Elon Musk's crypto-fascist crackpot grandfather
And Saskatchewan's Social Credit leader in the late 1940s
The anti-semitic crypto-fascist Premier of Alberta, Ernest Manning, delivered a speech to Social Credit supporters in Toronto on April 6, 1944. Chairing the meeting was Doctor Joshua Haldeman, Elon Musk's grandfather. (Toronto Star, April 6 1944)
Crypto-fascism in 1940s Canada
Four years earlier, Haldeman himself had been arrested by the RCMP in 1940 as a director of the illegal organization Technocracy Inc. in Saskatchewan. He paid a fine and was quickly released. Technocracy, Inc. was another 1930s crypto-fascist organization like the Social Credit movement. Technocracy Inc., wanted to install a "technocratic" dictatorship. Haldeman was a chiropractor, not a real medical doctor, and was trained in Iowa. He had moved to Saskatchewan with his step-father in 1905, after being born in Minnesota in 1902.
Also speaking at the April 1944 meeting in Toronto was Anthony Hlynka, an elected Social Credit Member of Parliament (1940-49) who was a prominent member of the Ukrainian National Federation which was a fascist-aligned organization supportive of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Melnyk faction). As the article below states, Hlynka wanted to do away with class antagonisms, but that his position was not "internationalist in any sense of the word" - internationalist being an overt fascist code for its anti-semitic and anti-left opposition to "Judeo-Bolshevism". Hlynka was a notorious anti-semite and fascist.
Ernest Manning and his predecessor, "Bible Bill" Aberhart, were infamously anti-semitic and Manning was also a Zionist, calling for Jews to be sent and supported in their colonization of Palestine. Hlynka was also linked to the Ukrainian Canadian Committee which was largely controlled and influenced by fascists like Hlynka who facilitated the importation of Ukrainian fascists after WW2.
The CCF, "international bankers", and "Nazi-Communists"
In June 1944, Saskatchewan voters overwhelmingly elected the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation to power. It was said to be the first socialist government elected in North America. The following year, Haldeman became the leader of Social Credit in Saskatchewan, which had not run in the 1944 election after its failed effort in 1938.
As the new Social Credit leader, Haldeman decried strikes in 1945 as being manipulated by "those who seek complete domination of the common people." (Edmonton Bulletin, October 19 1945). Haldeman expressed the views that became much more common with neo-conservatism in the 1980s. "Taxation has taken the place of the whipping post and slavery and has been more effective." He also declared that Social Credit was in a struggle between "Freedom or slavery" (Toronto Star, April 5 and April 6 1944).
In June 1946, the CCF Premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas, purged his popular director of Adult Education, Watson Thomson, for being a radical socialist. The scandal had opposition parties attacking, including Haldeman who declared that the CCF had been promoting "Nazi-Communist" doctrines that were run by "international finance." This was a continuation of the earlier attacks on "Judeo-Bolsheviks". It was the same ideology of the Ukrainian fascists who were beginning to come to Canada.
Haldeman was quoted saying: "The communist and socialist objective is to establish a highly centralized control behind which is international finance. The C.C.F. have been industriously promoting Nazi-Communist ideas since 1942. Every effort is made to use educational facilities for propaganda purposes." (Regina Leader-Post, June 13 1946)
At a public Regina meeting of one hundred people in March 1947, Haldeman accused the CCF of becoming a Nazi regime:
"You got the four freedoms, and a perfect planned economy in jail; in fact everything the socialists promised. You got freedom from want, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and freedom from fear. But the important freedom that was lacking was freedom to choose or refuse." CCF supporters and other opponents of Haldeman's were also present, with one person suggesting Haldeman find out how much freedom there was in jail by throwing a brick through a window. (Regina Leader-Post, March 17 1947).
Not satisfied with labeling the CCF as "Nazi-Communist", Haldeman went so far to say in a 1947 interview entitled "Social Credit Moves Right" that the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives were also tainted by socialism, and would only countenance working with the Conservatives if they declared their allegiances to the free enterprise system, and against "international bankers". (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, January 16 1947)
The crackpot
Later in 1947, Haldeman media stunts became more demented. Dressed as a "soothsayer", sporting a new goatee, a turban, and holding a crystal ball. He stood in front of a "Social Credit" banner which included a sun cross symbol previously used by Norwegian Nazis associated with Vidkun Quisling's puppet dictatorship.
Among his predictions was a Social Credit government in Ottawa by 1954, but not before World War Three: "Within two years there will be a war with Russia. The power-mad maniacs controlling the Russian people will throw away the lives of half the Russians in an effort to enslave the people of the world. It will take the democracies three years to stop them."
Of his beard, Haldeman explained it was a source of "man's strength," adding "As my hair is becoming scanty on top, I am compensating by growing a beard. I find that most men are secretly envious of my attempt."
Haldeman pontificated further, arguing that men had lost their masculinity by shaving their beards. Men were beciming feminine while women were "padding their shoulders and narrowing their hips, trying to look and act masculine."
"As the sexes got all mixed up, the world got more mixed up. I am leading a revolt toward the time when men will again be men and women wear their curves in the right places." (Regina Leader-Post, November 8 1947).
After the CCF won a decisive re-election and Social Credit won no seats and only 8 percent of the vote in the 1948 Saskatchewan election, Haldeman decided to leave Canada. Haldeman's family packed up and left for Apartheid South Africa in the fall of 1950.
Not too long after arriving in South Africa, Haldeman wrote a long letter to the Regina Leader-Post describing his family’s new life favourably, including a previously “unknown luxury” of black servants. His letter conveyed an immediate embrace of the Apartheid system and a deep dismissive racism towards the black population:
“It is impossible to make a native work hard. it takes three natives to do the work of one white man and white people here work about half as hard as Canadians..
“Black labor in South Africa industry is found to be the most expensive labor in the world. The males among the blacks on their reservations do not work at all and the women may work an hour or two so on their reserves their standard of living is not very high, but they are happy and contented with it unless stirred up and sirring them up is almost an impossible job. In spite of the best efforts of the Communists they have practically no success. Any talk of a native uprising in Africa is purely Communist wishful thinking or propaganda. There is no place in the world where the natives are treated better nor receive higher wages than here. Strict law enforcement is necessary to prevent the natives from surrounding territories flocking in here.”
He pontificated further,
“A native may be able to read and write in four languages and have no understanding of them, or maybe he just understands what he wants to understand. Some are quite clever in a routine job, but the best of them cannot assume responsibility and will abuse authority. The present government of South Africa knows how to handle the native question. They are endeavoring to make the natives as independent and self-supporting as possible. The Communists and their fellow-travellers continually misrepresent the government’s efforts. This includes the international press reports.”
Haldeman praised the white-controlled city of Pretoria for its modern amenities like a frigidaire deluxe, electrical goods, movies, Coca-Cola, and a cost of living lower than Canada’s.
“Everything seems to be booming here and mining prospecting is going ahead very fast. This country seems to have unlimited opportunities for development. The Rhodesias and South Africa could easily stand 50 million white people. We flew over hundreds of miles in which we could scarcely see even a native hut.”
