CBC documentary on AARC

[kilgore]

If you didn't know, David Suzuki's (to all appearances glowing) report on AARC will be aired January 2 at 9pm eastern.

http://cbc.ca/natureofthings/krystal.html

non-Canucks: Suzuki is a scientist and broadcaster with a long-running and highly acclaimed program called 'The Nature of Things', as well as an environmentalist and all-purpose liberal public intellectual.  Sadly, in official Canadian politics being a cantankerous green isn't incompatible with the most dunderheaded 'tough love' approach to sociology...here's the show's precis: '[the program] will document a radical new approach to curing drug addiction in teens. An approach that sets out to treat the family as much as the teen.'

I would expect a "hard science married with soft science equals effective treatment" sort of storyline; the chemists and the kind n' gentle family theorists working together in 'holistic' terms.  not sure if they'll downplay the debt AARC owes to religious lunacy (as against Suzuki's hard-science, rationalist background), or the sinister ideology of AA and the pseudo-Fascist Oxford Group it sprung from; more likely is some skeptical massaging of the degree, rather than kind, of thought control and coercion practiced at AARC.

From the page linked above you can access an online discussion forum which would be a good way to tell another side of the AARC story.

Alternatively, email the show at tnot@toronto.cbc.ca or phone them via CBC Audience Relations, (416) 205-3700.

Who knows: this will be a huge audience of people from all over the country, many of whom will be inclined to view radical Albertan/American interventions into the health care system with real suspicion.  It could be a great awareness booster.

Muster!

[Hamiltonf]

Interesting that you mention the pseudo-fascist "Oxford Group"
Interesting how these things keep circling around.  I wasn't aware that AA stemmed from them.  What I did know was they were pretty active in Brazil in the late 60's-70's supporting the army to undermine the unions.  (Links with General Pinochet in Chile perhaps?  and Margaret Thatcher?)
They certainly were active in Alberta in the 1960's and 70's and took a bunch of Alberta native's, eagle feather head-dresses and all, on a trip to South Africa to view the "positive" side of apartheid.
Their movement became "Moral Rearmament" What's the betting they are strongly linked to the Semblers, or indeed that the Semblers are right in there.

David Suzuki I have long admired.  Unfortunately , his credibility has been slipping recently.

[velvet2000]

Yeah I heard about that documentary. Anyone notice anything strange about that picture on the web page? Is that a black person in the picture? Or did they just hire her as an extra?!!

[Antigen]

On 2002-12-26 18:40:00, Hamiltonf wrote: What's the betting they are strongly linked to the Semblers, or indeed that the Semblers are right in there.

Ok, now here we go back into that dimly lit realm of conspiracy and king making. Now don't get me wrong, I'm dead certain that there are active and, to one degree or another, effective conspiracies afoot in world politics in our age. I know this to be true for one very simple reason; there are humans involved and one thing humans to best and most cheerfully is to conspire together for various reasons.

So, what have The Oxford Group and the Program got in common? Well, there's the basic cult methodology (higher purpose, sacred truth, social (and often physical) isolation and all that. That pretty much goes without saying.

There are a few other coincidences that suggest something more than coincidence. Bobby DuPont. Does anyone have proof, one way or another, if Bobby is or is not closely related to the DuPonts of Industiral Revolution fame? Bobby is tied in so many ways to the Semblers, Straight, NIDA, Nixon/Reagan/Bush &Co. How might the DuPonts have postured toward the Oxford Group aside from a common fanaticism for ProhibitionI?

And here's another little niggling, irksome question that I'll probably never have answered. Elijah Haines Hilliard's money. E.H.H. (as he like to be called, but rarely ever was) suffered terribly behind the Great stock market crash. He was cozy with a lot of well heeled Groupers and, eventually, after selling Fuller brushes door to door and building an impressive downstream, managed to finagle his way back into the good graces of the likes of Jack Sleschinger (who may or may not be related to Betty Sembler) retiring to Hilsboro Cove with the deep dock set (but, alas, no yacht of his own to anchor there).

Just after his death, 5/9 of E.H.H.'s grandchildren found their way into The Seed and then Straight along with 5/9 of the available inheritence plus whatever my mother could earn, beg or borrow on over the course of the next 10 years.

I'd love to find out if Betty was somehow related to Jack and if Haines (as we grandkin called him, but never to his face) had something to do with our getting tangled up with that crack-pot, Art Barker.

Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind...it doesn't matter!
--  Chuck Gauran

[Hamiltonf]

Interesting comment.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist, though.  It's just that these groups seem to be predicated on the thoughts/musings/beliefs/convictions of individuals  whom you might call "moral entrepreneurs"  The founder of the Oxford group was a moral entrepreneur of the 1930's who attracted a lot of money from the elite of the western world who were really frightened by Communism.  He even went so far as to declare support for Hitler.  Of course when things turned bad for the Nazi's the organization was quick to say they had been misinterpreted.  But they had very definite links to the quisling regime in Sweden.  The methodology of garnering support is similar, though, to that used by Straight type organizations.  Target the politically powerful to support you and endorse your product and you are in.  Interesting thing is that is exactly how AARC got going in Alberta.  Their biggest proponent in 1989 was the then president of the Alberta Medical Association.  That did the trick in getting legislature approval and having the hands of the AADAC officials slapped for not supporting them.  But hey, they're advocating motherhood and apple pie, right?
Back in the seventies, "UP WITH PEOPLE" a singing group formed under the auspices of Moral Rearmament  went singing around the world.  I was teaching at the time and witnessed a film shown in a class taught by a NUN  that was talking about how they had had great success undermining the unions in Brazil and establishing the generals in power  (to preserve order, of course).  This prompted me to research them further.  They virtually own the City of Caux in Switzerland and have a considerable film studios  (the largest in the US o/s Hollywood) in Michigan which produce a lot of propaganda films.  
The interesting thing about this NUN was that she denied any knowledge of the organization but later admitted to having been on a paid indoctrination session to their workshops in Caux.

The organization is still very,very wealthy.  I suspect they do get a lot of money from wealthy, but naive philanthropists.  

Now George Soros on the other hand is being touted by the DEA and NIDA as being the source of funds for a concerted effort (conspiracy) by pro-drug activists to decriminalize pot.

Oh well, it only goes to show how there's an ebb and flow to these movements.

[wesfager]

I've just posted an editorial on AARC and Suzuki's upcoming feature "Recovering Krystal" at http://www.thestraights.com  

Wes Fager

[Serpico]

Velvet could you please email us.
Thanks
Your bud
Serpico
International Survivors Action Committee
isac@tampabay.rr.com