Canada's C Street. Holy pancakes.

Dr Prole posted a video last night to Rachel Maddow's latest series: The Family.

From teh Wiki:

The Family is a secretive network founded in 1935 and since known by several names, including The Fellowship, The Fellowship Foundation, National Fellowship Council, Fellowship House, The International Foundation, National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, and the National Leadership Council.

Sounds like a mafia name doesn't it? And that is really not that far off. They have branches all over the world, even here in Canada.

As Rachel Maddow pointed out here, there was a bit of noise about living accommodations in 2003. 

In April, the AP broke the story that six U.S. congressmen were paying the bargain rate of $600 a month each to live together in a swanky DC townhouse owned by a secretive fundamentalist Christian group known as the Fellowship or the Foundation. Many, understandably, were curious.
Who is this organization, and what is its agenda?

The most visible manifestation of the activities of The Family, is a National day of Prayer breakfast.  The rest is dark and shadowy, but gaining a lot more scrutiny because a few of it's members have recently been caught in some sex/adultery scandals.

This is not tin foil hat stuff. But these people are so powerful that they have mostly been given a pass in the Corporate media until recently. The Washington Post even printed an article back in June. The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Agenda:

The Family believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan. The Family represents "Jesus plus nothing," as its leader, Doug Coe, puts it, the "totalitarianism of God," in the words of an early Family leader, a vision that encompasses not just social issues but also the kind of free-market fundamentalism that is the real object of devotion for core members and insiders. At the heart of the Family's spiritual advice for its proxies in Congress is the conviction that the market's invisible hand represents the guidance of God, and that God wants his "new chosen" to look out for one another.

Chilling. The elite will rule the world, the free market as an invisible holy entity. And they are the ones to deliver gods word to the unwashed masses, the not "chosen".

The free market is the hand of god.

Think about that for a few moments.....The free market, manipulated by those who control it. The free market which crushes those in the lower income brackets. Sink or swim. Not really Christian like thinking to many minds, but any excuse is as good as another. Religion has been used as a powerful tool to oppress for thousands of years.

As I mentioned in the title, we have our own "C Street" or "Family" here too. And they too do the National prayer breakfasts. They seem to have a much lower profile here in Canada, although the agenda is almost exactly the same. When I say low key, I mean LOW key. But one does not have to do too much reading between the lines to get the complete picture of what is going on here....From the "National Prayer Breakfast" site.....

From the outset there have always been two unique aspects to the Prayer Breakfast. The first was that it should be a lay person who carries out the work. It was felt that lay people could better relate to leaders.
The other aspect was (especially around politicians) that everything should be done in a low-keyed,  behind the scenes manner. The main objective was to build relationships and this can be done most successfully in a personal, quiet, confidential way.

Shimmy up to the Elected officials. Canada's parlimentary system demands a different approach than the US one. There is also the fact that Canadians are far more leery of Evangelicals and religious whackos than many parts of the US.

A poll was conducted in 2006. that revealed that Canadians are less supportive of a leader with Evangelical world views than they were 10 years before, and in fact would be more supportive of a Muslim or an Atheist. Hence the very sneaky quiet language.

From the outset there were a number of conditions that were agreed upon. The first was that there would be no official organization; no President, Secretary or Treasurer and no official name and no Board of Directors, nothing to join or belong to, except the self imposed accountability to a few friends that shared the vision of building the body of Christ. However, to enable individuals to support this work
financially, a non-profit charitable foundation was formed. The Canadian Fellowship Foundation (CFF) is a federally chartered charitable foundation. The foundation serves no other purpose than to act as a vehicle to fund the activities of the Prayer Breakfast. Any additional assistance is provided on a volunteer basis.

Holy Pancakes, and sermons on the hill all under a charitable status. All of this is to sidle up to the Canadian Politicians and control the course of Canadian public and social policy. Paul Weyrich said it best,

A U.S. right-wing strategist says Canadians are "so liberal and hedonistic" that Stephen Harper can't hope to change their philosophy of "cultural Marxism" right away.

Given time, however, the Conservative prime minister-designate may straighten them out, Paul Weyrich writes.

Weyrich, a Washington fixture since the 1970s, runs a conservative think tank called the Free Congress Foundation.

And the Canadian Fellowship foundation's real agenda, is probably to straighten us out too. Dr Prole will be on this with more this weekend as well, stay tuned. 

Further reading:
Just because you're paranoid.....

This one is excellent as always:

Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons