Bubbles and the Borg… Isn’t it ironic – and more than a little alarming! – that all these Pandemic Response “life-saving” rules are brought to us by the same folks who are wholly committed to global population reduction… Doesn’t that give you pause to consider whether they really have your best interests at heart? Do you ever begin to wonder (heaven-forbid “question”) if closures, masking, distancing, tracing, testing and vaccinating are actually good for you and your children & grandchildren? Or if they are effective? Or even remotely necessary? [By the way, there is not even any scientific proof that the virus exists!] 1Whether ‘maskers’ or ‘anti-maskers’ – We all agree that “Life Is Precious!” However, many ‘maskers’ tend to think of the world as something like a mechanical clock, with cause & effect relationships determining everything; and everything that exists having a rational explanation. Anti-maskers, on the other hand, may be more inclined to “delve deeply” into the mysteries of life and to have a holistic approach to understanding reality…
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VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Tony Hall extract
PHOTOS Whoever controls the past controls the future. Whoever controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell
Quoted in Kevin Annett article, p.?
BUBBLES…
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AUTUMN 2020, VOL. 34, NO. 1
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Welcome to the Autumn 2020 issue
dialogue is...
Dedicated to the memory of Maurice J. King, 1927~2019 Dear Reader,
Many articles in this issue delve deeply into some of the scenarios that appear to be playing out in the unfolding drama of our times. It was Alexander Pope who wrote, “Drink deeply or taste not the Pierian spring” in his Essay on Criticism;* (along with other Maurice, Janet timely insights, noted below…) & Penny (2019) In his essay, Richard Moore explores the process whereby ‘orthodox’ meaning is attached to dramatic events such as JFK, 9/11 and Covid, creating mental “bubbles” through which people see the world. And Richard suggests ways of engaging with others that might make it possible for meaningful “cross-bubble” conversations to happen. (p.5-8) Other topics that are subjected to intensive analysis in this issue include: the invasive role of so-called “Experts” in the setting of ‘RULES’ by which the rest of us should live. (p.18-21+) In an essay entitled “Resistance is Fertile,” James Corbett draws a compelling analogy between the modus operandi of “The Borg” (of Star Trek fame) and the strategies and pronouncements used by today’s global and national leaders. (p.9) Also, in this issue is the beginning of project to identify and expand on small and local initiatives that can grow the seeds of “thriving” in various aspects of human endeavour that contribute to communities everywhere, (p.13) Please share your ideas for the next issue!
Starting in this issue, Dialogue is featuring installments of Dr. Lonsdale’s book, A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine. (p.36) And this issue has lots of personal stories and two magnificent poems – by Robin Mathews (p.15-16) and Susanne Hare Lawson (p.59). Thank you for your donations to the Legacy Fund in Maurice’s memory, to ensure that Dialogue continues well into the future. And Thank You for continuing to be part of this venture of dedicated writers, poets, artists and readers who are pursuing dreams of a better world. We look forward to your feedback on the issue! Janet , volunteer editor …and Lucky!
* Written by Alexander Pope in 1711, at age 23. In Greek mythology, the Pierian Spring of Macedonia, sacred to the Muses, was the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science. This poem gave us other memorable quotes, “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” and “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Pope also quotes Horace, in Latin, to begin this work: [translated] “If you have come to know any precept more correct than these, share it with me, brilliant one; if not, use these with me” (Horace, Epistle I.6.67) IMPORTANT: To ensure your subscription is up-to-date, PLEASE LOOK AT YOUR ADDRESS LABEL on this issue to find your RENEWAL DATE. If your subscription is due, please use the renewal slip enclosed inside the back cover of the print magazine. THANK YOU! www.dialogue.ca
…an independent, Canadian volunteer-produced, not-for-profit quarterly, written and supported by its readers – empowering their voices and the sharing of ideas. Now in its 33rd year, dialogue provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and an antidote to political correctness. We encourage readers to share with others the ideas and insights gleaned from these pages.
If you would like to share your ideas and become a writer/artist in our magazine, please consider this your personal invitation to participate! We also need your support as a subscriber, to help us continue (See P. 58 for details) Your donations and Gift Subscriptions are also vital to keeping the magazine going! We receive NO government funding and no advertising revenue. We rely totally on the generous support of our readers & subscribers. Thank You!
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was founded in 1987 and is now published quarterly. Maurice J. King, Publisher-In-Memoriam Janet K. Hicks, Volunteer Editor
Date of Issue: 20 Sep, 2020 Also available at www.dialogue.ca Annual subscription: $20.00 [including GST, # 89355-1739] Canada Post Agreement No. 40069647 Registration No. 08915 ISSN: 1184-7042, Legal Deposit: National Library of Canada (409731)
The views expressed in this publication are those of their individual authors. Reprints of published articles are included for their educational value.
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VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Isolated Bubbles… as described in the documentary “Hypernormalization” QUOTE, Mercola.com: “Meanwhile, the theme of an overriding power funneling information to the masses in an increasingly dumbed-down format is pervasive, right down to the censorship being fostered by social media. Curtis narrates in the film: ‘… as the intelligence systems online gathered evermore data, new forms of guidance began to illumine social mediacreated filters — complex algorithms that looked at what individuals liked and then fed more of the same
back to them. In the process, individuals began to move, without noticing, into bubbles that isolated them from enormous amounts of other information. They only heard and saw what they liked, and the news feeds increasingly excluded anything that might challenge people's pre-existing beliefs.’” – Quoting Adam Curtis in his documentary Hypernormalization - from Mercola analysis, LINK : https://tinyurl.com/Mercola-6002 ♣
[SEE ALSO: CROSS-BUBBLE CONVERSATIONS, P.5]
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Photographs and video from United Nation - on the sad occasion of the passing of Mohawk Grand Chief Joseph Norton From: Gordon Edwards, ccnr@web.ca, 15 August 2020 To: the ICAN (Iroquois Caucus/Anishinabek Nation) Alliance:
I was very shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden passing of Mohawk Grand Chief Joe Norton who has been a tower of strength for his people for decades. Please accept my sorrowful tribute to a great leader, from a respectful ally. It was he who smoked the pipe with then Anishinabek Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee and others that ceremonially celebrated and solemnified the alliance between the Iroquois Caucus and the Anishinabek Nation on Radioactive Waste, and later formulated the Joint Declaration, and helped lead the mission to the United Nations in New York City in 2018. His life and spirit are an inspiration to us all, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. Gordon Edwards Here are some photos of Grand Chief Joseph Norton at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, in the UN Headquarters in New York City, speaking at a Side Event on April 23 2018 entitled "Radioactive Waste and Canada's First Nations” Nia:wen, Gordon Edwards
PHOTO BELOW:
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Speakers in order of presentations: (1) Candace Neveau, youth and mother, Bawating Water Protectors, Anishinabek Nation. (2) Grand Chief Joseph Norton, Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke, Iroquois Caucus. (3) Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee, Anishinabek Nation, Union of Ontario Indians. (4) Dr. Gordon Edwards, President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. (5) Chief April Adams-Phillips, Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne, Iroquois Caucus. (6) Dr. Ole Hendrickson, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, Ottawa, Ontario. (7) Chief Clinton Phillips, Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke, Iroquois Caucus. (8) Chief Troy Thompson, Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne, Iroquois Caucus.
Link to the UN video: http://webtv.un.org/watch/radioactive-waste-and-canadasfirst-nations-unpfii-side-event/5775372426001/ OR AT LINK: https://tinyurl.com/ycesekxb
Link to the Joint Declaration – http://ccnr.org/Joint_Declaration_2020.pdf – between the Anishinabek Nation and the Iroquois Caucus on the Transport and Abandonment of Radioactive Waste. Received from David Foster, with his note: Gordon Edwards is seated second from the right, in the photo.
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Orthodoxy and the Meaning of Events
Richard Moore, Wexford Ireland, Aug. 22 2020 LINK : https://cyberjournal.org/orthodoxy-and-the-
meaning-of-events/ Email: rkm@cyberjournal.org
When something dramatic happens, we want an explanation. We want answers to questions like: Why is it happening? Who is responsible? Where is it heading? What does it all mean?
Dramatic events and their orthodox meanings
In the mainstream narrative - the orthodox narrative a clear meaning is always provided, right along with the news of the dramatic event itself. Like on the morning of 9/11, when the video of the explosions was first being shown, there was already a banner going across the screen: America under attack by Al Qaeda. And soon after: They want to destroy our democracy. This prompt assignment of meaning to an event has an important psychological effect. The first plausible explanation someone hears for a dramatic or traumatic event tends to fix in the subconscious, and resists being displaced by later explanations. That’s why the orthodox meaning is provided promptly, is repeated endlessly, and is reinforced from a variety of angles by the various mass media genres – news broadcasts, newspapers, talk shows, interviews, official announcements, comedians, sitcoms, documentaries, etc. It is easy to see why followers of the mainstream media would consider themselves to be well informed citizens. On any public topic, they know what it means, and from that framework they can discuss this or that development with a sense of knowing what it’s all about. For every story, big and small, the media always gives us a ‘Why’ along with the ‘What.’ The closed orthodox bubble The world of the mainstream narrative is to a large extent a closed bubble of meanings and beliefs. Its stories and their meanings seem to cover the whole scope of ‘what’s important’ and there's no room for alternative explanations to find a place there. If a contrary explanation emerges from some non-mainstream source, there are many reasons why the explanation will be dismissed. First: ‘We already know why that happened’. Perhaps next: ‘Who are you that thinks www.dialogue.ca
you know better than the world’s experts?’ Every explanation that comes from outside the bubble is automatically suspect. Because it explains everything, the mainstream narrative naturally defends itself against info-intrusions into its bubble. That is to say, media faithfuls tend to be quick to dismiss such intrusions. As if that weren’t enough to keep the bubble sealed, there are specific mechanisms – what we might call info-firewalls – that are ever present in the orthodox world. For many years now, ever since the JFK assassination, we’ve had the ‘conspiracy theory’ firewall. Any story that puts a contrary meaning on events is tagged right away as a ‘conspiracy theory’ – and conspiracy theorists, as we all know in the mainstream world, are a bit unbalanced, have authority issues, tend to be paranoid, need to get a life, etc. Not a place to go for useful information. More recently, growing out of events involving Wikileaks and the 2016 Presidential election, we now have a ‘fake news’ firewall. Right in the middle of the campaigns, Wikileaks came forward with information that by rights would have seen the Clintons and their foundation come under indictment for serious crimes. This obviously wasn’t going to happen in the real world of Washington politics, and a quick info-fix was needed. Instead of responding to or denying the leaks, they were simply branded with a fresh new term, ‘fake news’ – a term that soon became an allpervasive meme, automatically applicable to anything that contradicts the orthodox narrative. So the orthodox bubble is sealed tight, with strong defenses against contrary ideas, reinforced by firewall memes. This is why it’s impossible to discuss issues with an orthodox believer, if you have a contrary understanding of the meaning behind the events of the day. They don’t even want to hear what you have to say, because they know it will be either fake news or some conspiracy theory. Your attempt at infointrusion can be received even as an insult, suggesting that the person isn't well informed, and is in need of coaching from ‘arrogant you’. Orthodoxy and history without meaning In the orthodox world, big changes always come as a response to some unexpected crisis (e.g. Pearl Harbor, 9/11, WMDs, 2008 collapse, COVID). A crisis is …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Richard Moore, Events &Orthodox meanings, contd.
identified, it is given a meaning, and changes are announced. And then another crisis comes along, and again we get big changes. Each crisis comes with its own little ‘meaning’ story, unrelated to the meaning of the crisis that came before or the one that comes after. Society stumbles along, it seems, always responding to unexpected crises. Each transformation society goes through is given a definite meaning, but no meaning is assigned to the sequence of transformations. There is no path being followed; we are not heading in any direction; there is no meaning in the combined effect of all the changes we’ve gone through. There can be no meaning in society’s trajectory in the orthodox world because, in that world, we know very well that the trajectory has been imposed on us by unexpected random crises. Any suggestion of some kind of direction or path can only be a paranoid fantasy – you are seeing patterns where none exist, like with a Rorschach inkblot. So that’s what we’re facing if we want to discuss anything with Orthodox media faithfuls: a sealed-tight understanding of the world, including a perspective that sees historical change as a sequence of random events. Fort Orthodox and the implanting of meaning Fort Orthodox is a solid edifice, and the psyop mortar that binds it all together is control over meaning. That’s why a meaning is declared right away – even if it’s a mystery how they figured things out so quickly. And that’s why the meaning is repeated endlessly, via multiple info-genres, and is kept alive thereafter. No one ever refers back to the events of 9/11 without including a mention of that horrible terrorist attack. Declaring a meaning is much easier than trying to prove the truth of that meaning with data and arguments. If every voice in the media starts repeating with confidence the same meaning, it will quickly sink in to the listener that it is something ‘everyone knows to be true’. Of course there will also be testimony and evidence presented, but this need not go beyond the cursory. Since people already ‘know’ the meaning, the Who & Why, they need very little in the way of evidence in order for them to feel that the meaning has been adequately verified. Psychologists call this confirmation bias. Thus arguments about evidence have little impact on Fort Orthodox. An articulate orthodox faithful might respond to contrary evidence this way: ‘Not only has 6 dialogue
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your evidence been debunked, by trusted factcheckers, but the official story was proven – wasn’t there some kind of 9/11 Commission and some article in Popular Mechanics? I didn’t bother with the technical details myself, no need. The experts are dealing with all that, and I don’t want to talk about it with you.’ Thus the whole power of Fort Orthodox stands on one tactic: the prompt implantation of a declared meaning deep into the psyche of the listener, followed by ongoing comprehensive reinforcement. This powerful tactic makes the job of info-propaganda much easier, as the believer is only looking for verifications, for rationalizations, not proof. With meaning firmly and promptly established, the media can focus right away on promoting the actions that are required by that meaning, by that orthodox declaration of what it’s all about, e.g. terrorist attack, Novichok (nerve-agent poison), deadly pandemic, etc. The open-source world of the real Whereas Fort Orthodox is a closed bubble of information and meaning, with a clear explanation for everything, there exists outside that bubble a wider world of open-source information and meaning, available on the Internet, with a wide variety of explanations on offer for everything. In order to be considered a well-informed citizen in the orthodox world, you need only to sit down, turn on the TV or open your newspaper, and absorb. Becoming a well-informed citizen of the real world, by making use of what’s available open-source, is a much more challenging undertaking. You must rely on your own judgment, your ability to discriminate between wheat and chaff, and your ability to make overall sense of what you learn. I’ve been doing my best to be a well-informed citizen of the real world, using open sources, for many years now. I’ve found this process to be a journey, never reaching any final ‘land of truth’, but each step on the journey peels away one more layer from the onion of meaning. Not only are there deeper meanings for specific events than those offered in the orthodox world, but there are meanings that tie events together, that reveal directions and paths in society’s trajectory. The real meaning of crisis events No way does society proceed by responding spontaneously to unexpected crises, as orthodoxy would have it. The declared and implanted meanings found in the www.dialogue.ca
orthodox world are among the earliest layers of the onion to be peeled away. Those meanings never were intended to stand up to scrutiny, as their means of being implanted was based on psychological processes and repetition, not on the existence of evidence. For example, with 9/11, if you look at all closely into the evidence, it soon becomes apparent that the orthodox meaning, terrorist attack, makes no sense – Muslims in planes could not possibly be what caused both twin towers to vanish into molten steel and dust at free-fall speed. There is a standard pattern in the crisis-response scenario. First a crisis event is declared, along with a declared meaning. Then the media begins revealing the steps to be taken in response. This always involves the expansion of government activity into new practices and new initiatives, into new powers. The real meaning of each crisis scenario, it turns out, is always the same: Who defined the crisis and its orthodox meaning? – those who fashion the narrative. Why did they choose that meaning? – so the government could claim the right to specific new powers. Where will this lead? – to the exercise of those new powers. The crisis event itself is more or less irrelevant to the scenario. The event might even be totally imaginary, like incubator babies, Iraqi WMDs, or Gulf of Tonkin torpedos. The real meaning of a crisis is always the ‘response’ – all the rest is some version of flim flam, of secondary importance at best. Cross-bubble conversations: a best-practice approach So we have a real world, with real meanings behind events, and an orthodox world, a matrix world, whose illusions are maintained by a universe of implanted meanings. While the implanted meanings are very resistant to outside influence, as we have seen, they are at the same time very fragile, if ever evidence might become relevant to the conversation. However conversations – about evidence, or about the meaning of events – are nearly impossible across the boundary of the orthodox bubble. Each side sees itself as being well-informed, and the other to be misinformed. Neither sees the other’s viewpoint as worthy of serious consideration. Both parties in such an exchange feel that their well-informed knowledge is not www.dialogue.ca
being respected, and that their attempts to point out obvious facts are being dismissed out of hand. Such conversations, if attempted at all, soon sputter to a stop, succumbing to frustration and annoyance. In such a conversation, if they can be called conversations, each person feels they have the real facts, and they are trying to present them. But the other isn’t listening, because they have their own real facts that are more relevant. What each wants from the other is to be heard, for their viewpoint to be given a hearing. If those inside the bubble won’t give our ideas a hearing, triggered as they are by the barrier memes, it is up to us to take the first step, to introduce listening into the conversation. The confrontational approach, pushing ideas and facts at the other party, simply does not work. In fact, when challenged, people tend to grasp even more firmly onto their familiar beliefs. Rather than coming in with the intention of convincing someone, we would do better by seeking to understand where they're coming from, and how they see the world. We can start by asking questions, instead of making claims. If you give their ideas a hearing, it is likely they’ll be willing to hear something about where you’re coming from and how you see the world. We need to recognize that it is quite understandable that an intelligent, critically thinking person, can feel quite well-informed in the mainstream world. They get explanations for everything, and they hear the same message from many different authoritative voices. Why should they doubt what ‘everyone knows’ to be true? We need to respect that such a person is doing their sincere best to be a well-informed citizen, and we need to show our respect in how we talk to them. If you want to get to a place where you might be able to talk about controversial issues, you need to begin by leaving controversy out of the conversation altogether. Instead the focus needs to be on developing rapport, showing respect for what the other person has to say, and building trust by not being judgmental. This is a process, an investment in relationship building. And the investment is necessary, if the conversation is ever to reach more challenging territory – without triggering defensiveness. Undermining Fort Orthodox As long as the orthodox narrative monopolizes a critical mass of public opinion, society will be easily led down the garden path to a technocratic dystopia, …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Richard Moore, Events &Orthodox meanings, contd.
each step being disguised as a necessary response to a dangerous crisis. We are already far down that path. To the extent a mainstream faithful is willing to look at, and perhaps seriously consider, non-orthodox meanings and evidence… to that extent, doubt has been raised and a mind has been opened to the possibility that all may not be what it seems. Perhaps this doubt will be shared with fellow orthodox faithfuls. Perhaps a spark of curiosity might even be raised, and our doubter might start looking around on their own, expanding their info-sources. In this way, if on a large scale, it may be possible to shake the structure of Fort Orthodox, and poke holes in the bubble. Many of us are already trying to wake people up from the all-pervasive narrative, for example by posting revelatory articles, chiming in aggressively on comment threads, and sometimes risking controversy in conversation. Fort Orthodox remains unshaken by these kinds of confrontational approaches. It doesn’t make sense for us to keep doing the same things, and expect anything different to happen. If we invest that same energy in pursuing respectbased conversations, we are more likely to succeed in opening minds to non-orthodox perspectives and meanings. We have an available enabling technology, social media, and in particular Facebook, which provides a ready-made platform for seeking out such conversations. Instead of sharing a controversial article, to be read mostly by people already on your side, you might comment on an orthodox friend’s posting, acknowledging their point, and asking to hear more about that perspective. If a bit of conversation develops, you might move eventually to video chat. When you can see one another, the conversational process can proceed more efficiently and on a deeper level. Fort Orthodox is strong but vulnerable. Its strengths, its implanted meanings, are also its weakness. Those meanings cannot stand up to scrutiny if they are examined by an open mind. Each time one orthodox mind rejects one orthodox meaning – that is a micro-quake inside the Fort. If enough of us can get enough points across, we can get bigger quakes going, and generate resonance, like they did with the walls of Jericho. We have leverage on our side. If something like 5% of the orthodox community become doubters or questioners, that soon becomes a critical mass, and it 8 dialogue
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generates wider doubting and questioning out of its own energy. We just need to start the fire. So I invite you give to it a try – experiment in whatever way works best for you, and see if you can get a conversation going where before there would have been fruitless confrontation. Don’t expect anything at first, just get some practice with a new way of engaging. If it starts working for you, you can join the cause, and help shake the foundations of the Fort. Conversations across the divide must happen somehow – because there is a path that society is following, there is a direction, and where it is heading is really not a place any of us would like to be. The orthodox majority is being led down a garden path, one crisis at a time. Somehow we must find ways to break through the bubble’s barrier, or else humanity will follow blindly down the path, like lambs to the slaughter. ----------------------
Richard K. Moore focused on math and computer science at Stanford, and upon graduation jumped wholeheartedly into the emerging Silicon Valley scene doing software R&D. He was privileged to work at many of the leading-edge companies of their day, including Tymshare, Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, and Oracle. His specialty was delving into problems that weren’t well defined, where one needed to invent as one went along, and where the risk-averse seldom ventured. After 30 years in the software industry, Richard decided that there had to be more to life than commuting and trading days for dollars. He drew out his savings and moved to Ireland, to find out what his life was really about. This change of scene turned out be a liberating experience. He found himself able to do all those things he had been too inhibited to pursue back home, such as joining the light opera, acting in stage plays, and playing music in the pubs. Above all, he discovered that his real passion is for writing. For Richard, writing is a means of learning, more than a means of conveying what he knows beforehand. As other authors have also reported, he has no idea where a piece will end up when he begins. Writing for him is a way of unlocking his powers of observation and analysis, opening a path of discovery that leads wherever it is meant to lead. He offers his work to the world not with, “Look at what I created”, but rather with, “Look at what I found”. His book, Escaping the Matrix (2005) is the culmination of a ten-year investigation into some of the most fundamental questions of our day: How does the world really work? What could a better world look like? How can we bring about the necessary transformation? As with his earlier endeavors in the computer industry, this was a quest that was poorly defined, and which required invention along the way. And as with those earlier projects, he found that it became necessary to question many of the assumptions that he, and his fellows, had long been taking for granted. ♣ www.dialogue.ca
Resistance is Fertile!
REPRINTED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE
By James Corbett, from Japan corbettreport.com Aug. 22, 2020
Whether you're a die-hard Trekkie or someone who would never be caught dead watching one of those silly sci-fi shows, if you were around in the '90s you will remember the Borg catchphrase: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." For those not in the know, the phrase "resistance is futile" was introduced to popular culture via "Q Who," a 1989 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew of the Enterprise encounter the Borg, a collective of cyborgs connected to a hive mind via cybernetic implants. The Borg went on to become one of the most iconic antagonists of the Star Trek universe, but it wasn't their fiery passion or their over-the-top villainy that made them so chilling. Quite the contrary. It was their cold, calculating, machine-like intelligence and their singular aim of assimilating all new species into their collective that made the Borg so creepy. The Borg weren't out to kill humanity, only to "add [humanity's] biological and technological distinctiveness to [the Borg's] own." Now, you might not think this has much to do with our present predicament, and up until a week ago I would have agreed with you. But then I found myself reading a Trekker's earnest reddit post on why "Resistance is Futile was always a lie." In this surprisingly thoughtful post, reddit user "67thou" notes that the Borg's iconic boast that "resistance is futile" was really just a bluff: "The Borg know full well that not only are their targets able to put up resistance, and in some cases even pose a threat to the Borg directly (Species 8472); the Borg know that resistance jeopardizes their true goal: Assimilation. "The fact that the Borg track 'Resistance Quotients' suggests they have a scale at which they measure a species willingness and ability to resist assimilation. Not their ability to fight back per se, but rather their ability to change the cost/benefit for the Borg in the effort (required) to assimilate. "The Borg are clearly powerful and able to destroy www.dialogue.ca
entire worlds on a whim. But that is not what they want. When they target a species for assimilation their goal is just that, assimilation. If they are forced to destroy enemy ships/fleets and their 'individuals,' then the Borg are losing out on the very resources they wish to collect in the first place. Sure they 'could' just destroy every ship and planet they encounter, but then what would they gain? Their tactics are more strategic in getting intact technology and intact individuals." By this point, the parallels to our present-day struggle with the would-be controllers of society should be obvious. Indeed, the goal of the COVID World Order cabal is functionally very similar to the fictional Borg. The planners and promoters of The Great Reset are, being psychopaths, similarly cold and calculating in their dedication to their aim. And, most importantly, the Borg-like villains of this biosecurity paradigm are constantly scanning their "enemy"—us, the general public—to determine our resistance to or acceptance of their various proposals. The COVID Borg's goal is not to send out the troops to force everyone at gunpoint to comply with their orders. No, that's much too costly. Such in-your-face tyranny would wake up too many people too quickly, resulting in widespread revolt that could upset their plans. No, their goal is to assimilate the public, to make us want to comply with their orders. Or, at the very least, to insure that we don't resist when those orders are given. One example of this just unfolded in Australia. There, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently told a radio talk show host that, once it was deemed safe by the Australian government, the coronavirus vaccine would be "as mandatory as you can possibly make it," adding that "[t]here are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds but that should be the only basis." …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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James Corbett, Resistance is Fertile, contd.
The suggestion that this untested, unproven vaccine would be made compulsory caused an uproar, however, with even mainstream mockingbird media questioning Morrison on the presumed legal authority to mandate a shot. The pressure was such that Morrison was forced to backtrack on his statement… "There’s been a bit of an overreaction to any suggestion of this, there will be no compulsory vaccine," he told a different radio talk show host the very next day, clarifying that the goal is "to achieve as much vaccination as we possibly can." The Borg presented the public with an ultimatum. The public's resistance to that ultimatum proved that the cost/benefit ratio of implementing the Borg's agenda was still too high. They dropped their ultimatum. Make no mistake: they will be back. This is not the end of the issue. But the public's resistance has made the Borg fall back for now. Sometimes, the resistance seems trivial. People shopping without masks. Students socializing on the campus Quad. Parents holding birthday parties for their children. Homeowners hosting house parties. But, without such resistance, can there be any doubt that the Borg would have put the whole world in a Melbourne-level "stage four lockdown" right now? Even the mainstream is picking up on this theme of resistance. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Allysia Finley likens the culture of underground parties and general rule-breaking to the speakeasies and illegal gatherings that flourished in the "Roaring '20s" of Prohibition-era America: "As in the 1920s, driving gatherings underground has encouraged other illicit behavior, including violence. Last week police busted up a party at a Santa Monica, Calif., mansion with hundreds of revelers that ended in a fatal shooting of a 35-yearold woman. Locals report that raves are frequent occurrences in the Hollywood Hills. At least two other parties in Los Angeles have resulted in gun violence." Finley then goes on to report on a range of similarly verboten social gatherings taking place across the country, concluding that: "Blue-state politicians failed to learn the lessons of America’s failed experiment with liquor prohibition a century ago: Banning normal 10 dialogue
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economic and social activity creates a black market. Dine-in restaurants and bars have never reopened in New York City or New Jersey and were allowed to open only briefly in California before Gov. Gavin Newsom closed them amid a virus resurgence." In a sense, this is exactly what I was just writing about recently in "Rejoice! The Agora is Growing!" The sudden, mind-boggling expansion of what constitutes "illicit" or even "illegal" activity is giving many ordinary, tax-paying, government-loving individuals their first taste of resistance. And, you know what? Some of them even like it. The Borg desperately want to convince you that this resistance is futile. That you will be assimilated. But of course they're telling you that. What else would you expect them to say? As Spiro Skouras points out, governments and "health authorities" are testing the waters right now, judging exactly how much you are willing to put up with and how quickly they can proceed in implementing the "new normal." If no one had resisted, the Australian PM wouldn't have immediately walked back his suggestion that the COVID vaccine was going to be mandatory. Now they're trial ballooning the "no jab, no pay" concept and will similarly gauge the public's response and proceed based on those observations. We are being studied by the Borg of the new biosecurity paradigm. They are assigning us a "Resistance Quotient." At the precise moment that the cost/benefit ratio dips below their calculated threshold, they will begin the forced vaccinations (and whatever else they're planning). "Resistance is futile" is a lie. It's a bluff, fed to you by the enemy themselves. They want you to believe that you have no power so that you never attempt to use that power. And if you lay down and let them walk all over you, they will not hesitate to do so. Never forget: Resistance is fertile. You may be defeated, but you will never be assimilated if you don't give up. LINK: https://hive.blog/news/@corbettreport/resistanceis-fertile The Corbett Report - www.corbettreport.com Posts/editorials by subscription & also free via mind.com or steemit.com/ ♣ www.dialogue.ca
Canada’s “Green Reset” -
FROM CORBETT REPORT.COM
The Carney/Freeland “Green Reset” Shapes Canada’s ‘New Normal’ [EXTRACT/LINKS] FROM MATTHEW EHRET-KUMP:
“For anyone sick of the immoral, monetarist religion of free markets that have run roughshod over the world for the past 40 years of post-industrial decay, war and speculation, the proposition to change our “hierarchy of values” may seem like a breath of fresh air. The problem is that the drive of a green economy of green bonds, green grids, carbon taxes, cap and trades, and green banking will tend to cause humanity as a whole to suffer immensely and will strip nation states of the productive industrial potential needed to resist the will of a transnational oligarchy… The problem with Carney’s post-COVID vision is that “value” is tied, not to the rising of living standards, human creative reason or national productive powers of labour that characterized the creative growth of human civilization for the past several centuries, but rather upon the TOTAL INVERSE.” – M. E-K The Strategic Reality of the Collapsing Trans Atlantic System The uncomfortable fact which too many commentators tend to run away from out of fear, ignorance or intellectual dishonesty, is that the world financial system is sitting on the verge of a global financial meltdown of a $1.2 quadrillion derivatives time bomb which former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King stated in September 2019 is on the verge of “financial Armageddon”. This grim reality was known long
before the COVID pandemic was launched during October 2019’s Event 201. It is this oncoming financial meltdown that underlies the war drive against China which certain western geopoliticans fear will shape the new system which they sought to control. France’s Bruno Lemaire laid out this fear in the most candid way in July 2019 when he said “unless we are able to reinvent Bretton Woods, The New Silk Roads might become the new world order”. (1) So what role does Canada play in this and how does this affect the shakeup in the current Canadian government? Why would Chrystia Freeland, a Rhodes Scholar more proficient in regime change than banking, be given the reigns of Canada’s economic order during these trying times? To answer these questions, we must review the role of Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action, former head of the Bank of England, and leading organizer of the upcoming COP26 Summit to be held in the UK this coming November. […] LINKS TO VIDEO/ARTICLE AT CORBETT REPORT: https://tinyurl.com/Corbett-1572 - starting at min. 6:22 of the video – link to article by Matthew Ehret-Kump, Global Research, Aug. 23, 2020, provided at Story #2 below the video; The original source of this article is Strategic Culture Foundation, LINK: https://tinyurl.com/S-C-Can-reset Copyright © Matthew Ehret-Kump, Strategic Culture Foundation, 2020 CRG LINK: https://www.globalresearch.ca/carney-freeland-green-reset-shapes-canada-new-normal/5721843
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International Commissioned report on ICNIRP's corruption The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP): Conflicts of interest, corporate capture and the push for 5G From: Jerry Flynn [jerryjgf@shaw.ca] magnetic fields (EMF); It deals more specifically with and Sharon Noble [citizensforsafertech@shaw.ca] how the scientific debate has been hijacked by corporate Sharon: The European Parliament commissioned a reinterests from the Telecom industry. port on the conflicts of interest in ICNIRP which has unAfter having read the reports of a journalistic collective due influence on the exposure allowances in many councalled Investigate Europe, the many articles from Mitries, including Canada, and therefore has extreme effect crowave News, as well as all the publications from indeon our health. A 98-page report, and I've read only a pendent scientists from around the world, who for years quarter of it, but I believe it is well worth taking the time have all been ringing alarm bells on adverse health efto read it. Health Canada in essence hides behind ICNIRP fects from the use of mobile phones and EMF, we deand our provincial authorities hide behind HC. If we are cided that we needed to dig deeper into this strange, ungoing to demand and get change we must understand how known to the public but powerful scientific NGO based ICNIRP works and how corrupt it is. in Germany called the ‘International Commission on THE REPORT: "This report deals with an issue of which Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection’ (ICNIRP)." the importance cannot be overrated: the possible health LINK: https://tinyurl.com/ICNIRP-report ♣ effects of Radiofrequency Radiation (RfR) or electro www.dialogue.ca
VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
dialogue 11
“Prévoyance”
House of Commons Petition re CPP Investments SHORT LINK TO SIGN THE PETITION: https://tinyurl.com/Petition-e-2615
Erik Andersen, Gabriola Island, BC The link above is your door way to reading and signing our petition asking the Canadian parliamentarians to put some restraints on the Canada Pension Plan Board. PETITION: e-2615 (Economy & finance) OPEN UNTIL OCT. 3, 2020 (9:56 a.m. EDT)
Sent: June 7, 2020. Please share widely. From: ERIK ANDERSEN twolabradors@shaw.ca History: Open for signature June 5, 2020 Member of Parliament: Paul Manly, Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Green Party, BC
Lenard Cohen and his singer partner, Sharon Robinson, might provide a way of thinking with their song "Anthem". "Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in."
It is time to believe in democracy. Regards from Cliff, Erik and Catherine * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Taxation, Unfairness and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Emails to my M.P., Paul Manly: My message is to help you understand why Canadian citizens are right to be more than suspicious of our Federal Government. The newly appointed head of the Bank of Canada (Tiff Macklem) has spoken about the CPI and its calculation. I think he has identified the social importance of this index and, if I am not mistaken, asked for suggestions that would make this index modern and maybe even fair. It probably has already occurred to you that the CPI can and has been used as a tool and a weapon. In the Trudeau elder era, it was used as part of the narrative for attacking labor. I was a direct victim in the 70s when we had "wages and price" controls imposed on us. As the PWA economist, it became my job to separate controllable from uncontrollable costs and then demonstrate to the Federal Transport Commission how we would collect only the uncontrollable cost increases by increasing our fares. You can see thoughts on this topic by checking the written work of Senator Maurice Lamontagne (1917-1983), Economist. In times past, Stats Can wrote extensively about how this Index was determined and, most importantly, claimed that any costs not determined by free market activity were excluded from inclusion in the CPI determination. In the previous century, this might have given a useful index but, in the current century, non-market costs make up a far greater proportion of a person's budget. I want to believe that the new Bank 12 dialogue
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Governor knows this and wants it corrected. Finally, we come to the issue as of today. Because I could not find a statement by Stats Can regarding what is not included in the CPI calculation, I specifically wrote an e-mail asking for written confirmation that non-market-determined prices for goods and services are being excluded from the CPI calculation. What was the disturbing feature is that no acknowledgment of my question has been given, nor did my request get copied to my wife's e-mail address, as made provision for in the e-mail design on the Statistics Canada website inquiry form. The Federal Government of the 1970s and 1980s ripped up the savings of millions by blaming labor for creating inflation. In my case, the only cost increases I had to pass on to our customers and fellow citizens came as a result of the effective action of the petroleum industry cartel, hardly even close to free market determined. […] Just to help with your understanding of why and what I am trying to do here is a ‘Coles Notes’ version. In the past year or so, I have come across several examples of Social UNFAIRNESS in Canada that should be of concern to folks like the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Prior to 1966, the Government must have been under a lot of political pressure for Diefenbaker to commission a Royal Commission on Taxation and unfairness www.dialogue.ca
in Canada. K. Carter and his team took the task seriously and at face value, unlike other Royal Commissions. His very first finding was confirmation of UNFAIRNESS, so his large report offered corrective suggestions. A very good summary of what did and did not happen after is in a book by Linda McQuaig titled Behind Closed Doors. When one puts her book together with Thomas Piketty's on wealth concentration, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a developing ugly story emerges. The consequences of decades of this condition are now with us as problems in Canada. The Federal government and Provincial governments have just run up very large deficits, using their credit worthiness as collateral, but we all know that our very sovereignty is really on the line. The reason for these borrowings is because of decades of wealth transferring that have left a growing proportion of Canadians with inadequate financial strength to contend with financial setbacks.
So Canada is a nation of systemic UNFAIRNESS; just ask the First Nations and one gets more than an earful. Another example of UNFAIRNESS is Contract Law. The BC Law Institute issued a report on this topic in 2011. In this instance, it is the public that is being treated UNFAIRLY. To date, the only politicians I get agreement from – that this needs legislative correction – are (my M.P.) Paul Manly and other Greens. My last bit of evidence of UNFAIRNESS is the Tax Court episode we had this year. The CRA lawyer stated in writing to us that they did not do FAIRNESS, when I tried to take exception to a CRA ruling. Having been an economist most of my life, I did FAIRNESS all the time. Happily the Judge agreed with us but how many other Canadians have and are being bullied by the CRA to UNFAIRLY pay taxes they should not be paying? Cheers from Erik Andersen twolabradors@shaw.ca ♣
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Survival & ‘thrival’ to be found in being small and local… From a dialogue between Erik Andersen, Don Skerik, Herb Spencer…
A “small is beautiful” banking model Erik Andersen, twolabradors@shaw.ca
From the book, Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. On and around page 164, she introduces a "small is beautiful" banking/financing model used around the world. Each client becomes part of a "borrowing circle". The purpose is to help folks get into a local business because most traditional banks do not want to have deals of less than $4-5,000. This is all about using money to give local employment only to those who wish to provide a service or produce products local folks NEED.
There is a massive amount of evidence supporting the view that life in Canada is unfair – as Piketty documented at the global level in 2010 and Carter and team found at the national level in 1966 and the BC Law Institute established at the Provincial level in 2011, and as I established in the Tax Court of Canada in 2020. The only certain way of escaping the attention of the parasites is to be economically small and stay so. – Erik
Local lending groups already exist From: Don Skerik, donskerik@vecoop.ca
This is designed to have folks avoid using banks and credit unions when in the start-up phase. The record of non-payment/return of capital is almost zero. In some places it is called micro banking.
I belong to a small group of people in the Cowichan Valley who do local lending to small businesses. This works very well and we have never had a loan go into default. – Don
The main takeaway from how the global economy has evolved to date, is one built on conglomeration , big has been the ‘go to; model. That thinking and doing is way passed its "good by" date.
From: Herb Spencer, spsi99@telus.net
The thinking of Jacobs and growing number of others is that survival will only be found in being small and local. Back to eye-ball-to-eye-ball economics/ financing. www.dialogue.ca
This was how the Credit Union Movement first started in Canada. Now, they are just Mini-Banks, filled with ex-bankers who think like all self-serving bankers with accountants as directors; sad, but we will have to try again. – Herb ♣ PLEASE SHARE YOUR “SMALL & LOCAL” IDEAS FOR THRIVING IN THE NEXT ISSUE! ♣ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Robin Mathews Uncut
A Story of Global Politics Played Out In Our Own Canadian Backyard by Robin Mathews, September 2020
Professor Anthony Hall (retired) of the University of Lethbridge was first “set up”, and then he was “set upon” for two solid years in a grand flourish of International Politics … as part of a macho brandishing of power by Israel governmentconnected organizations in Canada. Those conspiring against Professor Hall ‘took in’ a large body of what might be called ‘Canadian Bumpkins’. President Michael Mahon of Lethbridge University was reported to be having (secret?) meetings with the conspirators against Hall. Kurt E. Schlachter, Chair of the Board of Governors, rushed … it seemed … to take sides against his own Faculty Member. Vice Dean of Law at the University of Alberta, Eric Adams, called in to “investigate” (?) as part of a three-person committee, failed to undertake a primary investigation…. (As did ALL the senior officers of the University of Lethbridge.) Premier of the Province at the time, Rachel Notley, let loose a spew of irresponsible character assassination against Professor Hall as if reading from a script … and, incidentally, did it while standing beside a representative of an Israel connected Canadian organization (who may have, perhaps, indeed, written a script for her ….). The success of the attackers may be judged by the fact that Professor Hall was driven into unplanned retirement from his position as a major member of the university’s History Department. (All the above may be seen as petty detail in the story. The larger (political) shape is what matters….) Looking at the contemporary world with clear eyes … one looks upon a State of Israel that has huge ambitions, is armed to the teeth, and – according to many commentators inside and outside the USA – leads the U.S. (quietly and modestly) by the nose. “Disallowed” critics in the U.S. regularly claim U.S. international policy is made by dual Israel/U.S. citizens at every level of policy-making, shaping U.S. foreign policy to fit the ambitions of the State of Israel. Gossip…. but persistent gossip…. 14 dialogue
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Laurent Guyenot, in his book From Yahweh to Zion (2018, translated by Kevin Barrett) goes as far as to see the Dark Hand of the State of Israel in the assassinations of both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy. MORE: … Guyenot (with an increasing number of experts in the USA) claims that Islamic pilots flying conventional aircraft did not level New York sky-scrapers to the ground by crashing into them many, many stories up … on September 11, 2001. He claims (with growing support in the USA) that agents of the government of Israel were malefactors at the work of destruction … in order to begin creation of the even greater madness, mayhem, murder, and savage destruction of life and property in the Middle East that DID, in fact, follow from what is, now, so familiar a monstrosity in New York that it is simply referred to as “9/11”. Professor Anthony Hall, historian and author of two large volumes dealing with the history of the indigenous peoples since 1492, saw the Palestinian Arabs, indigenous to their area, being exterminated or removed from their ancestral lands. The activity drew his attention. Pondering the whole Middle East dilemma, Professor Hall began to believe that the attack on the Trade Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, was conducted in significant measure by forces in the control of the government of the State of Israel … as a way of criminalizing the Islamic community in the minds of people in the USA – and readying the U.S. population for the invasions of the (Islamic) Middle East that occurred soon after. Professor Hall expressed publicly his belief…. One might have expected that his political comment would have been met with high-profile denial from appropriate political sources. But that did not happen…. Quite unrelated, perhaps, (instead?) when Professor Hall was out of Canada in summer of 2016, a vicious anti-Semitic cartoon was placed on his Facebook Page [“Kill All Jews”] without his knowledge. Within hours of the placement, Israel government connected organizations in Alberta knew all about it www.dialogue.ca
and were sounding alarms everywhere. (Indeed, one report had it that the Lethbridge police were contacted even the day before the ugly posting … but that story must be apocryphal.) The upper hierarchy of the University of Lethbridge didn’t ask who posted the vicious cartoon on Anthony Hall’s Facebook Page when he was out of Canada. That is, of course, the primary question attaching to the whole debacle, for that event precipitated the next two years of accusations, recriminations, hearings, slanders, court proceedings, and the final “investigation” by a three person committee chaired by the Vice Dean of Law at the University of Alberta, Eric Adams. Not one University of Lethbridge officer asked for an investigation of the posting of the vicious cartoon … what one might call “the staging act” for the attack on Hall. Neither Eric Adams nor a member of his “Investigating” committee ever asked who posted the vicious anti-Semitic cartoon? Since it was fraudulently posted there, Facebook Operators might well have been able to provide the source of the posting. I suggest that the enormity of the oversight may suggest that the failure to investigate that central moment in the long episode … might not have been an accident …. Most administrators at the University of Lethbridge who became, to my mind, committed allies of the people trying to destroy Anthony Hall never said: “We must know who posted the vile anti-Semitic cartoon on Hall’s Facebook Page. We must know who set up Anthony Hall to be called a raging anti-Semite.” And then … the wind-up of the two years came with the investigating committee headed by the vice-
Dean of Law at the University of Alberta, Eric Adams … who never asked a question about the inflammatory Facebook posting… When I wrote to Eric Adams asking a few questions about the conduct of his investigation, he replied saying that he refused to discuss what was, in fact, a public appointment to undertake a public investigation. One cannot (and may not) say that the University of Lethbridge people and forces arrayed against Professor Hall were puppets dangling on strings held by people acting for Israel government-connected organizations in Canada. BUT one can say, categorically, that the failure of all the forces and organizations involved in “The Anthony Hall Case” to demand a full investigation of the vicious anti-Semitic cartoon placed on his Facebook Page when he was out of the country (the cartoon used to launch all the actions against him) places in very serious doubt their apparently “honest” efforts to find truth. [Fighting to curb the growing belief that the devastation of the Trade Towers in New York was the work of Israel government forces masking as ruthless followers of Islam, those same forces moved very quickly to attempt to ruin the life and career of Professor Anthony Hall when he mused about the possible actors in the New York tragedy.] The Israel government connected forces in Canada appear, ironically, to have convinced a growing number of Canadians that the culprit in New York on September 11, 2001, was, indeed, Israel … whatever masks and costumes it’s operatives chose to wear for the occasion. Robin Mathews, rmathews@telus.net ♣
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SHORELINES – by Robin Mathews
Living with a semblance of sanity, remembering familiar pathways that lead into familiar mountains and their still valleys, the salal bushes reaching high overhead … there is Jimmy’s voice – the only human note, saying “the open sea is found this way …. The wrecks lying strewn across clean beaches www.dialogue.ca
tell a tale some would call tragedy… some … a reckoning that is long overdue”. ~ ~ ~ ~
When you walk through the managed gallery in predetermined light, humidity decreed from expert laboratories … voices muted; and you look carefully at the objects set there for your pleasure… VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Robin Mathews, SHORELINES,
continued
do you say “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”?
No one perceives them … or will before the next turning of time and tide….
Or do you feel the weight of tragedy bear down on your unwilling consciousness as your companion – matching the light, sees the long culmination of civilized minds bringing perfection to an object – to objects – called objets d’art – the name lifting them to a hallowed space where the sounds of tortured pain crying through walls cannot reach … where the cries of children wandering in terrified passageways are lost in sounds of ordinary conversation, and where the best that has been thought and said – called Human History – is extracted from … composed, consolidated into patterns (for your pleasure) of The Beautiful…?
When you walk through the managed gallery looking upon what is called The Beautiful, brought into a carefully composed sanctuary – a holy place removed from ordinary sounds of joy and anguish, of torture and brutality … are you living amidst a semblance of sanity or are you standing … one more time … unknowing in the illegible darkness at the shore upon which are strewn shapes you fear but cannot identify… wrecks of what once were – were they? – sea-going vessels in the shapes of strange animals…. or, perhaps, carriers on some other kinds of ocean…?
~ ~ ~ ~
Inside the familiar mountain ranges are worn passageways. Deep rivers flow into a cold dark – sounding – sounding, loud, though none is there to listen or to hear…. Sheer walls rise and rise and rise …. And somewhere there … are scraped and scratched – somewhere in that space – vacancies … that seem to record oceans … upon the shores of which are strewn wrecks in the shapes of what once were strange animals (are they the shapes of what once were strange animals?), ocean vessels … perhaps … or carriers that moved on other kinds of seas…. 16 dialogue
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~ ~ ~~
~ ~ ~ ~
Jimmy’s voice rises in the dense underbrush (believing you are not nearby): “Here…. Here.” Jimmy pauses, looking into the dense growth ahead, looking at the barely visible break in the forest…. “Yes”, he says. And… “Yes. Here. This is the way. This will lead to the white shoreline bordering the open sea….” He moves ahead confidently, toward the almost unbroken forest, saying again: “Yes. Yes. This is the way.” R. Mathews August 2020 ♣
www.dialogue.ca
The Gaslighting Phenomenon in the Age of Covid How ‘cognitive dissonance’ makes us susceptible to new programming… Steve Clarke, our chairman, has addressed the problem of gaslighting. This is a process designed to create fear, uncertainty, confusion, and contradiction. It leaves a person, or people, in a state that is vulnerable to malign control. – Peter Weygang, Citizens for Direct Democracy By Steve Clarke, Bobcaygeon ON
The term Gaslighting has recently re-emerged into our general lexicon. When I talk to people about this, I notice that many have either not heard the expression or misinterpret its meaning, and deeper implications. Most will say it’s tricking someone, which is partially true, but does not fully cover what is going on. The term originated with the movie Gaslight, which is a 1940 British film directed by Thorold Dickinson. It stars Anton Walbrook, and Diana Wynyard. [You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYmtzaHwCKo&t=43s ]
The gist of the story is Alice Barlow (Marie Wright) is murdered by an unknown man, who then ransacks her house, looking for her valuable and famous rubies. The house remains empty for years, until newlyweds Paul and Bella Mallen (Diana Wynyard) move in. We find out that Paul (Anton Walbrook) is the murderer. Bella is the Granddaughter of Alice. Paul wants to get full control of the house, but is not able to dispatch his wife in the same way as Grandma. Paul hatches a plan to have his wife committed to an asylum by way of insanity. He will drive her mad himself. He hides things like a broach he bought her. Then asks her if he can see it, which of course she cannot find. He moves things around in the house, and claims nothing has changed. He breaks into the house next door, which is vacant, and turns the gas lighting on and off, up and down. This, in turn affects the gas pressure next door in his own home, so the lights also go up and down in response. Again he denies to his wife that he saw this happen, and that it could not have happened. As time goes by Bella starts to doubt her own mind. She has bouts of confusion, and crying. Soon she is ready to see a psychiatrist to confirm what she fears most; that she is going crazy! I won`t spoil the ending and you probably understand the plan. Gaslighting is a very real, and dangerous, phenomena because it is designed not only to trick you but to make you doubt your own sanity. You can see reality www.dialogue.ca
with your own eyes, and yet something just happened to defy that reality in a way that cannot be explained. This is very destabilizing to the human mind and, exactly as you see in the movie, the human mind falls into a state called cognitive dissonance. When humans are in that state, they are very susceptible to new programming. They may even accept options never before conceived, like going to see a psychiatrist. The last time I felt this cognitive dissonance was on 9/11 when, in absolute disbelief, I watched two planes hit two buildings. It was so far out of my range of possibilities (outside of Hollywood) that I just couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. As the media footage played the scene over and over, my stomach turned. I felt like I was floating about 3 feet over my body, suspended in disbelief, yet seeing the very thing I couldn’t believe actually unfold before my eyes. I was unable to think straight, to even find an appropriate location in my brain to put this information, let alone process it. This is cognitive dissonance; and I’m sure many of you felt the same way. In that moment, and the days that followed, a War on Terror was initiated. The Patriot Act, and the Homeland Security legislation, were quickly passed. Incidentally the Patriot Act was written in 1995 by Joe Biden. [LINK: https://newspunch.com/joe-biden-admits-hewrote-the-patriot-act-in-1995/ ]
This led to unprecedented Government spying on its own citizens at will. These things focused on stripping down your Rights to Privacy, and Freedom of Speech. I believe we are seeing the same thing with Covid. Don`t misunderstand me, I am not playing down the fact that Influenza is a deadly seasonal predator that has been the bane of humankind for 250,000 years. But now we are seeing Gaslighting by the deliberate parading of unbelievable amounts of conflicting information, all about a pandemic that is supposed to be a civilization ender. Yet in the obituaries we haven’t seen a death attributed to Covid. The hospitals are empty, special Covid response teams are winding down, and surgeons are returning to normal scheduled operations. We have had no cases for 6 weeks, yet the rules are becoming more stringent, including a mandatory mask order. The CDC say masks don`t work, in particular they do not stop aerosol sized droplets. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Steve Clarke, Gaslighting in the Age of Covid, contd.
But we must still wear one. But here is the irony. Under certain conditions one is excused from this rule; such as when it is hot and humid, or if you have belief system that forbids it, or if you are attending an approved political protest, such as BLM (BlackLivesMatter). In the addled minds of our medical leaders, these situations are, apparently, more effective than any possible vaccine. With the correct religious belief, you can eliminate the Covid risk! We are told that the lock-down protests are a threat to humanity: large, and invariably fatal, spikes in cases may result. Yet we all know, and they know, that immunity, by contact, or vaccine, is the only path through a viral pandemic. Our Premier announced that we must get children back to school because, in a poll, he found that this was the wish of 64% of parents. It`s this flip flop backward and forward between the pseudo-scientific, and public opinion, that doesn’t make any sense. There is no way to process this kind of logical absurdity. The media puts us under great pressure to make a decision, which leaves people’s minds reeling. This is at a time when peoples’ businesses are going bust, rents are not being paid, and bills are piling up. At such a time we must think clearly! I`m sure many of you feel like we`re in a Sci-Fi movie. Anyone looking back to even December of last year, or before, could be forgiven for thinking how far away it seems from our present position. Yet it was only half a year; just six short months. This is cognitive dissonance brought on by Gaslighting. In the last six months, we have lost our Freedom of Speech; the right to voice an alternate opinion. Censorship on media platforms like Google, YouTube, and Twitter is shutting down wrong-think, and directing you to the correct-think Government-
Approved information sites. Freedom of assembly has gone, except in completely arbitrary group sizes. Access to justice has been curtailed as the legal system grinds to a halt. We see the forcible confinement of healthy people in a blanket rule that punishes all. Those at risk should wear masks, and keep their distance. In WWII we had masks to protect us from poison gas, not to protect other people. We have endured the needless separation of families; no hugs from grandma. The country is bankrupt, and has taken on debts of unimaginable, and unpayable, size. The economy has ground to a halt. Most of this happened without full debate. We have just found out in Ontario that if, as a PC MPP, you disagree with the Emergency Powers, you are removed from the caucus. This is in parliament – that gets its very name from ‘speaking place.” That is quite a list for 6 months. They are similar to the things that were enacted after 9/11 to protect us from what we now see as an unrealistic threat, compared to the billions of dollars of our money that have been spent. Twenty years of the idea of the War on Terror is embedded in our collective psyche, and no one questions the changes made in its name. They became the “New Normal”. Indeed, there are now generations that have known no other state than this truly abnormal one. I fear that this march toward totalitarianism will continue unabated, until we understand the full psychological impact that Gaslighting is having on our minds. We must break free of its effects before we forget entirely what life was like pre Covid. These methods of mass control have been studied for years. Once again, they are working perfectly. We are the only ones who can stop them, and the clock is ticking. Stephen Clarke, clarke_404@hotmail.com Chair: Citizens for Direct Democracy ♣
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A Scourge of ‘Experts’ By Peter Weygang, Bobcaygeon ON
We live in an age when knowledge is readily available, but common sense is very hard to find. We have been gulled into believing that every situation in human existence needs an expert. We revere the edicts from these experts as if they had godlike vision, and wisdom. Every facet of life now needs someone to whom we relinquish all power over our own destiny. All these 18 dialogue
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management people are anointed with highfalutin titles, and commensurate salaries. We have Directors of Postal Services (the mail boy), assisted by the Manager of Adhesive Fixtures (the stamp licker), and by the Senior Dispatch Officer, who puts the letter in the slot. There are no general office workers in the public service. Everyone is a chief, or assistant chief. The truth is that all good management rests on an unshakeable tripod of common sense, ethics, and simple www.dialogue.ca
arithmetic. All the rest is blather. We have been brainwashed into believing that municipal management, indeed all government management, is immensely difficult, and mind bending. That it is very complex. That it requires gigantic mental abilities. In truth, what these managers do is trivial, and well within the capabilities of the average toad. Just try metamorphosis! A major perk of the management class is the bountiful vacations. They can, in due course, add up to as much as two months away from the office. The scalding deduction is that the work done by these bureaucrats is of no importance. It is irrelevant. The ship goes on just the same with only the front line at the oars, and no stroke master. In real life, the role of the captain is critical to a successful voyage. The master is always on the bridge, or close at hand. In municipal government, we have a whole wardroom of bureaucrats, with positions that are nothing more than obscenely overpaid sinecures. They are the inner circle of 1984. I was a high school principal. All the administrivia, from class lists to reports for the MoE, were done by two secretaries, with grade 10 qualifications. My job was to see that curriculum objectives were met, that pedagogical skills were at the highest level in all staff, and that students knew that a school was a place of learning, not a social arena. Let us remember that the ancient empires of Rome, Greece, Persia, and Egypt, were managed by people with little, or no, formal education, and absolutely no credentials from the degree mills we now call universities. Yet Rome ruled for 1000 years. Buildings such as the Acropolis, Hagia Sophia, pyramids, Colosseum, and Parthenon, have no equal in the modern world. And these were built without modern technology and the huge machines we have today. There were no professional engineers, or licensed architects, on those building sites. But the builders had knowledge, common sense, experience, intelligence, and practical skills. The global trade routes, and global economy were vibrant in the ancient world. Connections ran from Scandinavia to China, without a single economist, or Free Trade deal, in sight. There were no global bureaucracies, no ‘authorities’ to whom we must all kowtow. But we do so today, and willingly, even when they are clearly wrong. The World Health Organization has only just discovered that a sneeze contains particles of aerosol size. Millions of people, with common sense, would be www.dialogue.ca
astounded if it were otherwise. They have all seen their breath rise on a cold winter’s day. No science required. It is tragic that, in this age, the gullibility of the general populace is beyond salvation. They will believe anything, without question, if the soothsayer is an ‘expert’. Call it a ‘rule’ and everyone will obey. My heart is filled with bitter sadness. It is these ‘experts’ who took control of the pre-amalgamation municipalities, and ran them into the ground. Hundreds of years of local, debt free, participatory democratic government were shredded. It is these bureaucrats who never suggest that they should take a cut in salaries, and benefits, to ease the burden on the taxpayers. Money is power, so getting more for the administrators, and less for the people, makes good sense. The gravest mistake we make – the people of good will, the good people – is to assume that all other people are also good. It is a calamitous misjudgment of reality. The truth is that the New World Order, the Priests of the New Global Empire, want the total subjugation of the masses, of the proles. That has been largely accomplished. When 262 people have as much wealth as 4 billion others, then we are living in a nightmare of moral drought. The lust for power is insatiable, and funded by money. I must refer to a document that leaves me seething with anger. It is pages of unmitigated claptrap that unveils a clear and present danger, namely bureaucracy's intent, with great deliberation, to exterminate democracy. It is a paper by the Munk School of Global Affairs: The Evolving Role of City Managers and Chief Administrative Officers, No. 31; 2017: It says that we are seeing the ascendance in Ontario of the chief administrative officer (CAO) model; and that we need a cadre of municipal finance and governance experts, with the net result that managerial professionalism in the municipal sector will thrive. This planned takeover, by an unelected elite, is supported by the provincial bureaucrats, who pass legislation to protect the power of municipal bureaucrats. This is the Bureaucratic Brotherhood joining forces against their common enemy; the people. The initials BB have a sinister connotation, since Big Brother is NOT a person, but a system. This is not surprising. The main focus of a bureaucracy is the health, wealth, and power of its members, and its role as the single form of governance permitted to the people. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Peter Weygang, A Scourge of ‘Experts,’ contd.
Representational government is the greatest hoax of modern times. It neither governs, nor represents. The CAO model creates the position of chief administrative officer, and vests in the incumbent full managerial authority … the mayor has no managerial responsibilities: the discharge of executive and professional duties within the municipal corporation is insulated from political control and direction. This viewpoint is so blatantly anti-democratic that we must deduce that truly sinister forces are at work. Politics, from polis the people, is the bedrock of good governance. I do not mean political parties that are just another form of dictatorship. I mean the bounded duty of the Mayor and Council to run the show in accordance to the wishes of the people, and to their complete satisfaction. The mayor, through council, must have direct control of everything. There can be no leadership without absolute administrative power. No commander engages in a battle without the power to deploy all his forces how, where, and when he chooses. Any other scenario is both brainless, and dangerous. The intent of the Munk School paper is to castrate the mayors, who have become eunuchs as municipal leaders: leaders who have lost all the power they need to serve the people properly. Let me be clear. In a democracy, the administration has no role, of any kind, in determining any facet of the direction taken by the municipality, and its people. The paper goes on to bemoan the fact that incompetent mayors and councillors can only be removed every four years. They fail to mention that there is no mechanism for the removal of an incompetent CAO, and that he/she is the only one who can sack any other staff member! And listen to this: While the CAO, and management staff, should be aware of local concerns, their relative security of tenure gives them a different perspective. Senior staff members derive their legitimacy from specialized professional expertise. ‘Aware of local concerns.’ Indeed! They should be totally preoccupied with those concerns. The ”difference of perspective” means ignoring public opinion. That is how, in the City of Kawartha Lakes, libraries are closed, and moved, in direct opposition to the wishes of the people. It is the way that ‘beautification’ projects, costing millions, are done when the roads are full of potholes. It is the transfer of tax dollars to the 20 dialogue
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‘arties’ when people are walking to the food banks. It is the removal of local municipal offices, and the centralization of all functions – even when this so-called ‘city’ has a huge range of geographic, social, historical, cultural heritage, and lifestyles. But, by god, they will make sure that all those different feet fit in the same shoe! If professional expertise is the only path to legitimate actions, then that explains the corruption that is rotting out the very heart of government. Truly legitimate actions are based on honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, and transparency. The Munk School paper says that “running a municipal organization is a complex and sophisticated undertaking, even in smaller municipalities, requiring professional management… best entrusted to those with the professional training and career experience to do it competently.” Balderdash! What insufferable arrogance! Who do these people think they are? Do they believe that they have a right to rule? They are paid servants to do OUR bidding. They blatantly deny several hundred years of history that shows that local governments, run by ordinary people who embrace prudence, fiscal responsibility, abhorrence of debt, and a responsiveness to public concerns, have performed better than our top heavy, highly qualified, highly paid, self-serving bureaucrats. The bureaucrats are the new aristocracy, with velvet seats in the new empire of Bureaucratic Imperialism. We are suffering immeasurable harm to our economy, to local government, to our social structures, to our heritage, and to democracy. Most of the damage comes from putting people in charge who have no common sense, no empathy for the people, no integrity, and a computer instead of a brain. The people must take back direct control of all levels of government. The historical data shows that the sizes of national, provincial, and municipal debts form a linear relationship with the size of bureaucracy. That is where the fat is. That is where our taxes go. All senior staff, all management bureaucrats, all quasi experts, should start looking for a real job. They have been parasites on the public purse for far too long. Direct Democracy candidates are the only ones who seek election in order to return power directly to the people. Their day must come soon, if we are to escape a dystopian future. Peter Weygang, M.A.; D.I.C.; M.Ed. Sec., Citizens for Direct Democracy Email: peterweygang@gmail.com ♣ www.dialogue.ca
EXPERTS: An Essay on THE OVER RELIANCE ON SELF-STYLED EXPERTS www.academia.edu/43581821/EXPERTS_An_Essay_on_THE_OVER_RELIANCE_ON_SELF_STYLED_EXPERTS
H.J. Spencer, Surrey BC, 10 July 2020
ABSTRACT: This essay has been inspired by the global reaction to the 2020 Covid-19 Panic and two books on "experts": Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates by S. Rampton & J. Stauber (2001) [Penguin Putnam]; and Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us by D. H. Freedman (2010) [Little, Brown] The first book is a project of the non-profit Center for Media and Democracy, dedicated to investigative reporting on the hidden Public Relations (PR) manipulations of government and industry; it is funded by private donations and accepts no government or corporate grants. The second book is written by a professional science and business journalist, who has written for The New York Times, Science, The Harvard Business Review, Wired, and many other publications. He has faced the challenge of uncovering reliable sources first-hand; he is a scarred but wiser survivor. This essay merges my interests in psychology, philosophy and politics as these all share a common set of roots in our modern western culture. It explores the need for us to rely on experts in many areas of modern life; as well as the dangers from doing so. This essay will apply systems analysis to our present situation: it identifies the principal issues, both in the private and public domains and zeroes in on politics, showing that
this has deep roots that are making many issues too difficult to resolve. The political sphere is deeply influenced by the world of business in most countries; this allows experts in selling products to use these same psychological skills to sell political ideas. This leads to an analysis of both authorized experts and the explosion of self-styled experts. The thesis here is that the public have turned to science instead of religion (scientism) expecting objective advice and more technological miracles. The planned evolution of this essay has meant that the nature of both general and medical science are examined critically. This essay applies this investigation of experts to an analysis of the current Covid Crisis, as there is no shortage of experts exchanging their opinions in this area. Some of the main players are put under the microscope here. I am appalled at the destruction of so many people's livelihoods and the ready forgoing of hard-won freedoms (of assembly, etc.) by so many, who simply follow the advice of self-defined experts in esoteric medical fields, such as immunology, while ignoring the lessons of history. I suspect the widespread fear of personal death has been exploited by too many people in authority. The Covid Analysis comes to some pessimistic conclusions; those who wish to survive should read this. […] [READ THE FULL ESSAY: https://tinyurl.com/HS-Experts
Herb Spencer, spsi99@telus.net ♣
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We need not worry about Canada's credit rating Larry Kazdan, Vancouver BC
Japan's rating was downgraded in the 1990s because of its high debt-to-GDP ratio (currently the highest in the world, over four times that of Canada). But as we know, investors continue to buy Japanese bonds, even at negative interest rates. Those investors understand that sovereign countries with floating, nonconvertible fiat currencies can never be forced into default. Japan's credit rating was once set below that of Botswana, a fraction of Japan's economic size, prompting the New York Times to ask, "How… could a country that receives foreign aid from Japan have a better rating than Japan itself?" Credit rating agencies also gave triple-A grades to www.dialogue.ca
investments containing sub-prime mortgages. Those investments subsequently collapsed. Credit rating agencies have been seriously compromised by conflicts of interest and by misunderstanding of sovereign debt as applied to currency-issuing countries like Canada. These agencies need to be regulated and reformed because their misleading pronouncements only serve to destabilize the financial system. Email: lkazdan@gmail.com Website: http://mmtincanada.jimdo.com/ Larry Kazdan has undergraduate degrees in history and sociology, is a retired Chartered Professional Accountant & runs the website: Modern Monetary Theory in Canada. ♣ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Ongoing Efforts to Improve our Public Finance System Russ Vinden, Errington BC
Janet, Thank you again for your diligence and devotion to the magazine. I enclose my latest effort to make our deplorable public finance system a little less crazy, and I find considerable difficulty in getting the gist of the problem published so far. Unhappily, I feel in my gut that things are heading remorselessly toward another great crash (all the world's great crises seem to have happened between August and November!). It just seems inevitable now that nations around the world see their economies in a nosedive, and it is only the small independent papers like yours that feel able to voice some different views, hooray!' I'm sorry this effort arrived late for the autumn issue —quite apart from the Covid we have had what the Queen calls an "Annus Horribilus" as one misfortune after another swept along --Both Patricia and I had bad falls in April and May, were hospitalized, and are only now just getting our mobility back. But then, as an old farmer, I reckon that Guilt was invented by one of us when he sat down for five minutes one day — and I have sat down more this summer than in my entire life, so Whoopee for that! Please find my renewal, and keep up the good work. - Russ
Debt Funding Change A matter of immense importance is happening under our feet as all government debts erupt from the Covid19 pressures. In short, governments are being forced to return to creating new money through their own Bank of Canada, rather than borrowing it from the commercial banking system. This is in order to avoid blowing their already un-payable debts into the stratosphere and adding to the already 8 to 10 percent of budgets shown as interest charges. Yet a discreet silence surrounds the change to totally privatized debt, which was imposed in 1975 and which has been responsible for the explosive rise in all government debts ever since. Why is this, I wonder? Parliament was not consulted about that radical policy shift, nor was there any public announcement made; it was just smoothly introduced as fact. The collusion of all Parties appears to have been bought by the very large private donations which have always existed over and above the party membership fees, but which clearly have a major hidden effect on policies, and no MP or MLA will openly 22 dialogue
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talk about it. No explanation for that fundamental change in government funding can be obtained from any Party, and no paper trail for the decision is readily available. It was and still is just accepted as normal, although funding from the nation’s own Bank of Canada at nil interest had existed for 40 years prior to the 1975 change, and remains written into the Bank’s Charter, to huge benefit to the nation, and producing a federal debt of only $20 billion by 1975. This, after the last 4 years of the Great Depression, 6 years of WW2, and 29 years of huge post-war growth and development. It is salutary indeed to read the Summary of the 1993 Auditor General’s ‘Report to Parliament on Interest and the Debt,’ still available free on line from that Office, although it was never presented to Parliament, for undisclosed reasons. The Report concludes that an astonishing 92% of all government debts incurred since Confederation were due to borrowed interest on interest. However, this Report has been totally ignored. Here it helps to explain the abandoned system, which had been established through Parliament as part of the creation of the government-owned Bank of Canada in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression. Because of previous monetary crises in 1925 (the General Strike and the collapse of the German Reichmark currency a year or two later), commercial banks became wary of lending too freely to smaller governments and economies like Canada as the Depression grew, and by 1935 the Canadian government decided to form its own State Bank for that purpose. And since the Bank was owned by the government, there was no point in charging interest on its loans, as it would have reverted to Treasury anyway as dividends on its profits. So for the next 40 years, this Bank was a major supplier of government funding at nil interest, ending in 1975 with a federal debt of only $20 Billion. (Provincial borrowing had been built into the one debt for simplicity, and the credit passed back to them in the form of grants, Transfer Payments and the like, but they have negotiated their own debts for many years now.) Federal debt in 2013 was some $650 Billion, 8 or 9 percent of all budgetary costs, while total interest charges were around $60 Billion (in 2013), or about $1700 annually for every citizen, young and old. After 1975, interest rates exploded, hitting 22 percent in www.dialogue.ca
1981-2, and did not return to levels around 5% for 19 years, 10 of which were in double digits. Under this extraordinary pressure, federal debt had escalated to around the $380 billion mark by the late 1990s, with interest charges at the low $40 billion mark – about twice the whole debt only 20 years before. Every budget in the land went into severe deficit under this pressure, and could only be balanced by borrowing, at yet more interest, from the same sources as had produced the crisis. This is a classic example of “Odious” debt, defined by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, as “Any debt which cannot be extinguished yet still draws interest.” Today, 45 years after the change from the Bank of Canada to private borrowing, “Odious” federal debt alone – at $685 Billion (in 2019, pre-Covid) – is some 34 times greater. Due to lower interest rates in recent years, Federal budget ‘interest on the debt’ has now dropped to $29 billion of so (provincial debts ‘pro rata’), following the disastrous, self-inflicted banking crisis of 2007-8. In this context it is worth noting that the ‘bail-out’ which saved the whole private banking system from its own fraudulent practices in the ‘Teaser Rate Mortgage Scandal’ was a governmentsponsored creation of billions, transferred to the banks through the government-owned Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, not through Parliament: a crafty avoidance of embarrassing publicity about the necessity of government creation of money, previously (since 1975) the fiefdom of the private banks. This crisis however did crash interest rates for most of the next 12 years, hence the subsequent lower budget interest figures in recent years. However, it still leaves governments petrified of large spending projects. This crisis is provoking widespread questioning in the country about the whole process of private funding, not only for governments, but for Political Parties, as information leaks out about the very large sums being
donated to them by wealthy corporations and individuals – like that $100,000 donation from SNC Lavelin to the Liberal Party. It became apparent that big private donations were a hidden but highly effective way of purchasing influence, and this suspicion is confirmed by the virtual impossibility of obtaining explanations for that 1975 radical change in the system of funding, from public to private banking. MPs and MLAs alike clam up when asked; the subject never appears in newspapers or on TV and it has effectively vanished from public awareness. It is now difficult to maintain one’s belief in democratic government in the presence of such powerful bought influence, especially in the Liberal Party’s continued refusal to introduce a fair electoral system. […] EDITOR’S FOOTNOTE:
Although Canada now attempts to regulate political party and election finance, this was not always the case. Before 1974, the financial activities of political parties were largely unregulated. Canada’s federal election finance laws put limits on legal contributions to political parties and candidates. Only individuals, not corporations or trade unions, may donate. [But it seems corporations have always found creative ways around limits set on political donations.] Contributions are limited to up to $1,500 a year to each political party and up to $1,500 to all of the registered electoral district associations, contestants seeking the party’s nomination and candidates for each party. In addition, donors may give up to $1,500 to leadership contestants for a party as well as up to $1,500 to independent candidates. These limits were set in 2015, and the amounts increase by $25 each year. Political actors must disclose the names of anyone who donates more than $200. A public subsidy to political parties, initiated by Jean Chretien (PM 1993-2003) started at $1.75 per vote; the subsidy was reduced to $1.53 by the Harper government on April 1, 2012, and was reduced on each subsequent April 1, until its elimination in 2015. Sources: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ and: https://en.wikipedia.org/ ♣
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The Rise and (eventual) Fall of Capital Mike Nickerson, Lanark ON
The world could work, long-term, for everyone and for the Earth. We have the knowledge to do this. Enough people are willing. The biggest obstacle to success is the obsolete goal of Capital expansion. Change the goal and the possibilities are promising. www.dialogue.ca
Let’s look at how Capital – money available for investment – has evolved from 300 years ago, when it was enormously beneficial for society, to its civilization-killing stature today. […] ESSAY ONLINE AT:
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Capital.html
Mike Nickerson is the author of Life, Money & Illusions; Website: Sustain5@web.ca ♣ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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“Have Computer Will Write” ~ Jeremy Arney A strange year indeed… Jeremy Arney, Sydney BC
I think we can all agree on what a strange year this has been so far. From the arrival of a flu that supersedes all flus in panic, from international shutdowns of unprecedented sorts, from the long-overdue return to using the Bank of Canada for the purpose for which it was created in 1935: to finance Canada, the provinces and even municipalities (whoopee!); to the spectator-less sporting events around the world – presumably financed by TV payments – to election cycles both here and abroad that are filled with lies, innuendos and false promises. Nothing new here. 5G madness and vaccinations brought to you by Bill and Melinda Gates. And, of course, the Black Lives Matter events and protests and politically sponsored riots. Could this really be a turning point in racial discrimination against all non-whites or just another passing fad? The bigoted, racist, lying, womanizing reality show star idiot Trump claims that white supremacists are very fine people and they are of course avid supporters of a man who claims to be for law and order, but… Have you ever seen this much chaos before? Information overload. I have been watching all this mostly from my back patio, enjoying the marvellous healing sun and vegging out ‘till I got the reminder that September 1st is the deadline for submissions to my favourite magazine. One of the things I have been pondering is the general destruction of respect for and participation in community. Back in 1995, I attended a weekend workshop for men designed to teach those of us who had not benefited from a live at home father how to actually be better men. That means better men in respect to being husbands, fathers, sons, nephews, and by extension friends, workers and bosses. Having not had the benefit of a live-in father (my parents were divorced back in the late 1940s) and, having been raised by two women, I really should have had this weekend before I failed in two marriages and had three children of my own, but better late than never I suppose. 24 dialogue
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I returned from the weekend to join the other men here in Victoria who had received the same experience and met weekly to help themselves to live what they had learned and keep the weekend alive. It was almost but not quite like going back to boarding school in the UK, in that I was finally among men again who shared a common bond. We did not have to like each other but we had common goals. Community. One of those goals was to get involved with the community, and the very first project I was involved in turned out a failure! There was a small building in Beacon Hill Park right by the flag pole which had a human chessboard for a floor and it was in dire need of a safety treatment. We had the approval from City Hall, Parks Department and Union (actually some members wanted to join our volunteer efforts) and the materials were offered free from local building supply companies. We would provide the bulk of the labour – free of course – and in one weekend we were prepared to do the work. The fly in the mix was in the form of “the Friends of Beacon Hill Park” who could not understand why we would do this with no intention of making money or turning this little building into a profit-making venture. So, they said no and the project died. Eventually, a couple of years or so ago, the local taxpayers had to pay to get this little gem demolished. However, we did not let this stop us from performing other “grunts” as we called them and indeed we transformed an old house in Vic West into a home where teenage street girls who had become pregnant would have a safe place to have their babies and learn how to look after them; to re-plumbing, fixing doors, walls and painting a half-way house on Wharf Street; to renovating the cabins at Camp Thunderbird, and to several visits to the Garth Homer center to paint, plumb, fix walls etc., and building stairs up to a walkway we constructed out at Avatar Grove so that the local vegetation would be protected from visitors to those giant old trees. We were pleased and honoured that various wives, girlfriends and occasionally daughters volunteered to not only help but also prepare meals. We also had other smaller team events such as turning www.dialogue.ca
an old man’s garden back from a jungle to a place where he could sit and have a beer, to running events at the annual Operation Trackshoes at UVIC; the cleanup of the Gorge waterway and the annual Gorge Swimfest was the brainchild of one of our men in Vic West who helped inspire the local community there. I am sure there were more that will come to mind after I submit this to Janet. What this amounted to was the need to benefit others in our community and we were pretty good at it. However, men got older, left the main group and our membership was watered down by younger men who had done different workshops and the urge to do community work faded. On top of that is the pressure today to provide for a young family and still find the time to do that extra volunteer work. Shame really, as men have always been good at “doing” sweaty, creative things and generally tinkering and inventing. Today my team is struggling with the whole racial discrimination thing as we learn more and more about how Victoria has turned into a place that is not safe for people of any colour other than white. The history of Victoria and indeed Vancouver Island is ripe with direct molestation of the First Nations People’s rights, going right back to the first arriving white men. An example of that was the actions of Dunsmuir in the construction of the EN Railway up the East coast of the Island, and how he simply took the land he needed with no regard or respect for those who already lived along that route surviving as they had for millennia from that land. [https://tinyurl.com/Great-Land-Grab ] Which brings me to one of my pet peeves… Respect Without respect for others life turns into a big dog eats little dog world, and respect is surely lacking in the education of our young not only today but perhaps for a generation or even two. It starts at home and overworked parents or those single parenting have no idea how to teach respect. They were not taught it so how would they know? The lack of respect for people of different backgrounds, religions, colours or cultural beliefs is causing fear (and anger) instead of being a learning and accepting process. And the violent computer games the young have been playing for many years now – teaching no real consequences for violence except that a new game comes with failure – have certainly not helped. For coloured people, the streets of Victoria are a place of constant harassment, www.dialogue.ca
even attacks by those who know no better because they have been taught that they are the only ones who matter. Who knew? I did not but then I am only coloured slightly in the summer by the sun, and do not wake up each day still ‘BLACK’ or with any other differencing features. How we turn this around and teach respect again is beyond my frail imagination. Demonstrating respect only works if those who observe it care. On the political front: Here in Canada, we saw the return to the use of the Bank of Canada after 46 years of ignoring the jewel we have and giving real money to internal banks and investors in exchange for the credit of “funny money” created by computer keystrokes allowing credit without actual cash being involved. But now we have a new finance minister who is corporately controlled as is the PM and, with the likely return of Mark Carney (a champion for international “for-profit” corporate banks) as financial advisor, we can be sure that the national debt will skyrocket again and not to the Bank of Canada. It has grown by over $1 trillion in the last 46 years: owed to outsiders at compounding interest rates instead of minimum interest owed to ourselves. Then there is Erin O’Toole, who takes over from wishy-washy Andrew Scheer as leader of some conservatives party or another (the name has changed quite frequently in the last twenty years under the hopes that people will not remember the harm done by previous similar regimes). He has vowed to cancel any carbon tax and replace it with a self-monitoring corporate plan…OMG!!! or maybe it should be OHG (his) as I don't have one. A new face but an old conservative idea: tax and destroy the ordinary people and build up the “for-profit” corporations and the sooner the better. To the south of us pandemonium reigns as Trump claims to be the very best law and order president in the history of a nation born of violence, yet in his term the increasing role of "very fine people" called white supremacists has spiked. And if we look back to the SPP protests in Montebello and the police ‘agitators’ uncovered there at a peaceful protest (and their being forced to return and hide behind the police lines and laughing about it); followed by the ‘black gang” fomenting riots in Toronto and Vancouver, it is not much of a step to think that these current rioters and looters are Republican-sponsored to damage Democrats in the key swing ridings. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Jeremy Arney, A Strange Year, contd.
Neither Biden nor Trump inspire confidence in the future down there, and we will feel the fallout here in Canada. Meanwhile, our economy is limping towards complete chaos Several years ago Adbusters ran a whole edition on the concept of doing away with GDP and having a measure of peace, happiness and environmental responsibility as the measure of a country’s success rather than GDP which will inevitably fall apart anyway. How long can growth – even imagined growth – continue? So here it is Janet for what it is I worth and I am back
to enjoying the last few weeks of sunshine, squirrels, birds and butterflies, along with the noise of the neighbour’s kids in their small swimming pool. Children’s laughter is such a healing sound, and yet I fear for their future along with my own grown children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Their futures seem to lay with untested microchipped vaccinations and 5G microwaves from handheld computers and so much more, both harmful and designed to control them! Peace and love. Jeremy Arney, jemaisme@gmail.com Letters at: https://jeremyarneysblog.com/ And at: iamjemaletters.wordpress.com ♣
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Site C Related Media Links
Confronting the Lies…
from Ken Boon - via June Ross, jross12@telus.net
The Fear Campaign Has No Scientific Basis
It was obvious from the start that the Site C hydroelectric dam under construction in northeastern British Columbia was in danger of turning into a financial quagmire… ….It was the classic sunk-cost fallacy, colloquially described as throwing good money after bad. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-bcs-site-chas-become-a-cash-bonfire-hard-decisions-are-ahead/
One thing that is abundantly clear is that Site C is being built in one stinker of a location, characterized by “soft” shale rock and historic slides, including one in 1957 that led to the collapse of the nearby bridge at Taylor. https://theprovince.com/opinion/ben-parfitt-site-c-stinker-ofa-location-still-shaking-up-project-timeline-budget
Sarah Cox writes regularly for The Narwhal and is the preeminent journalist covering issues surrounding British Columbia’s effort to ensure that NL’s Muskrat Falls is only the second worst hydro-electric project in Canada. This is her conversation with the Redeye program on CO-OP RADIO CFRO 100.5, August 15, 2020.
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal Global Research, September 07, 2020
“Closing down the Global Economy as a means to combating the Virus.”
That’s what they want us to believe. If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to Influenza” the fear campaign would have fallen flat… The data and concepts have been manipulated with a view to sustaining the fear campaign. The estimates are meaningless. The figures have been hyped to justify the lockdown and the closure of the national economy, with devastating economic and social consequences. The Virus is held responsible for poverty and mass unemployment.
https://in-sights.ca/2020/08/15/sarah-cox-on-co-op-radio/
Some damning new research is causing concern over fracking in the Peace River region. A recent report says fracking-induced earthquakes near the Site C dam are worse than first thought. Paul Johnson explains why this is prompting activists to demand a public inquiry https://globalnews.ca/video/7274217/calls-for-publicinquiry-into-earthquakes-near-site-c-dam Peace Valley Landowner Assoc. WEBSITE: https://www.peacevalleyland.com/ Ken Boon, President SS#2, Site 12, Comp 19 Fort St. John, BC V1J 4M7 (250) 262-9014
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VIDEO: What is Covid-19. The Fear
Campaign has no Scientific Basis. Michel Chossudovsky with Excerpts from Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Speech to a Mass Protest Movement in Berlin. LINK: https://tinyurl.com/crg-3219 www.dialogue.ca
Lockdowns, Coronavirus, and Banks: Following the Money https://www.unz.com/article/lockdowns-coronavirus-and-banks-following-the-money-2/#comment-4161013 In The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection nature and length of the (Republished from American Herald Tribune lockdowns are causing by permission of author)
By Tony Hall • August 13, 2020 [EXTRACT & LINK]
Headings in the essay: Locking Down the Viability of Commerce Was COVID-19 a Cover for an Anticipated or Planned Financial Crisis? Inflating the Numbers and Traumatizing the Public to Energize the Epidemic of Fear As Usual, the Poor Get Poorer Wall Street and 9/11 Bailouts, Derivatives, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Wall Street Criminality on Display Enter BlackRock Suck Up Economics and State Monopoly Capitalism BlackRock Versus the Debt-Lite Legacy of the Bank of Canada Government as a Means of Escaping Debt Entrapment The Political Economy of Usury From the Middle Ages to the Era of Social Credit and Ezra Pound Eustace Mullins Explores the Secrets of the Federal Reserve The Israel Lobby and the Federal Reserve ------------------------------------
It usually makes sense to follow the money when seeking understanding of almost any major change. The strategy of following the money in our current convergence of crises in late summer of 2020 leads us directly to the lockdowns. The lockdowns were first imposed on people in the Wuhan area of China. Then other populations throughout the world were told to “shelter in place,” all in the name of combating the COVID-19 virus. Understanding of the enormous impact of the lockdowns is still developing. The lockdowns are proving to pack a far more devastating punch than any other aspect of the strange sequence of events that is making 2020 a year like no other. Even when the issues are narrowed to those of human health, the lockdowns have had, and will continue to have, far more wide-ranging and devastating impacts than the celebrity virus. The lockdowns have, for starters, been directly responsible for explosive rates of suicide, domestic violence, overdoses, and depression. In the long run, these maladies from the lockdowns will probably kill and harm many more people than COVID-19. But this comparison does not tell the full story. The www.dialogue.ca
millions of people to lose their jobs, businesses and financial viability. It seems that the economic descent is still gathering force. The assault of the lockdowns on our economic wellbeing still has much farther to go. The lockdowns have proven to be a powerful instrument of social control. This attribute is becoming very attractive especially to some politicians. They have discovered they can derive considerable political traction from hyping and exploiting the largely manufactured pandemic panic. The lockdowns are still a work-in-progress. There are past lockdowns, revolving lockdowns, partial lockdowns, mandatory lockdowns, voluntary lockdowns, severe lockdowns and probably an array of many lockdown types yet to be invented. The lockdowns extend to disruptions in supply chains, disruptions in money flows, drops in consumption, breakdowns in transport and travelling, increased bankruptcies, losses of finance leading to losses of housing, as well as the inability to pay taxes and debts. The lockdowns extend beyond personal habitations to prohibitions on large assemblies of people in stadiums, concert halls, churches, and a myriad of places devoted to public recreation and entertainment. On the basis of this way of looking at what is happening, it becomes clear the economic and health effects of the lockdowns are far more pronounced than the damage wrought directly by the new coronavirus. This approach to following the money leads to the question of whether the spread of COVID-19 was set in motion as a pretext. Was COVID-19 unleashed as an expedient for bringing about the lockdowns with the goal of crashing the existing economy? What rationale could there possibly be for purposely crashing the existing economy? One possible reason might have been to put in place new structures to create the framework for a new set of economic relationships. With these changes …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Tony Hall, Follow The Money, contd.
would come accompanying sets of altered social and political relationships. Among the economic changes being sought are the robotization of almost everything, cashless financial interactions, and elaborate AI impositions. These AI impositions extend to digital alterations of human consciousness and behavior. The emphasis being placed on vaccines is very much interwoven with plans to extend AI into an altered matrix of human nanobiotechnology. There are other possibilities to consider. One is that in the autumn of 2019 the economy was already starting to falter. Fortuitously for some, the new virus came along at a moment when it could be exploited as a scapegoat. By placing responsibility for the economic debacle on pathogens rather than people, Wall Street bankers and federal authorities are let off the hook. They can escape any accounting for an economic calamity that they had a hand in helping to instigate. A presentation in August of 2019 by the Wall Street leviathan, BlackRock Financial Management, provides a telling indicator of foreknowledge. It was well understood by many insiders in 2019 that a sharp economic downturn was imminent. At a meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, BlackRock representatives delivered a strategy for dealing with the future downturn. Several months later during the spring of 2020 this strategy was adopted by both the US Treasury and the US Federal Reserve. BlackRock’s plan from August of 2019 set the basis of the federal response to the much-anticipated economic meltdown. Much of this essay is devoted to considering the background of the controversial agencies now responding to the economic devastation created by the lockdowns. One of these agencies is empowered to bring into existence large quantities of debt-laden money. The very public role in 2020 of the Federal Reserve of the United States resuscitates many old grievances. When the Federal Reserve was first created in 1913 it was heavily criticized as a giveaway of federal authority. The critics lamented the giveaway to private bankers whose firms acquired ownership of all twelve of the regional banks that together constitute the Federal Reserve. Of these twelve regional banks, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is by far the largest and most dominant especially right now. 28 dialogue
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The Federal Reserve of the United States combined forces with dozens of other privately-owned central banks throughout the world to form the Bank of International Settlements. Many of the key archetypes for this type of banking were developed in Europe and the City of London where the Rothschild banking family had a large and resilient role, one that persists until this day. Along with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, BlackRock was deeply involved in helping to administer the bailout in 2008. This bailout resuscitated many failing Wall Street firms together with their counterparties in a number of speculative ventures involving various forms of derivatives. The bailouts resulted in payments of $29 trillion, much of it going to restore failing financial institutions whose excesses actually caused the giant economic crash. Where the financial sector profited greatly from the bailouts, taxpayers were abused yet again. The burden of an expanded national debt fell ultimately on taxpayers who must pay the interest on the loans for the federal bailout of the “too big to fail” financial institutions. Unsettling precedents are set by the Wall Street club’s manipulation of the economic crash of 2007-2010 to enrich its own members so extravagantly. This prior experience bodes poorly for the intervention by the same players in this current round of responses to the economic crisis of 2020. In preparing this essay, I have enjoyed the many articles by Pam Martens and Russ Martens in Wall Street on Parade. These hundreds of well-researched articles form a significant primary source on the recent history of the Federal Reserve, including over the last few months. In this essay I draw a contrast between the privatelyowned regional banks of the Federal Reserve and the government-owned Bank of Canada that once issued low-interest loans to build infrastructure projects. With this arrangement in place, Canada went through a major period of national growth between 1938 and 1974. Canada emerged from this period with a national debt of only $20 billion. Then in 1974 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau dropped this arrangement to enable Canada to join the Bank of International Settlements. One result is that national debt rose to $700 billion by 2020. We need to face the current financial crisis by www.dialogue.ca
developing new institutions that avoid the pitfalls of old remedies for old problems that no longer prevail. We need to make special efforts to change our approach to the problem of excessive debts and the overconcentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Locking Down the Viability of Commerce Of all the facets of the ongoing fiasco generally associated with the coronavirus crisis, none has been so widely catastrophic as the so-called “lockdowns.” The supposed ‘cure’ of the lockdowns is itself proving to be much more lethal and debilitating than COVID-19’s flu-like impact on human health. Many questions arise from the immense economic consequences attributed to the initial effort to “flatten the curve” of the hospital treatments for COVID-19. Did the financial crisis occur as a result of the spread of the new coronavirus crisis? Or was the COVID-19 crisis set in motion to help give cover to a long-building economic meltdown that was already well underway in the autumn of 2019? The lockdowns were first instituted in Wuhan China with the objective of slowing down the spread of the virus so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Were the Chinese lockdowns engineered in part to create a model to be followed in Europe, North America, Indochina and other sites of infection like India and Australia? The Chinese lockdowns in Hubei province and then in other parts of China apparently set an example influencing the decision of governments in many jurisdictions. Was this Chinese example for the rest of the world created by design to influence the nature of international responses? The lockdowns represented a new form of response to a public health crisis. Quarantines have long been used as a means of safeguarding the public from the spread of contagious maladies. Quarantines, however, involve isolating the sick to protect the well. On the other hand the lockdowns are directed at limiting the movement and circulation of almost everyone whether or not they show symptoms of any infections. Hence lockdowns, or, more euphemistically “sheltering in place,” led to the cancellation of many activities and to the shutdown of institutions. The results extended, for instance, to the closure of schools, sports events, theatrical presentations and business operations. In this way the lockdowns also led to the crippling of many forms of economic interaction. National economies as well as international trade and www.dialogue.ca
commerce were severely impacted. The concept of lockdowns was not universally embraced and applied. For instance, the governments of Sweden and South Korea did not accept the emerging orthodoxy about enforcing compliance with all kinds of restrictions on human interactions. Alternatively, the government of Israel was an early and strident enforcer of very severe lockdown policies. At first it seemed the lockdown succeeded magnificently in saving Israeli lives. According to Israel Shamir, in other European states the Israeli model was often brought up as an example. In due course, however, the full extent of the assault on the viability of the Israeli economy began to come into focus. Then popular resistance was aroused to reject government attempts to enforce a second wave of lockdowns against a second wave of supposed infections. As Shamir sees it, the result is that “Today Israel is a failed state with a ruined economy and unhappy citizens.” In many countries the lockdowns began with a few crucial decisions made at the highest level of government. Large and proliferating consequences would flow from the initial determination of what activities, businesses, organizations, institutions and workers were to be designated as “essential.” The consequences would be severe for those individuals and businesses excluded from the designation identifying what is essential. This deep intervention into the realm of free choice in market relations set a major precedent for much more intervention of a similar nature to come. The arbitrary division of activities into essential and nonessential categories created a template to be frequently replicated and revised in the name of serving public heath. Suddenly central planning took a great leap forward. The momentum from a generation of neoliberalism was checked even as the antagonistic polarities between rich and poor continued to grow. To be defined as “nonessential” would soon be equated with job losses and business failures across many fields of enterprise as the first wave of lockdowns outside China unfolded. Indeed, it becomes clearer every day that revolving lockdowns, restrictions and social distancing are being managed in order to help give false justification to a speciously idealized vaccine fix as the only conclusive solution to a manufactured problem. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Tony Hall, Follow The Money, contd.
What must it have meant for breadwinners who fed themselves and their families through wages or selfemployment to be declared by government to be “non-essential”? Surely for real providers their jobs, their businesses and their earnings were essential for themselves and their dependents. All jobs and all businesses that people depend on for livelihoods, sustenance and survival are essential in their own way. Was COVID-19 a Cover for an Anticipated or Planned Financial Crisis? A major sign of financial distress in the US economy kicked in in mid-September of 2019 when there was a breakdown in the normal operation of the Repo Market. This repurchase market in the United States is important in maintaining liquidity in the financial system. Those directing entities like large banks, Wall Street traders and hedge funds frequently seek large amounts of cash on a short-term basis. They obtain this cash from, for instance, money market funds by putting up securities, often Treasury Bills, as collateral. Most often the financial instruments go back, say the following night, to their original owners with interest payments attached for the use of the cash. In mid-September 2019, the trust broke down between participants in the Repo Market. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York then entered the picture making trillions of dollars available to keep the system for short-term moving of assets going. This intervention repeated the operation that came in response to the first signs of trouble as Wall Street moved towards the stock market crash of 2008. One of the major problems on the eve of the bailout of 2008-09, like the problem in the autumn of 2019, had to do with the overwhelming of the real economy by massive speculative activity. The problem then, like a big part of the problem now, involves the disproportionate size of the derivative bets. The making of these bets have become a dangerous addiction that continues to this day to menace the viability of the financial system headquartered on Wall Street. By March of 2020, it was reported that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had turned on its money spigot to create $9 trillion in new money with the goal of keeping the failing Repo Market operational. The precise destinations of that money together with 30 dialogue
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the terms of its disbursement, however, remain a secret. As Pam Martens and Russ Martens write, “Since the Fed turned on its latest money spigot to Wall Street [in September of 2019], it has refused to provide the public with the dollar amounts going to any specific banks. This has denied the public the ability to know which financial institutions are in trouble. The Fed, exactly as it did in 2008, has drawn a dark curtain around troubled banks and the public’s right to know, while aiding and abetting a financial cover-up of just how bad things are on Wall Street.” Looking back at the prior bailout from their temporal vantage point in January of 2020, the authors noted “During the 2007 to 2010 financial collapse on Wall Street – the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Fed funnelled a total of $29 trillion in cumulative loans to Wall Street banks, their trading houses and their foreign derivative counterparties.” The authors compared the rate of the transfer of funds from the New York Federal Reserve Bank to the Wall Street banking establishment in the 2008 crash and in the early stages of the 2020 financial debacle. The authors observed, “at this rate, [the Fed] is going to top the rate of money it threw at the 2008 crisis in no time at all.” The view that all was well with the economy until the impact of the health crisis began to be felt in early 2020 leads away from the fact that money markets began to falter dangerously in the autumn of 2019. The problems with the Repo Market were part of a litany of indicators pointing to turbulence ahead in troubled economic waters. For instance, the resignation in 2019 of about 1,500 prominent corporate CEOs can be seen as a suggestion that news was circulating prior to 2020 about the imminence of serious financial problems ahead. Insiders’ awareness of menacing developments threatening the workings of the global economy were probably a factor in the decision of a large number of senior executives to exit the upper echelons of the business world. (See this: https://tinyurl.com/cnn-ceos-quitt )
Not only did a record number of CEOs resign, but many of them sold off the bulk of their shares in the companies they were leaving. [Financial Times report] Pam Marten and Russ Marten who follow Wall Street’s machinations on a daily basis have advanced the case that the Federal Reserve is engaged in fraud www.dialogue.ca
by trying to make it seem that “the banking industry came into 2020 in a healthy condition;” that it is only because of “the COVID-19 pandemic” that the financial system is “unravelling.” The authors argue that this misrepresentation was deployed because the deceivers are apparently “desperate” to prevent Congress from conducting an investigation for the second time in twelve years on why the Fed, “had to engage in trillions of dollars of Wall Street bailouts.” In spite of the Fed’s fear of facing a Congressional investigation after the November 2020 vote, such a timely investigation of the US financial sector would well serve the public interest. The authors present a number of signs demonstrating that “the Fed knew, or should have known…. that there was a big banking crisis brewing in August of last year. [2019]” The signs of the financial crisis in the making included negative yields on government bonds around the world as well as big drops in the Dow Jones average. The plunge in the price of stocks was led by US banks, but especially Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. Another significant indicator that something was deeply wrong in financial markets was a telling inversion in the value of Treasury notes with the two-year rate yielding more than the ten-year rate. Yet another sign of serious trouble ahead involved repeated contractions in the size of the German economy. Moreover, in September of 2019 news broke that officials of JP Morgan Chase faced criminal charges for RICO-style racketeering. This scandal added to the evidence of converging problems plaguing core economic institutions as more disruptive mayhem gathered on the horizons. (See this: https://tinyurl.com/wsop-aug-14-19 and Lockdowns, Coronavirus, and Banks: “Following the Money”. Devastating Economic and Social Impacts
Accordingly, there is ample cause to ask if there are major underlying reasons for the financial crash of 2020 other than the misnamed pandemic and the lockdowns done in its name of “flattening” its spikes of infection. At the same time, there is ample cause to recognize that the lockdowns have been a very significant factor in the depth of the economic debacle that is making 2020 a year like no other. Some go further. They argue that the financial crash of 2020 was not only anticipated but planned and pushed forward with clear understanding of its www.dialogue.ca
instrumental role in the Great Reset sought by selfappointed protagonists of creative destruction. The advocates of this interpretation place significant weight on the importance of the lockdowns as an effective means of obliterating in a single act a host of old economic relationships. For instance Peter Koenig examines the “farce and diabolical agenda of a universal lockdown.” Koenig writes, “The pandemic was needed as a pretext to halt and collapse the world economy and the underlying social fabric.” ( LINK : https://tinyurl.com/crg-diabolical-agenda )
Inflating the Numbers and Traumatizing the Public to Energize the Epidemic of Fear There have been many pandemics in global history whose effects on human health have been much more pervasive and devastating than the current one said to be generated by a new coronavirus. In spite, however, of its comparatively mild flu-like effects on human health, at least at this point in the summer of 2020, there has never been a contagion whose spread has generated so much global publicity and hype. As in the aftermath of 9/11, this hype extends to audacious levels of media-generated panic. As with the psyop of 9/11, the media-induced panic has been expertly finessed by practitioners skilled in leveraging the currency of fear to realize a host of radical political objectives. […] The people held captive in confined lockdown settings have had the time and often the inclination to imbibe much of the 24/7 media coverage of the misnamed pandemic. Taken together, all this media sensationalism has come to constitute one of the most concerted psychological operations ever. The implications have been enormous for the mental health of multitudes of people. This massive alteration of attitudes and behaviours is the outcome of media experiments performed on human subjects without their informed consent. The media’s success in bringing about herd subservience to propagandistic messaging represents a huge incentive for more of the same to come. It turns out that the subject matter of public health offers virtually limitless potential for powerseeking interests and agents to meddle with the privacies, civil liberties and human rights of those they seek to manipulate, control and exploit. The social, economic and health impacts of the dislocations flowing from the lockdowns are proving to be especially devastating on the poorest, the most deprived and the most vulnerable members of …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Tony Hall, Follow The Money, contd.
society. This impact will continue to be marked in many ways, including in increased rates of suicide, domestic violence, mental illness, addictions, homelessness, and incarceration far larger than those caused directly by COVID-19. As rates of deprivation through poverty escalate, so too will crime rates soar. The over-the-top alarmism of the big media cabals has been well financed by the advertising revenue of the pharmaceutical industry. With some few exceptions, major media outlets pushed the public to accept the lockdowns as well as the attending losses in jobs and business activity. In seeking to push the agenda of
their sponsors, the big media cartels have been especially unmindful of their journalistic responsibilities. Their tendency has been to avoid or censor forums where even expert practitioners of public health can publicly question and discuss government dictates about vital issues of public policy. […] READ TONY HALL’S FULL ESSAY ONLINE, AT SHORT LINK: https://tinyurl.com/A-J-Hall-lockdowns [See list of headings, above, at start of essay] Part of this essay was also published at Global Research, Copyright © Anthony Hall, Global Research, 2020
https://www.globalresearch.ca/was-covid-19-a-cover-foran-anticipated-or-planned-financial-crisis/5721231 ♣
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Ontario lawyer files lawsuit against feds, province & CBC over Covid-19 extreme measures Agatha Farmer, at the Muskoka Post, July 20 2020 [EXTRACT/LINK] Rocco Galati recently discussed the upcoming lawsuit against members of the Canadian Government, the CBC [plus ON & Mayor of Toronto], as well as the topic of mandatory masking. Galati is a constitutional lawyer in Ontario and has been practising law for 31 years, he began his career with the federal department of justice. During a July 17 interview with Amanda Forbes he said he has filed a constitutional challenge in the Ontario Superior Court on behalf of his clients seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Covid19 measures. Galati said that both the federal as well as provincial governments have "effectively dispensed with parliament and are ruling by royal decree as it were which is unconstitutional." He is especially concerned about Ontario's Bill 195 in which the government can implement executive orders on an ongoing basis with the extension of emergency measures possible for years to come. Galati said this is "unheard of." In the claim, Galati has named the Trudeau government, Ford's provincial government and the mayor of Toronto John Tory. Apart from constitutional breaches which Galati said are "freedom of conscience, association, belief, right to life, liberty and security, your right against unreasonable search and seizure for the closure of businesses in an arbitrary and irrational manner, the right against arbitrary detention when bylaw officers stop you and ask you for information they are not allowed to ask. But also for the discriminatory way in which people with physical and neurological disabilities have been left out in the cold." Galati says another vulnerable group at the centre of the Covid measures are seniors. "They are suffering solitary 32 dialogue
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confinement in their own residence. These long term care facilities have turned into gulags ... it’s atrocious," he said. Galati, his clients and team are seeking relief from Covid19 measures that are being undertaken as he says that such measures as "social distancing, mandatory masks are neither scientifically nor medically based. The scientific community has an avalanche of evidence that says masks don't work ... up until now Teresa Tam, the WHO and the CDC said masks do not work to stop airborne, aerosol viruses and they actually do harm to people. And all of a sudden after 4 months in the thick of the pandemic, during which time on public transit systems there was no social distancing, no masking all of a sudden everybody is required to wear a mask everywhere. Why? Because of polls indicating people have lost confidence in what the leaders are telling them and so the masking laws are a means of obedience. A potent prop to ensure obedience and compliance because people are not buying this. But the evidence is just not there. These measures are not medically or scientifically based," Galati said. He notes that when the B.C. chief public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry was asked why BC has allowed a social circle of 50 as oppose to Ontario where the circle was set at 10. Henry answered by saying that "this is not scientifically based. We think 50 is a reasonable number that we can trace. This is not based on science." "We are not following science here ... these provisions infringe on the charter of rights," Galati said He is also preparing an injunction against the masking bylaw in Toronto. Galati takes note of the municipalities who are issuing mask bylaws and says these are "nasty www.dialogue.ca
government tactics." Partly because the feds as well as the province could have issued mandatory masks but by scapegoating the responsibility on municipalities it ensures that any legal action would have to be taken region by region as oppose to against one general government entity. "It's not easy to build a legal challenge let alone in every single municipality in the province," he admits. He also takes a moment to address the fact that Mississauga's mayor Bonnie Crombie while at meeting last week with all of Ontario's municipal mayors tweeted to assure her constituents that Bill Gates was in attendance during the meeting and he is "seeing us through Covid." Interestingly enough Bill Gates is now funding the World Health Organization following Trump's pulling of support for the group. Gallati adds that people who have profited from lockdowns and Covid-19 measures are large corporations. The agenda is to "globalize, corporatize and virtualize the economy" according to Galati this has been set in motion by conglomerate foundations since 2010. "The Rockerfeller Foundation report in 2010 poses a scenario where a virus escapes Wuhan, China and the gist of the report is about how to obtain global governance in a pandemic and you read that report that was written 10 years ago and you're reading the script we are living today," he said. Galati wants to know why the Trudeau and the Ford government have refused to disclose the substance and source of the medical advice they are obtaining. In his statement of claim, Galati has 43 world and Canadian experts who have said that these measures are not scientific or medical. "Why are those voices not only ignored but not even addressed? They pretend they don't exist, some of these
voices are Nobel Prize winners in their field," he said. He says that any messages that contradict the government official agenda information have been deleted. "This is so offensive, this is a global totalitarian tip toe." Galati references that there are 14 countries who never invoked Covid measures, a recent German study done on those countries indicates that the deaths from the virus in those countries were on average the same as in countries that had measures. In fact the 14 countries which did not lockdown are now fairing much better in the economics department. "If we study the countries that didn't take measures we know it wasn't worse and that's a fact," he said. Galati confirmed that the CBC was named as a defendant because "normally a private news outlet does not owe any duty of care to its audience except not to defame ... the CBC is not a private news organization so we say that they have a duty of care because CBC is a publicly funded broadcaster. They have a duty to properly investigate and be fair, objective and impartial in their news reporting." Galati has included in this lawsuit that the outlet has "been to the Trudeau government what Programme One was to the Soviet Union during the cold war." Galati plans on taking the lawsuit as far as his clients instruct him to which includes the UN committee for human rights should he lose in Canada. He also plans on watching closely how the province will plan out the return of students to classrooms in September. LINK: https://tinyurl.com/mpost-galati SEE ALSO VIDEOS AT: https://tinyurl.com/crc-cat-media AND SACHA STONE: https://tinyurl.com/sacha-stone-galati
SEE ALSO: ROCCO GALATI & RAJIE KABLI IN A BROAD-RANGING CONVERSATION [P.59] LINK: https://tinyurl.com/rocco-rajie (37 min., after 5-sec.Ad)
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THIS “NEW NORMAL” SUCKS! By Rob Bogunovic, Chilliwack BC – www.facebook.com/rob.bogunovic.7 Received from: Eva Lyman evalyman@gmail.com
C.S. Lewis said “When the whole world is running
towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” These days, it seems that the whole world is running towards a cliff, demonstrating a collective madness that is really quite stunning – and anyone who voices any concerns regarding the data and the justification for what is happening quickly runs afoul of cancel culture and the bigotry of the Left. Much of the current madness is being propelled by www.dialogue.ca
our media institutions. I teach Social Justice and Social Studies at Chilliwack Secondary. In that capacity I have to guide my students through some of the most controversial issues of the day – and I try to help students see why there is a controversy – by presenting different sides of an issue. In my experience, the media rarely does this. Sometimes, when the media becomes overly myopic in the presentation of just one side of an issue, I invest extra energy in ensuring that the other side can be heard. The right to present a contrary opinion is …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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essential to our democracy, to our culture and society, to our well-being, and we must never surrender that right no matter how much slander is hurled at us by media pundits and the outrage mob. Increasingly, though, that right is being destroyed. When George Floyd died, the media rushed to present a narrative that was never well-supported by the facts, and as typically happens, as more information has become available, more and more people can see how the media manipulated their reporting to stoke racialdiscord and violence, and how little of what they have said aligns with objective reality. The same is true regarding the media’s reporting on Covid-19. When we started locking down our economy and our society, the media presented a clear goal – flattening the curve. The purpose of flattening the curve was to prevent our hospitals being overrun. The idea was that eventually everyone would be exposed to Covid-19, but if we delayed exposure we’d save lives because hospitals would not have to make triage decisions. Flatten the curve – that is how they sold us on the lockdown. By May we no longer heard this justification. Suddenly, new cases of Covid, and new deaths, resulted in media calls to keep it all locked down – even if the worst had clearly passed and the curve had clearly flattened. In B.C. (Canada) there are currently 9 people hospitalized due to Covid-19, and six of them have been admitted to the ICU. We flattened the curve, our hospitals were never overrun, but the media never stopped pushing fear, hysteria, the continuation of lockdown measures – and the need for everyone to wear masks – which we were initially told did not work. B.C. never locked down as hard as most other jurisdictions in North America, and what is interesting is that B.C.’s more moderate approach produced the lowest deaths per capita of any North American jurisdiction with a population exceeding five million people. It makes me wonder if the more severe measures have done more harm than good. It makes me wonder whether Ontario and Quebec would have been better off not “locking down” – adopting a less extreme approach. When we all went into our lockdowns, we were told that we shouldn’t wear a mask. Today many jurisdictions are mandating them. Some wonder why anyone would protest these precautionary measures that are just trying to protect people. We should do it, we are 34 dialogue
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told, even if the science is really not settled on whether masks work. The science is also not settled on the link between masks and migraines, or the detrimental effect wearing one has upon one’s own immune system. On August 1st, Nova Scotia mandated masks. Nova Scotia has had 1,071 Covid cases resulting in 64 deaths with 1005 cases resolved – leaving the province with 2 active cases. Since June 6th there have only been 12 new cases in the province – and yet Nova Scotia felt the need to mandate masks. The curve can’t get much flatter than Nova Scotia’s, yet that somehow never enters into the equation. I have stood in the protest lines asking that the lockdown be lifted. I have talked with many of those in Chilliwack who share my concerns. Our common belief is that the measures enacted did not need to be so severe, and should be eased ASAP. Our common desire is for the “new normal” to become a thing of the past, with the “old normal” returning us all to a brighter future. People wonder what it is that we oppose – as though it isn’t fairly obvious. We oppose a media narrative that has urged hysteria to justify power grabs by politicians. We oppose the WHO and their handling of this pandemic. We wonder why they seem to have priorities other than saving lives. We oppose the big-tech censorship of doctors and nurses who are trying to present a different narrative; doctors and nurses who expose the practices that are getting people killed, and who oppose the suppression of information concerning treatment options. We oppose the erosion of our civil rights and we oppose the economic devastation these lockdown measures have unleashed, and in doing so we have been told that we value money over lives – but that is a lie. We want to end these lockdown measures because in the long term that will save lives – many lives – thousands of lives. We are told that the lockdown averted the deaths of millions – but where is the evidence of that? Sweden never locked down. Sweden never mandated masks. They never closed their borders. They never closed their schools for ages 16 and under. They never closed their restaurants and bars. Sweden refused to trample on the rights of their citizens. Dr. Anders Tegnell – a specialist in infectious disease – urged his government to trust the public’s capacity www.dialogue.ca
to act responsibly, and urged those over 70 to selfisolate. He said that Sweden’s strategy was rooted in a “long tradition” of respecting “free will”, that “closing borders … is ridiculous”, that “closing schools is meaningless at this stage”, and that “we need to learn to live with this disease”. Disastrous death tolls were predicted for Sweden, but they never materialized. To date Sweden has had around 5,800 deaths – out of a population of just over 10 million people. To put that figure into perspective, Quebec has had around 5,700 deaths – out of a population of 8.5 million people, and New York City has had 23,000 deaths – out of a population of 8.4 million people. New York sent Covid positive patients into nursing homes as part of their efforts to lockdown. New York City experienced 5 times as many deaths/capita as Sweden. So – what did the lockdown measures actually achieve? In Canada these measures achieved the bankruptcy of thousands of businesses, the loss of over 2 million jobs, and dramatically higher rates of drug-overdoses and suicides. Over 400,000 surgeries were postponed, and we dramatically reduced the number of cancer-screenings. Furthermore, with gyms closed and Canadians ordered to stay indoors for weeks and months, more than a few of us have packed on our “Covid-19s” – which long term will result in higher rates of heart disease and diabetes. Our schools were closed, which will have a lasting impact on our children’s education. Our parks were closed – which never made any sense. Our churches were closed – and most remain closed. Ultimately, our young people will suffer the long-term economic fallout – on top of the developmental and psychological damage caused by isolating them from friends and family. We’re told these measures were necessary to save lives – and we are supposed to believe that many lives were saved – though don’t look too closely at Sweden. We’re told we must maintain these measures and bring in new ones – like mandatory masks – or there will be a second wave – though again, don’t look too closely at Sweden. In B.C. we have suffered 195 deaths due to Covid-19. Even assuming that number is accurate and none of these victims would have died from some other comorbidity, that works out to 1 death per 25,000 citizens. One death. One would typically expect 100 deaths per 25,000 citizens during a 4 month stretch, so that means that during this www.dialogue.ca
pandemic, for every B.C. citizen who has died of Covid, a hundred people died from something else: suicides, drug overdoses, diabetes, heart disease, cancer – common killers which were all made worse by our lockdown measures. And if you try to tell people about any of this – you are a Covidiot. If you say – as I have said – that the “cure” is worse than the virus – you are a Covidiot. And if you look to the new recommendations – which contradict so many of the old recommendations – and you ask why we should believe “the experts” and the “media pundits” who have already been caught lying or making things up as they go along – you are a Covidiot. A few weeks ago, mass-testing for Covid was the goal, yet a week ago Ontario’s Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health – Dr. Barbara Yaffe – warned against mass testing for Covid-19. Yaffe declared, “if you’re testing in a population that doesn’t have very much Covid, you’ll get false positives almost half the time. That is, the person actually doesn’t have Covid, they have something else, they may have nothing. Uh, so it will just complicate the picture.” False positives – almost half the time. If true, then we really don’t have any idea how many people have Covid, and if false, we really have no reason to trust our Chief Medical Officers or the other government officials who have destroyed their credibility by telling us so many obvious lies. But question any part of their ridiculous narrative and you are a Covidiot. Hellen Keller was born blind and deaf, yet she still saw many things more clearly than most members of the mob. She said: “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” Rudyard Kipling said, “Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.” Rob Bugonovic, Chilliwack www.facebook.com/rob.bogunovic.7♣
Comment from Herb Spencer: Thank you very much, Eva [for forwarding]. Rob Bogunovic has summarized today’s situation very well. Interesting that the two groups pushing the PANIC BUTTON are our society’s strongest believers in Group-Think: medics and journalists… Where is people’s common sense? … I guess I am a certified Covidiot, eh? – Herb Spencer, spsi99@telus.net ♣ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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“Your Health Matters”
Dr. Derrick Lonsdale, Strongsville OH
EDITOR’S NOTE: We are most grate-
ful to Derrick Lonsdale and his publishing company, Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co., for their express written permission to serialize and reprint this ground-breaking book, A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine:
Is Modern Medicine Helping You? by our long-standing columnist, Derrick Lonsdale. Copyright © 2013 Derrick Lonsdale M.D. All rights reserved.
E Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co. Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co. 12620 FM 1960, Suite A4-507 Houston TX 77065 www.sbpra.com -- ISBN: 978-1-63135-336-9 (hardcover) 978-1-61897-092-3 (softcover)
A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine Is Modern Medicine Helping You? By Derrick Lonsdale M.D.
[ Installment 1]
DEDICATION To my late wife, Adele The late James P. Frackelton M.D., Partner and friend who taught me much in the practice of Alternative Medicine. CONTENTS Preface: ix Introduction: xi Chapter 1: Cultural Decline Chapter 2: A Thumbnail Sketch of the History of Medicine Chapter 3: We Have Two Brains Chapter 4: The Fundamental Role of Energy Chapter 5: A Revised Medical Model Chapter 6: How Does the New Model Fit the Practice of Medicine? Chapter 7: Opportunist Organisms Chapter 8: Clinical Examples
I have a rich experience of patients who have been helped by the art of nutritional therapy. The body is a self-healing “machine” and we can see natural healing aided by these relatively simple methods. Some of the clinical examples, told in everyday language, are illustrative. I never use the word “cure,” and I tell my patients that I do not “treat disease.” I treat the person who has the disease with nutrients in an effort to boost the natural defensive and selfhealing mechanisms that we all possess. PREFACE
Alternative Medicine The theme of the book is that high calorie malnutrition is a modern scourge that can be compared to the then unknown danger of lead poisoning 36 dialogue
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experienced by the Roman civilization. Historical evidence has been collected and published to claim that the ancient Roman civilization was destroyed at least partly because of this factor. From many years of observation and clinical practice, I have become aware of how high calorie malnutrition affects our ability to adapt to our environment. It produces subtle changes in the biochemical mechanisms that govern our emotional and physical adaptive responses. Like the Romans, we are blithely unaware that the essentially hedonistic attraction to sweet tasting foods and beverages undermine these functions. It makes us react to environmental stresses in an abnormal way, thus making us appear to be more primitive in our behavior. I, like other physicians who have changed to the field of alternative medicine, have very good evidence that the present medical model is wrong. The main error is the divorce of the brain from the body and a refusal to recognize the teaching of Hippocrates who said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” Getting patients to understand the concept that the brain and body work together is extremely difficult and time consuming. Even after spending a long time with an individual patient, I find that the concept is barely understood and much is quickly forgotten. In this book, I try to give the details in every-day language so that people can use the model to help themselves. By pointing out the fact that the limbic system of the brain is a computer, it is possible to fit every alternative medical technique into the picture and provide an explanation for why each of them works. It is not a book that tells the reader exactly what to do, but gives www.dialogue.ca
choices and an explanation of how each method can be expected to work within this model. High calorie malnutrition is an extremely widespread scourge that is affecting literally millions of Americans. The associated changes in behavior have consequently become so common that they are regarded as being normal. Like the Romans, our total unawareness makes us blind to these effects. Anyone who tries to point them out is a “whistle blower” and history recognizes the difficulty of such an endeavor. In an attempt to compare this with the fate of the ancient Romans, the first chapter goes into some of the history of their lead poisoning. The essential idea expressed is that most, if not all, disease is the result of loss of cellular energy from poor diet in much the same way that a car engine loses power if its fuel is different from that which fits its design. Over time, the erosion in function begins to decline and begins in the brain, the organ most demanding of oxidative metabolism and energy consumption. High calorie malnutrition can be compared with a choked engine in a car, resulting in poor engine performance, and unburned hydrocarbons being discharged from the exhaust. INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 reveals the seeds of cultural decline although there were a number of factors in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, there is a good case for lead poisoning as an important cause. This is compared with the state of “high calorie malnutrition” of today, which may be a similar long term threat to our present civilization. Although lead poisoning was recognized by a few individuals, they were ignored. The fall of the Roman civilization serves as a useful template upon which the mechanisms of inevitable decline can be discussed. Winston Churchill is an excellent example of a modern “whistle blower.” The vast majority of people within any culture have no idea that it is occurring www.dialogue.ca
until it goes into decline. Chapter 2 provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of medicine. The ancient Chinese civilization gave us yin and yang as the center of the universe. This is examined for its potential meaning in relation to functions of the body and maintenance of health. Discussion centers on the profound nature of this concept as it applies to “balance” and what that means in our adaptive mechanisms of survival. A brief consideration is given to Hippocrates and the fact that his teaching has been ignored, in spite of his fame. Passing over the medieval period, where surprisingly little progress was made, the origins of the present medical model are discussed. The discovery of microorganisms and the history of our attempts to destroy them as a treatment for the diseases that they cause became the spearhead of research. The idea of “killing the enemy” as the major cause of virtually any disease became the paradigm. Even our techniques for immunization are aimed at boosting the defenses against a specific attacking agent, rather than attempting to increase the efficiency of the immune defenses as a whole through proper nutrition and lifestyle. This “aggressive” model is compared with the paradigm shift in thinking which is spawning the new era of Alternative Medicine. This “new” model accepts the powerful relations of the body and mind in electrochemical terms rather than dismissing “psychosomatic” as an explanation for a patient’s “subconscious” self-deception. Present attempts at preventive medicine are incomplete and the power of good nutrition has been almost totally ignored in mainstream medicine, although that is beginning to change. An overview of this history is important in understanding the way in which modern medicine has evolved, what is wrong with a large part of the model that it uses, and why extensive revision is necessary. A new model is proposed to explain the loss of health which constitutes disease. Chapter 3 shows that the brain contains a computer and spells out the most important part of the Universal Model for explaining both health and disease. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Derrick Lonsdale, A Nutritional Approach, contd.
It depends upon our understanding of the limbic system brain as a computer and its constant dialogue with the more sophisticated cognitive or conscious brain. This communication depends upon a chemical “language” by which the computer communicates with the body that it controls and the cognitive brain that acts as an “advisor.” An acceptance of some form of evolution, and a realization that all animal brains have been built on the same basic plan, is necessary. Chapter 4 describes the role of energy metabolism that can be used to explain the present pandemic of “emotional disease” within a biological framework and shows how the breakdown of the dialogue introduces an idea to explain the phenomenon of “madness, murder and mayhem.” The limbic system is the primitive individual within us all. It controls and presides over all our “animal” functions. Maturation from infancy, through childhood to adult status becomes much easier to understand and we can begin to see why and how development takes place in each one of us and how understanding energy metabolism is so vital. Chapter 5 discusses how the present classification of disease is erroneous and describes a proposed revision for a medical model. The mechanisms of many different disease conditions can be explained within the proposed model by correlation with defective energy metabolism in the limbic system. It hinges upon the orchestration of all physical and emotional reactions by the computer. Thus, a whole host of conditions that are presently seen as “physical” can be seen in relation to the “mental” state. We can also begin to see why the present era of medical specialization can easily confuse the real issue. This chapter reasons that disease is manifested by loss of efficiency in energy metabolism, affecting our ability to adapt appropriately to environmental change. The biochemist who can ascertain and define the “biochemical lesion” is the health specialist of the immediate future. This chapter places great emphasis on the fact that it is the de-energized computer that is responsible for what is traditionally thought of as psychosomatic disease. Hence, the pandemic of attention deficit, hyperactivity and other similar diagnostic clichés are caused by high 38 dialogue
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calorie malnutrition in literally millions of our children. Following the mainstream traditional model, these children are unfortunately treated with drugs such as Ritalin and it is a reflection of its use to note that the country actually ran out of this drug a few years ago, sending many parents into a state of panic. Some physicians are not aware of the extent of the problem and, in general, our contemporary society has, until recently, accepted that our nutritional standards are acceptable. We should now be aware that the old adage that “we are what we eat” must be replaced by “we behave according to what we eat.” There is now some evidence from animal studies that obesity can be connected with inflammatory disease by stimulating a genetically determined mechanism in the hypothalamus (part of the brain). This mechanism remains inactive until a high calorie diet is provided when its activity induces either obesity, inflammation, or both together. In chapter 6 it becomes relatively easy to see why and how acupuncture, homeopathy, mind/body disciplines, and nutrition fit into the model. They cannot work without consideration being given to the ever-present dialogue between the “two brains” and the body. Some discussion of the validity of energy medicine techniques is provided within this model. It can be seen how medicine inevitably fits into the latest research in physics and mathematics and must, ultimately, become part of the modern search for the Universal Theory of Matter that eluded Einstein. The presently accepted medical model is a “Newtonian” one, since it deals with structural changes in body organs: hence the term “organic disease,” considered generally to be the only cause of “real” disease. The model proposed here is “Einsteinian,” dealing with the synthesis, storage and utilization of cellular energy. In the conventional model, functional changes in the relations between the brain and the body are considered to be “psychosomatic” and treatable by “talk therapy,” the basis of psychiatry, or the use of drugs. The “new” model is based upon biochemistry and electricity as they affect cellular metabolism and the exchange of information within the body as a whole. Hence, Alternative Medicine techniques involve the use of nutrition, prescription of therapeutic nutrients rather than synthetic pharmaceuticals, and all the variety of methods used www.dialogue.ca
to improve intercellular communication. The normal equipment of adaptive ability is improved by stimulating and balancing the biochemistry throughout the body. The limbic brain is regarded as the “conductor” of an “orchestra” where the body organs are seen as the “instruments.” The “symphony of health” is brought about by the constant communication between the brain and the body. The most important need is for an adequate supply of energy for every cell involved in the constant interplay. In chapter 7 the problem of microorganisms that are known as “opportunist” is discussed. In the present era we are constantly being introduced to “new” microorganisms, resulting in infections that we never heard of before. They are really not new at all and have always been present, “waiting in the wings” for the host to become weakened so that their chance of winning is increased. We have seen how the human body defends itself from its natural microscopic predators. The effectiveness of these organisms in causing disease is a sure sign of our increasingly vulnerable state, rather than an increase in their virulence. Attack by anaerobic (oxygen hating) organisms is a good example of the phenomenon and is well understood. These organisms thrive in tissues deprived of oxygen because they can manufacture their required energy without it: Oxygen kills them. Certain organisms that occur in the human bowel as “friends” can become “enemies” when the normal balance between these organisms is damaged. This balance is another expression of yin and yang. An example is provided by discussion of bacteria that are capable of destroying thiamin (Vitamin B1) and causing disease by depriving the host of this vitamin. A better known example is that of Candida (yeast) which is still not accepted by mainstream medicine as a common problem. An illustration of this is given by describing a relatively rare condition known as mucocutaneous candidiasis. This can be used to illustrate the validity of the proposed disease model. In chapter 8 some patient problems are outlined to illustrate how the proposed model works in a clinical setting. Some vivid accounts of patients illustrate how and why the author was forced to abandon much of the conventional teaching of the day about the causation and the treatment of disease. In each example, it can be seen that the “new” model www.dialogue.ca
indicates that the participation of the brain in all disease mechanisms must be taken into consideration. As the “computer” reacts to input, the messages that are automatically distributed represent both “mental” and “physical” adaptation. This continues twenty-four hours a day, whether we are conscious or not, as in sleep. As outlined in a previous chapter, the computer is really a conductor of an orchestra. The instruments are the organs within the body and the adaptive mechanisms that follow represent the “symphony” of health. Automatic reflexes, initiated in the brain computer, govern much more of our behavior than we are consciously aware. If these reflexes are released too easily, without the “advice and consent” of the cognitive brain, the behavior may become more primitive because the primitive nature of man resides in these reflexes. Sexual drive and hunger for food are examples of the most powerful forces that govern our survival reflexes. If they are initiated too easily because of lack of “self control” we become more like cavemen who did not have the restraints of civilization. The mechanism of self control depends upon an adequate dialogue between the two brains (described in chapter 3). Finally, I wish to emphasize that these mechanisms are dependent upon normal chemistry in the brain cells. TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE: The serialized reprinting of Derrick Lonsdale’s book, A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine. Softcover version published in 2013. Hardcover version: 2014. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the publisher, Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co. ISBN: 978-1-61897-092-3 (softcv); 978-1-63135-336-9 (hard)
“Everything is connected to everything else.” Dr. Lonsdale retired in 2012 at the age of 88 years; he is a retired Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and a Certified Nutrition Specialist. Website: www.prevmed.com/ Blog: http://o2thesparkoflife.blogspot.com/
Dr. Lonsdale is also author of: Why I Left Orthodox Medicine. And his 2017 book: Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition, explores thiamine and how its deficiency affects the functions of the brainstem and autonomic nervous system by way of metabolic changes at the level of the mitochondria… This book represents the life work of the senior author, Dr. Derrick Lonsdale, and a recent collaboration with his coauthor Dr. Chandler Marrs. ISBN: 0128103876 / ♣ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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The Feudal Fiefdoms of Saskatchewan :
PART FIVE
In the Regional Parks of SK, people own their homes, on land leased from management Boards that operate at a frightening level of autonomy, enabled by political interference and wilful blindness from municipal and provincial governments. Five seniors represented themselves in Court of Queen’s Bench against a Board-initiated Writ of Possession application. This is the 5th Installment of the story from Norm Zigarlick and friends on the idylls of Park life and their search for ‘justice’ [Story began last Autumn, Vol.33-1]
Norm Zigarlick, SK, normzig56@gmail.com
It’s now about year since my friends and I were off to Court of Queen’s Bench as respondents in several Summary Judgement actions filed against us by one of the agencies attached to the Government of Saskatchewan. Without going into a lot of detail, summary judgements are hearings in front of a judge who can make a decision based on simple evidence put before them. No examinations for discovery. No testimony under oath. No cross examinations in court. The idea behind that is to streamline the process and get petty arguments out of the way without a full-blown court case. Queen’s Bench guidelines say if an issue cannot be easily decided in the summary process, the matter should be moved into regular procedure. I’m not sure what a difficult decision looks like, but I can say our “easily decided” ones took eight months from the time of the hearings until judges delivered their judgements. It was probably Covid-19 somehow interfering with the thought process. A WANDERING MIND So here we are still holed up in Fort Covid only slipping out to buy groceries and gas (and lottery tickets). When getting ready to head out on one of those excursions I took a look at myself in a mirror. I haven’t had a haircut in ages, it’s a long shaggy grey mess. I had on my formal Covid wear, grey sweatpants and a grey t-shirt. I put on a mask to round out the costume. I looked like some kind of geriatric ninja off to rid a senior’s center of masked intruders carrying bed pans. I couldn’t help but wonder, when wearing this get up, if I knocked off the Bank of Nova Scotia and made my getaway, how many people would fit my description on the next Crime Stoppers broadcast? While sitting in isolation waiting for court decisions and the subsequent weirdness that followed, my mind wandered a bit. I paid too much attention to politics 40 dialogue
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and the stuff that falls out of the mouths of the creatures running for office. Taxes are always in that jibberish loop. That took me full circle to the beginnings of our serious arguments at Suffern Lake Regional Park in West Central Saskatchewan in September 2015. Our simple question then was, “if we pay taxes, why can’t we vote on who spends the tax money?” A basket full of court cases and a thousand questions later, still no answer. FLIMFLAMMERY Along the way I wrote an email/letter to Saskatchewan Government making reference to this set up being a tax scam. That little note showed up in the plaintiff’s written arguments in court. An indignant lawyer and his flock saw this as a terrible thing for me to write. For those of you not familiar with our story, we were sued for being 90 days in arrears on property taxes which were in dispute. I probably did make an error in writing that it was a tax scam, what I should have said is “THIS IS A F#%$&^%G TAX SCAM! ” Besides taxes being jigged and rigged at the local level, it turns out the Provincial Government is not exactly pure in the process either. Or, as the offended lawyer would put it, “they do not have clean hands.” Just a bit of background. At Suffern Lake Regional Park there are just over 50 taxpaying cottages on the private side of the Park. Right next door is the public side of the Park with a golf course, a beach, some campsites and that sort of thing. Cottage owners pay land lease fees, fire protection www.dialogue.ca
fees, water use fees, waste disposal fees and property taxes on improvements (dwellings). The Regional Parks Act and the Municipalities Act set the framework for how things work. The Province has 296 rural municipalities (RMs). Many of them are tied directly to Regional Parks by physical land location and/or by administration. For example, Suffern Lake Regional Park involves representation from three RMs even though the entire Park is located in just one of them. The original concept, from mid last century, was to allow rural folk access to a park within 25 miles of them. That makes things a tad complicated. While a Regional Park is within an RM, it is not considered part of the RM. However, property taxes are paid to the RM because Regional Park Authorities have no right to collect taxes. Regional Park Authorities are made up of appointed members. According to regulation, the Park Authority has the right to establish operating budgets and set mil rates on taxation. Confused yet? OK recap… unelected members establish mil rates that are applied to property values and the RM appointed as the taxing authority collects the money. Cottage owners are not considered part of the RM voting population because the Park is not part of the RM. So… no vote anywhere that counts. In theory, across Canada we pay taxes and in return can expect local improvements to be funded by those taxes. Well good luck with that concept! In Suffern Lake Regional Park, tax money goes to the RM, virtually none of it is used on the private side of the Park but about 75% of what is paid reappears as funding for the Park in general. For the past half-decade, a vast majority of that money has gone to subsidize the public side of the Park which includes a golf course that earned less than $100 gross annual revenue before they quit charging green fees. The arguments that got us in to Queen’s Bench centered around unfair taxation. Those arguing against us regurgitated the oft used, “everybody has to pay their taxes.” Few, if any, ever questioned what those taxes were used for or noted that cottage owners were already paying fees for things that taxes often cover and lease fees were already being fed directly into Park operations. The perception has long been that taxes here are like www.dialogue.ca
taxes everywhere, nobody likes them, but everybody has to pay them. The impression was the Park Authority was in charge of taxes just as a town council might be and they could use them how they want. Wrong! Taxes are paid to the RM, property assessments are the purview of Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency via information provided by the RM. The Acts noted earlier allow this: The RM accepts the budget information from the Park Authority; the budget requirement is measured against the property values in the Park and a mil rate is established to meet the financial needs of the Park plus about 25%; the RM then turns the tax income into the equivalent of a grant and gives about 75% back to the Park Authority to spend as they see fit. Fit rarely includes the needs of the private side of the Park. In essence, the RMs collect tax money from people that can’t vote then wash some of it into grant dollars, thus taking the Charter of Rights intent for property taxation right out of the show, and keep 20% plus as a handling charge. I should add that at the moment some of those taxes will be directed toward paying for the Park Authority’s (who does NOT have taxation authority) legal counsel in the multiple taxation arguments they lost. Don’t ya just love small conservative governments that keep things simple? A SUPERIOR COURT Let’s pop back to our Queen’s Bench adventure. That stream of events began in mid-2018 when the Park Authority lawyers presented notice for the intent of filing a Writ of Possession. In June of 2019 they filed QB 174 of 2019 for the purpose of taking possession of Lisa’s cottage along with those of John Danilak and Jim Duffee. That action was thrown out because of procedure. They promptly filed three new, separate summary actions which were heard in September of 2019 and EIGHT MONTHS LATER in May of 2020, judgements were presented. Remember, summary actions… quick and easy decisions? Uh huh. We are still trying to unpack all of what was in the decisions. At first blush, two of them read like we lost or should have, but we didn’t. QB 231 of 2019 was a summary action designed specifically to take possession of Lisa’s cottage. They lost. Yet, in her written decision, Madam Justice Goebel wrote ‘it seemed lost on her (Lisa) that she was at risk of losing her prime residence.’ Absolutely bewildering. Lisa graduated in journalism, worked for a …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Norm Zigarlick, Feudal Fiefdoms, Part Five, contd.
couple of large newspapers, segued into tourism, economic development and recently, was a Legislative Assistant for the province of Alberta. She was in her third battle with people trying to take her home, all of which involved a lawyer that was the judge’s former office colleague before being appointed to the bench. If we boil that down to street language, the judge suggested Lisa was a dimwit who had no understanding of the circumstances she was in but won the day anyway. The first thought that came to my mind was, “what does that say about the lawyer who lost?” QB 230 of 2019 was a summary writ of possession action against John Danilak and Joanna Ritchot. Judge Zuk condemned their choice to question the Park regarding disparate tax increases which lead to their lease being terminated. He ignored evidence of the Chairman’s brother-in-law retaining his lease when more than five years in arrears and during the hearing, equated their situation to receiving a speeding ticket, stating, “you got caught!” Hmmm, a speeding ticket is issued upon the discretion of the officer. I will venture an opinion here: there isn’t, or shouldn’t be, anything discretionary about tax enforcement. Judge Zuk further admonished John and Joanna for defending themselves with affidavits and documents. “Once the Park commenced its application, the Tenants responded with lengthy affidavits raising old grievances and irrelevant issues…. and put the Park to the added expense of responding to each allegation”. John and Joanna were respondents replying to materials received. They got upwards of 250 pages of documents plus 11 emails for QB 230 of 2019. They provided 79 pages. I’d like to go into more detail on issues like those above and on the background participation of the Saskatchewan Government and its agents but as new information keeps showing up, its best I don’t go down that road until we have what we think is the final picture. THE DIALOGUE EFFECT We all know that DIALOGUE is a small publication that allows a voice to a broad and interesting spectrum of opinions, analysis and entertainment. From our own experience, I can also say it has impact. Until fairly recently, our little working group was mostly considered trouble-making malcontent “outsiders” referred to within the community as the 42 dialogue
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“terrorists”. The Park Authority and its senior government partners did what they could to keep that image going. That effort took quite a hit when, after the court decisions were complete, we delivered copies of DIALOGUE to a number of local people to make them aware of the history of the disputes. Thanks again to Maurice and Janet. OUTCOMES In early August, the Park Authority held its COVID delayed AGM. I didn’t attend (there are already enough people here that don’t like me). However, nearly half those that did attend moved to have the Secretary removed from his position, property assessment irregularities were a hot topic and at least one bad guy was stripped of what he believed was his authority. Is that perfect? Nope, but its miles and smiles ahead of where it used to be. We may have won ownership of the involved cottages, but incredibly, the Park Authority recently had its lawyer (same guy) take another run at us. James the Good responding to our queries about the validity of the Park Authority reinstating, and billing for, leases that did not hold up in court offered the following comment, “there is no inherent right to a future renewal of a lease.” A stark and blatant threat. No new/amended leases have been issued to us, and as per the previous lease, the renewal date is January 1, 2021. Lisa – in her dimwitted Legislative Assistant, journalism, court-winning structured comments – told him in the nicest way to do something I could have said in two words… the second word would be off. This may take a while longer. PONDERINGS I have spent time cruising online reading of general lawyer stuff. Jeeeeez, it's disheartening. Lawyers suing each other, government suing law firms, law firms suing government. Its freakin’ stunning when viewed from this perspective. All of these guys are looking for work and they get it by milking confrontation. Sadly, the more money you have, the more justice you can buy. There seems to be a huge need for regular citizens to have a place or organization where the choking circle of legalese can be eliminated. I can't see one that exists in any functioning manner. Throw in the fact that government uses your money to sue you. No matter how small that government agency is, from Suffern Lake Regional Park Authority to Canada www.dialogue.ca
Revenue Agency, it's your tax dollar at work against you in the court room. All judges are lawyers. And just where do you go when a judge is wonky? To another judge? We have been flat out lied to and prosecuted by the government and its agents all of whom pretend to be the guardians of fairness. Half our politicians are lawyers and they intimidate the other half.
What they do when you catch them is steer you into a funnel that dumps you back into their court. On their terms. In the general scheme of things, we are like a pop bottle bobbing around in an ocean of legal debris. Round and round it goes In October, Saskatchewan will hold a Provincial election; Yay!??? Norm Zigarlick, SK ♣
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Roots & Wings – Liberal Arts Education For All ~ for Kaizen, Marshall and Blake By J.S. Porter, Aug. 2020*, www.spiritbookword.net
“We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves.” -- C.S. Lewis. Here’s the popular wisdom. What matters in education are the STEM subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, just as in the economy what matters are the Information Technology (IT) companies – Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook. You need a lot of STEM to get into IT. What’s the use of history, art and literature or language, philosophy and critical thinking? Are they as dead as Latin in our school system? Maybe. And yet. A single essay by the English art critic and author John Berger can revivify a prehistoric Cave drawing or Van Gogh’s sunflowers with unforgettable clarity. A good liberal arts education gives students roots and wings. Will your life come to an end if you never see Hamlet on screen or on stage? No, but you may not be as large in your imagination as you become when you expose yourself to one of the world’s great plays on what it is to be a struggling, conflicted human being. And so it goes: a speech by Dr. King, notes by Simone Weil, a letter by Keats, an essay by James Baldwin, a story by Chekhov, a poem by Emily Dickinson can be an engaging and thrilling experience. The experience may even enlarge your being. Here’s a list of readings – my roots, my wings—for you to poke around in. Lots of holes and gaps. You may have your own list. If so, let’s exchange them. David Bowie has his (Link at the end of the essay). A Liberal Arts Reading List Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, Dennis Lee www.dialogue.ca
The Iliad, The Odyssey, Gilgamesh, Tao Te Ching The fairytales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen The satires of Jonathan Swift The plays of Shakespeare, and then Sophocles, Ibsen, Beckett Greek myths, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Tomson Highway’s talks on Aboriginal Mythology and his book-length essay Comparing Mythologies, Cohen’s Let Us Compare Mythologies The parables of Jesus Job and other stories from the Bible The short stories of Chaucer, Chekhov, Kafka, Hawthorne, D.H. Lawrence, Hemingway, Carver, Cheever, Clarice Lispector, Roberto Bolaño, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant Novellas and tales by Henry James The dialogues of Plato The poetry of Li Bai (Li Po), Du Fu (Tu Fu), Basho, Rumi, Milton, Tagore, Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman, Keats, Césaire, Emily Dickinson, Yeats, Rilke, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Milosz, Neruda, Lorca, Anna Akhmatova, Mahmoud Darwish, Wole Soyinka, Octavio Paz, Seamus Heaney Essays by Montaigne, Emerson, Nietzsche, Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence, Orwell, James Baldwin, John Berger, Loren Eisley, Virginia Woolf, Robert Hughes, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, Hannah Arendt, Rebecca Solnit, Don McKay, Lydia Davis Journals and Dairies by Thomas Merton, Emerson, Thoreau, Anaïs Nin, Emily Carr, Virginia Woolf Letters by St. Paul, Chekhov, Van Gogh, John Keats, Ted Hughes Novels, a few favourites: Cervantes’ Don Quixote, VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Voltaire’s Candide, Melville’s Moby Dick, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Tolstoy’s Master and Man, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers or The Rainbow, Kafka’s The Trial, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, André Breton’s Nadja, Robert McLiam Wilson’s Eureka Street, Lawrence Durrell’s Justine, Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival, Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Soseki’s Kokoro, Kawabata’s Snow Country, Kundera’s Life Is Elsewhere or Immortality, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Roth’s The Human Stain, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Marguerite Duras’ The Lover, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye Songs by Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Eminem, Stephen Sondheim, George and Ira Gershwin Notes by Coleridge, Simone Weil, Albert Camus Biography: Boswell on Johnson, Eckerman on Goethe (conversations), Tadié on Proust, Edna O’Brien on Joyce, Carlos Baker on Hemingway, Richard Holmes on Coleridge, George Steiner on Heidegger, Alberto Manguel on Borges Autobiography: St. Augustine, Montaigne, Rousseau, Bertrand Russell, Camara Laye’s The African Child, Heisenberg’s Physics and Beyond, autobiographical fiction by J.M. Coetzee (The Lives of Animals, Boyhood, Youth, Summertime), Patti Smith’s Just Kids or M. Train, Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Memoirs by Nabokov, Jung, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald’s The Crack-Up, Ondaatje’s Running in the Family, and John Glassco’s Memoirs of Montparnasse Literary criticism by Barthes, Bachelard, Harold Bloom, Hugh Kenner, Lionel Trilling, Edward Said, Steiner, Frye, F.R. Leavis, Hélène Cixous, Malcolm Cowley, Helen Vendler, Edmund Wilson, Camille Paglia, Cynthia Ozick, John Updike (book reviews), Heidegger (on poetry), Coleridge (on Shakespeare and Wordsworth) The sermons of Paul Tillich Lectures by Emerson, the Massey Lecture Series (including Northrop Frye on the imagination, George Grant on Nietzsche, Hugh Kenner, Thomas King, 44 dialogue
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Robert Fulford, Richard C. Lewontin’s Biology as Ideology and Ursula Franklin’s The Real World of Technology) Aphorisms of Pascal, Nietzsche, La Rochefoucauld, Oscar Wilde, Emil Cioran, Marshall McLuhan The speeches of Churchill, the Kennedys (John & Robert), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Maya Angelou And something else: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince/The Little Prince, plus Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel. And The Wind in the Willows if you’re really ambitious. And Ian and Sylvia’s “Four Strong Winds,” and Emmylou Harris’ “Cup of Kindness.” p.s. My friend Marshall Soules poses some interesting questions: “Imagine a 4-year undergraduate liberal arts program that requires students to make up their own canon and justify their choices with short critical essays / articles. The students could meet regularly to discuss the virtues and problems with canons of literature: binding cultures and traditions; embedding conformity etc. What constitutes global culture? Should we (try to) be conversant with it? To what extent do canons of literature contribute to exclusionary thinking when it comes to global culture?” Here’s David Bowie’s Reading List: LINK : www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/01/da-
vid-bowie-books *An earlier version of this article appeared on The Nancy Duffy Show website, August 01, 2020.
J.S. Porter, www.spiritbookword.net/ ♣
Laughter & ‘Lightenment QUICK THINKING!
– from Herb Spencer: TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor? JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we
have today that we didn’t have ten years ago. WINNIE: Me! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEACHER: Bob, why do you always get so dirty? BOB: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say
prayers before eating? SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mum is a good cook. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on “My Dog”
is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his? CLYDE: No, sir. It’s the same dog. www.dialogue.ca
Tales from Fruitvale…
The Enduring Tales of Malachi and Granddad Paul Bowles, Fruitvale BC
Malachi awoke when first light broke through the window. The sound of a creaking stair alerted me. I reasoned that he was foraging for left over pancakes and, satisfied that he would find what he wanted, I sank back into the pillow to recover what energy I needed to face the new day. Sleep deprived, I lay inert but, gradually, rustling paper filtered through my slumber. Malachi was tip toeing across my room checking through the crowded shelves of C.D.s, books and magazines, tins and boxes of stuff, leather folders of stamps, statuettes and photos of family that he would recognise. He is an inquisitive little boy of nine years who was staying with my wife and me for the duration and was eager to start the day. “Wow, there’s a whole shoebox of harmonicas, here” he said, and thus the day began. One of these numerous mornings of furtive creeping breaking through my consciousness, Malachi sat on my bed, untroubled by any formality; he said, “Hey Granddad, can you read this book to me. Prying myself up to peer through half-closed eyelids, I glanced at the book. On the cover was a picture of a man with a book unfolded in his lap. Doubtful of its interest to him, I said, “It’s a book of poems.” He replied, “It has a C.D. in it, can we play it?” I had not even noticed this before; it had been years since I had last seen this book and most likely I had not made it to the inside back cover upon which was a sleeve with C.D. in it. Surprised but intrigued, I scanned the contents and found ‘The Owl and the Pussycat,’ which Malachi (a.k.a. ’Kye) listened to attentively, still sitting on my bed while I nodded back to sleep. When I came to, he was on the prowl again, looking for a new stimulus, crawling around on the floor to reach corners cluttered with percussion equipment. For a while though, each day, poetry at first light was a thing, I chose the poems for suitability and one of them I discovered, to my delight, was ‘The Children’s Hour’ by Longfellow. It was the tale of a grandfather, from the recesses of his armchair, being assailed by, ‘grave Alice, laughing Allegra and golden haired www.dialogue.ca
Edith.’ Malachi also furnished his own C.D. for these special mornings which was Le Petit Souris, a story with songs in French. We had ‘Kye with us for three months during the Covid crisis. My wife was the tutor and I was the human entertainment centre. After his morning rummage through the chosen corner of the room, leafing through piles of Dialogue magazines, opening boxes of nibs and sealing wax, small containers of coins, baskets full of old hand-drawn father’s day and thankyou cards, I set things back in order. Perhaps some of the cards were a window for him of some kind: a spiral of words from Avebury, the indigenous art of The Raven’s journey (a warrior within a bird), but one in particular caught my attention, unpeeling the years for me since I had first received it. It was a print of a lino cut, done by an old friend of mine back in England. This card pictured a temple, mountains, thunder clouds, rain and an ancient wall by a windblown tree. Within it was a poem tapped out in red ink, on a typewriter. The poem was about a wild March morning when the angels called for his soul… “The trees began to whisper and the wind begins to roll.” I doubt if Malachi read this, but since it had been unearthed, I glanced through it and re-discovered a letter to me on the back of the poem. My friend spoke of being unwell but was elevated with reading Conversations with Socrates by Xenophon. This basket contained a cornucopia of memories and connections, all dormant for years until this present rifling brought these old messages to light. Conversations were had in a similar way between Malachi and Zennon, who is my neighbour across the road. ‘Kye had taken to strolling across to chat, casually like one of the boys, to share his experiences of the day. Distancing protocol was observed and especially with Jack, the friendly but exuberant young dog on the end of a long line. Expansion of boundaries was sought by Malachi in this time of closed public facilities – no parks, no pool, no library and no visitors. The regular walk together to the Post Office became increasingly extended further afield by request. We sat by the full flowing creek at different points where it wound through the village. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Paul Bowles, Enduring Tales of Malachi, contd.
We followed the train tracks in their winding course through the bush, diverting across to the abandoned summer scout camp and we made serious deliberations on the safety of crossing over the single board, wire-strung bridge that spanned the turbulent Beaver Creek. There was however, to my relief, another safer bridge further along, which delivered us to a maze of trails winding in all directions (courtesy of scouts in the past) through the dense forest of towering trees which led us to open parkland on the other side of town. Drained of energy, I rested my 74 year old body before completing this circular expedition to collect the mail; and I resolved that day to return here on bikes. This we did and trail riding became a regular before-school-time enterprise that expanded understanding of my present physical capability. (See p.59) We approached art a few times; Malachi loved to use wide and colourful felt markers. Mother’s Day was pivotal in motivating him to make a structural effort to convey a message and presentation, such as, bothering with a border and considering a flower and some rolling hill context. Musically, I was an informal influence for ‘Kye, mainly through his interest in plucking out my old record albums. What he chose, he could play. Many musical favourites have been established over the months of playing cards and putting an album on the turntable. The Beatles of course, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, and Steely Dan have endured with their catchy songs and vocal significance. Although in one case of Led Zeppelin – even though it was only
a single song that became compelling for him – both my wife and I wondered if he would ever recover from the spell. We had to insist that he move on. The Immigrant Song was a big step from How Much Is That Doggie in the Window, but there were indicators that his sensitivities had not been permanently destroyed. For example he actually learned, on the xylophone, to play ‘the very generalised’ introductory motif from Elgar’s Enigma. Although he didn’t pick it out from the record album, he worked it out from some notes which I had left lying around, marked on a scrap of paper, to remind myself how to play it, and which he had heard me practice. At nine years old Malachi could be one of the youngest kids around who is conversant with all the golden oldies of the 1970s. In one of his inquisitive moments, he discovered, in my room, a musical birthday card sent to me many years ago. He opened the card and was blasted by “Go Daddy O” by the big band of “Big Bad Voodoo Daddy” – in authentic 60’s rock and roll style, he loved it. That led to him asking me about band names of the past… The Mamas and the Papas, Little Feet, King Crimson, Yes, Taste, Bees Make Honey… and on and on. Malachi’s education picks up from where ever his interest lies. When his mother came to collect him, three months later, he asked her to download “Countdown to Ecstasy,” so he could have something of his own choice to travel with on their way home. Paul Bowles, scribepoet@hotmail.com ♣ Art & Calligraphy on p.60 [And more from Paul on p.49]
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That’s My Take On It! Letter to my city council members From John Shadbolt, Acton ON
“You see, study after study has found a clear and powerful link between being committed to learning and increased quality and length of life. In fact, much of the research suggests that ‘life-long learning’ may be the number one social factor for predicting if you'll live a good long life!” The lines above sum me up, I think. I try to keep an open mind. Perhaps that is why I am still alive. Who knows? However in all my life I have never had ANY results from ALL the work I have done - trying to alert people to the dangers re fluoride, as an example. I have a water filter... so it is not about me. BUT I feel bad about the people who do not know 46 dialogue
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that this toxic rat crap causes such things as cancer. The council members must know this, but deny, deny, deny. No one will ever have fluoride on their death certificate, just the usual things, so the dirty work never really shows up. The same applies to 5G – but that is more in the future. I do not think I could live with myself if I was in the position of the council members who push this crap. I have been a COMPLETE FAILURE IN MY EFFORTS TO WAKE UP COUNCIL! So this is my last message to council;
there is no point. I bet that will please you! Oh, by the way I am sending this to all my friends. - John Shadbolt, - shadbolt617@gmail.com www.dialogue.ca
SUMMER 2020
Ramblings
Randy Vancourt, Toronto ON
As we bid farewell to summer 2020 I sincerely hope that my two young kids will remember it for something other than the incongruity of wearing facemasks to Dairy Queen. My own childhood summers are full of recollections of long, lazy days reading Hardy Boy mysteries underneath the huge pine tree in our yard, swimming, camping, visiting unusual roadside attractions on trips with my family, going to amusement parks… That last memory primarily revolves around Montreal’s now-defunct Belmont Park, which for 44 years reigned supreme as the only game in town. Even once La Ronde opened in 1967, Belmont Park continued to fill our summers with the sort of thrills that only rickety old wooden roller coasters can provide. It was eventually shut down in 1983 following some unpleasant accidents (a seat broke loose from one ride and two kids plummeted 8 metres to the ground) and a police raid for suspected illegal gambling. Any place dedicated to fun that could still inspire a 1972 film entitled, “To Death,” is sure to elicit some strong memories. Following the unsettled craziness of the past few months, my wife and I were determined to give our kids some pleasant experiences to look back on years from now. We are fortunate to live a relatively short drive from the Muskoka district, one of the most beautiful areas of this country. As a musician I have been lucky enough over the years to play at some of the festivals, lodges and tourist locations that cover this region. Many of these places have been around for decades, some dating back over a century, from a time when travelling up to Muskoka was an adventure requiring trains and boats. People back then would arrive with steamer trunks full of clothes for their holidays. I am always amazed that photos form that era seem to show women in long heavy dresses and men in suits, even in the heat of summer. In those pre-airconditioned times that must have made for a rather www.dialogue.ca
uncomfortable (not to mention aromatic) holiday. Due to changing vacationing patterns over the years many of these resorts have closed down or changed format. While searching online for somewhere to take the family, my wife stumbled upon one such resort that is still in operation. It opened in 1897 and originally featured a beautiful lodge but the property has since been transformed into smaller “housekeeping” cottages. Happily they had a vacancy so we booked it; coincidentally I had played at this lodge a few times years ago so I looked forward to seeing what had become of it. Upon arrival I was a little skeptical – some of the older buildings dating back to the 1920s had the ramshackle appearance of the set from a summer camp horror movie. It was a little sad to see the lodge itself in such disarray, its only visitors the foxes who now run through the old, decrepit lobby. The property went through a bankruptcy a few years ago and previous owners just walked away from it, leaving the tables in the dining room still set with dishes. There’s a feeling of The Shining about the whole place. It turned out many of these buildings are set for demolition (either by the new owner or nature). Our accommodations were more modern and seemed far less likely to invite a nighttime visit from anyone with a hook for a hand. Our week was busy with swimming, hiking, campfires – basically everything needed to fill our kids’ heads with wonderful summertime memories. We even made friends with a couple from France who had two kids the same age as ours, and our combined offspring spent the entire time playing together. Now as the school year looms before us, with its offer of a headlong leap into the next level of Dante’s Inferno, at least I feel confident that, whatever the next few months bring, the kids will look back on this summer fondly. We’re even planning on returning there next year… assuming of course that there IS a next year. .
Website: www.randyvancourt.com ♣
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Ideas from David Foster, Port Perry ON
Trapped in dreams of fear scenarios David Muir Foster, Port Perry, Ontario
As happens sometimes, we are trapped in dreams of fear scenarios... against all logic. In this one, I was alone in a large older car that had almost no brake fluid and yet it had a loose gas pedal that accelerated on its own, and a steering system that overcorrected among suburban streets with trees and normal neighborhoods – driving me helplessly from hazard to hazard. The dream (not quite a nightmare) carried a mood of foreboding that was bound to end badly. I broke from it, awaking and needing to pee. I realized I have let myself become a reactor to 85 years of perceptions and memories of old wars and old technologies rather than author of my own waking future life of today and tomorrow. What moral purpose should old men like me have? What tools to work with as our personal faculties and health decline? I live alone in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis of January 2020 which might well last into Spring of 2021. That creates its own artificial reality. I note how ‘leaders’ in politics and medicine in their prime, 50s, are pressured into making pronouncements with the force of Law when they know they understand too little (yet cannot admit it for fear of jeopardy to the unstable pyramid they sit atop. Cameras always watching). During my lifetime world human population has risen from 2 billion to nearly 9 billion, and other species of animate life have declined by 80%. We are on a path of self-destruction. There have been a few honest observers among us who have warned for over 50 years that the Globe of our world is subject to energies from Space that vary in intensity, and we have in ignorance allowed too few corrective gateways to halt or reverse some of the process. ‘Learning Centres’ have become competing hotbeds of technical ‘Corporate Power’ and information transmission, often connected to dictators or Universities. People are not responsible, ‘Brands’ are. Blame Coca Cola and its world instead of the son of a bitch who controls the Board. Where athletes in their vigorous physical youth are able to run around a track ‘training’, they can keep an eye on each other and the progress they make in their 48 dialogue
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world, but in the real world (made up now of managed illusion), none can see the whole field or the other competitors. Much of that is due to massive over-population of too many struggling for a piece of it among conflicting beliefs, and less and less comprehensible knowledge paths. Two technologies reign: the cell phone cult that rides the radio electric satellite, and broadcast towers of focussed 5G energies. And the masters of these technologies manage and distribute the means of earning a living to others (and carting away the garbage, often university community based). That includes food and ‘education’. Food and pure fresh water we must have every day. Both are now complex systems only specialists can work within. When I have a morning pee, it must go somewhere and leave no residual ‘harm’. But we can no longer tell what is ‘residual harm’. We have muddied all forms of understanding. Much of it on computer screens like the one I type these words on... These screens have established limits to our thinking. They came about in the last 30 years for reasons other than telling truth. I toy with how they might be changed so that the net impact of everything can have a direct link to understanding the residual damage we cause. Perhaps that too could be shown side by side with what passes for ‘News’ or mere blind SPAM. I think it needs be done with the urgency and discipline of wartime. We are always at war. Nearly 9 billion of us. Wars actually fought by as few as 500,000 of the under-age-25s, who have too little understanding of proportion, duration, or consequence (much of it unintended). What proportion is 500,000 among 10 billion? Who do we dare trust with such leverage? It could be graphically shown if we would re-design these screens for easier, better understanding. So that is my hope from last night’s bad dream. August 2020 was the 75th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb explosion over Japan of World War 2 and the subsequent horrors of our blind belief that Nuclear could be used for peace. The result has been Global Warming for far too long, a benchmark now passing a mathematical barrier involving other energy forms that too few under age 70 understand. David Suzuki as a highly educated third generation www.dialogue.ca
Japanese Canadian (born in Vancouver in 1936 at the dawn of the Nuclear Age, is now age 84). He had his own deep reasons to study the genetic Nuclear impact upon living cells, as did Gordon Edwards, (born in Ontario in 1940). Suzuki as one who understands the math, believes it is already too late to halt the ‘Global Warming to Self Destruction’ process. We passed the point of being able to reverse it several years ago. After COVID-19 there is no ‘going back’ to repeat a cycle of hope for the next generation of the under 40s. Rapid heat gain now goes on globally to the point
where Nature creates its own confusing chaos that will accelerate among surface life forms. Suzuki no longer has hope for his own grandchildren. Learn from it what you can. Yet I still drive a petroleum fuelled car, even in my dreams. With regret, I realize I am part of the problem, a problem too big now to dissociate myself from. So I, at age 85, dream dreams of guilt and regret. David Muir Foster Port Perry, Aug 31, 2020 david.foster2@powergate.ca ♣
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Myth Makers and Mystery
From Leo Purcell, Antigonish NS
I have been receiving your magazine for the last few years, my subscription a Christmas gift from my friend Franklin O'Connor who lives in Nanaimo. While I find I have little interest in items on politics, both provincial and federal, I do enjoy other items especially those with a bit of humour. One hears often that senior citizens should be treasured and consulted for the wisdom they have acquired over the years. I don't know about the
wisdom part but I do qualify as a senior, finishing up my 88th, and I have found in my readings, especially in the areas of religion and national policies, that most of the doctrines and ideologies that shape the lives of all nations fall into the category of myth. It is this mythic nature that gives them that power. I do have one criterion that I use to judge those who differ: do no harm. Understanding myth has liberated me from having to spend time determining who is right / wrong. It has brought me peace and tolerance. - Leo [The photo was taken in 2011. purcell.leo@gmail.com ] ♣
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Wonders of the World…
THE GRAND DESIGN OF THE FISH MIND (flushing out the wonder) Paul Bowles, Fruitvale BC It seems pointless to point out that photography is a phenomenon of prodigious proportions. Of course I have a camera but am not a serious practitioner of the craft. Serious photography brings the universe to our eyes, from nebula to sea bed. You have to be thankful when after all this time since its invention, and in spite of ‘photo-shop’ illusions that taint our sense of reality, one can still be astonished. I have just seen, captured on time sustained video, the art of a fish. A three dimensional sand painting executed by the flapping fins of a puffer fish with such symmetry and curvaceous design that it would rival an alien crop circle. This apparently week-long, non-stop effort was, according to the commentator, David Attenborough of BBC ‘Earth,’ a demonstration of capability to a prospective mate. And if his timing was right, his creation would be noticed before the current www.dialogue.ca
washed it away. I wondered if this truly astounding work of sand art could be some sort of iteration of lunar and planetary movements expressed in the creative mind of this small creature. Art in nature is multifaceted and mysterious, particularly in the decorative displays of the mating ritual. I marvel at this, which, I suppose biologists would say is just instinct or evolution strutting its stuff. Or, maybe physicists might say that this creative posturing, dance or demonstration, are just electrons and protons talking to each other. I heard Brian Greene talking about it, that nothing actually has a will of its own (to enact something) because particles are just a ricochet from the Big Bang explosion and that every movement is a consequence of a prior movement and so, automatic. Not that this cold, sparking-electrons view explains creative intelligence, imagination or the instinct to mate. …/ VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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If this fish art/boudoir is relegated to the description of being instinct, then what is that anyway? Is instinct a sub-conscious mind, a broad band of nature, connecting all, yet allowing individualisation of some sort, such as in a fish species that creates a mating mandala. One wonders, if they all do this, if they are all the same or personalised - or rather, to avoid anthropomorphising - specialised. Regardless, the skill, ability, and the will of the fish, reconfigured its environment to be a beacon. Where did this creative impulse come from, the sparking synapses of the Puffer brain, genes, electro-magnetism, essentially from ‘Light?’ Just a thought, but light has many frequencies conveying rhythms of behaviour in partnership with the moon, as in photosynthesis of plants or corals spawning. Indeed, human revolutions have been correlated with the cyclic occurrence of solar flare maximums so maybe mating rituals could be attributed to solar minimums.
Humans are usually fraught with distractions and impedance of pure ideas. To analyse how things work, we have to struggle to clarify our thinking and doing. The puffer fish seemed to have a clear idea, he just had to put out the energy to create his work, in the sand, on the sea bed. Perhaps he should be called a sandscape architect rather than an artist, to avoid human centred
attributions. When I mentioned that term to a friend, he said, “Why not make it sandscape practitioner?” So back to the Big Bang, which set everything off; we unfortunately don’t know what caused the event itself. Could it be called, a ‘Presence?’ That is probably too warm a word, to attribute to the primal cosmic production, yet, warm by-products emerged from it, stars and life on Earth and now we can add, rapturous aquatic design. Lao Tzu said, “Before creation a presence existed: self contained, complete, formless, voiceless, mateless, changeless, which yet pervaded itself with unending motherhood.” Now, I don’t know if the puffer fish was amorously successful but fortunately, his creation did not go un-noticed, there was a presence. Someone was in the right place at the right time with their technological tools of light to witness and share the extra-ordinary, deeply hidden mind of nature, in action, leaving its mark with a flourish. The video can be found, as I said by typing in David Attenborough (BBC Earth) Puffer Fish LINK : https://www.kinderworld.org/videos/animalwisdom/pufferfish/ ♣
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This is from Anna Christine, the back-fence neighbour of Janet & Dialogue, on Vancouver Island
During this time of uncertainty… Anna Christine Doehring, RHFP, CRP, had a lifelong interest in medicine, yet life had many other intentions. She came to Vancouver Island in 1989. Since 1995 she has been practicing Reflexology, JinShinDo®, CranioSacral®. and, since 2007, Reconnective Healing®. This latter is seen as the leader in the growing field of Energy-Healthcare. Anna Christine is a Reconnective Healing Foundational Practitioner™ and presently the only Certified Reconnection Practitioner™ on Vancouver Island. Because every symptom is like the tip of an iceberg, she writes mainly about the signs the body gives us that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. She says, “I want to help you to get into a state of inner balance. We all prefer different ways to overcome stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, no energy, poor sleep or other worries so many experience now. Some of the following healing modalities are free or by donation.
1. Bruno Groening is helping all of us when asked. To find out who he is go to https://bruno-groening.org 6000 doctors are involved worldwide to evaluate the healings. Sometimes people experience healings while watching: LINK: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNlXuclHhVc 50 dialogue
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2. Another way is Braco’s gazing session and he is also taken seriously by scientists and doctors. Because of the current situation he does these sessions frequently. For more information and the dates and times of the gazings go to: https://braco-tv.me/ 3. Distant Reconnective Healing is as effective as sessions done in my office. For more information go to: LINK : https://ReconnectionToTheCosmos.com
The first response of many clients after a session is “I am so much at peace.” 4. Being in nature – away from all communication devices – will always be of great benefit. 5. Prayer – perhaps you like this approach: Fifteen years ago after a nasty car accident I woke up with anxiety every morning. Because I did not want to take medication I put my hands on my solar plexus, took a deep breath and said: “Please God take my anxiety away” – and then I was anxiety-free and calm Anna Christine Doehring, RHFP, RCP Holistic & Spiritual Wellness – Reflexology, JinShinDo® – CranioSacral® – Reconnective Healing® - Tel. 250-756-2235 (PST) www.ReconnectionToTheCosmos.com ♣ www.dialogue.ca
Choral Singing: another casualty of Covid-19 By Jim Taylor, Okanagan Centre, BC I sing in a church choir. Correction: I used to sing in a church choir. Further correction: I used to sing, once upon a time… Singing has fallen victim to the Covid-19 pandemic. When health regulations prohibited large gatherings, and when physical distancing precluded even small groups from getting together, choirs everywhere had to shut down. Some choral groups have put together magnificent performances during this time of social isolation. But not by singing together. Every track has been recorded separately, and then painstakingly stitched together by someone -- either the conductor or a technician -- doing countless hours of labour. My church chose to move its Sunday services to Zoom. Zoom is a wonderful platform. But you can’t sing together on Zoom. I don’t pretend to understand the technology behind Zoom, but I can hear that it delays transmission by a fraction of a second, to avoid the feedback squeal that can dislodge your fillings. As a result, if you start singing when you can hear me, you’re already half a word behind. And if you have a strong voice, others will follow you, but half a word behind you, a whole word behind me. On our first attempts at singing over Zoom, some singers ended a full line after the pianist had finished. It was chaos. Definitely not a unifying effect. So we tried having just one person singing the words, while everyone else had their microphones muted. They could sing along, but only to themselves.
Use it or lose it A few weeks back, I was the congregation’s “designated singer.” I did not like the sound of my voice. It felt raw, uncertain. I struggled to stay on key. I realized I hadn’t done any vocal exercises. to warm up. I should have done at least ten minutes. More than that, I hadn’t done any singing at all for several weeks. Not even in the shower. The late great cello player Pablo Casals once said about practicing: “If I don’t practice for a month, my audience knows it. If I don’t practice for a week, my accompanist knows it. If I don’t practice for a day, I know it.” Singing, like gymnastics or swimming, involves physical fitness, muscle training. The old saying applies: “Use it, or lose it.” The day I was the “designated singer,” I knew I was losing it. Breathing together With the loosening of Covid-19 regulations, some www.dialogue.ca
churches have begun holding in-person services again. For limited numbers, with people spaced out. But the rule still applies -- no singing! Because, of course, if you’re singing you’re breathing deeply. And you’re all inhaling and exhaling at the same time. For virus particles carried by air currents, singing must resemble pulmonary paradise. As a compromise, my congregation agreed to allow humming. Under a mask, of course. And yet singing may be more central to worship than fine words or fancy rituals. I suspect that worship originated, not delivered by a flash of lightning from above, but in gatherings around a prehistoric campfire as people munching on the day’s catch synchronized their grunts and slurps, and felt themselves part of something bigger, something more profound, more meaningful. When I was younger, we often re-enacted that campfire ritual. As we roasted marshmallows or hot dogs, we sang. Perhaps churchy songs like “Do Lord” or “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” Perhaps secular stuff: “Old MacDonald” or “Home on the Range.” Perhaps the latest hit by the Beatles or the Beach Boys. Sometimes, some of the guys would try to sing offcolour versions. As a kind of mating ritual, I suspect -like preening peacocks proclaiming their availability. Building community Singing has long been a way of co-ordinating human efforts. Think of sailors singing sea shanties. Or Volga boatmen chanting: “Yo, heave, ho…” Think of human rights marchers: “We shall overcome.” Whatever the mode, singing together was a way of building community. Medical studies indicate that when we sing together, we not only breath together, we also start to synchronize our heartbeats. We start to act like one body. Pete Seeger intuitively knew that, even though may have lacked medical expertise. He always -- always -- got his audiences singing along. A friend’s grandchild recently lamented Covid-induced isolation at her daycare: “It’s no fun playing hide and seek by yourself.” The same holds true for singing. Singing together has become a yet another casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic. I miss it. I wonder if we’ll ever get it back. Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, write jimt@quixotic.ca VOL. 34, NO. 1, AUTUMN 2020
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Magical Moon Lake – How it all started…
Over the years, Dialogue has featured several of Karl Backhaus’ stories about his home, Moon Lake (Holland Centre, ON) – as featured in his book, Magical Moon Lake… This story about how it all began is continued from the Spring issue.
Karl Backhaus, February 2006
Meet the animals, insects, trees and stones of Moon Lake, my home –and make unusual and unexpected discoveries along the way. With complementary insights. Written for my nieces and nephews and their children and anyone interested in the magic of life. In Episode 1: How It All Began – and Arriving in Canada: We arrived in Montreal by freighter from Hamburg… Our adventure continued when we took the night train to Toronto; Episode 2: Arriving in Toronto.
Episode 3: The Cabin Back in Germany I had been a successful export merchant, but I had no practical skills. In Canada even the builder’s term "2 by 4" was new to me so, of course, I had no idea how to build a house. One day I came across a free book with the title Canadian WoodFrame Construction. Here, step-by-step, was described how to construct a house. This was great! During long winter nights I designed our future home that would incorporate the fixed-up cabin plus a new part, perhaps 1000 square feet in all. After living in the cabin for over a year, in June I finally overcame my hesitation to tackle the building project. As a start, I dismantled the entrance porch. Soon this became a bit scary when I saw that the whole cabin we lived in was resting on pretty rotten posts. But there was no going back. This then was the beginning of our building venture that lasted for over a year. Without any outside help we started pouring footings for the old and the new parts and continued by laying 10-inch blocks to form what would become in time a crawl space of 3 to 5 feet high under the house. We had to overcome many obstacles, like aligning the old and new parts of the house by raising the whole cabin six inches with a ten-ton truck jack – a scary operation. 52 dialogue
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The old rough-cut lumber from the cabin had to be fitted to the new lumber of the addition. Everything took longer than we thought. One day in October our roofless future living room was covered in snow. Fortunately, it melted away. While we nailed the last roof shingles late at night on the 15th of November, snow began falling that would last till spring. By a hair’s breadth we had made it, and now we could work inside during the winter. This included doing the plumbing and all the electrical work and building a brick fireplace. The following year we covered the old and new parts with thick cedar boards, making them into one harmonious unit. We had done it! Now we had an inside bathroom (what a luxury!), a kitchen, one-and-ahalf bedrooms and a large living-dining room. We had exchanged the inefficient metal fireplace for an airtight wood-stove that often only needed to be lit once a season (true!) while the new brick fireplace was for the joy of looking at a fire during cool summer evenings. It was a small but very comfortable, well-insulated home. (And, during the year it took us to complete the house, I had learned a lot about construction that helped me to earn extra income in later years!) Karl Backhaus, Ont. STORY CONTINUES THE NEXT ISSUE, WITH “THE LAKE.” ♣ www.dialogue.ca
Stories From Owen Sound… A Tale From An Ontarian Winter Dear Dialogue, Hello again. Here is a story that I wrote about Ontarian winters when living in Lucknow, Ont. Teresa
Going Home By Teresa Rowe, Owen Sound
Hearing the words "going home" conjures up as many images as there are people. It could be a family gathering with the turkey dinner, dressing and all the fixings – or a weary soldier "going home" after a tour of duty. As this story proceeds, "going home" for me will be driving 38 kms in a blizzard. I had been waiting with anticipation for some time to join the Kincardine Writer's Group. As the hour approaches and as I open the heavy wooden doors at Trillium Court Facilities, with a poem I had written in hand, I can hardly wait to begin as a new member. I see a man with a briefcase, with pen in hand; he signs in at the front door. He must be a writer, I say to myself. He looks like a writer to me. Which floor is the meeting on, I wonder. He takes the elevator as I am signing in. The elevator closes quietly for me and soon opens on second floor. I know from experience that a meeting room is around the corner. I have been in this building before. The man is there again. I ask about The Writer's Group. He assures me that I am in the right place and so far there are only two of us. I feel comfortable. Within a couple minutes, the three women arrive and the meeting begins... I learn about a school in Africa that this group is sponsoring and some coming events. Everyone reads something new and I read for the first time. They were gracious with my first reading attempt. As I listen to the other writers, pleasure crosses my face with a smile a mile wide. Before we leave the room, I turn to look out the window. I see the snow blowing fast and furious, on a horizontal angle. Someone mentions that it's a 'little clipper'. To ease my own anxiousness (which I was surprised I felt within me), I said "Oh I've done this before." The snow came with such force that by www.dialogue.ca
the time one side of the car was swept, the other needed to be swept again! Immediately it was clear to me that the visibility would be poor. "It couldn't be like this all the way home, could it?" Feeling that I was making a wise decision I drove down my favourite road, the South Line, I couldn't believe that even with the car’s bright lights, I could see nothing! Another of my surprises was not being able to go over 30 kms an hour at any point since leaving Kincardine. I certainly was grateful being the only car on the road for the most part, as at times I would see the reassuring yellow line. It is frightening to be on the wrong side of the road in the darkness. As I turn left on county road 7, the snow is beginning to accumulate on the road. With relief, I see the bright lights of Ripley... I see the beauty of the light and shadow dancing together over the town. Finally with a sigh of relief I turn onto county road 86. Thirteen kms. to home – Hooray! The road beneath me feels like I am driving on braided ropes. The snow is thicker and heavier under my winter tires. It is hard going at times. The tires want to slow down. Then all of a sudden the car slides sideways and I go into a skid. With clenched fists and white knuckles, I hang on to the steering wheel for dear life. "You are not putting your foot on the brake old girl!" I can feel myself holding my breath. For a moment, time stands still. Thankfully I come out of the skid. Just a few minutes more, until I turn into my own parking lot. One of the other tenants from my building is just getting home. He is walking. "What a beautiful night," I say. The cold crispness touches my face, how refreshing it is to be home in Lucknow. Teresa Rowe, Owen Sound, ON ♣
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Hope Chest – Storage Chest – Treasure Chest Bonna Rouse, Owen Sound ON
Hope chest (perhaps) When I obtained a job where I was paid more than just a living allowance, one of the things I thought I just had to have was a ‘Hope Chest’! I belong to the generation that thought this was essential, even though “hope” perhaps was nowhere in sight at the time! So, off I went to Legate’s Furniture in Owen Sound, and began making monthly payments on a nice cedar chest, manufactured by Krug Furniture in Chesley. After completing the purchase, my father and a neighbour transported it to the farm-house where I was raised. There it was stored, and a few things began to be placed in it. My mother had died when I was very young, but I did have some keepsakes. One of these was a pretty bath towel and matching washcloth trimmed with her handmade crochet work. (Incidentally, it has stayed in the chest all these years – never been used!) I also purchased a set of linen table napkins and carefully embroidered my initial on them! Also in the chest were other keepsakes – two of my baby dresses, a baby comb and brush set still in the box they came in, and the box that held my mother’s wedding ring. Storage Chest? Then “hope” in the form of a tall sailor came into my life, and eventually the chest began to hold things for a trousseau and a new home. It was a given that he
would quit the ships and take up farming, so then much of what went into the chest were items that I would need in that new occupation as a farm wife. Tea towels, table-clothes, silver and fancy little dishes – all in preparation of my new home. Sheets, both summer and winter variety, quilts lovingly made for us by my grandmother, step-mother and his mother. (This is my excuse why I have never learned how to quilt!) So, in fact, the chest now had another name – “storage chest” – and over the ensuing years it held mostly household stuff, plus eventually baby things as well. Treasure Chest? Years have passed by, times and circumstances have changed drastically, and so have the contents of the now-old chest! Mostly I would have to say it contains keepsakes I can’t bear to throw away. Some baby things, of course, gifts that still have meaning, mostly because of who gave them to us. Completed but unframed needlework (what am I going to do with it?). I still keep some bedding in it as the seasons change. The cedar-smell as I lift the lid seems to transport me back years and years. I have indicated that one of my daughters is to get it – perhaps she will cherish it for the same reasons I have – a symbol of a long life, possessions gathered over that life. Grey-Bruce Writers, Owen Sound, Ont. ♣
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“The Vagabond Writer” THE GOOD WEEDS Wayne Allen Russell Clearwater BC slyolfart@gmail.com
I hope readers enjoy these stories, they will bring laughter and a few tears to you. Taken from truth, but the “Family Weed” is fictitious.
BOB’S COWBOY BOOTS We had lots of fun along with our problems. Like I said, Bob, when younger, was called Bucky – because he loved to play cowboys. The day he acquired this name, he was the last one ready for school and couldn’t find any shoes. He loved school and had a crush on Joannie, the prettiest gal in the school. He walked barefoot to school as we always did. Within 54 dialogue
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The family: Archibald Tyrus Weed (Pop), January 10, 1901 Mary Elizabeth/Loretta (Cook) Weed (Mom), Dec. 19, 1905 Married: August 17, 1923 Children: Juniper Shirley / June (Grouch), May 19, 1925 Patty, Patricia Ann (‘Sweet Pea’) Dec, 21st.,1927 George (‘Donkey’), August 17, 1930 Ben (‘Shooter’), April 2, 1932 Bob (‘Bucky’ then ‘Stretch’), October 10, 1934 Adam (‘Flyer’), July 30, 1936 Tom (‘Weasel’), June 4, 1939 Cousins: Marian (cousin), August 21, 1925 Sam (‘Punch’ - cousin), December 26, 1931 Bobby (cousin), May 3, 1935 Ray (my buddy) Joe (Ray’s brother)
sight of the school, he put on a pair of Moms old highwww.dialogue.ca
heeled shoes. These didn’t have thin, spiked heels, like today, but tall, thick heels. He pulled his wool trousers down over the top of the shoes and asked everybody at school how they liked his cowboy boots. Well they bought it! In fact, it wasn’t long before most of the younger boys at school had such ‘Cowboy boots’. Joannie loved to play horse and cowboys. She pretended to be a beautiful palomino stallion. She would run around the schoolyard whinnying, that long, blond hair flying out behind her. The boys her age and a little older brought rope to school and would chase the girls around the yard trying to lasso these two-legged horses. Joannie was chased the most because of her good looks. One day Bucky lassoed Joannie and pulled her up to him with the rope. Just as they were nose to nose, Joannie leaned her face right up to Bucky, wrinkled that pert little nose of hers, rolled those big blue eyes, that smile flashing perfect white teeth, and whispered, “Bob, I sure do like you, very much.” Bucky had bragged to us so many times about what he would do if he had a chance to get a girlfriend like Joannie. However, at this point he was speechless. He turned on his high heels and ran all the way home. He had a heck of a time telling Mom why he left school early. Bucky lost Joannie. She picked another boy who was not afraid of her. Heart broken, he would be teased about this way into his teens. We told him that his beautiful palomino had bucked him off and he was just too chicken to get back on. So through his younger years we called him Bucky. He would remember Joannie always. GREASING THE TRACKS We had always wanted to hop a freight train but none was ever slow enough for us to get on. One day we came up with an idea as to how we could accomplish this feat. We were scrounging around in the old rail-
road dump, looking for things we could use for whatever. For example, the old five-gallon grease buckets could be used for hauling pig slop. We’d scrape out the grease as best we could and since pig slop was anything edible, we didn’t have to worry about getting the buckets too clean. Time would clean them when feeding the pigs. These buckets gave Bob the idea. We would grease the tracks at the grade, about halfway up, where the engine had to snort like crazy to get to the top. When the wheels slipped we could hop aboard and see what it was like riding on a train. We had worked on this about half an hour, getting as much grease on us and our clothes as on the tracks, when we had to scoot out of the way of a passenger train going the other way. It removed most of our work. But since we were not quitters, we greased the tracks again and sat down to wait. It wasn’t a long wait as the freight had pulled into a siding just back around the bend to let the passenger train pass. She was a good long freight and not moving fast as it reached us hiding in the weeds. The plan worked well, she was on the grade going fairly slow as she hit the greased stretch. The wheels started spinning, sparks flying, and she slowed even more. As in the story of Brer Fox, we lay low and waited. The damn flatcars, about three of them, were loaded with work hands. I guess they were going to install the ties they were sitting on, somewhere up the tracks. No one even looked our way. The freight dumped sand from some sort of container in front of the wheels and slowly but surely, with wheels spinning, sparks flying, she went over the grade and was gone. Just as well – we would have been lost in Edmonton or somewhere had we got on that old train. Wayne Russell (slyolfart@gmail.com) ♣
Laughter & ‘Lightenment
From Herb Spencer, Robert Emeny & Peggy Hall
www.dialogue.ca
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“Observations from Lithuania”
Ken Russell Slade, Vilnius
Changing for Ageing: (Part 4b: ‘Addendum -- Notes, Fautes, and Quotes’) by KR Slade Continued from Autumn edition: [Editor's note: Part 1 -- ''Changing for Ageing, ‘Into the Third-Age’" (about the author's feelings of reaching seventy years-of-age), was published in the Autumn 2018 issue; Part 2 -- ‘Some of the Micro Considerations’ began in the Winter 2018-2019 issue, was continued in the Spring 2019 issue, and was completed in the Summer 2019 issue; Part 3 -- 'Some of the Macro Considerations' was published in the Autumn 2019 issue; Part 4 – ‘Addendum – Notes, Fautes, and Quotes’ began in the Winer 20192020 issue. There was not article in the Spring 2020 issue.]
Sleep (Continued from the Summer issue)
The bed environment should be comfy: soft and fluffy, warm and cosy. Oh, what a delight it is! A room temperature of 16C to 17C (60.8F to 62.6F) is considered ideal for sleeping. The bed should be ‘made’ when getting-into the bed. When getting-out of the bed, the used sleepingarea and the used blankets, should all be left open -to air and dry; it’s no longer your Mother’s business that you leave the house without making your bed. ■ Mattress firmness is a personal preference; too soft is not good for the back. There is some evidence that a blanket with weight promotes better sleep; Grandma may have had a good idea with her afghans and quilts. Feather (i.e., ‘down’) pillows, comforters, and mattresses/pads are not healthy -- because they air poorly, can house vermin and mould/mildew, and are allergenic. Polyester blankets dry well, but can promote perspiration; polyester pillows need to air, on a rack. ■ Ah, the luxury of a proper bed, as with ‘hygge’ -a Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of cosiness and comfortable conviviality, with feelings of wellness and contentment. [Note: no living pets in the bed (!); for those who need such emotional comfort, there are stuffed animals, or the much-more expensive psychological counselling.] For many years, I had a waterbed, which offers good support (except for sitting in bed), and the heat helps with osteoarthritis. With retirement, we ought to be entitled to be free to choose our awake / asleep hours. However, such sleep-freedom requires overcoming a lifetime of the ‘work ethic’ that has converted us to less-sleep more-work, as well as experiencing the family necessity mandated by child-rearing. Prince William said it best about new-borns in the household: 56 dialogue
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“Welcome to the No Sleep Club”. In our retirement, we have the possibility of an ideal world, where we do not need alarm-clocks: simply go to bed when feeling tired, and sleep until ready to wake up. Don’t confuse satisfying the need for toilet with having satisfied the need for sleep. At any age, everyone should have a right of entitlement to eight (8) hours of sleep (uninterrupted). ■ I prefer ten (10) hours of sleep, preceded by 1+ hours of ‘getting ready to sleep’, relaxing by sitting/ reclining in bed, with a light on, watching TV -anything ‘mindless’ is okay -- nothing scary (e.g., no: crime, medical, war, animals, spooky, underwater, tragedy, conspiracy, etc.), and no flashing lights. If I do not have my ten hours of sleep, then I like a one to two hour nap, after I have been awake for ~6 hours. Reading or watching the news before bed may cause a spike in adrenaline that will impede sleep. Comedy shows, or an orchestral concert, may provide a helpful distraction from anxious thoughts. Distressing images, especially when triggering distressing memories, can affect the quality of sleep, with "bad dreams" (i.e., subconscious sleep experience of undesirable memories or unpleasant fantasies). ■ Of course, for a bedroom: light must be eliminated for sleeping. There is a current trend to seek a bedroom with plenty of natural light, and with a pleasant view; such trend begs the question: ‘For what purpose do you plan to use your bedroom?’ Photography? Bird watching? Landscape appreciation? Determining the weather? What is the physical position for best sleeping? My personal preference to always avoid sleeping on back or stomach; the only position is on one side, or the other side. Bending the legs, at hip and knee, lessens stress on the back. Legs not touching the other; arms not touching the other or any part of the torso or www.dialogue.ca
head; fingers not touching and in a natural curved position; therefore circulation is not impaired, nerves not pinched, bones not pressured, and perspiration wicked-away from the body. With the mouth slightly opened, breathing is not restricted to the nose. The total position gives the sense of being completely flat, and unaware of any body part(s). You know that you have the correct position when you awaken in exactly the same position as you began to sleep. There is the additional possibility to alter the limited position of laying on the left or right side, especially with any joint pain / discomfort, by rolling slightly backwards or slightly forwards, on either side. Breathing should be short; deep abdominal breathing can alleviate symptoms of anxiety; however, such breathing may cause focusing that is not conducive to sleep. Focus the mind on something flat (e.g., a drop of water, or a piece of paper, on a flat surface). I can usually get to sleep in less than one minute. If I am still awake after several minutes, I get up, have a cup of hot chamomile tea and a piece of bread, watch some TV, and then again try to sleep. If I am awakened because of pain, I take two 500mg tablets of paracetamol (i.e., Tylenol), with water and a slice of bread, watch TV for 20 minutes, and then again try to sleep. Only when I am highly stressed do I have any problem falling asleep; then, I will have to do daytime naps. What about sharing a bed? Sleeping with your partner can help to reduce stress and encourage feelings of security. However, with bed-sharing there is a downside: studies have suggested that couples who share a bed often suffer 50% more sleep disturbances. Sharing a bed, or sharing the same room, can be particularly difficult if individuals have markedly different chronotypes, or one partner snores and/or thrashes-about. Some other solutions are: earplugs, a larger bed, separate duvets, etc. The best sleep is in solitude. Past the age of infancy, sleeping on top of, or under, or entwined with, another person is not conducive to restful sleep. ■ re sharing a bed: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/25/is-it-normal-for-couples-to-swap-sideshow-to-share-a-bed-and-be-happy
■ The ‘upper class’ have separate bedrooms. Lord and Lady Churchill had separate bedrooms (evidenced by the floor plan of their home, with their bedrooms in separate wings). www.dialogue.ca
HM QEII and Prince Philip have separate bedrooms.
When the couple moved to Clarence House in 1949, they had separate bedrooms; the design of the 1954 royal-yacht 'Britannia' shows separate bedrooms; and, more famously, by the 1982 intruder's break-in to Her bedroom, when Prince Philip was sleeping, not in an adjacent room, but 'down the hall', because he had a 'cold'. (A 'cold' for seventy-three years should deserve a place in "Guinness Book of World Records''; perhaps the 'longest cold' category does not exist because of whom would be the recordholder, and the details thereof.) The US White House has always had separate bedrooms for the president and the first-lady. The Trumps have separate bedrooms. Certainly, Franklin and Eleanor did not share a bed, or a bedroom. ■ Lady Pamela Mountbatten, the royal couple's cousin, shared the reasoning for the two bedrooms, saying, "You don't want to be bothered with snoring, or someone flinging a leg around. Then, when you are feeling cosy, you share your room sometimes. It is lovely to be able to choose." https://www.thelist.com/105142/strange-facts-queenelizabeths-marriage/?utm_campaign=clip
■ Sleeping together has become some religious cannon-law of marital love, for ‘a sex-temple of the bed’. The authors of this cannon law are all men, usually who wear dresses and who do not engage in sex – except for their engagement of telling other people how to have sex. ■ The simple fact is: the best sex is not in sleep. Not getting enough sleep can lower sex drive, as well as sexual-performance ability; and lack of adequate sleep certainly can ruin any relationship – because of adverse effects on behaviours. ■ Even an infant, when in bed, has the innate sense to cry when wet. Yet lovers ignore the discomfort of their own making, to sleep not well, and call such love. Ken Russell Slade, Vilnius, Lithuania All Rights Reserved: 2019 kenmunications@gmail.com Editor’s note: This two-year-plus series on ‘Changing for Ageing’ concludes in the Winter 2020-2021 issue, with discussion of: sex, the backache, diet, and pharmaceuticals.
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Contributors in Andersen, Erik, BC…...12,13,60 Arney, Jeremy, BC…………..24 Backhaus, Karl, ON……….…51 Boon, Ken, Peace River, BC 26 Bowles, Paul, BC……45, 49, 60 Bugonovic, Bob, BC…………33 Chossudovsky, Michel, QC…26 Citizens for Direct Democracy17 Clarke, Steve, ON…………...17 Corbett Report (Japan)…...9, 11 Doehring, A. C., BC……….…50 Edwards, Gordon (+links)…...04 Ehret-Kump, M. (quote/links) 11 Farmer, Agatha, ON…………32
dialogue, Vol. 34 No. 1 ~ Autumn 2020
Flynn, Jerry, BC (from)……....11 Foster, David Muir, ON……...48 Galati, Rocco, ON (about)…..32 Global Research……...……...26 Hall, Anthony J., AB……...27-32 Kazdan, Larry, BC……...……21 Laugh & ‘Lightenment 44,55,60 Lawson, S., BC.……….……..59 Lonsdale, Derrick, M.D.,US…36 Lyman, Eva, BC (from)…..33,59 Mathews, Robin, BC……..14-16 Mercola.com (quote/link)……04 Moore, Richard K., Ireland…..05 Nickerson, Mike, ON………...23
Noble, Sharon, BC…………..11 Norton, Grand Chief (about) 04 Ont. Human Rights re Masks 59 Porter, J.S., ON……………...43 Purcell, Leo, NS…………..…49 Ross, June, BC (from)………26 Rouse, Bonna, ON………….54 Rowe, Teresa, ON…………..53 Russell, Wayne, BC…………54 Shadbolt, John, ON…….........46 Skerik, Don, BC……………...13 Slade, Ken, Lithuania………..56 Spencer, Herb, BC 13,.21,32,35 Taylor, Jim, BC………………51
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P.59 TREES.... There is nothing on Earth quite so lovely as trees. Their beauty's unequaled as far as one sees. The wind in their branches sings sweet mysteries... Of voices and spirits from over the seas. They speak to us gently of times long ago... Knowledge so ancient that only One knows... A Great Spirit so present and through All it shows The love and the patience through all of our woes. A Mother Earth's beauty so tall and so proud... Giving so much, all their gifts do abound... The needles and leaves, seeds and cones on the ground Make the earth that will nourish the cycles around... Calling the rain like antennae to Earth, Cooling, protecting the soil and its worth. The worms and the insects and species do hide In the branches and roots and away deep inside. The fruit for a food and the nuts and the seeds Providing and nourishing much of our needs. Our connections to forest, to land and the trees Is the link to the knowledge of life that we need. To stand in a grove of old forest so green Will reveal all the wisdom of ages unseen. So think when you bring down a gift that's so precious Of all we are losing; it surely will test us. If given a chance with some love and some care They can change our perspective, our lots and our fare And heal all the sickness and calm all the grief And provide for those answers that each of us seek. The green of the Earth is linked to the air, To the sky and the clouds and the fish and the bear, To all that we love and to all that we share, The breath that we breathe that's beyond all compare. I hope we will see the true value of air, Of pure water and forests so precious and rare. They're riches beyond all the gold in the hand... Remember our children; for them we must stand For the truth and the forests...I feel that we can... Through loving and caring and showing the way, Find a path full of light that will help us to stay On this Earth in a great and harmonious way Surrounded by healing, fresh air and fresh water, Shade when we need it; to stay and not falter In greed or destruction, in fear or in hate, Overcome all those forces that could make it too late... Too late to continue to see, hear and smell The beauty around us that's served us so well. We're one little blip, at this moment alive... www.dialogue.ca
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Our choices determine if we will survive. Our hopes for the future continue to strive For the trees that do bind us, the Earth and the Sky. .....Susanne Hare S Lawson <councilfire@hotmail.com> â&#x2122;Ł
P.59-60
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