Law nor Man's law will bind them. Such is the case with the Doukhobors.

All those who hold the idea of a free church and freedom of religion (sometimes called separation of church and state) are greatly indebted to the Anabaptists. When it was introduced by the Anabaptists in the 15th and 16th centuries, religious freedom independent of the state was a radical idea, and unthinkable to both clerical and governmental leaders. Religious liberty was equated with anarchy and Peter Kropotkin traces the birth of anarchist thought in Europe to these early Anabaptist communities. ("Anarchism" from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 By Peter Kropotkin)

So yes Virgina there is such a thing as a Christian Anarchist.

Tags
libertarianism / anarchism /socialism/ Politics / anti-war / religion / pacifism / Doukhobor / antinominalism / Gnostic / Christian Anarchism / Tolstoy /Kropotkin

Problem Fixed

I fixed the coding problem here and now it appears that my blog works well in both Firefox and IE. Will miracles never cease. If you still have problems getting this page to load, please let me know. A tip o the blog to those of you who brought the width problem to my attention, and to DazzilinDino who helped out with useful suggestions. See we can all get along if we remember the old dictum, we agree to disagree...but help each other despite that. Of course then there are those who are just plain disagreeable.....but I am too full of holiday cheer to pay much attention to them.

Christmas in the Trenches

I have posted here before about the amazing tale of the Christmas Truce of 1914.

And this Christmas day I thought it would be good to remind us all of that sentiment, as our own Troops occupy Afghanistan and Haiti.

Something grand of the solidarity and brotherhood of man despite being forced to aim the bosses guns at each other.

I just heard John McCutcheon's wonderful song Christmas in the Trenches , from his Winter Solstice Album, on the radio so it inspired me to add this reminder of that amazing event. The link above for the album gives a short sample of the song.

It is one of two of my favorite anti-war songs, the other being And the Band Played Waltzing Matilida.

The Christmas truce of 1914 was early in the war, when everyone thought it would be over soon. Had the solidiers mutinied as their officers, on all sides, feared, the war would have been over. Unfortunately it lasted another four years. And was the source of the greatest Revolution of the 20th Century, when the Russian troops left the front and stormed the Winter Palace.

Christmas in the Trenches
by John McCutcheon
My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I, "Now listen up, me boys!" each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singing bloody well, you know!" my partner says to me
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war
As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was "Stille Nacht." "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky
"There's someone coming toward us!" the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one long figure trudging from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same

Last survivor of 'Christmas truce' tells of his sorrow

The First World War's horrors still move us but one man recalls his moment of peace amid the bloodshed

The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: 'Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht'. To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. 'Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.'

It was just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, 90 years ago on Saturday, and one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Great War was about to unfold.

Weary men climbed hesitantly at first out of trenches and stumbled into no man's land. They shook hands, sang carols, lit each other's cigarettes, swapped tunic buttons and addresses and, most famously, played football, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using their caps or steel helmets as goalposts. The unauthorised Christmas truce spread across much of the 500-mile Western Front where more than a million men were encamped.

Christmas Truce in the Trenches

By 1915 the war had expanded from the German French front to the Russian Turkish front. While Canadian and British troops fought in the trenches in France, Russians, Brits and Australians assaulted the Turks at Gallipoli.

It is this assault that inspired the movie, and inspired the song And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda by Eric Bogle.

His website includes a his song and his explanation for writing it including an excellent audio recording of the whole song. He also wrote No Mans Land (THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE), the version here is bilingual English and German, again in memory of the great Christmas Truce., and the recording is excellent.

Like Canada, Australia came of age in WWI. For the first time ever both colonial countries had our own officers. Unfortunately both of our countries also suffered the indignity of being colonial troops, canon fodder for the English ruling class officers. For Canadians it was Ypres and Vimy Ridge. For the Australians it was the murderous assault on Gallopoli.

Thus Bogles song of how the Austrlian Johnny, got his gun.

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915, my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop ramblin', there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.

And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As the ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water;
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was waitin', he primed himself well;
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell --
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
When we stopped to bury our slain,
Well, we buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.

For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"
All around the green bush far and free --
To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April, I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

The great Wobbly poet and song writer Joe Hill wrote this poignant Anti War song in 1915, as the IWW denounced the War and were thrown in jail for sedition.

As the War Amps say; Never Again.

They are one of the few Veterans associations that is Anti-War. And one of the few to recgonize the unsung heros of the Spanish Civil War, the Canadian Veterans of the International Brigades. They have sponsored an album of Anti-War Songs including these above sung by the great Canadian tenor John McDermot.

The Green Fields of France

(Performed by John McDermott)

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride, do you
mind if I sit here down by your graveside. And rest for a
while 'neath the warm summer sun. I've been walking all day and
I'm nearly done. I see by your gravestone you were
only nineteen when you joined the great fallen in nineteen-sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died
clean. Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and unseen.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed then forever behind the glass frame
In a old photograph, torn, battered and stained
And fade to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze. it makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last post and chorus.
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers of the forest'.

I am Willie McBride I can't help but wonder why
Did all those who lie here know why did they die
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end war
For the sorrows, the suffering, the glory. the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Merry Christmas!

Make War No More!

Tags anti-war / war /Christmas Truce /WWI /songs/ veterans

Problems With Page

If you have problems with reading this page try IE rather than Firefox. Currently some code or missing code in my template is buggering Firefox but you can read the page perfectly well in IE.
I hope to get this fixed soon.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Well here is another nail in the coffin of the 'Junk Science' deniers of Global Warmning. It comes from that well known group of hysterical outspoken envrionmentalists known as NASA. It was reported in the Independent last week but got little notice in the media.

World is at its hottest since prehistory, say scientists

The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded.

In Canada the Climate Change Conference was wrapping up. Paul Martin was in the news for wagging his finger at the U.S. over Kyoto, while doing nothing about his governments record of failure to follow up on its Kyoto commitments.

And those Climate Change deniers who claim that the 'Record' violent Hurricane season and the wicked Monsoons we experienced this year were not due to Global Warming, well once again these science fakirs and apologists for 'big business' are exposed by the authentic empirical science of NASA.The worst weather ever? At $200bn, it's certainly the costliest

Asked if he thought it was appropriate for a major American oil company to be funding a lobbyist targeting European companies, [ExxonMobil-funded lobbyist Chris Horner] replied: 'Everybody else does.' How America Plotted to Stop Kyoto Deal

Also See:

After Montreal A View From the Past

Capitalism=Climate Change

Kyoto Be Damned

Tags
science/ environment/ global warming/climate change/ Kyoto/ junk science

CTV Liberal Bias

Various Blogging Torys have discovered that CTV political reporters seem to have a Liberal bias. Or a bias in favour of the Liberals. No more so than Mike Duffy.

Conservative Life hits it on the head when he writes about the conflict of interest in the managment of CTV/Global Media and the fact that Charles Bird is the Ontario Liberal campaign manager and vice-president at Bell Globemedia (parent company of CTV and The Globe and Mail).

This is a conflict of interest but in Canada this is business as usual between the media and political parties. It is no different than Lord Blacks backing of the Reform/Alliance through his creature the National Post.

Or the Asper families editorial interference in the Canada.com papers by providing editorial content they had to run. Their direct interefence in stories about the middle east, defending Israel and labeling and opposition to Israeli as 'terorist'. And the Aspers also were long time funders and supporters of the Liberals.

While the Blogging Torys cry about CTV or the Globe and Mail bias in favour of the Liberals, their party is not on the recieving end of this bias as much as the Bloc is.

Duffy on his Mike Duffy Live and Countdown, literally oozes and gushes when he reports on the Liberals in Quebec taking on the Bloc. And it is not often he has any BQ spokespeople on his program. Whenever he has a federalist on whether a Conservative or Liberal he fawns over them if they take on the nasty seperatistes of the Bloc. It's the closest he gets to editorializing.

Mind you the NDP also get short shrift on Duffy's programs, for instance on his afternoon show, which runs opposite Don Newmans Politics on CBC Newsworld,
he has a segment called He Said She Said between Conservative and Liberal strategists. No NDP no BQ. What are only two parties running in this election.
One would think so watching Duffy's shows.



The same bias cannot be said of CTV's Question Period, where they have all four parties represented. Though apparently some is detected by Conservative Life and his readers, which is simply nit picking on their part much as they did recently over a change in a newstory on the CTV web site. Its called editing, but they saw in it a more nefarious conspiracy. Though again the Pro Federalist bias is still there.

Marc Garneau hopes to keep Canada together Liberal candidate Marc Garneau has represented Canada in space, but now he wants to represent a riding in Quebec to keep his country together.

On Don Newmans Politics, the supposedly 'liberal' (though not Liberal) media,CBC, all four party's are represented in debates between Party strategists or Media spokespeople.

Such was not the case last election in 2004. The bias was claring in the abscence of any Bloc prescence on either Politics or QP. I think in no small way my emailing and writing about this helped push Politics at least to finally invite the Bloc spokespeople on more often.

I mean here you have a party that was the Official Opposition, has the majority of seats in Quebec, and is the third party in the house and they get no recognition or very little on English Canadian media. As Monte Solberg would say, that's alien-nation.

So to the Blogging Tory's welcome to the wonderful world of corporate capitalism, where convergance means interlocking boards of directors, and interconnected management between corporate media and political parties. Where those in power in the corporate sector and the media sector want to be on the inside of political power. And for the last twelve years the Natural Ruling Party has been the Liberals. So you are surprised that the movers and shakers at CTV/ Bell Globemedia are Liberals?

Well let me tell you about a mover and shaker here in Alberta that works for the Conservatives, fundraises, and while not a media mogul has the ear of Ralph. Does Rod Love sound familiar? And he recently was a consultant to the Gomery Comission on democratic reform (sic) something he and his boss would never ever consider for Alberta.

So quit whining. If the Conservatives are ever elected as the Government the same thing will occur in the corridors of power and the media. And the BQ and NDP will still not be on He Said She Said.

The only Free Press belongs to those that own one.

A.J. Liebling





Tags
CBC
Canada
Federal Election
CTV
Globe & Mail
Mike Duffy
Don Newman
Blogging Torys
Conservative
Liberal
BQ
NDP

An NDP Coalition Government

Chatel Herbert in the Toronto Star says so. She is everyone's favorite and respected columnist, usually when she says nice things about their party or bad things about the other guys.

Warren K. was cheerful that Chantel had, like him, discovered that the Harper was now a born again 'progressive' (conservative) just like him. And Greg Staples joy that she likes Harper. She really likes him, Staples gushed.

I found that what Chantel said about the NDP was far more important despit the Harper Headline.

the minority Parliament has given the country a glimpse at a different future for the NDP.By co-authoring a federal budget, the NDP not only gave itself a record to showcase in the campaign but, for the first time in its federal history, the party has also had to defend its choices rather than just criticize those of others. That has forced it to start speaking the language of trade-offs, as Jack Layton did when he admitted that privately delivered health-care services and the Clarity Act were both here to stay. If New Democrats are to continue to hold sway in the Commons, they will have to become even more familiar with the practice of the art of the possible.To most Canadians, the notion that Ed Schreyer, Alexa McDonough, Bill Blaikie or Jack Layton could one day sit around a federal cabinet table alongside Liberal or even Conservative ministers seems far-fetched.But if the NDP ever gets the more proportional election system it is advocating, minority governments would become the rule rather than the exception. And the presence for the foreseeable future of a sovereignist party in the Commons would make the New Democrats the most likely bedfellows of any minority government, regardless of ideology.With the potential advent next month of a Parliament at least as sharply divided as the previous one, the notion of a coalition government may become a reality long before electoral reform stops being a policy abstraction in Canada.




Tags
Canada
Federal Election
Toronto Star
Chantal Herbert
Conservative
NDP
politics

Spellng

I hav alwys beleived that to critisize peuple for there spellng and gramma mythtakes wuz the lowest kinda attak its reely a cheep shoot. It avods discusing the reel argument that I or othrs might make. B-sides ths blogg dsnt alloww four spllchckng. Often I hav speling erors becuase I typo so fast that I make typ os rther than spellng mithtakes. So when you vsit and red my stuf here pleas excus the erors they realli r only typos. On the othr hnd all mythtakes here may b deliberite. Just 2 see IF yu are paying attntion.

Ayn Rand 100

It turns out that not only did 1905 usher in the first Russian Revolution, Dada, Einsteins Theory of Relativity, the IWW, Modernism and the avante garde as I wrote of here earlier, but it was also the year that Ayn Rand was born.

She was the ideologist of glorious unbridled individualist capitalism, sometimes mistaken for Libertarianism; the individualist ideology of Stirner, Netizche, Tucker, and Emma Goldman.

Such was not the case, hers was philosophy for Engineers who never took a liberal arts course. Her novels, dull and pedantic were seen by these same Engineers as great literature.

Her novel the Fountainhead was made into a forgetable movie, at the time that America began the Cold War, and mass consumerism abolished the memories of the pre war Depression. Her hero an architect was her ideal self sufficient individual, of course it helped he was rich and had lots of others to work for him.

Born in Russia she left in 1926. Her writing was influenced by the great Russian writer and individualist Eugene Zamaytin, whom she copied but never surpassed or even matched.

Hers was a materialist philosophy called Objectivism,a radical subjective psychology of making others into objects of appropriation for her selfish indvidual.

In normal situations, each man is responsible for himself and his own life, and that, socially, he should deal with others as a trader, meaning trading value for value, and dealing with others only by mutual voluntary consent. Never initiating force against another human being. Never sacrificing himself to others, or others to himself. That, in very brief, is the essence of the Objectivist ethics.

"Morality, And Why Man Requires It"

As a result her individualist psychology (morality) was that of happy adulter, her individualist morality that of the wife swapper, or in her case the husband swapper. For Ayn liked to wear the pants in the relationship. Her lifestyle like her philosophy was De Sadean. She dominated her circle of friends and students and partners.

She asked in her novel Atlas Shrugged; Who is John Galt? To which the reply is; Who Cares.

For more information click here.

Tags
Ayn Rand
capitalism
individualism
objectivism
psychology
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
libertarian

I Won! I Won!

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Merry Christmaskah

Today is Christmas Eve and Chanuakah
So Don't Be A Scrooge or a Grinch
Share some cheer and mirth
With family and Friends

You Take Quebec, I'll Take Alberta

SEPERATIST ALLIANCE

You take Quebec, I'll Take Alberta

(sung to Leonard Cohens First They Took Manhatan)

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First you take Quebec, then I'll take Alberta
I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First you take Quebec, then I'll take Alberta

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First you take Quebec, then I'll take Alberta

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Stephen Harper

Vote Out Anders

Is notorious right wing anti-union, pro aparthied hack Rob Anders in trouble in Calgary West?

We can only hope so.

Like his pals Jason Kenney and Ezra LeRant, Anders is a graduate of the Fraser Insititute intern program.

He went on to become the point man for the joint Fraser Institute/ National Citizens Coalition campaign against unions in the ninties.

And like Kenney he cut his teeth in politics south of the border working for the Republicans. And he still keeps his Republican ties.

He was the spokesman for Canadians Against Forced Unionisation, a Fraser Institute/NCC front group to push for Right To Work laws in Alberta,in 1995, thinking the Klein government would be open to these 'reforms'.

In his bio on the Conservative.ca election page they coyly refer to his union busting attempts;

"Prior to entering Parliament, Mr. Anders directed a labour market project (sic) for the National Citizens Coalition."

Labour market project, yeah right, he was pushing for Right to Work laws, and ending 'compulsory unionization' in Alberta.


In 2000 Anders got into hot water for denying, whether by commission or ommission, student employment projects for his riding.

Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance MP for Calgary West, refused to approve 83 out of about 200 grants recommended for his riding by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), which has been the subject of an ongoing financial scandal. The funding provides summer jobs and work experience for students by helping organizations and businesses cover the cost of hiring them.

And then he really made the news with his denouncing Nelson Mandela;

In 2001, the Federal Government decided to give Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship, making him only the second foreigner to receive such an honour. Rob Anders disagreed, calling Mandela, "a communist and a terrorist," decrying Mandela as "the politically correct Left-lib poster boy of today", and predicting that he would be forgotten in 30 years.

For this Warren Kinsella placed Rob Anders in both the second and third place catagories for top ten political outrages of the Parlimentary session of 2000-2001

As a poster boy for the extreme right in the Reform/Alliance and now Conservative party, he has used his position as an MP to do little for his constiuents and much to advance his own personal right wing agenda.

As a result in the 2004 election residents in his Calgary West riding launched the Vote Out Anders Campaign, complete with website. And apparently they are back as of this week.

His problems don't end there. On the CBC forum on Calgary West where folks can leave their comments they are overwhelming against Anders.

One of his personal political campaigns is against China. Now being the complete opportunist he is, he has latched onto the Galun Fong and Tibetans in order to persue his personal anti-communist agenda.

Just as the old right wing would admonish about the communist reds in Russia and Cuba, Anders is opposed to Red China. And he has the support of friends who are even slimier, like the notorious racist and fascist, Paul Fromm who is associated with White Power and Nazi groups in Canada and internationally.

It is typical of proto-fascists to disguise their poitics as anti-communism. It was traditional in the the 1960's for folks involved in the KKK and White Power and Nazi movements to claim that they weren't racist but saving America from communism. When it came to Martin Luther King these same creeps claimed he was a communist. Anders is no different, his attack on Mandela was racist and fascist, using red baiting as a cover.

Today he does the same around China.

Reform MP Rob Anders was asked to leave a Chinese New Year celebration
on Parliament Hill because he was wearing a T-shirt calling for China to
get out of Tibet. The 27-year-old MP for Calgary West appeared at the Wednesday night event wearing the T-shirt, which a1so bore the slogans Stop Tiananmen
tanks, forced abortions, burning books, and independent Indo-China,
Korea and Taiwan.

As a flack for the NCC he is Stephen Harpers loyal syncophant. Harper defended Anders outrageous comments about Mandeala and offered no criticism around his Anti-China provocations.

Certainly we all remember Tianamen square, and I have blogged here critically of the state captialist regime in China but Anders is an opportunist. He is not genuinely concered with Tibet or even the Falun Gong. He is doing this because he is a fascist and red baiting anti-communist propaganda is a sure sign of it.

At a Conservative fundraiser in Calgary this past spring it is reported that he raised the old right wing bugaboo about bilingualism being forced on all us good White English Canadians.

"Bilingualism is a problem today" Rob said. He complained that plaques that had been unilingual are now English and French and that it "didn't help" that people spoke "Chinese and Arab and other languages too" in Canada.

Yep he really feels for the oppressed Chinese peoples.

During the second week of the election campaign Anders used his parlimentary franking privleges to send out a torrid pamphlet denouncing crack addicts, homosexual sex marriage, and calling for law and order, in Richmond B.C.!

But take a look at the front of this pamphlet, typical scare tactics and fearmongering so commonly used in Nazi like propaganda campaigns.
Does this look like an election pamphlet to you?

Wow I didn't know Richmond B.C. was New York. But considering the crime rate and the increasing gun violence in the Lower mainland which has people worried this was a provocation. And you paid for it with your tax dollars.

The term homosexual sex marriage, used in this pamphlet is another provocation. He deliberately called it that. He did not call it Same Sex Marriage. He attempted to conjure up lewd sexual imagery with his misanthropic malapropism. Again from last spring Anders said this;

Then we got to Rob's favourite topic - "moral decay". "The problem with homosexuality and gay marriage" was that it led to a declining birth rate

Huh? The man defintely has sex on the brain, but the decline in the birth rate is not the fault of gays or lesbians.

Rob is a Roman scholar as well. He like many reactionaries before him uses the decline of the Roman empire to explain what he sees as moral decay in modern society. During the Same Sex Marriage debate in the House of Commons he said this;

Edward Gibbon goes on in his work, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to cite several things that made for the decline of the Roman Empire. One of those, the first that he cites, was the immorality that destroyed the integrity of family life.The second thing that Gibbon talks about is gender confusion and the problems that had in the Roman Empire. The third is disregard for religion. I think we can see some parallels today.

Once again, Augustus Caesar, to elongate the Roman Empire, restored the sanctity of marriage.

Those guilty of initiating divorce lost three-quarters of their property to their spouse. They did not get 50%. A woman would be stripped of her wealth and ornaments, and if the man introduced a new bride into his bed, his fortune would be lawfully seized by the vengeance of the exiled wife. We should think about that in terms of divorce rates. Offenders were even disabled from the repetition of nuptials. In other words, if people had a divorce they could not get remarried.

He stimulated the birth rate. He rewarded the parents of large families. As a matter of fact, if parents had as many as five children under the Emperor Augustus, they no longer paid any tax. One can imagine what not having to pay tax would do for a Canadian family with five children.

Yep you read that right Rob opposes divorce, and supports tax breaks for families with five children or more.

Another politician that was impressed by Augustus Ceaser and applied these same policies to his Reich was Adolph Hitler.

Augustus himself was not innocent of plotting executions to eliminate personal enemies. He favored loyalists like Herod who controlled their subjects, whatever the method. In fact, when he found that Herod was more effective in suppressing revolts than Roman governors In running the empire as a centralized corporation, he was more concerned to suppress public dissent than to promote social justice. Thus, he was also the father of the totalitarian state.

Both Hitler and Mussolin were fascinated with ancient Rome and attempted to ressurect it in the modern age.

For a self professed Christian, Rob sure does like them authoritarian pagan Roman Emperors who were slave owners and drenched in the blood of conquered peoples.

And despite his admonions about how great Augustus was, how moral, Rob did overlook Augustus Ceasars incestous affair with his sister. But then they hadn't run the HBO mini series Rome on cable yet.

Augustus' personal life, on the other hand, was a series of disappointments & disasters. He had no son & his only daughter's sons all died before him. So, he was forced to adopt his wife's son, Tiberius, whom he disliked. In public Augustus posed as champion of traditional family values; but the intrigues & scandalous behavior of his own family, including his wife, daughter & their children produced one of history's most lurid soap operas, complete with the murder of kin, public debauchery & incest.

In a commentary article in the right wing National Review Online Rob had an article on humour, a Canadian export south, where he said;

the Liberal party supports what is increasingly becoming a dogmatic, one-party-state (secular) theocracy.

Huh? A what? How can you be a secular theocracy, is Paul Martin the Pope or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire? Is this another Roman refernce by Rob? After all Canada is a Catholic country.

And Rob wrote this last January the Liberals were a Minority government. Minority as in there were more opposition members than Liberals. I think Rob has gotten Ottawa confused with Alberta.

Besides voting against Same Sex Marriage, during the past sitting of the House,
Anders voted against:

C-2, Child Pornography
C-278, Employment Insurance

C-263, Prohibition of replacement workers in labour disputes

C-272, Sponsorship of a relative for immigration purposes
C-283, Immigration and refugee protection and sponsorships
C-206, Alcohol warning labels

C-14, Tlicho Land Claims and Self-Government Agreement

C-21, Not-for-profit corporations
C-13, DNA data bank
C-11, Whistleblower protection and procedure
C-17, Marijuana
C-65, Street racing
C-64, Prohibit removal of Vehicle Identification Number
C-63 An Act to amend An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act
C-260 An Act respecting the negotiation, approval, tabling and publication of treaties (Treaties Act)
C-48, Budget Amendments

But he did vote in favour of
C-30, Parliamentarian salaries to increase in accordance with private sector salaries

Rob has a real thingee about drugs, in an article in the conservatice weekly Human Events he attempted to link the bust of B.C. provincial Liberal party staffers, members of Gordon Campells government, with Paul Martin and the booming B.C. marijuana trade.

So the citizens of Calgary West are once again being asked to vote, but unlike last election they have an alternative to Mr. Anders.

Jennifer Pollack the former chair of the Calgary Board of Education is running against Mr. Anders. Ms. Pollack is a high profile canadidate.

And one who has faced the wrath of Ralph Klein. She and members of her democratically elected board were ousted after the Klein government, in an unprecidented move, because they refused to be his scapegoat for deficits that were a direct result of his governments failure to fully fund public education.
It appeared this coup de dat was organized with the conivance of Conservatives on the the board. Fights began right after the election between the minority of Conservatives and the majority Liberals on the board. After being deposed by the Klein government, Pollack ran again and was relected to the school board.

Last election Anders got over 55% of the vote, with a lower voter turn out. than the 2000 election. The Liberals got just over 29% with a low impact campaign with a no name candidate. With an active Vote Out Anders campaign, pragmatic politicks calls for a united front vote for Pollack.

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Rob Anders
Nelson Mandela

B.C. will determine the winner

The battle field may be Ontario, but in reality it will be the West, sans Alberta, where the race will be run and won come election night. In particular it will finally be B.C.'s turn to determine who is in or out of government. The polls shows the largest variation between the Conservatives and Liberals occurs in Western Canada. Leaving out Tory Blue Alberta which carries little variance, the poll has been jumping up for the Liberals ,NDP and yes the Greens and a steady decline for the Conservatives.

Western Canada
Includes: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia

DATE	CON	LIB	NDP	GRN			FIRM
12/22/05	38	36	19	7			SES
12/21/05	39	35	20	7			SES
12/20/05	41	33	19	6			SES

Manitoba and Saskatchewan

DATE	CON	NDP	LIB	GRN			FIRM
12/22/05	41	29	27	3			Strategic Counsel

DATE	LIB	CON	NDP	GRN			FIRM
12/21/05	35	27	25	13			Leger

British Columbia

DATE	LIB	NDP	CON	GRN			FIRM
12/22/05	35	34	26	5			Strategic Counsel
12/21/05	39	29	26	6			Strategic Counsel
12/20/05	38	26	32	4			Strategic Counsel

DATE	LIB	CON	NDP	GRN			FIRM
12/21/05	34	32	24	5			Leger

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Lets Not Forget the Hostages

The Christian Peace Keepers Team is still being held hostage in Iraq. These pacifist observers and activists are two Canadians a Brit and an American. Bush blathered on this week about the success he is having in Iraq and forgot to mention these hostages or the other victims of his imperial war. Their execution date has come and gone, and now their families and friends are still waiting.

Families of Iraq hostages issue new appeal

Christian Peacemaker Teams member Canadian James Loney, of Toronto, is seen in this undated handout photo.

This Christmas season our thoughts should be with them and the hunderds of Iraqi civilians held hostage by the Iraqi state and its American Occupying army. Light a candle, sign the petition, send an email of solidarity to the CPT.

I recieved this email on line from Sojourners, and since the article is only available by email I am posting it here.

'Waiting has taken on a whole new meaning'

by Rose Marie Berger

Living in Baghdad outside the Green Zone, Christian peacemaker Maxine Nash talks about what Advent means while four of her team members are held hostage.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

When Maxine Nash volunteered to go to Iraq, she didn't go with weapons ready. She went armed with her faith, her skills in conflict resolution, and her courage to be as defenseless as those she was serving: the ordinary people of Iraq.

Nash, 43, a Quaker from Waukon, Iowa, joined the Christian Peacemaker Teams' steering committee in June 2002. CPT provides organizational support to persons committed to faith-based nonviolent alternatives in situations where lethal conflict is an immediate reality. As her service with CPT continued she was hooked by CPT's fundamental question: What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? In the summer of 2003, Nash went through CPT's rigorous training in nonviolent intervention in conflict situations. In February 2004 she was on her way to Iraq, where she has been stationed full-time ever since.

CPT member Tom Fox visits with refugee children the month before he and three other team members were abducted.

On Nov. 26, four of Nash's team members were kidnapped by people calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. In the days following the kidnapping, the group released videos of Tom Fox, 54, Norman Kember, 74, James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Sooden, 32, to al Jazeera threatening to kill the four men by Dec. 8 if detainees in U.S. and Iraqi prisons were not freed. The deadline was extended to Dec. 10; the date passed and there has been no further news. These four join hundreds of Iraqis who are currently held by kidnappers.

On Friday, Dec. 16, I called the CPT apartment in Baghdad and spoke with Maxine Nash about the four men, the Iraqi elections, and Advent. - RMB

BERGER: Maxine, thanks for talking to us. What are you and fellow Iraq team members Greg Rollins and Anita David doing in the midst of the kidnapping situation and the elections?

NASH: Well, right now we are pretty restricted to our apartment and our small neighborhood in Baghdad during the elections because of the road closures. They've been closed for three days and everybody is stuck right now. We haven't been able to get out and see what's happening very well, but we've been hearing lots from our neighbors.

BERGER: How was the voter turnout for this election?

NASH: There was an incredible voter turnout. People have told us that they waited in long lines and that the lines at the end of the day were as long as earlier on. This is different from the first election and referendum where the lines were pretty thinned out by the end of the day. This time it seemed pretty quiet. There was not a lot of violence or disturbances. In the past there has been a lot of on-the-ground violence in the voter lines. But the reports we hear is that this time everyone was smiling and friendly, and it was a good election.

BERGER: Were there any bombings?

NASH: The most we heard was mortars hitting the Green Zone. We heard one around 7 a.m. [Dec. 15] and a few more this morning. Because the mortars were clearly aimed at the Green Zone, the message seems to be clearly against the occupying force or the existing Iraqi government who are all headquartered in the Green Zone.

BERGER: Do you think the election outcomes will affect the work of CPT at all?

NASH: It's hard to know if the elections will affect our work. It's just wait and see for us, but we don't expect that the outcomes will have much effect on our ongoing work.

BERGER: Tell me about your ongoing work.

NASH: We have worked a lot on the detainee issue because we were getting requests from families who had a member taken into the American detention system and they needed English speakers to help them navigate the system. We first started doing that work when the Red Cross has been bombed. The Red Cross wasn't available to help, so people came to us. Now the U.S. has developed a better tracking system. We don't have to do so much of this work any more. It's easier for families to find people. Now we are doing a lot of human rights work to give media attention to situations that we think need more coverage.

BERGER: What are the current situations you are focusing on?

NASH: We are getting reports about people being disappeared within the U.S. detention system or in the Iraqi prison systems. We are trying to follow up on this.

BERGER: Have you seen a change in the presence of U.S. forces? The news we are getting is that they are pulling back.

NASH: The U.S. forces have pulled out of a few urban areas. In Karbala, for example, the Iraqi troops have taken over the area and the U.S. is much less visible. But Karbala is a pretty settled area. In Baghdad, there are still house raids and people being detained in the middle of the night - but we are seeing less of the U.S. troops. What we are learning though is that now the Iraqi troops have taken over doing the house raids and detaining people and are now putting people in Iraqi prisons. In areas with increased violence, like Ramadi, the U.S. troop presence has increased exponentially, according to the reports we hear.

BERGER: Thousands of people, including us here at Sojourners, are praying for the safe release of your four team members who are currently being held hostage.

NASH: Please tell every one thank you for us for the prayers. We wish that the four guys could somehow know that everyone is praying for them. In particular, I think Tom [Fox] is very aware of that kind of spiritual presence and I'm sure he feels it. A few weeks before they were taken we had a worship where we were doing centering prayer. Tom said that the word that kept coming to him in prayer was "open." Can you believe that? I think they all know that people are praying for them. Tom, I know, feels the spiritual support. And if he feels it, then he will tell the others.

BERGER: Has there been any further news about their fate?

NASH: There is no news yet. Continued prayers are our best hope. It really is the best thing we think to do. Also, please keep the story alive in the media. It keeps pressure on the kidnappers to acknowledge that the guys are who they say they are and to release them.

BERGER: What are your next steps?

NASH: We are looking for ways to expand attention to our human rights work. Tom, James, Harmeet, and Norman have now become part of that monitoring of human rights abuses. Our human rights work now includes the abduction of our four guys.

BERGER: What has waiting meant to you this Advent season?

NASH: My personal reflection is that waiting has taken on a whole new meaning. Advent is a season of hope. I am personally drawing strength from that. The comparisons between our Iraq and Jesus' Israel run through my mind. The season before Jesus was born was a troubling time. It was the time of an occupation. Jesus' parents were going to register for a census. We know what happened at the end: There was a miracle! We are hoping for the same thing at this point.

BERGER: How has your local community responded to the news of the kidnapping?

NASH: Our neighbors here are very saddened by what has happened. Many of the families here have had members kidnapped. For them it is not a new situation. But they know that we are here for the right reasons and that we are one of the few NGOs still here. They are very much against what has happened. They tell me, "I saw Tom on the TV and I cried," because that's how they found out the news. They bring us meals or ask if they can do shopping for us. The 10-year-old daughter of our neighbor told us she was doing her daily prayers for our kidnapped folks. It's very, very touching.

BERGER: Is there anything else you would like to say?

NASH: We want to express our deepest and sincere thanks for the outpouring of support that we have received. We've found out about all kinds of people doing things for us. Even the variety of people who have come out in support. There are people we would never have imagined - Muslim clerics and religious leaders. We are so thankful for the amount of support we've received. It's very hard for us even to imagine here in our cocoon in Baghdad, but we hear about all the vigils and prayers and things people are doing. We are very grateful.

---

Iraq Team Message to the Missing CPTers
17 December

Dear Harmeet, Jim, Norman, and Tom,

We still are longing to see your faces. So many people continue to let us know that they are thinking of you and praying for you. As Christmas approaches, we continue to hope that you will be able to join us and your families for the celebrations. Anita has written her aunt for the best turkey dressing recipe known to the world. We continue to stay in touch with your families. Your friends in Iraq ask about you all the time. We don't know how much you get outside, but the weather is nice here in Baghdad. We hope to see you soon.

With much love,
Your Teammates in Baghdad

+ See CPT's response to President Bush's address about the war in Iraq

+ Keep up with the CPT captives' news on the "Free the Captives" blog

+ Share this issue with your friends

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