Dialogue Magazine, Vol.32-4-Digital, Summer 2019

www.dialogue.ca

VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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PHOTOS PLEASE NOTE: A Special Edition of the Spring 2019 Dialogue featured the full-length essays that were begun in the regular Spring issue: by Anthony James xxx, Bruce Clark and Sarah J. Webster (re Kevin Annett). This Special Edition can be accessed online via: www.dialogue.ca ♣

[For some more thoughts about the imagery surrounding the letter X, visit: www.girvin.com/blog/thesymbolism-of-the-x/ ]

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www.dialogue.ca

A word from the publisher and editor…

Dear Reader, In our trip through the alphabet, we have arrived at the letter “X” – a most enigmatic letter that has taken on so many diverse roles in our culture…

X for Wrong! X for my Vote! X-Files for the verboten topics… Not to mention, X standing for Christ, X for a crossing, crossroads, crossbones, Maurice, Janet & Penny X for ten, X for ‘times’ (multiply), X for the (Summer 2019) Unknown… Or ‘xxx’ for sending kisses…

Thank you to Susanne Hare for her art on the cover: a never-beforepublished 1991 artwork entitled, “Rising Up” – which Susanne describes as “a woman on her knees rises up with the great force helping her – and there's kind of an X in the middle of it!” Perhaps each of us will read our own understanding into Susanne’s art – and the energy swirling around the kneeling/rising/standing human figure at its centre…

We are pleased to welcome a new writer in this issue, Andre Vltchek, p.16, with his story about resistance brewing in the city of Regina.

And Robin Mathews reflects on ‘What’s to celebrate on the birthday of a giant colony,’ p.10. And don’t miss Lois L. Ross’s Untold Story of losing the Canadian Wheat Board, p.8, reprinted from Rabble.ca.

If you have ever wondered what Louis Riel was really standing for, read Monica Langman’s letter and attachment on p.6. And thank you to Paul Bowles for sharing his beautiful calligraphy, p.60.

And be sure to read Herb Spencer’s intro to your divided mind… p.59 This issue features the final episode in the series on Art & Activism,

by Susan McCaslin and Penn Kemp, p.36. And welcome back to John Porter with his BookTalk, p.44. This issue also sees the conclusion & bibliography of Jim Bjork’s letter to his MP, p.28. And retired Canadian Navy captain Jerry Flynn shares his comprehensive research regarding 5G, in his letter/report to Professor Bakan, at UBC, p.51.

If you missed the news about our Special Edition of the Spring issue, you can access it on the website: www.dialogue.ca We are grateful to be part of this venture with the dedicated writers, artists and readers who are pursuing your dreams of a better world.

Without You there would be no Dialogue.

Maurice

Janet

dialogue is... …an independent, Canadian volunteer-produced, not-for-profit quarterly, written and supported by its readers – empowering their voices and the sharing of ideas.

Concluding its 32nd 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 this is your first issue, please let us know what you think of it.

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) We receive NO government funding and no advertising revenue.

We rely totally on the generous support of our readers & subscribers.

dialogue

was founded in 1987 and is now published quarterly.

Maurice J. King, Volunteer Publisher Janet K. Hicks, Volunteer Editor

Date of Issue.: Aug. 7, 2019 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.

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Reprints of published articles are included for their educational value.

IMPORTANT: If you wish to continue receiving the magazine, please ensure your subscription is up-to-date! PLEASE LOOK AT YOUR ADDRESS LABEL ON THE BACK COVER of this issue to find your RENEWAL DATE. If your subscription is due, you will find a renewal slip enclosed inside the back of the print magazine. THANK YOU!

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A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO WINCHESTER PRINT FOR THEIR EXCELLENT SERVICE. AND THANK YOU TO THE THRIFTY FOODS FUNDRAISING PROGRAM (More on p.58)

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Tel: 250-758-9877 E-mail: dialogue@dialogue.ca WEBSITE: www.dialogue.ca Deadlines: Sep. 1st - Dec. 1st March 1st - June 1st

VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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"Canada Joins the Authoritarian Censorship Agenda” From: KM Richard, kmer8@hotmail.com

Here’s how the Canadians will deal with citizen journalism and narrative debunking – they’ll force the taxpayers to subsidize corporate news rackets.

“Federal agencies will publish an A-list of newspapers and websites deemed reliable under a multi-million dollar subsidy program, the Department of Finance yesterday told the Senate national finance committee,” reports an Ottawa website, Blacklock’s Reporter.

Bill C-97 the Budget Implementation Act proposes a 15 percent tax credit to a maximum $75 for subscribers of websites operated by a “qualified Canadian journalism organization”. Criteria are not known.

The tax credit is projected to cost $11 million in 2020.

It expires in 2024.

The bill also amends the Income Tax Act to offer lucrative payroll subsidies for news organizations “primarily engaged in the production of original written news content”. A total $360 million would be paid over four years through a 25 percent payroll tax credit for publishers, the equivalent of a maximum $13,750 per newsroom employee, retroactive to January 1, 2019."

LINK : https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/canada-

joins-the-authoritarian-censorship-agenda.html **************

From Andrew Blair, andrew.gordon.blair@gmail.com:

Thanks for this Kelly. Paying the media to lie to us is sorta like being forced to dig our own graves before being shot. – Andrew, Lethbridge AB ♣

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Scrapping the Canada Infrastructure Bank is necessary Larry Kazdan, Vancouver

After WWII, the federal government used central bank financing to build highways, airports, bridges, schools, and hospitals. Prior to 1975, the federal government also introduced Canada-wide Medicare, universal pensions, the modern unemployment insurance system, and cost-sharing with the provinces for higher education and welfare.

The federal government did not go cap in hand to global asset managers then. Handing over vital infrastructure to foreign and institutional investors today is foolish and will cost the public dearly. Big money managers seeking maximum returns will charge monopoly rents and fees, but if things go sour, the government will be forced to step in and pick up the tab.

There is no risk transfer.

Scrapping the Infrastructure Bank as Conservatives and NDP propose is the necessary first step to protect the public interest from corporate gouging.

Footnotes: 1. Is Monetary Financing Inflationary? A Case Study of the Canadian Economy, 1935–75 http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_848.pdf As shown in figure 1, between 20–25% of Canadian public debt was financed and held by the central bank and government from the end of World War II up to the early 1980s but inflation was below 5% right up until the early 1970s... ***

....in the period 1945–70....Federal government capital

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expenditure funded highways, airports, bridges, schools, hospitals, and other physical infrastructure. ***

During the period 1960‒75, the federal government also introduced virtually all of the major policy innovations that make up Canada’s system of social programs: Canada-wide Medicare, universal pensions, the modern unemployment insurance system, and cost-sharing with the provinces for higher education and welfare.

2. The glorious gouging of the public purse William Mitchell is Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=23811 "The real problem with the PPPs in this regard is that is a falsehood that the risk shifts from the public to the private sector. Who ultimately bears the risk? The risk premium in private financing is based on the fact that a private entity can become bankrupt with its product and service exiting the market. With an essential public service it is a fantasy to say that the PPP contract transfers risk to the private sector. If the private partner defaults, the public always has to pick up the pieces. There is no real risk transferred."

3. Thatcher – ‘Sorry You’ve Lost Your Job’ http://michael-hudson.com/2013/04/1843/ what the “free marketers” promised would be an efficient, streamlined, low-priced economy has become the highest-priced economy in the world...... The telephones cost more, and nearly every kind of public utility that was privatized now costs much more, capped by railroad and bus service.

Larry Kazdan CPA, CGA, lkazdan@gmail.com ♣ www.dialogue.ca

Thoughts on Voting in Canada and Lessons from Canadian History From Monica Langman, Dauphin MB

Dear Mr. King: Re: your letter to the spring issue of Dialogue 2019, about the seemingly dead-end problem of voting in Canada. It is true that we are drowning in corruption, greed, and no concern for people's needs from our current Prime Minister, but the Green Party will not be our solution to this problem.

Last week MP Monique Pauzé of Bloc Québecois presented the motion that "the House of Commons reiterate that a woman's body belongs to her and her alone, and recognize her freedom of choice on abortion for any reason – and all Liberal, Green, Bloc Quebecois, NDP and Independent MP's, except the Conservatives (and there except for one person stood and clapped and cheered for two minutes.

The Green Party is fighting to save our forests and our oceans, but it is all right to kill babies?? That is not a good party. If they don't have life figured out, neither will they do well on any other issue, and certainly not the environment.

Mr. King, I am sorry to counter your decision, and I can see what a dilemma it is to make sense of the politics we are in. The Christian Heritage Party have a strong Pro-life stand and they are whom I would vote

for because even if one thinks they will not get in, my vote is telling God what kind of government we need.

There is no point voting for something that is not good.

To further the thought, we are in socialism, no better than Russia. We are taxed, regulated, approved, insured, inspected, secured, subsidized, and none of these are optional. This realization brought me to study further how our country is run and why, regardless of who comes into power, the results are the same: taxes, regulations, all the above and more to come.

So I happened to read the "Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the North-West and I learned two things: 1. Why the Government of Canada hung Louis Riel, and 2. Our country is not a democracy but essentially a corporation.

So our problems stem from the root and unless that is corrected, we will not advance or prosper. Right now, Canada's life-blood is being sucked out by – as Riel said – "the foreigners". Everyone should read this declaration (follows).

Monica Langman (with Declaration, below)

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Declaration of the People of Rupert's land and the North-West Manitoba Pageant, April 1964, Volume 9, Number 3 This article was published originally in Manitoba Pageant by the Manitoba Historical Society on the above date. We make it available here as a free, public service.

Please direct inquiries to webmaster@mhs.mb.ca

Proclamation by the Provisional Government, Dec. 8, 1869.

Whereas, it is admitted by all men, as a fundamental principle, that the public authority commands the obedience and respect of its subjects. It is also admitted, that a people, when it has no Government, is free to adopt one form of Government, in preference to another, to give or to refuse allegiance to that which is proposed. In accordance with the above first principle the people of this country had obeyed and respected the authority to which the circumstances which surrounded its infancy compelled it to be subject.

A company of adventurers known as the "Hudson Bay Company," and invested with certain powers, granted

by His Majesty (Charles II), established itself in www.dialogue.ca

Rupert's Land, and in the North-West Territory, for trading purposes only. This Company, consisting of many persons, required a certain constitution. But as there was a question of commerce only, their constitution was framed in reference thereto. Yet, since there was at that time no Government to see to the interest of a people already existing in the country, it became necessary for judicial affairs to have recourse to the officers of the Hudson Bay Company. This inaugurated that species of government which, slightly modified by subsequent circumstances, ruled this country up to recent date.

Whereas, that Government, thus accepted, was far from answering to the wants of the people, and became more and more so, as the population increased in numbers, and as the country was developed, and commerce extended, until the present day, when it commands a place amongst the colonies; and this people, ever actuated by the above-mentioned …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Proclamation by Provisional Gov’t., Dec. 8, 1869,contd.

principles, had generously supported the aforesaid Government, and gave to it a faithful allegiance, when, contrary to the law of nations, in March, 1869, that said Government surrendered and transferred to Canada all the rights which it had, or pretended to have, in this Territory, by transactions with which the people were considered unworthy to be made acquainted.

And, whereas, it is also generally admitted that a people is at liberty to establish any form of government it may consider suited to its wants, as soon as the power to which it was subject abandons it, or attempts to subjugate it, without its consent to a foreign power; and maintain that no right can be transferred to such foreign power.

Now, therefore, first, we, the representatives of the people, in Council assembled in Upper Fort Garry, on the 24th day of November, 1869, after having invoked the God of Nations, relying on these fundamental moral principles, solemnly declare, in the name of our constituents, and in our own names, before God and man, that, from the day on which the Government we had always respected abandoned us, by transferring to a strange power the sacred authority confided to it, the people of Rupert's Land and the North-West became free and exempt from all allegiance to the said Government.

Second. That we refuse to recognize the authority of Canada, which pretends to have a right to coerce us, and impose upon us a despotic form of government still more contrary to our rights and interests as British subjects, than was that Government to which we had subjected our-selves, through necessity up to recent date.

Thirdly. That, by sending an expedition on the 1st November, ult., charged to drive back Mr. William McDougall and his companions, coming in the name of Canada, to rule us with the rod of despotism, without previous notification to that effect, we have acted conformably to that sacred right which commands

every citizen to offer energetic opposition to prevent this country from being enslaved.

Fourth. That we continue, and shall continue, to oppose, with all our strength, the establishing of the 'Canadian authority in our country, under the announced form; and, in case of persistence on the part of the Canadian Government to enforce its obnoxious policy upon us by force of arms, we protest before-hand against such an unjust and unlawful course; and we declare the said Canadian Government responsible, before God and men, for the innumerable evils which may be caused by so unwarrantable a course.

Be it known, therefore, to the world in general and to the Canadian Government in particular, that, as we have always heretofore successfully defended our country in frequent wars with the neighbouring tribes of Indians, who are now on friendly relations with us, we are firmly resolved in future, not less than in the past, to repel all invasions from whatsoever quarter they may come; and, further more, we do declare and proclaim, in the name of the people of Rupert's Land and the North-West, that we have, on the said 24th day of November, 1869, above mentioned, established a Provisional Government, and hold it to be the only and lawful authority now in existence in Rupert's Land and the North-West which claims the obedience and respect of the people; that, meanwhile, we hold our-selves in readiness to enter in such negotiations with the Canadian Government as may be favourable for the good government and prosperity of this people.

In support of this declaration, relying on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge ourselves, on oath, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, to each other.

Issued at Fort Garry, this Eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord, One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine.

John Bruce, Pres. Louis Riel, Sec. Page revised: 1 July 2009 - Received from Monica Langan with her letter. Document available online at: www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/09/rupertslanddeclaration.shtml ♣

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Scientist proves climate change isn’t causing extreme weather…

From John Shadbolt, Acton ON In 2012, the IPCC Special Report on Extreme

Weather came out and echoed the Hohenkammer Consensus, concluding that once you adjust for population growth and economic changes, there is no 6 dialogue

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statistical connection between climate change and measures of weather-related damages. […] Read in full at LINK: https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/ross-mckitrickthis-scientist-proved-climate-change-isnt-causing-extremeweather-so-politicians-attacked From: shadbolt617@gmail.com ♣ www.dialogue.ca

Grain giants and family farmers -- the untold story of losing the Canadian Wheat Board Lois L. Ross, Ottawa, June 26, 2019 http://rabble.ca/ link at the end [Reprinted with permission]

These are not great days for farmers across Canada. A drought in many parts of the Prairies prompted worried looks and constant gazes skyward for any sign of cloud cover. Then, at almost the final hour for many, it rained -- lots of rain. In some places seeded crops had yet to germinate, but then the rain came.

As I write, rain is falling in some parts, but will it be enough?

Would that weather was the only major risk in farming‌ A few weeks ago, Statistics Canada released its report on farm incomes, noting that across the country farmers' net income has dropped by 45 per cent, and in Saskatchewan by close to 29 per cent.

All of this is only compounded by the fact that farm policy in this country has been continuously eroded over decades by negligence, trade agreements, lack of foresight, and even, some suspect, outright corruption.

Both Conservative and Liberal governments have removed or ignored the few programs that might have helped farmers gain access to a better market share, a better price for their product, and assure international buyers quality control of the grain purchased. A significant source of support for farmers was the Canadian Wheat Board, a marketing board for grain in Western Canada.

In late May the Friends of Canadian Wheat Board (FCWB) was once again in court, asking that the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench certify a class action lawsuit to regain more than $152 million owed farmers for the final payment from Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) grain sales for the 2010-2012 crop years. At that time the federal Conservatives were dismantling the CWB and apparently diverting funds that were meant for farmers. Farmers never received all of their final payment. The Manitoba court will rule in a few months.

What is the Canadian Wheat Board and what did it do?

The Canadian Wheat Board was established in 1935 as a single selling desk for Canadian grain. Until 2012, it undertook orderly marketing on behalf of www.dialogue.ca

farmers. Then it was privatized and its assets transferred to a Saudi agribusiness company and an American-based transnational.

This is indeed a story of David and Goliath -- but as all good stories of underdogs and activism, nimbleness is important. These activist farmers are definitely showing their commitment and stamina. They are also nimble. And they will be seen, I believe, to be on the right side of history.

Since 2011 groups of Prairie farmers who support a farmer-controlled CWB have been working to have the courts recognize that the actions taken by the Harper Conservatives to privatize and transfer assets to foreign corporations were in fact illegal and have cost farmers billions in income. But money is not the only issue -- access to international markets, quality control of export crops, and issues related to seed, genetically modified crops and their impact on foreign sales of Canadian product, are just some of the topics that farmers elected to the CWB engaged on. The Wheat Board worked to maintain decent prices for grain commodities. And that was also in the interests of the country and all Canadians more generally. With the loss of the CWB, I have no doubt that we are losing more farmers.

Since 2012, the FCWB has been walking through the legal maze fighting for justice on behalf of farmers.

First, the FCWB fought the restructuring of the CWB, and the dismantling of its farmer-elected structure.

Then, it was essentially privatized in 2015 and its assets transferred by the federal government to the G3 Global Trading Group, a company owned by Saudi Arabia agribusiness and an American-based transnational. The FCWB has long maintained that all of the $17 billion in Wheat Board assets were common property of farmers and the Canadian public, and that the federal minister of agriculture at the time -- Gerry Ritz - overstepped his elected role to destroy the Wheat Board and transfer its assets to foreign ownership.

Multiple legal actions The court battles to seek approval for a class action suit have been numerous and lengthy -- and along the way there have been wins and losses. These are chronicled in detail on the site of the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance, a group which also supports the CWB. VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Farmers have gone to the courts asking for $17 billion in damages for hard and soft assets (hopper cars, buildings, shipping vessels, and moneys for grain sales) that belong to farmers and were essentially transferred to new owners without proper consultation. In a complicated and narrow decision related to property rights, the Federal Court of Canada determined that only parts of the case might be heard -- and that the assets were not common property. But both courts, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, allowed that a suit for farmer grain payments could be heard. Application for that class action is now being heard in the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench. The statement of claim can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/cwb-soc-24-4-17

Besides the diversion of crop income away from farmers from 2010-2012, activist farmers initiated legal action in 2011 challenging changes in the legislation governing the CWB and lack of farmer input. Then, in 2012, farmers launched a class action suit against the federal government for selling what farmers claimed were farmer-owned business assets and common property -- the Canadian Wheat Board -- and to reclaim final payments for grain sold on behalf of farmers by the board. The FCWB is adamant that both farmers and the public owned these assets and have actually lost billions in common property in the sale of the CWB. Lack of federal support Meanwhile, since the election of the Liberals in fall 2015, the FCWB has been meeting with the federal government, urging a full accounting of what happened to the CWB by the previous Conservative government and its minister, and the reinstatement of the CWB or a similar marketing board.

While in opposition the Liberals dogged the Conservatives over the dismantling of the Wheat Board.

But once elected, they went largely silent and have been trying to delay the Manitoba hearings on technicalities, according to the FCWB. Stewart Wells, Chair of the FCWB, and a former farmer-elected director of the CWB, explained it this way when interviewed by the Manitoba Cooperator on June 7: “When we started this in February of 2012 we were prepared for a lengthy process,” Wells said. “Now it could've all been ended if the Liberal government wouldn't have continued the cover-up started by the Harper government. So we find ourselves still trying to get to the truth of what happened in 2010, 2011 and 8 dialogue

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2012 and get cash back to the farmers that they were deprived of during the transition process.”

There are calculations as to how much the sale of the single selling desk is undermining Canadian farmers' income. In 2015 University of Saskatchewan agricultural economist Rich Gray published findings showing that up to that point Canadian farmers had lost more than $7 billion in reduced sales and pricing of grain commodities due to the loss of the Wheat Board.

Compound that amount to date and we have one reason why Western farmers' income has plummeted so dramatically. Add to that low prices, increases in input costs and farm machinery costs.

Canadian family farmers have a lot more than just the weather to contend with. So do we all, when you consider that neither Conservative or Liberal governments have ever extended much support to family farmers.

“It's about treating people, in this case farmers, fairly,” Wells said. “Some of those same people… would be mortified if somebody stole $5 from them… well this is a little different because these injustices have been delivered by… the federal government.”

“It's just not appropriate to walk away and turn a blind eye when you see governments doing something inappropriate,” he added.

And when you look at dwindling farm income due to the loss of orderly marketing, farmers and Canadians have lost much, much more.

Those of us who know that the story of the Canadian Wheat Board is unjust and a story that remains untold are hoping that David's slingshot hits its target.

LINK TO STORY AT RABBLE.CA:

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/06/grain-giants-and-familyfarmers-untold-story-losing-canadian-wheat-board

Lois L. Ross is a communications specialist, writer, and editor, living in Ottawa. Her column "At the farm gate" discusses issues that are key to food production here in Canada as well as internationally. Lois Ross has spent the past 30 years working in Communications for a variety of nonprofit organizations in Canada, including the North-South Institute. Born into a farm family in southern Saskatchewan, trained as a journalist and photographer, she is the author of both fiction and non-fiction books. Two of these books are based on the lives of Prairie farm people. Lois has also worked internationally in Latin America and the Caribbean, reporting and writing about life in Mexico, Nicaragua, and Cuba. The topics she is passionate about include agriculture, rural and international development, and health.

[Photo: Robert Taylor/Wikimedia Commons ] ♣ www.dialogue.ca

Robin Mathews Uncut

The Birthday of A Giant Colony: What’s To Celebrate? July 1, 2019 Robin Mathews, Vancouver

Part One Everywhere …. There are symbols of Canada’s Colonial Status … Everywhere. One on-going symbol, of course, is the life of the wholly dedicated Globe and Mail: half truth, no truth, and sleight-of-hand. ‘Rule No. 1: Never tell the truth about Canada.’ [The Globe and Mail is representative.]

There is, however, more pressingly at the moment another example to deal with. It goes by the short name: Meng Wanzou, Chief Financial Officer of China’s Huawei Technologies. Meng Wanzou was arrested in Vancouver on December 1, 2018, at the request of U.S. authorities … as a first step undertaken to fulfill the terms of an Extradition Treaty that Canada has with the USA. (China, apparently, has similar treaties with many foreign countries.)

What has followed? A total Colonial farce and tragedy has followed: Xi Jinping, the (in fact) autocratic leader of China has (like a spoiled child) refused to speak with Canada’s Prime Minister. China has imposed ridiculous sanctions on Canadian agricultural products destined for China. And much worse…

China has seized and is holding, under torture conditions, Canadian citizens … as revenge…!

That last tells all anyone needs to know about China.

Whatever else may be good about China, it is a Rogue Nation (like Saudi Arabia) where The Rule of Law is a farce – and the whim of the powerful can erase the Human Rights of anyone the Powerful choose to target!

Grinding salt into the Canadian wound (and never mentioned by a single commentator in the Canadian Mainstream Press and Media) the “Actions” inspired

by Chinese anger are wholly the responsibility of U.S. actors.

Get it all clear in mind. Canada [observing The Rule of Law] acted on a U.S. request to detain Meng Wanzou, Chief Financial Officer of China’s Huawei Technologies. Canada acted to fulfill terms it has in a treaty with the U.S.A. China … should, if it believes it has been wronged, be attacking the U.S.A. in every way it sees fit for the Meng Wanzou incident. On its part, U.S. authorities should be demanding of China – in the loudest voices – that it end all sanctions against www.dialogue.ca

Canada: loudly, persistently, and at the highest levels of power….

But that, alas, isn’t how Colonialism works. Canada accepts the blame for the U.S. action as a good Colonial Servant and “takes” all the sanctions as if Canada is at fault. The U.S. pretends that Canada is at fault as a normal Imperial Master should do. And – in a fit of generosity – the U.S. president hints he might intercede with the Chinese dictator-for-life, Xi Jinping … on Canada’s behalf… and express regret that China is holding Canadian citizens as hostages under torture conditions.

Very, very few Canadians see the picture: a perfect Colonial Picture. The U.S. creates an International Conflict … and dumps the responsibility onto its forelock-tugging Colony … Canada. The injured nation, China, not wanting yet another conflict with the U.S.A., is happy to continue the fakery … by taking a number of steps to punish Canada.

Canadians have underscored for them the world they will have to live in as long as they accept a role as Colonial Servants To The USA. The story is not new.

One of Canada’s first major English-language poets, (1860-1943) Charles G. D. Roberts, wrote against Canadian colonialism: “How long the ignoble sloth, how long The trust in greatness not thine own?”

Every leader of every federal political party in Canada has taken the Colonial Oath: “I swear I will never speak or act in any way to change Canada’s role as a dependent servant of the U.S.A. and U.S. Imperial Policy. If that means allowing Canadian citizens to be jailed falsely and kept in torture conditions, I will accept all that on behalf of the greater power and privilege of the U.S.A., So Help Me God!” [Notice that not one of them says: “this is the doing of the U.S.A. Why are we taking the flak and punishment for the U.S.A.?”

Why are they not shouting that in the House of Commons and elsewhere? You know the answer.]

Quietly, we may all observe that the Globe and Mail [the Globe and Mail is representative] does nothing, ever, to expose the truths of Canada’s colonialism.

That is the long, rich tradition of the Globe and Mail.

In the famous 1891 Election, the great, great …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Robin Mathews, Birthday of A Giant Colony: What’s to Celebrate, contd.

grandfather of the Globe and Mail, called The Toronto Globe, worked like a beaver to help elect a government dedicated to the integration of Canada into the U.S.A. (and lost, despite all its dedicated, even dishonest, efforts).

Why doesn’t the Globe and Mail tell you [the Globe and Mail is representative] what I tell you here? Because Canada’s Mainstream Press and Media is a Colonial Press and Media serving the Imperial Master. And so it feeds you what a Colonial population is always fed: half truth, no truth, and ‘sleight-of-hand’.

Part Two Canada’s disgraceful submission (without fighting back!) to sanctions on Agricultural Products by China … and to China’s holding, under torture conditions, Canadians used as ‘revenge’ by China is – alas – only a small part of Canada’s self-effacing submission to U.S. Policy. (One commentator has suggested that both the U.S. and China will benefit from the sanctions, with the U.S. supplying to China the agricultural goods China refuses to buy from Canada … Canada being victimized in two directions in order to help “mend” U.S./China relations!)

Part One of this column points out that all the antagonistic actions taken against Canada by China are the result of U.S. policy in which Canada is ensnared by an Extradition Treaty with that country. The U.S.A. requested the detention of Huawei executive officer, Meng Wanzhou. Canadian government failure to make that point loudly and clearly to Canadians is a sign of our government’s Colonialism. The failure of Opposition MPs in Canada’s House of Commons to point out those facts loudly for all Canadians is a sign of their similar commitment to Canadian Colonialism….

Chrystia Freeland (rumoured to be prestidigitating to get Justin Trudeau’s position as Prime Minister) arrived on the scene from the Hard Right Ukrainian-Canadian stream, though Mainstream reports suggest she was/is a progressive Liberal. Her grandfather collaborated with the Nazis through the Second World War and then “assisted” U.S. Intelligence agencies after it earning, apparently, permission to travel to Canada.

She takes, it seems, a U.S. Stance whenever she can: urging on suspicion and hatred of Russia… and support for the worst expressions of Ukrainian politics.

It is in her time as Foreign Minister, moreover, that Canada has reduced Canadian Embassy Staff in Cuba 10 dialogue

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by 50% – a clearly antagonistic move. Canada has shut down the section there which processed visas for Cuban citizens wishing to visit Canada or seeking work or study permits. Now Cubans (somehow) must apply from another country than Cuba for those permits.

Most Canadians know nothing about that action.

(You may be sure they will not be informed by the Globe and Mail or others in the so-called Mainstream Press and Media.

[Having held editorial positions at The Financial Times, Thomson Reuter, and The Globe and Mail, Ms. Freeland will know a good deal about ‘half truth, no truth, and sleight-of-hand’.]

The move against Cuba by the Canadian government is especially insulting since well over a million Canadians visit Cuba annually … and they do so in a relation of warm friendship towards Cuba and the Cuban people. If she can wreck that relation (to please the U.S.A.) Chrystia Freeland will, doubtless, do it (with, alas, the full consent of the Justin Trudeau Cabinet).

Chrystia Freeland should be shouted out of the House of Commons for that action… and would be if she were not surrounded by a House of Commons stuffed with … ‘Chrystia Freelands’ – ALL having taken the oath of allegiance to U.S. Imperial policy. Ms. Freeland knows there is not a political party in the House of Commons which is not dedicated to the violent, destructive, murderous U.S. Policy in the Middle East, in South America – wherever in the world … and presently – most pressingly – against the freely-elected and progressive government of Venezuela.

Canada (Chrystia Freeland) is a leading voice in the U.S.-Toady Organization called ‘The Lima Group’ of fifteen countries working against the legitimate government of Venezuela on the part of the U.S. That should make every Canadian cringe with shame.

Fortunately, fourteen South American countries in the Lima Group do not want a U.S.-led shooting war in Venezuela. And they have worked to prevent it.

There is no way of knowing certainly whether Chrystia Freeland is advocating open war against Venezuela or not. Canadians will only know her position when she makes it clear, which I do not believe she has chosen to do, so far – and which, I believe, she will try very hard to avoid.

If ANYTHING in Canadian life makes clear the need www.dialogue.ca

for a wholly new, wholly independent, wholly ‘responsible’ Canadian Political Party … it is Canada’s shameful, skulking support of the U.S.A. in its wish to tear apart the fabric of Venezuela, to subject its people to violence and repression … all in a move to secure for U.S. Corporate Interests Venezuela’s world-record supply of fossil fuel.

Canadians don’t want Canada to be a part of actions in the world that desecrate innocent nations and peoples.

But since the Wars in the Middle East – 2003 and after – “Canada” has been a supporter of U.S. expansionist, violent inhumanity. Of that there is not the slightest doubt.

Very obviously, it is not for ‘Canadian’ reasons that “Canada” has slashed its staff in Cuba and launched an assault on the Cuban peoples’ freedom of movement. Nor is it working to destroy the Venezuelan government for ‘Canadian’ reasons….

Canada is doing those things as a toady of the malign, imperialist actions of the USA. For shame!

Happy Birthday Canada!! Blood oozes from your Birthday Cake … the blood of the innocent spilled by Canada in its role as a cringing Colony of the U.S.A. Part Three The amount of money spent is huge. It is accompanied by unending faux comment by the Mainstream Press and Media [“half truth, no truth, and sleight-ofhand”]. The Fourth Estate bathes itself in the flood of “expertise” by Social Scientists: Sociologists, Anthropologists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Suicidologists … and more … who operate and/or provide the structure of the passionately concerned, humane, sensitive, deeply caring “reconciliation” “truth” and other keenly motivated “Commissions of Inquiry” … into the deeply destructive, on-going, un-health and deracination of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples from sea to sea … to sea.

How has the legislation since John A. Macdonald continued to be destructive of Indigenous life and community? Why are top Social Scientists unable (?) to fathom the reasons for the unending degradation of Canada’s First Peoples?

The hard, hurting short answer to the last question may be because the Social Scientists are, in fact, (even when unaware) unable to find any meaningful solution … living as they do in the side-pocket of Power (quite close to its wallet). www.dialogue.ca

What is to celebrate about a sickness in Canadian Society that is more than 150 years old?

The vastness of the subject, its intricacies, its ongoing (apparent) insolubility, and the endless publication attempting to deal with it must surely cause many, many concerned non-indigenous Canadians to “turn off,” to turn away from the subject from sheer confusion. Are they racists? Perhaps. One cannot say categorically: “No, not racists.” But let us say “Not Racists… merely confused people unable to find a thread they can take hold of to lead them (a) to the core of the problem, and (b) able to see Real Solutions that may be given life.”

With the enormous literature on the subject one is lucky to find the core, the key, the heart and soul of the matter in terms that any Canadian may understand. It is there. And when it is presented any Canadian (except those who are on “the distraction” payroll) will say: “Yes, of course. Now let’s begin real change.”

Reading the book by Roland D. Chrisjohn and Shaunessy McKay (with Andrea O. Smith): Dying To Please You: Indigenous Suicide in Contemporary Canada makes everything plain.

Read also The Circle Game by Roland Chrisjohn and Sherri L. Young, with Michael Maraun.

The publisher is Theytus Books, Penticton, B.C. [Notice the two books are not published either by major University Presses or by major “Mainstream” publishers in Canada – those last being, in fact, U.S. Branch Plant operations in Canada: Gigantic Imperial Publishers for a Gigantic Colony.]

The condition we face arises, they reasonably say, out of the nature of our society. Dying to Please You refers to global developments since Columbus “discovered” the geography of the Western Hemisphere in 1492… and the rape of South and Central and North America was launched, and – in relation to the lives of the Indigenous Peoples – has never ended.

That is the basis of the argument. It is that Pizarro, the famous looter/murderer of Indigenous people in the first half of the sixteenth century was simply father and uncle to all that has followed and which continues to this day: the rape and looting of all “The New Worlds” by Pizarro’s Capitalist descendants. The primary cause of the disease attacking the Indigenous in the world and in Canada is …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Robin Mathews, Birthday of A Giant Colony: What’s to Celebrate, contd.

called… Capitalism. Genocide follows ….

“Genocide”, write the authors of The Circle Game, “is key to the whole story. Genocide … to cover up the wholesale theft of North America from the Aboriginal Peoples, to avoid having to compensate those whose property was stolen … and to obliterate the chain linking specific genocidal actions taken against Aboriginal Peoples… to the legal, political, economic, and social elite that conceived and implemented genocide.” (p. 74, The Circle Game)

On that central matter read all the volumes by Anthony Hall and Bruce Clark … as very useful further instruction.

The authors of Dying To Please You assert that the program has been a shared activity of all The Western Imperial Malevolent Powers (p. 104). That is true – from at least Pizarro onwards. The authors of the two books before us deal “head on” with the subject … and so we may be usefully brief. The “nature of our society” is (as the authors record) that it is a Capitalist Society, one in which (a) Capitalists, in fact, rule, and (b) in which the goal is to gain possession of and exploit anything and everything that will increase Capitalist wealth. The problem for the Canadian government now, the authors aver, is “how to appropriate indigenous land and property without paying for it…”

Moreover … the “possibility that indigenous nations maintain their ownership while being compensated for previous outright robberies is not allowed to be raised as an issue.” (p. 106, Dying to Please You) And so, for the Indigenous Peoples, Dying to Please You recommends they “come to grips with the domination of our lives by capitalism” (p. 138). But, surely, a real solution will only come about when all Canadians come to grips with Capitalism and reconstruct “the present system”… excluding the power and the tools of Capitalism.

Education, in our time – as The Circle Game points out, is, in fact, training to accept the Capitalist Status Quo. We have probably gone backwards. In the 1950s and 1960s debates about Capitalism were fairly common on university campuses. And the Communist Party of Canada was visible … and was dumping on (and educating about) Capitalism. Marxist Study Groups were fairly common. Now Canadian university campuses are firmly and ‘richly’ in the 12 dialogue

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hands of the Capitalist State … as is every legislative body and almost every visible Political Party in the country.

One of the very best ways to protect Capitalism is to establish as Absolute Truth that any examination of, and/or any reference to Marxist Thought can only come from filthy, vile, near-mad, immoral, humanityhating, gross, vile, anti-community, self-seekers … (when, in fact, the description may, rather, describe perfectly… almost any … serious Capitalist.)

None of that bodes well for the real condition of Canada’s indigenous peoples OR for the indoctrinated population standing, apparently helpless, in the face of on-going extermination … on-going genocide.

What a strange and sorry tale to tell about Canada on the occasion of its 152nd Birthday Party. The greed of its Capitalist Class, the existence of barely-disguised Capitalist government, added to the ignorance of nonIndigenous Canadians (and even many of the Indigenous) … delivers a continuing condition of oppression, gross misunderstanding, and … genocide.

“Come the Revolution” … as people used to say … “things will change!” But the Revolution seems farther and farther away. Except one of the characteristics of Revolution, we are told, is that often, unexpectedly, the chain of consent snaps and the community is in revolutionary change almost as a result of what seemed to be the unnoticed ‘nature of the society.’

“Hope”, as Alexander Pope wrote, “springs eternal in the human breast”.

Robin Mathews, rmathews@telus.net Anthony James Hall forwarded the link for Robin’s article (Part One) as it appeared in the American Herald Tribune: LINK:

https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/canada/3282birthday-of-a-giant-colony.html Robin Mathews is a retired professor who taught English literature at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC. He is well known for his campaign to Canadianize the faculty and curricula of Canadian universities. ♣

www.dialogue.ca

In the Small Canadian City of Regina, Resistance is Brewing Andre Vltchek, 22 April 2019 This article appeared first at the Journal NEO, at LINK: https://journal-neo.org/2019/04/22/in-the-small-canadiancity-of-regina-resistance-is-brewing/ - Reprinted with permission of the author [PHOTO (right): Andre Vltchek, centre, and organizers of the Peace Conference in Regina ].

Ed Lehman is a Canadian Communist, and a comrade of mine. I don’t say such things often or lightly, especially about Westerners. But he became my comrade, and we struggled shoulder to shoulder, for five days.

Not in the South American wilderness, not in Afghanistan or Syria, but in Regina, a small Canadian city, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan.

I admit, before being invited there, I knew close to nothing about Regina. I did not even know how to pronounce it, correctly. But one day, an email arrived, and I was invited to become a keynote speaker at the Peace Conference there – in Regina. Spontaneously, I accepted. The peace conference was called “Yes to Peace and Progress – No to NATO and War!” I usually do not speak at peace conferences. I have always believed that oppressed and colonized countries have to fight for their independence and freedom, and that peace as it is propagated in the West is something that basically upholds the status quo. It is, as I mentioned in Canada, “when the bombs are not falling on Paris or Toronto”. It is when the wretched of the earth are dying quietly and obediently, far away from camera lenses, in their looted countries and continents.

Actually, many peace movements in the West annoy me to the extreme. Their lack of sensitivity, as well as ignorance, are maddening. The desire of their members to ‘do good’ and ‘feel good’ is often selfserving, and has absolutely nothing to do with the struggle for justice in dozens of colonized, and plundered ‘client’ states.

But there was something very different in what I detected while reading the invitation from Regina. The organizers were actually talking about justice, not just about stopping conflict. They were full-heartedly defending Venezuela. And their main goal was to dismantle NATO, or ‘at least’ to convince Canadians that their country should not participate in the bloodstained ‘adventures’ which are ruining the lives of hundreds of millions of people all over the world. I felt that I was being approached by the real and solid Left. www.dialogue.ca

And therefore, without much hesitation, I accepted. ***

The program was mildly insane. In two Canadian cities – Regina and Winnipeg – I literally had to speak day and night, addressing the Peace Conference, a rally (called “No to NATO! No to “Regime Change Politics!” in downtown Regina in Victoria Park at the Cenotaph to the fallen soldiers of World War 1 and 2, Korea, and Afghanistan), as well as to students and professors at three universities and one high school.

Simultaneously, Ihad to give interviews to both the printed media and radio stations. I was asked to show to the public two of my documentary films; one about North Korea (DPRK), and one about the devastating poverty and AIDS epidemic in the region of the African Great Lakes.

Why am I writing this; why do I give this detailed list of events? For one simple reason: it appeared to me that Canada is actually very different from the United States, despite its geographical proximity, and despite the fact it elected its embarrassingly right-wing government.

First of all, Canadians do listen. They may not always agree with Communist, revolutionary thinkers like me, but they do sit down, concentrate and listen to you. They want to know; to understand. That is already very impressive, in a world which is brainwashed by the Western propaganda.

But there is more, that I noticed while there: unlike in such places like California, no one here says to me: “Thank you for coming, but please do not show us too much blood and too much suffering. We won’t be able to take it” (precisely the comments that I once …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Andre Vltchek, Resistance is Brewing, contd.

received in the US, when I was going to show some video clips from my film “Rwanda Gambit”).

If you tell a Canadian audience: “Look, you are participating in several massacres committed by NATO, and I will show you what people in these countries have to endure,” many Canadians will not say ‘no’; they will sit there and listen to you, and if necessary, they will watch what you want to share with them.

And I am grateful for this, and I am also impressed.

It is ‘much more’ than what I have encountered in many parts of the West.

Another impressive fact is that Winnipeg is not a large city, and Regina only has some 200,000 inhabitants.

Yet both cities have a truly vibrant intellectual life.

They have highly educated and informed individuals who clearly oppose the Western regime and global dictates. They have people who struggle against the regime.

And what I also noticed: our conference, organized by the Regina Peace Council (of which Ed Lehman is President),was covered by the local ‘mainstream’ media, by the Regina Leader Post, for instance, which offered a sympathetic account in an article “Group of Reginans protest Canada’s involvement in NATO”.

The newspaper had no problems disseminating my ideas, either. The same goes for the local community radio station. And Erin Weir, an independent Member of Parliament, who represents the Regina-Lewvan constituency – personally brought sincere greetings to the conference.

I often speak at universities, worldwide. But in Regina I was even invited to address a class of high school students, who were able to formulate and ask very relevant questions.

I don’t want to say that in Canada ‘I participated in mainstream events’, but in both Regina and Winnipeg, I was ‘allowed’ to interact with, and to influence various professors, students, and through media outlets, even the local public. ***

Anti-war activists here have their Saskatchewan Peace News publication, which is now in its 26th year of existence. As well as reporting on local peace events, the publication: exposes ideas that cripple the peace movement; the doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect;” and “humanitarian interventionism” – as 14 dialogue

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Dave Gehl in his speech said, ‘A 21st century version of The White Man’s Burden;’ and is used as an organizer of peace events.

For Ed Lehman, ‘peace’ is not just a pretty word or a slogan, and he is not the only one in Regina, who think this way. He believes that: “Today’s progressives need to unite the fight for peace with the fight for social and economic advance with the fight against climate crisis and the battle against racism. Deep transformation of the economic and social system is required in North America for justice to prevail; we saw in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties that even in the belly of the beast, victories can be won.” (Ed Lehman) Justice and racism… Unfortunately, racism is not just an ugly word here, in Saskatchewan and in Canada in general. It is a reality, a shame. Many of the First Nation people, or call them original inhabitants of Canada, are still living in appalling misery, suffering from discrimination, as I was told by Julie Peebles, a young woman with a great concern for the life-situation facing Canada’s aboriginal population, who noted the similarities between AIDS as depicted in my film on Kenya and the situation in Saskatchewan. Here, indigenous people are facing social conditions similar to those in the poorest countries on earth.

I suggested, first jokingly, that I should return to Regina, later this year, in order to make a short documentary depicting the plight of the First Nation: “Wouldn’t that be embarrassing: a Russian travelling here, and doing precisely what should be an obligation to any decent Canadian filmmaker?” It was not taken lightly: the people of Regina full-heartedly welcomed my proposition, offering help, support; both moral and practical (like lodging me, driving me around, identifying important locations for my film). And now, I am seriously determined to come back and to help. ***

After the event, and after my departure, many public figures praised the dedicated work and struggle of the Regina Peace Council. One of the letters stated: “RPC once again has demonstrated to the entire peace movement the possibilities that exist and can be realized from careful and thoughtful organizing and mobilizing of public peace action efforts and in particular by inviting the new generation of peace activists and dedicated anti-imperialist voices to the platform. …/ www.dialogue.ca

Andre Vltchek, Resistance is Brewing, contd.

The Regina event coincides with other international efforts underway and under-reported by the corporately owned and controlled mass media. NATO, promoted by the corrupt finance capitalist, political media cabal, as a defensive alliance, is gradually being exposed for what it truly is, the imperialist gendarme and provocateur of US inspired wars, including its most terrible form, nuclear war. Canada has no future and certainly no security so long as our country continues to be part of US-led NATO.” Ed Lehman himself proved that he is not only a dedicated fighter, but also a constructive optimist. After I departed, he wrote to me: “The left has had a tremendous impact in Canada in the last hundred years. Without the struggles of the working class, militant farmers, progressive intellectuals, the indigenous population, and others, our country would not have the social programs and rights that so many here are taking for granted today. Now more and more there is a crisis of everyday living facing the nation as the result of the impacts of neo-liberalism and neo-globalism on our country. The left, and in the first place the Communists, have the task of giving strong leadership in the struggles against climate catastrophe, for a Canadian foreign policy based on peace and disarmament, and for socialism as the solution to the problems faced by Canadians. With a socialist vision and optimism, the working people of Canada will chart a new course for our country.” ***

In Winnipeg, I publicly confronted the former Canadian Ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Rowswell, (watch here - https://youtu.be/DMcNYc_3v9Y), a man who has already caused great damage to various non-Western countries, and who is still continuing with his destructive labor.

I also delivered a speech at Winnipeg University (you can watch my speech: “NATO, Canada and Western Imperialism” here - https://youtu.be/ju5Ykgf8gJ0 ).

Are Canada and its peace movements in Regina and Winnipeg, those proverbial mice which roared?

I am not sure, but what I encountered there filled me with optimism and hope, even convincing me that not ‘everything in the West is lost, yet’.

It also made me think: one assumes that the centers of resistance are located in such metropolises as New www.dialogue.ca

York, Los Angeles and Toronto. But in reality, the Canadian opposition often gathers in small cities and towns: Radio Pacifica deep in British Columbia, Christopher Black well outside Toronto, and Ed Lehman in Regina.

RPC has already hosted such outstanding Canadian individuals as Michel Chossudovsky, a great thinker and the publisher of Global Research, Eva Bartlett, one of the bravest war correspondents on earth, and soon, Christopher Black, my friend, a Communist international lawyer, an author and a poet. It also hosted me, a revolutionary writer and, or as they call me in Latin America, a militant internationalist. And the people of Regina were not scared by what I had to say; they treated me with kindness and warmth, which I shall never forget.

I felt much more at home in Regina than I ever felt in Toronto or Montreal. ***

During a demonstration against NATO, in Regina; right in the middle of the city, two police officers, one man and one woman, were watching us from the distance. They did not try to interfere. Sometimes they smiled, but mostly they just listened.

When demonstrators formed a circle, two law enforcement officers were invited to join, to participate.

Without one moment of hesitation, they did join. That is when I thought: “No, this is nothing like the United States. This is Canada”.

And I was certain that soon, I will be back.

ABOUT ANDRE VLTCHEK:

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist.

He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”.

Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon.

He writes especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” Andre can be reached via his website: http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/ Or by email: andre.vltchek.readers@gmail.com ♣ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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“Prévoyance”

Writing about the Canada Pension Plan is very difficult Erik Andersen, Gabriola Island, BC Writing about the CPP is very difficult. I can recall challenging the CPP IB [Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board] about the purchase of various

investments over the years and their skill at never recognizing errors.

There is a process that is held in good regard called "value at risk" (VaR) analysis. The latest use of this analytical tool was by the Government of Norway, asking for independent analysis of their sovereign wealth fund, standing at more than US$200 billion. The recommendation to the fund was it divest all hydro carbon investments. I asked the CPP IB for the investment total in the hydrocarbon space and their unbelievable answer was that they did not record their investments in a way that would allow them to answer me.

In 2009 I asked the Min. Finance to instruct the CPP IB to have a "VaR" done on our CPP portfolio of investments once every 3 or4 years, much like done by the actuary. I know he read this suggestion because shortly thereafter the CPP IB advertised for an economist to take on this job. The only problem was that there would be no objectivity. How an employee is supposed to function when the boss is also the same person deciding on what to invest in.

In England in 2014, a national newspaper reported on a presentation given by the Chief Economist at the Bank of England. He was talking to a gathering of investment managers for insurance companies and pension funds. Andrew (James) stated that because insur-

ers and pension funds weren't likely to ever go bankrupt it was their national duty to stand ready to buy dead assets from the commercial banking sector. It was one of the solutions being promoted as a substitute for bank "bail out and bail in".

Remember who was made the head of the BoE at that time and all the career stops Mark (Carney*) had along the way. The bottom line is that all central banks, post 2009, have been looking for a political way of saving commercial banks from going under in the event of another 08 freeze up.

So how does that relate to our CPP? I suspect Andrew ran into a lot of opposition to his save the commercial banks proposal from the independently minded investment managers so a work around strategy was needed.

That is a way to understand what the CPP IB has been and is doing now. The renaming is one important step in disconnecting the citizen/investor from an ownership understanding. We savers are now supplicants for our own contributions. Ownership has been severed on purpose, giving more freedom to BoC and politicians to use the funds at will. In the 2014, speech Andrew totaled global pension funds to help his sales pitch. * Mark Carney began his career at Goldman Sachs before joining the Cdn. Dept. of Finance. He later served as Governor of the Bank of Canada, 2008-2013. His appointment as Governor of the Bank of England was approved by Her Majesty on 26 Nov. 2012. The Governor joined the Bank on 1 July 2013 (until 31 Jan. 2020). He also serves as Chair of the Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Policy Committee & the Prudential Regulation Committee; he serves as First Vice-Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board, a member of the Group of Thirty & the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.

– Erik, twolabradors@shaw.ca ♣

************************************

Letter to BC Premier Horgan re LNG investments Dear Premier, It is normally prudent, when examining the possibility of making a very large investment at the supply end, to gain a thorough appreciation of current and expected price behaviour of what is to be produced. In this regard, the price behaviour of natural gas in North America has been and looks to be nothing close to supportive of any new natural gas projects.

For the past year, natural gas (as measured by the NYMEX) has drifted lower and is US$ 2.40, when as 16 dialogue

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recently as 2 months ago the futures was showing $2.60. I know the current political wisdom has the Chinese paying more even though a new pipeline has just been commissioned from Russia with a second in planning. Investing by BC in the establishment of an LNG plant, directly or indirectly, must be way out of the tolerable range of risk for public dollars.

It is not as if this lesson has not already been learned, think coal.

Regards Erik Andersen, twolabradors@shaw.ca ♣ www.dialogue.ca

Venezuela – A Risk to Dollar Hegemony: Key Purpose Behind Regime Change

By Peter Koenig, Global Research, May 9, 2019

After the new coup attempt – or propaganda coup – Venezuela lives in a state of foreign imposed insecurity. The failed coup was executed on 30 April by Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed and Washingtontrained and endorsed “interim President,” and the opposition leader, Leopoldo López, who was hurriedly freed from house arrest by Guaidó with a couple of dozens of armed-to-the-teeth defecting military, who apparently didn’t quite know what they were up to. Because, when all was over after a few hours, most of them asked to be re-integrated into their military units – and, as far as I know, they were readmitted.

These are Washington’s puppets and “coup-makers.”

When one sees that the so-called coup was defeated in a mere few hours, without any Venezuelan military interference, one wonders whether this was really planned as a coup, or merely as a “public relations” coup, for the media to ‘recharge’ their narrative of Maduro dictatorship, of a suffering people, of famine, of lack of medication and medical supply – all due to the Maduro government’s mismanagement of Venezuela’s natural riches, the lie-slander we have been used to for the last several years.

For sure, the Venezuelan people are suffering.

According to a CEPR report – link: www.democracynow.org/2019/5/1/economist_jeffrey_sachs_us_sanctions_have

– sanctions have killed some 40,000 Venezuelans.

And this, not because of President Maduro’s squandering of Venezuelan resources, but because of a brutal, merciless outside interference, principally from the United States and to a lesser degree from Washington’s European vassals. If you listen to the ceaseless drumbeat for war against Venezuela and her democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, by Pompeo, Bolton, Pence and Trump – you can only wonder and shake your head – what pathological and schizophrenic world we are living in? – And – are we all sick to the bone, that we tolerate it, that nobody of and in power – other than Russia and China – say ‘Halt’ to this deadly fiasco?

This article [3 May 2019] by Eric Zuesse, including leaked documents from Pentagon’s southern command, SOUTHCOM, will give the non-believers plenty of reasons to change their minds.

[See article at: www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-governmentplan-dated-23-february-2018-coup-venezuela/5676380 ] www.dialogue.ca

Western humanity has reached an abject state of mental disease. We allow the slaughter of tens of millions of people by the United States and its NATO allies, in US-provoked wars and conflicts around the world, indiscriminate killing for resources and monetary dominion. But we follow the same killer nation in accusing a quiet, peace-loving, fully democratic country, like Venezuela, to be utterly trampled on and punished with the most horrific monetary and economic sanctions – all illegal, by any standards of law – and our western “leaders” know it all.

These western heads of state and their chosen minions do not have the guts or political courage to say ‘STOP’. They could, if they had any conscience left.

These so-called leaders (sic) of vassal states, they have it all in their sovereign power – they could together decide that enough is enough, separate themselves from the Washington horrors and form a real European Union, a union to say no to the tyrant, a union that is capable of calling its own sovereign shots – decide its own destiny, a destiny of alliance with peaceful countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran and more – basically all those that have decided not to bend to the dictate of Washington.

Why don’t they? Have they been bought, or received death threats if they dare to deviate? – All is possible – even likely, because it is unfathomable that the leaders, the political heads of all those 28 EU countries are hell-bent to believe the lies being propagated day-in and day-out, drip-by-miserable drip. It is not possible.

Back to Venezuela...

The western public at large must never be too long without devastating smear-news about a regime the empire wants to “change”. It is clear that the nefarious pair in Venezuela, Guaidó-López, followed strict Washington instructions. Guaidó would never dare doing anything without prior approval and directives from his masters in Washington.

Despite threats after pompous threats and false accusations and failed coup attempts, President Maduro holds on to a solid backing of six million voters who supported him, more than two thirds of those who went to the ballots, on 20 May 2018. He also has the solid support of the military, who have a revolutionary integrity and conscience unknown to the west.

And not least, he has the support of Venezuela’s …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Peter Koenig, Venezuela-Risk to Dollar Hegemony, contd.

solid allies, Russia and China.

Nevertheless, the United States will not let go. Why do they risk everything – even a devastating war?

Well, there are several reasons. First you may think, “It’s the Oil, stupid!” – And second, the turbo-capitalist, neoliberal turning-to-neofascist US will not tolerate a socialist state in what they still consider their ‘backyard’. – Well, all of this is true. Venezuela has indeed the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves – and it is conveniently close to The US’s Texas refineries.

However, the key reason for Washington forcing ‘regime change’ is that Venezuela has stopped selling her hydrocarbon in US dollars, and, may therefore become a risk for the US-dollar hegemony around the globe. That is a punishable violation for the empire.

At least two heads of state were assassinated because they dared abandoning the unwritten and unlawful, but nevertheless US-imposed rule to sell their oil and gas in US-dollars, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi. Both had started trading their oil in other than US-dollar currencies – and were strong advocates for others to do likewise.

Some three years ago, Venezuela started selling her oil and gas in other currencies than the US-dollar, a cardinal sin. Global dollar hegemony, meaning the full control of economies throughout the globe – a control that is rapidly fading – can only be maintained by a world flooded by dollars and with a monetary system that is entirely controlled by the FED and its associated American banks, by an international transfer system, SWIFT, that channels every dollar to be moved between countries, whether it is the US or any other country – through a US bank, in either New York or London. That still being the case, the US dollar remains the key reserve currency in the world, though rapidly fading. And second, through the obligatory trading of a commodities – like hydrocarbon energy – ONLY in US-dollars. The latter also allows the empire to print as many dollars as it needs to keep the world economy under control – and punish those that do not want to bend to Washington’s rule, with sanctions and confiscation of assets abroad, because — all transactions are controlled by the US banking system.

First, the dollar as a reserve currency, is fading rapidly, as ever fewer countries entrust their reserves to a largely recognized ‘fake’, fiat and debt-based currency, the US-dollar. They convert their dollar 18 dialogue

SUMMER 2019, VOL. 32, NO. 4

reserve holdings gradually into other assets, i.e. gold, or the Chinese Yuan which has become high in demand over the last few years. Logically, because China is already known as the undisputable strongest economy in the world, hence, the Chinese currency has a special reserve standing. However, the mainstream media do not report on this.

Second, with a growing number of countries that do no longer respect the Washington imposed US-dollar rule for hydrocarbon trading – the demand for dollars decreases rapidly – a direct confrontation to the United States’ dollar hegemony over the world. Russia and China have years ago stopped trading in US dollars, not only hydrocarbons, but everything. India and Iran have started doing the same. Other countries will follow – and Venezuela, one of the vanguards with the world’s largest oil reserves – should, therefore, not be allowed to become a model for other nations. The Trump Administration and its Wall Street masters will do what it takes to stop Venezuela from abandoning the dollar.

Hence, regime change and taking over the vast oil assets is of the order – with war, if necessary – “all options are on the table” – all under the blatantly fakest pretexts of “humanitarian intervention” and bringing back democracy – when the world knows that anywhere the US intervenes, democracy is abolished. In fact, what the US has managed – and wantonly so – is kill any democracy that ever existed.

Under these circumstances, Venezuela’s transgression in shedding the dollar for oil trading – and for trading in general – amounts to a serious threat to the dollar hegemony and must be suffocated. That’s what these coup attempts are all about. If they succeed, the dollar-currency collapse could be postponed for a bit, and taking possession of the oil reserves would be the icing on the cake.

What’s left after the dollar dominance over the world is gone, once the key tool, economic sanctions, for manipulating nations into doing the bidding of the emperor is no longer effective? – A broken US economy, one that already today depends heavily on the war and weapons industry – in fact, for over 50% of US GDP, when all associated manufacturing and services are counted. What’s left is the overwhelming firepower of that belligerent warmongering and wardependent nation, with which the US and NATO …/ www.dialogue.ca

could pull the rest of the world into oblivion.

That’s what’s at stake with any nation that wants to kick the petro-dollar. Also, Iran, of course. But both Iran and Venezuela have strong protection from Russia and China – two countries that freed themselves from the fangs of the dollar system years ago. And they are offering a bright future with viable Eastern monetary alternatives, mostly based on the Chinese Yuan and other currencies linked to SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) members.

Venezuela – Venceremos! *** Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the

globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

The original source of this article is Global Research Copyright © Peter Koenig, Global Research, 2019 LINK: https://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-risk-dollarhegemony-regime-change/5677008 SEE ALSO: A detailed plan from “UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND” dated “23 FEBRUARY 2018” was issued with the title “PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP ‘MASTERSTROKE’” and is here presented complete. This document was personally signed by Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, who was the Commander (the chief), at SOUTHCOM, and he was thus the top U.S. military official handling Venezuela.

But this was far more than just a military plan. It was comprehensive - directing military, diplomatic, and propaganda, policies - regarding the Trump Administration’s planned “Overthrow” of Venezuela’s Government. His plan has since guided the Administration’s entire operation, including “the capacities of the psychological war,” regarding Venezuela… LINK: https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-government-plandated-23-february-2018-coup-venezuela/5676380 SEE ALSO: The Straw that Breaks the Empire’s Back?

LINK: www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-straw-breaksempires-back/5667967 ♣

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An Exchange prompted by A.J. Hall’s article in the Spring issue ~ (“The Politics of Pipelines, Police, the Courts & First Nations in BC” in the Spring issue of Dialogue, p.20, printed in full in the Special Edition, p.23) Feedback from David Foster, Port Perry, ON To Anthony James Hall Re: Essay in the Spring Dialogue

Sir, (how else can we the marginally learned address you with your depth of discipline and good will?) I hope you can find time to reply to the flurry of e-mails your essay will provoke.

I must admit to wondering how the Academic world awards its titles, and David Foster acquires its money. You in your Dialogue essay not claiming ongoing current association with any university even though you have great depth. That led me this morning to asking google how the ‘professor emeritus’ thing worked.

A long article from 2011 came up about the awarding of ‘professors emeritus’ stemming from a casual enquiry by a university staff researcher back then asking how various universities in Canada handled the subject. There was nothing to describe what has happened since then. The article suggested being a prof is a www.dialogue.ca

young man’s job of about 10 year’s duration, and then free to leave about age 55 with accolades, titles and ongoing basic clerical support, status and a good pension. All assumed ‘tenure’ which seems now rarely to be given to anyone.

For various reasons I never did do well in academia, now age 84, I was a soldier’s son and offered a chance 10 years ago to be a light hearted contributor to Dialogue. I am at the bottom end, having been driven bankrupt at an awkward stage in life. I then of course set out to examine why and how had ‘the system’ failed me or I failed it. I am an unashamed monarchist living in the midst of what I see as American sedition.

All I suppose in tatters by the policies and grants approved by Prime Ministers of the time. I hope eventually you can tell me a few quick bits about Peter Robinson as the settler of the area around Peter’s Borough close to where I now live. As a soldier’s son in time of war, I lived all across the country and into Britain, Belgium and even the DEW Line, and later Singapore.

So this is just to say an enormous thanks for your …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 19

David Foster to Tony Hall, contd.

very informative essay tying so many things together, and to shower praises on Janet King for finding you.

Or did you find her? Perhaps later when the rush is over, we might chat further…

David Muir Foster, Port Perry, Ontario – on a small lake north of Oshawa. Nearby we have a small band of 60 uncertain Mississaugas who have lost their way. david.foster2@powergate.ca ******* Response from Tony Hall, Lethbridge, AB

To David Foster

Hello David Muir Foster.

Yours is the first letter I have received on my essay on First Nations and Pipelines in BC. Let me please share with you a bit about Tony Hall my own story. Although I had then achieved the rank of a tenured full professor, in October of 2016 I was unilaterally suspended from my professional duties at the University of Lethbridge where I had taught since January of 1990. The suspension violated the protections of tenure and the terms of the collective agreement between the University's administration and its faculty association? How did this happen?

The Israel Lobby in the form of B'nai Brith Canada had published an atrocious Facebook post on my wall without my knowledge or permission on Aug. 26, 2016. Various agencies of the Israel Lobby then proceeded to smear me as a terrible hateful anti-Semitic man.

My background in Native Studies/Native American Studies had by this time caused me to look into the plight of Palestinians in the Middle East and to criticize Israel as a result. The consequences entailed a rather concerted effort by many agencies including the CBC and Postmedia to defame me and to force me out of the classroom.

After my Faculty Association won a court case against the University of Lethbridge Board of Governors in Sept. of 2017, my employer together with the Israel Lobby and the Alberta government in the form of a diatribe from Premier Rachel Notley, continued to attack me. This kind of denigration made a return to teaching difficult to imagine let alone realize. The result was my retirement on Oct. 20 of 2018.

I was 67 at the time so, in one way, it was a kind of natural transition, although my choice would have been to stay in the classroom a while longer if I had my druthers.

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Each university is slightly different but, at my school, the policy is that if one is full professor at the time of retirement, then one automatically becomes full professor. The description of me in the Dialogue issue is the first time I have seen the Emeritus title in print.

I found my way into the circle of folks gathered around Dialogue Magazine primarily through my friendship and professional association with colleague Robin Mathews. I first met him as a fellow "Red Tory" at a conference in Abbotsford in the 1990s.

Robin's work is also featured in the same edition.

Given what I've been through I really appreciate the decision of the Dialogue folks to feature my commentary on First Nations and Pipelines in BC, a pretty topical and even sexy issue these days I'd say.

Yes, in the article I did try to give a lot of background in the field that was my core topic as a Native Studies history specialist at universities in Sudbury and Lethbridge between 1982 and 2001. After 2001 I referred to my main academic platform at the University of Lethbridge as Globalization Studies.

I used to write many op-ed pieces on Native issues in the Globe and Mail in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

That kind of access to mainstream, however, slipped away as I was drawn to some of the more difficult subjects of our times.

There were a number of serious consequences when I widened my study to look at the evidence of who did what to whom and why on 9/11, a subject which I have related to Israel-US interactions with Palestinians and Arabs and Persians and Muslims.

As I see it, a constant in this stream of widening interests and subjects is a highlight on Indigenous peoples and imperial globalization, a subject that I think melds well with Robin Mathews’ focus on Canadianization and imperial globalization. Robin's treatment of Nuttal/Korody affair forms an especially good fit with our current police state's highly political promotion of Islamophobia together with Israelophilia.

In earlier times I spent considerable time at Trent University in Peterborough in and around the Native Studies Department there. It’s the first such Department in Canada. In recent years I attended a conference there essentially organized by Aboriginal water protectors.

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch.

Yours Sincerely, Tony Hall Anthony James Hall antoniusjameshall@gmail.com ♣

SPECIAL EDITION

www.dialogue.ca

“Behind The Curtain”

Insights from Ed Curtin When Warriors Are Our Saints…

Edward Curtin, Massachusetts, July 23, 2019

As I sit on the small balcony on the top floor of an old house in the working class neighborhood of Alfama, Lisbon, Portugal, it is early evening, the time for wine and voices wafting on the fragrant breeze through the twisting cobble-stoned streets. The National Pantheon (Panteao Nacional) stares me in the face. I stare back, and then look up to the heavens and to the cross that is silhouetted against the blue sky. It crowns the Pantheon’s massive dome.

On its façade stand three statues, only one of which I can see clearly. She is Santa Engracia, a Christian martyr from before the period when the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized and legitimatized Christianity, transforming the cross into a sword.

It was her church before the state found it acceptable to convert it into a space to glorify its secular saints and its military and political prowess.

Rome never dies, although it falls in different guises but is resurrected by the human urge to dominate others. The savage complicity between church and state perdures through the ages.

Wherever you go, the monuments and statues glorifying humanity’s violent history are always presented as a form of liberation. Tourist attractions. Generals, princes, and kings atop horses, brandishing swords and guns, ‘grace’ squares and monuments as a reminder to the common folk of who is looking down on them and to whom they should look up; or look out. Yet even when they do show obeisance to their “masters” who rule them from the heights, the commoners are left out of the spoils of empire, and if they object, they are taken out without hesitation.

On a clothesline outside the windows of the house across the street where a woman peeks out, the pants and underwear humbly sway to a different tune, a sad Fado moan that seems to ask: What has happened?

Has it always been like this?

I am tempted to tell the underwear it has, but realize www.dialogue.ca

its job is to cover-up, not expose the truth.

Rilke, a German language poet of most delicate sensibilities, asked from one of his castle abodes provided by one of his many rich lady friends (First Duino Elegy): Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me against his heart I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.

But down below, the omnipresent graffiti on the walls is a bit less circumspect. It shouts: Fuck the elites!

(Translation provided) The old poor murmur their prayers and the angry young spray their rage on every canvas they can find.

Both seek hope outside the museums and mausoleums erected by the wealthy to glorify themselves.

And fate answers: It’s the same old story, a fight for love and glory. Those seeking glory, the rich elites, the powerful with the guns in all the countries across the planet, with a few exceptions, smash the lovers and the humble people as they struggle to keep faith and hope alive. Who will liberate them?

Who among the elites will hold the arm of the old Portuguese woman on the one crutch as she teeters on her struggle up the steep hill to the little grocery store?

“Orbrigada – Deus te abençoê” [Thank you. God bless you] is her response to a stranger, whose heart aches.

Here in Lisbon there is a famous tourist attraction, Castelo De S. Jorge, a massive hilltop castle and fortress overlooking the city. Built by the Moors in the eleventh century, it was conquered by Dom Afonso Henriques, who became the first king of Portugal, and began what is so nobly described as “its golden age as a home for the royalty.” Royals are always noble, and castles and mythic saint/soldiers like St. George intimate friends. It is a marriage made in hell.

The Spaniard, Ignatius of Loyola, was a soldier seriously wounded in war at the age of thirty. He subsequently underwent a religious conversion. He founded the Jesuit order eighteen years later and was sainted in 1556, sixty-six years after his death. …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 21

Edward Curtin, When Warriors Are Our Saints, contd.

Having been educated by the Jesuits, I vividly recall the motto of my Jesuit high school that adorns the school seal, Deo et Patriae, a not so subtle reminder of how my priorities should be linked. I have failed that test, just as I failed a freshman mathematics exam, probably because I couldn’t figure out what two plus two equaled, since I was reading Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground at the time and might have thought it was five because I believed I was free and not what Ignatius urged Jesuits to be – “as if a dead body” in obedience to the Pope.

The so-called rational ones have brought the earth to the point of extinction with their instrumental rationality and their diseased souls. We are living in the Crystal Palace that Dostoevsky so mocked long before the crystal turned digital. One plus zero may equal one in such a glass house, but such counting will not protect us from the whirlwind we have conjured from the smart man’s equation of E=mc2 Only a spiritual equivalent will save us, as James Douglass has so eloquently argued in his slim but powerful book, Lightning East to West: Jesus, Gandhi, and the Nuclear Age, where, taking up Gandhi’s suggestion, he argues that there is a spiritual equivalent to Einstein’s law of physical change that we must discover that will allow for a radical transformation of society and the world. Douglass’s country is the world.

I, however, am reminded of a very different Jesuittrained American (one among many), who has passed the American indoctrination exam “admirably” and who has worked assiduously for God and country and followed that American motto of “In God We Trust” when he recently led the CIA in its holy wars under President Barack Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize winner) – John Brennan. Was his excuse he was just following orders, “as if a dead body”?

I think the dead children in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and so many other places he helped to destroy would not buy that excuse. Yet Fordham University thought to honor him. Is this what the Jesuit motto means: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem (for the greater glory of God and the salvation of humanity)? Has Fordham ever heard of the Nuremberg Trials?

In the men’s room of St. George’s Castle, there is a wall dispenser selling M&Ms. Imperialism and colonialism take many forms.

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It is hard to say what’s new – since humanity’s savage history just rolls along. The technology changes, but people do not. Spray paint is about 75 years old, about the same age as nuclear weapons, both products of WW II. One leads to “Fuck the elites,” while the other says, “We are the elites and see what we can do to the Japanese.”

War spurs technological development like nothing else, and as the brilliant French social thinker Paul Virilio has shown with his war model, “history progresses at the speed of its weapons systems.” Modern societies, with increased technological speed, the administration of fear (terror), and digital gadgetry, are engaged in a battle for people’s minds through technological perception management. Virilio makes it clear, following on the work of his fellow countryman Jacques Ellul, that built into the technology is the “integral accident,” by which he means that every new technology creates its own potential “accident.”

While most people welcome new technology because they have been conditioned to think only in scientific and positivistic terms, they fail to see the price to be paid. The nuclear bomb, nicknamed “The Gadget” by its one-dimensional, sick scientific inventors, is an accident waiting to happen, unless human madness first leads to its intended use once again.

Or unless we can first discover the spiritual power to eliminate what we have created.

Now we have what Virilio calls the “information bomb,” the glut of information that overloads people’s ability to think clearly or to concentrate, but a boom to the elites who think they are in full control of people’s minds and the technology they promote.

On the ramparts of Castelo De S. Jorge, the tourists snap photo after photo with their cell phones, failing to realize that these memories they are “shooting” from the heights where canons once shot the infidels, have imprisoned them in a dungeon as deep and dark as the one in the castle below their feet.

Visiting castles, like so many trips into the past, can awaken one to the truth of human history or put one to sleep. It is usually the latter.

The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gassett, who lived here in Lisbon for a year after fleeing Franco’s Spain, said it best: “The only genuine ideas are the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, farce.”

We are all shipwrecked now, not just the www.dialogue.ca

Portuguese sailors long lost at sea never to return to home despite the lament of the Fado singers.

If we are to make this earth our home again, we had better learn to sing a different tune. If not, we will be eliminated by accident or intent, and no one will be singing for our return. It is a harsh truth, but quite simple.

In the Foz district of Porto, Portugal on the Atlantic, in the park and on the beaches, children play and laugh

and the music of their voices rises into the air to remind me that they are our hope on this dark and tempestuous sea on which we are shipwrecked, hoping to find our way home.

Dostoevsky said it well: “The soul is healed by being with children.”

Can we hear their voices, singing?

Edward Curtin, http://edwardcurtin.com/ ♣

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As Long As It Takes For A Child's Body to Rot: Reflections on The 'G' Word in Canada

By Kevin D. Annett, Nanaimo BC

The Word Game: we all play it. The dirtier the mess, the more people talk around it: especially Canadians, who never seem to want to offend anyone. And what's more offensive than the sight, or even the thought, of little children ripped to pieces and thrown in a ditch behind a church to decompose in the mouths of vermin? Instead, how preferable to use words that mentally tuck away the horror as deftly as a late-night shovel, tossing in the dirt with each syllable until the gore is safely entombed and expunged. And then, like some post-midnight clean up squad, more words must kick in to erase the erasure that renders the truth into nothing, for that is what the tiny corpses have become.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not thinking of how an electrode was clamped onto the penis of nine year old Buster Baptiste when he spoke to the media about "Genocide" the other day. Nor did the pitiful screams that went on all night in the cold, terrible dormitories resound in his ears, nor his stomach heave in sickness from the putrid stench of weeks-old corpses unearthed and torn apart by roving rez dogs.

He should have vomited in horror, right in front of the TV cameras. Instead, he read from a script. For the flesh from all of those little cadavers is rotted away now, leaving only a desiccated abstraction tucked neatly between the letters "G" and "E".

Official Lies aren't born overnight. They take years to be fashioned from dead remains: about ten years, as a matter of fact, the same time that it takes for the flesh of a child lying in the earth to rot away. There's no coincidence involved.

It's been just over ten years now since Canada's biggest lie officially began to conceal its biggest crime.

It's taken that long for children's teeth yanked from their jaws without painkillers to be sanitized into the www.dialogue.ca

euphemism called "abuse"; for the features of the corpses to finally melt and bleed away into an indiscernible mush. Years of diligent phrase-crafting were needed to alter the newborn baby's screech of agony into a mere allegation as its tiny body was tossed into the furnace flames by Brother Murphy.

The procession of the dead boys and girls that would take more than two days to pass at a rate of one corpse every second required $68 million to be morphed into a column of numbers bearing a precise monetary value. Making the slime digestible is never an inexpensive effort.

Genocide Talk is fashionable and permissible these days in Canada because the word has been bled and emptied of any meaning, and not only by scheming church lawyers and drone-like politicians in Ottawa.

The victims and survivors themselves have been tortured into silence and have internalized the stern command to never speak of what actually happened to them. A substitute language is provided for them by their torturers, employing terms like "mistreatment" to describe the taste of rotten garbage in their mouths, shoved there before a nun could see, lest they starve to death like all the other children. In the words of Vera Hunt, who was the sole survivor of a group of nine sisters and cousins interned at the United Church Alberni residential school, "You could live in their lie or die. Those were your only choices and they still are. My voice is still stuck back in that hell hole and its wings are clipped."

Sometimes the bird finds its wings again, but its cries are intolerable for most of us. During the years when I operated an open-mike radio program in Vancouver's downtown east side, I encouraged anyone with a story to come on the air: especially residential school survivors. Like my previous open-pulpit policy in Port …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 23

Kevin Annett, As Long As It Takes‌, contd.

Alberni, not a lot of people took advantage of the offer to first. But one aboriginal woman who never said her name would occasionally appear in the studio and immediately explode in a torrent of cries, sobs and gasping accounts of what had happened to her in Alert Bay. She never fudged her words, never tried to stem the flood of raw terror, of rape and murder. She relived everything, right in front of us, and named those who had done it and were still doing it. And then she would stumble crying from the studio.

The woman's volcanic authenticity infuriated everyone around me: not just the staid pale staffers at Co-op Radio but the other native survivors who helped me with my "Hidden from History" program.

They all shrank away from the witness whenever she entered the building, and winced or looked away angrily as her flood of horror filled the air. They all demanded that I bar her from my show. When I refused, their wrath was turned on me, as if I was the one with the problem. Eventually even my most "politically correct" associates agreed that, for the sake of everyone, not only the cries of the witness but my own voice would have to be stilled.

A microcosm of Canada? Yes indeed. But the incident made me recognize my own stifled voice, of how easier it was for me then to speak about other peoples' suffering than my own. For what words are there to describe the agonized screams of my five year old daughter Elinor when she was torn from my arms by a church-funded divorce court order? Or the cold, deadeyed stare of the men responsible? How do we depict to others, let alone deal with the deliberate torture that is aimed squarely and relentlessly at us, and how it shreds our heart?

The truth is, we can't. We fight back the best we can even in our pain, we hold on to the moments of life even as the darkness descends, but up against the enormous odds of institutionalized crime, we can never make better what has been done. The destruction is too great. The lies and the murders continue unabated despite all of the words. And from out of this madness and our own strangled mouths, other voices try to speak words that distance and distract and delay the truth. And so any chance for life and what may or may not be justice boils down to the first, basic and subversive task of recovering our own voice: not the one we think we know, but our hidden, forgotten and 24 dialogue

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murdered voice, buried alive and struggling to crawl its way out and shout a single word that can shatter and overturn the entire sick arrangement.

"Genocide" used to be such a word in Canada. When I first used it in 1996 to describe our home-grown Christian death camps, I was roundly condemned and mocked by pretty much everyone, especially since my use of it was always accompanied with living, bleeding examples. But I kept repeating the word and proved what it was in our time and place, and thereby defined the field of battle. I said "mass murder" whenever the press spoke of "abuse", putting a human face on the crime that nobody, native or pale, wanted to look at. And so eventually those responsible for it knew that they had to co-opt the word and strip it of any life, as efficiently as they had done, without hesitation or consequence, to entire nations of children.

Nothing is so like God as silence, someone wrote.

Perhaps the truth is like that, speechless in the face of human depravity and self-delusion: simply a huge set of eyes, seeing all of the dark and hidden places and knowing a truth so huge and unimaginable that it has no language. "We never talk about what's sacred because there aren't any words for it" said a Nuu-ChahNulth elder to me once. Nor are there words for the profane. Maybe in the end that's why we all rely on the false substitutes that say nothing and change nothing.

And yet, in the beginning there was a word, unadulterated and true. That word remains, like the proverbial living stream bubbling beneath the concrete office towers of vested interest and lies. Somehow, we must reach down through all our fears and doubts and extract that word and let it root and finally erupt from our mouths, knowing that it has always resided there. And then like a blast at Jericho, that voice can cause the towers to buckle and collapse, opening all of the secrets and the secret places, even in a place like Canada. For there is nothing that is hidden that will not be revealed – but only by those who find and keep their own voice.

Genocide: the word means, to deliberately kill a people. To kill: not to civilize, or assimilate, or abuse.

So who and what are we to have done such a thing?

Canadians have never asked themselves that question.

Justin Trudeau, by publicly admitting to genocide, said that we are such killers. So what is the proper sentence for premeditated murder? And should the killer himself determine his own sentence, or the terms by which his surviving victims recover? ‌/ www.dialogue.ca

If the killer retains a spark of conscience and humanity, does he not fall to his knees in agony and sorrow, and hope, not for his own recovery, but for the lives of all of the innocents he has slaughtered?

I see no such remorse or humanity among my people.

I hear only stale and dead words, like the mumbling of lost souls who don't realize that they are dead.

Can a shoot still spring from a slain and fallen tree?

We shall see. _

Kevin Annett is a renowned global human rights campaigner, author and whistle blower who has led the movement to expose and prosecute child murder by church and state, in Canada and Europe. Kevin is the co-founder of The International Tribunal of Crimes of Church and State.

He has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Messages for him can be left at Email: thecommonland@gmail.com ♣ Listen to Kevin live every Sunday at 6 pm (eastern/3pm pacific) at www.bbsradio.com/herewestand . See the evidence of genocide in Canada and globally at www.murderbydecree.com.

Some of Kevin's books (available at amazon.com): Murder by Decree - The Crime of Genocide in Canada; Unrelenting: Between Sodom and Zion; Establishing the Reign of Natural Liberty: A Common Law Training Manual; At the Mouth of a Cannon: Conquest and Cupidity on Canada's West Coast; Truth Teller's Shield: A Manual for Whistle Blowers & Hell Raisers; Establishing Liberty: The Case for the Republic of Kanata; Here We Stand: The Call of the New Protestant Reformation; Fallen - The Story of the Vancouver Four; The Sacrifice of Family and Empire; 1497 and so on: A History of White People in Canada or, The Caucasian Healing Fund; The Border: A Post-Canadian Anthology Kevin's award winning documentary film Unrepentant can be viewed at https://youtu.be/rCRrEqeWoOM. ♣

Taking Back our Nation: A Message

from Kevin Annett, Candidate of the Republican Party of Kanata in the upcoming Federal Election

I am running as a candidate for the Republican Party of Kanata in the next federal election. I am a seventh generation Canadian of Scots-Irish-Metis ancestry. For most of my life I have fought for the rights of Canadians as a political activist and an ordained clergyman. I have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for my success in exposing and prosecuting genocide of Indigenous people by Church and State. My home is originally in Winnipeg, where I announced my candidacy on July 23.

But my candidacy will be everywhere in our country and will continue long after another treasonous government is elected in Ottawa. A vote for our Party is really a vote for yourself. It is your way of saying enough is enough to Canada’s unaccountable system of law and government - and to the foreign rulers who are a destructive dead weight on our lives. It is a step towards governing yourself.

Our Party is building Peoples’ Assemblies in many communities where citizens can debate, pass and enforce laws for themselves.

Read the complete Vision & Program of the Party at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1721282033 .

Contact the Party and the Provisional Council of the Republic at republicofkanata@gmail.com *******

Re Sarah Webster’s article in the Spring Issue: If you would like to read the second half of the story about Kevin Annett by Sarah J. Webster (first half featured in the Spring Issue), the entire piece is included in the Special Edition of the Spring issue, which can be accessed online via: www.dialogue.ca ♣

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My M.P. asked his constituents for “new ideas”…

JIM BJORK’S ANSWER TO HIS MP

From Jim Bjork, Huntsville ON, bjork@cogeco.ca Jim Bjork’s letter in response to a promotional flyer sent by Tony Clement, then-Muskoka-Parry Sound MP. It asked for NEW IDEAS… The Ideas live on…)

…The politicians will tell you that that’s why you vote in the first place: to place decisions in the hands of people who are looking out for our best interests. Does anyone Jim Bjork still believe this? Do we really think these people are any smarter than you? Is there any proof that this electoral process still functions for the www.dialogue.ca

people? YOU KNOW THE ANSWER. But we’re all afraid to say it in public, for fear of triggering a CRA audit.

[FINAL INSTALLMENT & BIBLIOGRAPHY]

I’ll probably get a lot of grief for writing this, some of my best friends haven’t voluntarily spoken with me for several years now. They don’t want to hear; primarily, they don’t want to acknowledge being aware of this information which should spur them, requires them, to DO SOMETHING. Get off the couch; they’d actually have to do some reading; they’d actually have to grow a backbone and get in the faces of the politicians, and of each other. It’s much easier and more acceptable with their circle of friends to …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Jim Bjork’s Answer to his MP for New Ideas, contd.

denigrate anyone who provides this information.

They’ve worked hard to get where they are, let the rest of the people starve if that’s what they’ve got coming to them. Much more acceptable to shoot the messenger. DON’T SHOOT ME, I’M JUST THE PIANO PLAYER!

I don’t expect I will ever get a response from you.

Maybe some of the other people and politicians in receipt of this will respond. Either way, I hope this inspires some discussion around dinner tables across this country. Our national anthem was recently rewritten by the current government. “True, patriot, love; in all of US command”. Is this the best a sitting government can do? While putting up and feeding huge numbers of unemployed “immigrants” in hotels across the country. Paid for by the penniless taxpayer.

(Where is the safe drinking water for our native population?)

So I hope this has provided you with some NEW IDEAS, Tony, on what you and your party (all the parties are two (or three or four) wings of the same bird)) (all the politicians are similarly compromised) can do for NEW IDEAS. NONE OF THESE ARE NEW! They are things that everyone of your flock of sheep (I mean constituents)(at least the ones with their eyes open) have thought about every day when they try to find ways to send their kids to post-secondary school (for instance). Or try to help their kids with buying their first home. Or any number of expenses that they should have the income to handle, were it not for an escalating income tax coupled with hundreds of other taxes (energy, HST, land tax, the absolutely insane (google the dictionary definition)(while you’re at it, google the definition of extortion) CARBON TAXES!!

- (the taxes are endless) (and enforced at gunpoint by the government). And then, if you are lucky enough to have found some good investments, Capital Gains tax takes another huge chunk. Ask yourself, what part did the government play in making this profit? Who joins the breadline if it doesn’t turn out in the black?

IS THIS THE BEST WE CAN DO? Where does the money go? Que Bono?

Is this really “The true north strong and FREE?” Free from what? Wake up, get up, stand up. Tony, et.al.; how about actually doing something for the people who voted you in? For the people the government is supposed to represent? For your own grandchildren, 26 dialogue

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if it’s too much to ask you to do it for the current crop of taxpayers. I’ll gladly suffer reduced taxes on the coattails of your children. And endure the manifestations of a responsible government. Ask yourself: If we don’t do it, who will? And; if not now, when?

This is your big opportunity to change Canadian history; to be remembered in the history books (if this success were ever allowed to be in print).

I am reasonably confident that we hold the power to produce for ourselves and for our children’s children’s children, a sustainable, caring, environment for the progress of mankind. These issues affect every single one of us; no excuses can be made. Look in the mirror if you look down your nose at what I am outlining here. It can change in a heartbeat if people will take responsibility for how our world has been perverted.

The elites are moving out; building armoured redoubts for when society breaks down. Think about it, do your own research, draw your own conclusions.

Tony: we’re all in the same leaking boat, (your family included), the dikes have holes like Swiss cheese, and we’re out of fingers. We’re out of time. Are you and your parliamentary cohorts going to continue to allow our “parliament” to be part of the problem, or finally actually represent the concerns of the average Canadian and securer a bright future for us while you can?

Sincerely and respectfully; Dr. James E. Bjork O.D. 7-367 Muskoka Rd 3 N Huntsville ON P1H 1H6 Replies to: canadiancorruption96@gmail.com

Bibliography: 1. garynullpodbean.com/Aug31 2018 2. Paul Hellyer-The Money Mafia- YouTube 3. Greg Palast-the Vulture’s Picnic 4. Jim Marrs-The Fourth Reich 5. G. Edward Griffin-The Creature from Jekyll

Island; book and YouTube 6. ByeByeBlueSky.com 7. Salmonconfidential.com 8. Geoengineeringwatch.org 9. Unacknowledged documentary, Steven Greer 10. Percy Schmeiser youtube 11. Institute for Responsible Technology, Jeffrey Smith 12. All wars are Bankers wars, YouTube 13. Bill Abram-The Crime of the Canadian Banking System, YouTube 14. Dan Matthews-Oh Canada! the movie, YouTube 15. Corporatizing Canada, book …/ www.dialogue.ca

16. Bill Still, Jekyll Island, YouTube 17. Mike Maloney, Secrets of Money, YouTube 18. Seeds of Deception, YouTube 19. Drugging of our Children, YouTube 20. Knocking on the Devil’s Door, YouTube 21. Vaccine Nation, YouTube 22. Poverty Inc., YouTube 23. ShivChopra.com 24. Interview with Aaron Russo, YouTube 25. Big Sugar documentary YouTube (WallofFilm) 26. The Grace Commission, internet search, Wikipedia 27. Lindsay Williams- The Energy Non-Crisis, YouTube 28. Schwarz and Randall- Abrupt Climate Change 29. Hinton-Young People’s Burden, internet search 30. EndGame, YouTube documentary 31. Fall of the Republic, documentary 32. InPowerMovement 33. Sherri Tenpenny, D.O. 34. Suzanne Humphries, M.D. 35. Tim O’Shea D.C., Vaccination is not Immunization, book

36. Death by Prescription, Terence Young 37. Creative Outrage, Helke Ferrie 38. Whale.to 39. The Truth about Vaccines documentary series 40. GMO’s Revealed, documentary series.

41. What/Why in the world are they Spraying, documentary series

42. Food Inc., documentary 43. The World According to Monsanto, documentary 44. Food Matters, documentary 45. Vaccine Nation, documentary 46. James Corbett: 9/11 in five minutes; Rockefeller

medicine, Why big oil conquered the World, 9/11 Trillions-follow the money, Century of enslavement: The History of the federal Reserve, How to herd your tax cattle, Debunking a Century of War Lies… www.corbettreport.com 47. Alan Watt – Cutting through the Matrix 48. Progressive Commentary hour, July 3 2018 – The Deep State 49. Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism Joyce Nelson 50. Bypassing Dystopia: Hope-filled challenges to Corporate Rule Joyce Nelson

Jim Bjork, Huntsville ON, bjork@cogeco.ca

♣

Feedback From A Reader Iris Yawney, Dauphin MB, hrugee@gmail.com I loved Dr. Jim Bjork’s article (…issues) He has sound, well-researched reasoning. Some of the others who still wonder about evolution and Zen philosophy are still struggling. ♣

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Health Action Network Society (HANS) warns Canadians about new Health Canada threats to the availability of natural health products Health Action Network Society, Website: www.hans.org / info@hans.org

Health Canada is once again forging ahead with changes to regulations of natural health products (NHPs), including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), vitamin and mineral supplements, herbal remedies and homeopathic medicines. Under proposed regulations, NHPs will be harmonized with, and require the same standards of proof of claim as, over the counter drugs (OTCs).

The proposed regulatory changes are drastic and will disrupt Canadians' healthcare choices, especially if they use, or anticipate using, traditional medicines, homeopathic remedies, herbal supplements, compounded individualized medicines, or supplements manufactured by small, innovative, vision and valuesbased manufacturers. Canadians deserve to know that Health Canada’s proposed regulations could significantly impact their access to the supplements they choose and rely on. As part of a committee made up www.dialogue.ca

of consumers, members of the wellness community, and elected officials, Health Action Network Society (HANS) has launched the ‘HANDS OFF MY NHPs!’ campaign to bring awareness of this issue to those whom it will affect most - Canadian consumers.

Health Action Network Society (HANS) is a nonprofit society incorporated under the B.C. Societies Act on July 25, 1984. HANS is a registered charity.

Mission: To encourage our members and the public to take responsibility for their own well-being by empowering them to make informed decisions, protecting their right to informed consent and preserving their ability to access safe and effective health care options; plus, to work to raise awareness of environmental issues that impact Canadian's health and wellness.

Values: The conviction that the human potential for moral, physical, and mental growth is the capacity to achieve a level of health beyond the absence of disease. The understanding the health is ultimately the responsibility of the individual. …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Sign our petition and help HANS send a message to the Government of Canada, House of Commons, and Health Canada, that you – an educated Canadian consumer – do not want the federal government

restricting or compromising your access to the Natural Health Products (NHPs) of your choice!

PETITION: www.hans.org/hands-off-my-nhps-petition/ - Health Action Network Society, info@hans.org ♣

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Château Boxing

“The Fifth Columnist”

Michael Neilly, Dunrobin ON

When Janet emailed to remind me about the next instalment of Dialogue, I was reading a book on the history of the druids. Well, history and mythology are well-blurred in the Irish case, and what little we know comes from Julius Caesar and druids converted to Christianity. And with a name like Neilly, what good Irishman wouldn’t want to fancy himself a descendant of a Celtic king or druid? Sacred spaces in the forests, worshippers of the oak tree, it feeds the modern narrative that we must eventually embrace to avoid drowning in tomorrow’s garbage. It’s my third attempt to finish this book. But alas, that is not this column.

I then turned to the topic of the time-space continuum, excited to share my belief that time is space and space is time. Of course, I know nothing of the subject, which entitles me the write about it. If you think of the atoms in your body as solar systems or a gigantic Swiss watch with wheels within wheels, a microcosm of cosmos, and our place on this third rock, orbiting our sun, which in turn orbits through our galaxy, you have to wonder how time travel would be possible. While we see our world on some illusory, linear time continuum of cause and effect, a cosmic plot if you will, in reality it’s a teeming mass of reeling matter and energy, wildly plunging and weaving, growing and dying at it goes.

This, I think, would make time travel not just a matter of inserting yourself into some apparent (to us) linear continuum, but really a moving target where you might find yourself outside of your reality, your universe, never mind conveniently lockstep in your life back in 1962. But alas, that is not this column.

This subject of this column is the proposed addition to Ottawa’s beloved Château Laurier, currently owned 28 dialogue

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by Larco Investments. What Ottawan hasn’t had an experience at the Château Laurier. My father delights in telling the story about how he met my mother at the hotel pool, and followed her home in his 1952 Monarch convertible, ringing a bell bolted to the firewall.

Don’t ask. I remember how my wife and I used to celebrate the new year by having New Year’s brunch at Zoe’s, seated in wingback chairs, bathed in a brilliant, white, winter light pouring in from the atrium above.

When I view this proposed addition, it puts me in mind of the quaint century homes, red brick farmhouses, seen all throughout Ontario, marred by ugly veranda additions clad in white aluminum siding, added probably in the 1960s or ‘70s. I'm sure at the time that the owners felt they were being practical, that this made financial sense, but looking at these structures now, some 50 years later, we can all agree that the result is a travesty, a blight.

Fifty years from now, what will Ottawans see, should the present proposal be accepted? An ugly, brutalist box resembling a dystopian power plant, added strictly to make money for its owners, without any recognition of the site and its history. I am simply amazed that palm trees and a casino weren't added. It would be easy to say, why not build the damn thing as a monument to Ottawa's pathological inability to develop any vision for itself, bearing testimony to a provincial lumber town that just discovered concrete?

All around Ottawa, we see mediocrity: Sparks Street instead of spacious Wellington Street as a pedestrian mall; a proposed hockey arena on LeBreton Flats instead of a world-class Central/Hyde park that could …/ www.dialogue.ca

Mike Neilly Château Boxing, contd.

be used by all; the Prince of Wales rail bridge rots instead of being integrated into the city's infrastructure; the list goes on. We still have tractor trailers inching their way through the downtown core because Ottawa has difficulty building bridges.

The experts dismiss the criticisms of the hotel addition’s fifth incarnation of the proposal, warning that “an addition to a heritage building can’t be ‘a kind of mimicry, a kind of Disneyland interpretation’ of the historic structure … It doesn’t reflect the principles of integrating a new building with a historic building, or for that matter, a landscape even.” Can’t?

Doesn’t? Who says? It’s the sort of brainless argument art experts use to justify the purchase of the awful modern art at the National Art Gallery. We know best. You just don’t understand. Move along.

The city defends historic buildings ardently, but for some reason, on this matter and at the time of this writing, it remains curiously silent. The Château Laurier is a castle built by men of vision. And like any castle you'd care to name, it is never surrounded by a competing structure. Many castles have small buildings terraced at their base. These buildings ground the castle but never compete with it. Instead we have proposed an incongruent thing, this box, what looks like London's Battersea Power Station next to our Château Laurier, all to make a buck. The thing is, I see the current owner selling his investment, maybe in a few years. And while owner has moved on, Ottawa will be saddled with this carbuncle.

Michael Neilly, michael.neilly@bell.net ♣

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“Have Computer Will Write” ~ Jeremy Arney Blue skies turn grey unnaturally… Does anyone still think these things are contrails?

Jeremy Arney, Sydney BC From: iamjema@gmail.com Date: Tue, Jun 4, 2019 To: Trudeau, Justin justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca; & ministers

This morning I was sitting on my patio just south-west of the Victoria Airport (the one in BC) enjoying the beautiful blue sky and warm sunshine, when it felt as if some clouds had appeared out of nowhere.

I opened my eyes in surprise and what did I see?

Chemtrails all over that blue sky, heading north-south, east-west and points in-between.

No, they were not contrails and anyone who tries to tell me they were is a first class idiot. Contrails can be seen sometimes – if the weather is right - coming out of the back of big highflying commercial jets and they dissipate within seconds. These trails, on the other hand, hang there, grow wider and look as if they are growing feathers and bits are falling off them. They blow with whatever wind is up there and eventually cover the blue sky with a grey cloud of slowly dissipated something that is NOT a contrail. Never mind anything else, we do not get highflying commercial jets above us about 99% of the time, and in the summer we can see the contrails if we are looking up there for long enough. www.dialogue.ca

So, my questions to you ministers are these.

1. What are they really, what is their purpose and what are they made of?

2. Is what they are made of falling down to land upon people, land, animals, seas and lakes, etc., and what harm is it actually doing to all living things?

3. It is very obvious that they are altering the atmosphere and environment, so where exactly is the legislation to deem that this is legal?

4. Was a mandate obtained from the Canadian people before this process was started?

5. Why is this continuing at an increasing rate? Is it because it is effective and, if so, how?

I realize that there is an election coming and you all probably feel no need to answer any of these questions prior to that election, and maybe you will not even be MPs after it, but remember that what affects us affects you too and it would be a good idea to know just what the heck is going on.

Now its 3.27 pm and the blue sky is completely grey with the sun trying to shine through a manmade grey shield. Thank you very much.

From: Jeremy Arney Sydney BC Cc: Horgan, John Premier@gov.bc.ca, and others ♣ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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On ‘Climate Change’ and the Global Austerity-based Tyranny Richard K. Moore, Wexford, Ireland [Comments in response to feedback received from his readers at https://cyberjournal.org/ ]

I have no disagreement with [readers] regarding the destructiveness of capitalism. At the top of the food chain – and decision-making pyramid – of the capitalist system are the central-banking dynasties. Consider economics from their perspective. They know that capitalism has been the vehicle that enabled them to accumulate their wealth and power. And they know that capitalism has been a very effective economic paradigm during the past few centuries of rapid economic growth. They also know that growth cannot go on forever on a finite planet. They are not dummies and with all their think tanks they have a better perspective on the state of the world than anyone else. They also know that growth cannot go on forever on a finite planet. They are not dummies and with all their think tanks they have a better perspective on the state of the world than anyone else. That’s why they launched the Club of Rome and came up with Limits to Growth. That’s why they launched the Club of Rome and came up with Limits to Growth.

The dynasties who rode to wealth on the vehicle of capitalism have now become the owners of that vehicle. It has become a tool of theirs, and they know the tool is losing its edge. In a post-growth world, capitalism is no longer an appropriate economic paradigm. What makes sense instead is a managed economy based on resource allocations and production quotas, reminiscent of the Soviet system. Not a dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship of the same familiar dynasties. That’s what Agenda 21, Agenda 30, and the ‘climate crisis’ are all about. Resource allocations are to be denominated in carbon credits. The scarcity of those credits will be ‘understood’ by the population, as humanity must be ‘saved from warming’. The climate warriors are begging for the installation of this global austerity-based tyranny.

You are right that the climate itself is not of central concern to us, from a political-change perspective.

However the widespread belief in CO2 causation is absolutely central to elite plans for social/economic engineering. That’s why I can’t help trying to expose the scam by presenting real facts about climate change, even though this feels like trying to stop an ocean tide, the tide of 24-7 propaganda.

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From this perspective, I think it is a mistake to identify capitalism as ‘the’ enemy. Instead I suggest we need to identify elite rule as ‘the’ enemy – the one we must overcome if we are to have a sane world. It’s not about economics, it’s about governance. If real democracy can be established, we can choose our economic paradigms. We need not be constrained to the extremes of either capitalism or communism.

And I see no sense of solidarity between these (central banking) elites and the rest of the ‘capitalist class’. When the central bankers create bubbles and crashes, they don’t bemoan the stock brokers who jump out of windows, or the banks that fail, or the fate of Lehman Brothers. Instead, they use the engineered economic cycles to further concentrate wealth and power at the top of the pyramid. And I see no reason to assume that these elites have an inflexible loyalty to capitalism as a system.

All the evidence suggests that these elites are making preparations to dominate a post-growth, post-capitalist world. I’m not expecting you to agree with me William, but I do hope you now better understand my position.

[And in another response:] I have a hard time trying to imagine a positive post-apocalyptic scenario. To the extent society continues to operate, the one thing that would surely survive is the military chain-ofcommand, with control over food and other resources. Not much hope for a democratic renaissance there. And if we have only scattered survivors, I would anticipate a desperate struggle to survive, with most of our survival skills lost through urbanization and dependence on technology. More likely a Lord of the Flies scenario would emerge, or perhaps feuding warlords, rather than a flowering of democratic enlightenment. But who can really predict what would happen? Let’s hope we don’t find out.

Unfortunately, assuming society continues without such an apocalypse, I still don’t see much hope for the emergence of democratic self-governance. I haven’t even seen anyone present a viable vision of what self-governance might look like, other than my own not-so-humble attempts. See: Creating change – LINK: https://cyberjournal.org/creating-change/

As regards sensible economic systems, I wouldn’t …/ www.dialogue.ca

start by banishing fiat currencies, market economies, or even central banking institutions. The problems we have experienced with these mechanisms arises from who has been controlling them, not with the effectiveness of the mechanisms themselves. We would need a whole different discussion if we want to delve into the topic of sensible economics, within the context of democratic self-governance.

Here is a presentation well worth viewing, by a very well-qualified scientist: Evaluating The Integrity of Official Climate Records (at Aletho News),

LINK: https://tinyurl.com/etioocr

And here’s my own climate analysis. The first half discusses the history of climate change, and the second half presents my own theory regarding the cause of that change. You might want to look at the first half and ignore the second. Two red pills in one day may not be good for digestion: LINK to Climate variation & its cosmic origins: http://docs.cyberjournal.org/Documents/Cosmic_Climate.html

Richard Moore, rkm@cyberjournal.org Website: https://cyberjournal.org/ ♣

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“Your Health Matters”

Can Malnutrition Lead to Violence?

Dr. Derrick Lonsdale, Strongsville OH

We have been beset with examples of violence for many years. School shootings have been numerous and the newspapers report acts of violence almost daily. In fact they are so common that we virtually disregard them as being expected. The copycat issue has never been voiced, and the news media make a grand show out of each one of them that may even encourage more acts of violence. Years ago, a public defender came to tell me of a young African-American who was employed as a safety guard. One morning he entered a package store, showed his gun to the clerk who opened the registry and he received $20 for his pains. He strolled out of the store and the clerk called the police who promptly jailed him and he confessed. The public defender was troubled because this young man had not planned his escape, came from a good family and there was no history of crime. He suggested that it was an expression of a sick brain and could I put together a study if he could come up with some money.

I did studies of his urine that showed that his brain chemistry was in a shambles. His diet was absolutely appalling. The case went to court and the judge permitted the public defender to plead temporary insanity in his defense. In the State of Ohio such a defense can be used if it can be proved but it was thrown out by a higher court. By correcting his diet and providing him with some vitamin supplements he became a model student, but still had to do time in jail. After reading the incredible novel by Dostoevsky entitled www.dialogue.ca

Crime and Punishment in which a murder is committed by a young man who was ill, I wondered whether criminal acts were sometimes an example of a sick brain. This has already been accepted in Britain by criminologists, where crime in the slums is common.

It is only comparatively recently that we have been able to define the difference between health and disease. Hippocrates, 400 BCE, serviced his patients by rest, appropriate nutrition and music. He formulated the concept that the healing model was a process within the body itself. During the Middle Ages there was no model defined and the physicians of the day were powerless in treating their patients. It seems that bloodletting was the only treatment offered. I like to think that the profession of medicine could be and analogized by imagining a person walking on a road, looking for a solution to the treatment of disease. One day, his search leads to a dramatic discovery, that of microorganisms, many of which cause disease in all living things, including humans.

As our imagined traveler continues his journey he comes on a fork in the road with a signpost. On one sign is written "kill the enemy", whereas the other sign is blank. Well, we all know that this led to the first paradigm in medicine. The approach since then has been consistently aimed at killing the bacteria, viruses, cancer cells and indeed any one of the many pathogenic organisms that have since been discovered. If we examine history, we find that the attempts to find chemicals that would destroy the microorganism were toxic enough that they killed the VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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patient. As many readers of this magazine know, I have reported the disastrous relationship between the widespread use of sugar and thiamine deficiency in causing brain disease. One of the things that I have learned is that thiamine deficiency can give rise to many different expressions, so I wondered whether there was a possibility that it could lead to violence.

I turned to the medical literature.

Serotonin deficiency Violence is a significant public health problem worldwide. Neurobiological research on violence and aggression in rodents attempts to elucidate the cellular and molecular pathways that increase the propensity toward this behavior. Perhaps the strongest association is the link between serotonin deficiency and aggression (1). A deficit of this brain chemical is thought to be associated with deteriorated stress coping behavior, affective disorders and exaggerated violence. In an experiment with mice, serotonin depletion was induced artificially. Sexually naïve adult males were hyper-aggressive towards their interaction partners (2). In a study of thiamine deficient rats, it was found that there was decreased serotonin uptake in the cerebellum (3). All of this goes to suggest that thiamine deficiency can indeed be expressed in the form of violence.

Seeing Red Seeing red is a common way of expressing a fit of anger. Imagine a schoolboy who is not doing too well in class, even though he is believed to be brilliant. His potential is masked by inefficient cellular brain function. He has a reprimand from the teacher over some form of indiscretion that he thinks is unfair. He quietly nurses the grievance but one day some form of stress is imposed upon him and it explodes in anger. Perhaps “seeing red” is another way of expressing it as “blind anger”. He simply “hates people” and there is no recognizable motive. To shoot them means nothing to him.

Could diet be the explanation?

The last statistics that I read concerning the consumption of sugar in America was 150 pounds per person per annum. There is plenty of evidence that an excess of sugar overwhelms the capacity of brain cells to burn the excess of glucose derived from the sugar. The diet itself (breakfast, lunch, dinner) perhaps provides an adequate supply of vitamins, including thiamine, but brain cells are overwhelmed 32 dialogue

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by the ingestion of many forms of sugar taken in addition. We can be reasonably sure that the boy referred to above is consuming his share of candy, carbonated beverages, doughnuts and other forms of empty calories as part of his social life. I refer to this as high calorie malnutrition. Under these circumstances, we know that the part of the brain that produces emotional reflexes becomes irritable. Thus a grievance can explode in the emotion of anger.

I have long thought that we should be asking perpetrators of this kind of crime about their diet. Common things are commonest and there is no doubt at all that the consumption of sugar in America is dangerously high. There is good reason to believe that it is producing illnesses that may well include acts of violence that leave us completely mystified.

Another factor may be that a sick brain may drive its owner to copy previous acts of violence. It might enhance a perspective of “getting my own back. They will be sorry for what they did to me and I will be famous on television”.

References 1. Bedrosian , TA, Nelson RJ. Nitric oxide and serotonin interactions in aggression. Curr Top Behav Neurosci 2014; 17:131-42.

2. Beis, D, Holzwarth, K, Flinders, M, et al. Reno serotonin deficiency leads to social communication deficits in mice. Biol Lett, 2015, 11 (3). pii: 20150057.

3. Plaitakis, A, Nicklas WJ, Berl, S. Thiamine deficiency: selective impairment of the cerebellar serotonergic system. Neurology 1978; 28 (7): 691-8.

– Derrick Lonsdale, M.D. “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 author of: A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine – Is Modern Medicine Helping You? and also Why I Left Orthodox Medicine.

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 co-author Dr. Chandler Marrs. ISBN: 0128103876 / ♣

www.dialogue.ca

THE BIG PICTURE

Ramblings

Randy Vancourt, Toronto ON

I grew up with a dad who liked to laugh. I always figured his sense of humour was primarily due to his rural upbringing; people raised on farms during the Depression probably needed to find humour where they could.

To this end, no doubt outhouses helped a lot as well.

Dad spent many years as a columnist and author, but his other great love was photography. Over the years our family owned and operated six studios and storefronts. This meant that not only did my siblings and I grow up with omnipresent cameras in the house (long before it was common to photograph your every move) but as teenagers we were all guaranteed parttime jobs. Not that we had any choice in the matter – a family business means everyone pitches in. Clearly another lesson learned from farm life.

The part of the job I enjoyed the most was the commercial photography. We handled contracts for dozens of products, from toothpaste to motor parts. While photographing weddings, birthdays and family reunions can be an exercise in annoyance, taking pictures of inanimate objects can feel surprisingly fulfilling. A table never complains that the camera made it look fat, and I never heard a can of beans insist it could only be shot from its “good side.”

You quickly learn secrets of the trade when shooting products, particularly food. See those appetizing, fresh vegetables glistening with moisture? That’s really hairspray. Want to keep breakfast cereal from getting soggy? Easy – that “milk” in the bowl is actually white glue. And who wouldn’t enjoy a delicious stack of pancakes smothered in syrup... that’s really motor oil?

My favourite substitution however, had to be the use of mashed potatoes or lard in place of ice cream. To this day I am unable to look at ice cream ads without feeling nauseous, especially if there’s chocolate syrup dripping down that big helping of “ice cream.”

Every now and again though, the opportunity to work with real food came along. A large soft drink company, famous for their orange soda, had decided to www.dialogue.ca

break into the cola market and hired our studio to do the photos of their new product.

The company sent over several cases of their cola so we had plenty to work with. We were immediately struck by how flat this pop was – it seemed to lose its carbonation as it was being poured, which made it very difficult to get a good shot. Dad tried dropping antacid tablets into each glass, which happily provided us with all the bubbles we needed.

Once the shoot was finished we packed up the remaining cases of cola and took them home, where my brothers and I spent several days drinking them. We weren’t overwhelmed by the taste; this stuff would definitely never have been a serious contender in the Pepsi Challenge. But it was free, and that was all we cared about.

When the client came by to pick up their photos a short time later, my Dad thought he would mention the lack of carbonation in the drink. The client laughed and said, “Sorry, but that wasn’t really our cola – we haven’t actually made any yet. We just mixed together a bunch of liquids we had at the factory to make it look like cola.”

I guess my father’s face must have betrayed his shock because a moment later the client asked in a concerned tone, “You didn’t actually drink that stuff, did you?”

Dad admitted that not only had we imbibed during the photo shoot, but we polished off the rest of the cases at home. The client thought for a moment and said, “I wouldn’t let my kids drink it, but as long as they’re alright...” In retrospect that might have been a fitting slogan for their delicious new pop.

Fortunately we all survived the Great Soft Drink Scandal but it was rather telling that the company didn’t market their own brand of cola very long. They soon found more profit in producing pop for various private label companies, including a certain huge Canadian grocery chain.

Knowing I enjoyed soft drinks, my dad once tried to introduce me to a treat from his youth: the ice cream float. I never developed the taste, which I’m certain was a direct result of the fact that all I could see was mashed potatoes floating in cola...

Website: www.randyvancourt.com ♣ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Art, Activism – Transformation Series by Penn Kemp & Susan McCaslin which began with a dialogue in the Winter 2018-19 issue and continued in the Spring and Summer issues, with reflections by the individual authors…

Penn and Susan, corresponding by email, asked one another what their respective poetic practices for activism entailed. They began with a dialogue discussing lines from W.H. Auden, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen.”

(Vol. 32-2). They have continued with their personal reflections on activism through poetry: Susan McCaslin in the Spring issue (Vol. 32-3). The segment in this issue (Vol. 32-4) features Penn Kemp’s piece on the relationship of art and action in her own life...

The websites of the two writers are: https://susanmccaslin.weebly.com/ and https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/

Art, Action – Transformation: An Initiative through Poetry Penn Kemp, London ON

“Art, Action – Transformation”, one poem at a time. One heart at a time. Having a poem included in the Han Shan initiative and then visiting the forest itself with Susan: what a joy! The entire project is an inspiration.

Given climate change catastrophe, such a creative initiative is one way poems can help motivate us to act.

By the power of shared emotion, a poem can shift a mind wavering and worrying about a single person’s effectiveness in the world. A potent poem such as Auden’s elegy, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”, can effect personal transformation to heartcentred action. Intellectual pursuit has run its course in its devastation of the planet. A poem involves the whole being, and it is from the whole being that we must now act. We can’t be attached to outcome, however, even while engaging full on from our whole being. As I age, my activism is marked less by participating in protest marches and more by my poems themselves. Having been profoundly moved by tributes like Auden’s, I’m hoping that the poems will stand on their own when I’m not around.

My latest book, Fox Haunts, focuses on the importance of rewilding with a preface “On Adaptation and Allusion”. Whose haunts are these, anyway? The book is an investigation of the nature of adaptation.

Fox has insinuated himself into our cultures over millennia, from ancient story to backyard den. How do we share our common habitat? How does Fox adapt to us 34 dialogue

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and our environs? How do we adapt to the unknown, the unseen? Fox is both metaphor lurking behind conscious mind and a living creature reclaiming, rewilding our suburbs. Fox comes in from the cold through your cat door to raid your pantry. Fox is blood on the move and out for more. Fox is a peripheral flash of chimerical colour concretized out of the blue so fast that it blurs one fantastical figure to assume another miasmic figure of fox fire. May Fox Haunts encourage you to rewild your heart and your yard.

I've dedicated my forthcoming book, River Revery (Insomniac Press, 2019) to my grandchildren, in the hope that they and their generation maintain love of our dear earth, recognizing the need to find and enact solutions to imminent upheaval. My own contribution is personal, from a garden’s perspective. I’m interested in exploring the natural world as it impinges on urban realities. These poems illustrate the challenge of living in a setting which can overwhelm nature with mechanical stimuli. Outside my window in London, Ontario, jackhammers awaken the day, digging up a city road to reveal an underground stream. Medway Creek at the end of my street flows into the Thames, which swallows it whole and continues through the city and on, to debouche into Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie and the Atlantic Ocean.

The poems in River Revery reflect the changes in this river, how industry and agriculture have sullied it, how it is being cleaned up. As a poet deeply involved with this particular place and cultural community, my ongoing concerns are best expressed in Ecopoetics, with its emphasis on ecology. Poetry is my defense against www.dialogue.ca

intrusive forces when political exigencies collide with the natural environment that so desperately needs protecting. A distillation of such experience, I hope, will lead to active solutions. Contemplation is not enough, nor is poetry. But it is a start, an influence (from Latin: flowing that affects human destiny). Such inspiration is one source for right action.

Water is a metaphor for change through its many states from liquid to steam, mist to ice, all streaming.

Rivers are often used to represent boundaries; to "cross the river" is to undergo a transformation. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus remarked, "You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." The Thames waters my garden, real and imaginary, “with real toads in them”.

River Revery is enhanced by my collaboration with media artist extraordinaire Mary McDonald. Animations to several of the poems are up on RiverRevery.ca. Such collaboration expands the scope of text into a multimedia sensory experience that further engages our audience and encourages activism. You can add your own contribution on #RiverRevery2018. In celebrating natural beauty, we appreciate its significance; we learn to value and protect it before it is lost or destroyed.

In another recent book of poems, Local Heroes, I celebrate legendary cultural heroes from my local watershed in Southwestern Ontario. These poems evoke a specific city in its particular landscape and history. Local Heroes acknowledges the Indigenous peoples here in Souwesto, and the ongoing waves of settlers who have called the area home, as London grew from colonial outpost to vibrant cultural centre. Local Heroes spans time but remains in place.

London is my playground and home for active involvement in the community. When Poet Laureate, I worked on a number of projects for change including the ongoing “100,000 Poets for Change”. I participated in several Mayor’s State of the City addresses (to audiences of 1200 +), in London's Culture Days and Creative City Network of Canada’s annual meeting. Celebrating poetry and the literary arts in a broad array of activities, I’ve written poems for many of these occasions. An ideas person, I helped shape the position of Laureate in its early days, dreaming up new ways to promote and extend the recognition of poetry and the arts in London. www.dialogue.ca

My Facebook group, “Support & Promote Arts & Cultures”, with over 6,000 members, is another way I continue to engage with a wider community.

After New Democrat party leader Jack Layton died, I edited an anthology, Jack Layton: Art in Action. One hundred and three writers contributed to this collection of anecdotes about Jack Layton’s involvement in Canadian arts and culture— how his spirit continues to influence activism in Canada today. His interest in the Canadian cultural landscape was an underlying presence throughout his career. Art in Action encourages readers to be proactive and, as Jack would say, “Never turn down an opportunity to serve!” We launched the book across Canada in 2013. Jack Layton: Art in Action commemorates Jack’s influence on Canadian arts and culture in encouraging readers to actively effect positive change.

Like Susan McCaslin, I have long celebrated trees and attempted through poetry to protect local woodlands.

My efforts were less successful, however. Though protest poems were published as broadsheets and in The London Free Press, a particular woodlot on the outskirts of London is now a mall. Still, we keep writing.

This poem, “Celebrating Tree”, was commissioned by Reforest London: Mother trees surround us, the very few left over from original forest we long paved over, old rotten stumps that settlers burnt to clear their land…

Trees we have known are trees we can meet by species. Once connected, always familiar, old friends to greet on any city street or in deep woods if we can slow down long enough to salute the Tree of Life in each. …

Trees know their season, their reason for being. How each tree reaches out to become World Tree. We have so much to learn from not living on but with our place.

We who live in this Forest City must ensure a name never replaces the reality of canopy.

Long may our trees flourish for we can only prosper with our elder brothers, our mothers. …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Penn Kemp, An Initiative through Poetry, contd.

It was also published in the League of Canadian Poets’ anthology, Heartwood: Poems about Loving Trees, 2018, and in my own Barbaric Cultural Practice (Quattro Books). More topical poems are up on Tuck Magazine http://tuckmagazine.com/tag/penn-kemp/ I’ll close with a poem, The Stand of Oak (below) published by Tuck Magazine in November 2018, originally written for The Vimy Foundation.*

On November 2, 2019: for Wordsfest.ca, I’ll be “In Conversation” with Diana BeresfordKroeger, at Museum London. Her new book is To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest (Random House, 2019).

– Penn Kemp

The Stand of Oak Battle’s devastation cut down men and oaks, leaving Vimy Ridge bare from 1916 till now.

But one veteran sent a few acorns to Canada

This copse you plant now may not remember a war a century past though it could realize its own long span, lasting the whole millennium.

and raised a grove memento. Now these trees will stand as metaphor for endurance, mingled roots living on in lieu of the soldiers who fell.

The oaks you plant on Vimy Ridge will not be thinking of men today or ever: their work is in attending to the rise from heartwood out to leaf.

Now our Canadian branches will be returning home to be grafted on European oak saplings.

They’ll respond to wind in the crackling Fall.

These oaks may not thank you personally but their presence is gratitude enough, is witness.

These oaks will listen through trembling roots to news that travels in the near neighbourwood: subtle climate shiftings from drought to deluge.

The lobed leaves that open to embrace sun, to soak in rain: they will know a longer time we can only imagine, knowing history’s record.

Thriving, they will return life to Vimy Ridge. * In the slow dream of trees may the men awake who died here. May they be recalled by name in their prime, rising as hope from desolation.

Penn Kemp

Susan and I both believe that poetry has the power to rise as hope from desolation in the true calling forth of names.

Penn Kemp, London ON [See also poetry on p.59] https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/♣ **************************************************************

VIMY OAKS IN FRANCE * [ www.vimyfoundation.ca/vimy-100/vimy-oaks-poetry/the-stand-of-oak/ ] Story from the Vimy Foundation website: After the Battle of Vimy Ridge was won (April 1917), many soldiers realized that they had been part of something truly great. Leslie Miller, born in 1889 in Milliken, Ontario, looked around for a souvenir on the Ridge. It was completely devoid of structures or vegetation due to shell fire but he did find a half buried oak tree. He gathered up a handful of acorns.

Those acorns were subsequently planted by him on farmland in Scarborough, Ont., which is now home to the

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Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church. He called his farm the ‘Vimy Oaks Farm’.

Today, several of the original oaks survive. However, there are no original oaks on the Vimy Ridge site. The Vimy Foundation, in partnership with the Vimy Oaks Legacy Corporation, is working to repatriate these Vimy Oaks of Scarborough, Ontario, back to Vimy, France, to help preserve Canada’s First World War legacy through the creation of a living memorial. ♣ www.dialogue.ca

A REVIEW OF LEONARD COHEN’S LAST ALBUM

Endarkenment and Release: Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker (ATV Music Publishing, Nashville, 2016)

by Susan McCaslin, Fort Langley BC One of my favourite poets, John Keats, wrote in his letters about what he called “Negative Capability,” a state where humans are “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (letter to his brothers, Dec. 1817). (1) When I first listened to Leonard Cohen’s last cd, You Want It Darker, the songs seemed negative or dark in the sense of expressing despair or a loss of faith. Yet on second and subsequent listenings, I found myself strangely uplifted by both the tone of the lyrics and the music. For me, Cohen’s final offering is a contemporary expression of Negative Capability, or “dark capacity.”

Cohen’s album can be located within two traditions.

One is the memento mori tradition of the meditation on death, as exemplified by Hamlet’s “Alas, poor Yorick” speech, where the hero grasps in his hand the skull of his old friend, the court jester, lamenting how all comes to dust. Cohen is known for being in both life and lyrics a Hamlet-like melancholic. No one could accuse him of being rollickingly light-hearted.

Yet he often expresses an ironic sense of humour, as when he claims in gravelly tones, “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” (“Tower of Song,” I’m Your Man, 1988). He also reaches heights of serenity in songs like “Sisters of Mercy (Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967),” “If It Be Your Will” (Various Positions, 1984) and “The Song of Bernadette (Cohen, Warnes, & Elliott, Famous Blue Raincoat, 1986),” In one sense, he has consistently put himself “on the level” with both death and despair, as well as grace, as in his much-loved “Hallelujah.”

In You Want It Darker Cohen does not examine death from afar, but sings from the very process of it, staring it in the eye. These songs, produced by his son Adam, were performed in a specially made chair when Cohen was in great pain; yet he had enough verve to get out of the chair and dance. The listener is invited to receive them as his last words about his final dance with death.

Like David Bowie’s last album, Black Star, Cohen’s is a courageous, unflinching pre-enactment of death www.dialogue.ca

itself. He writes his own requiem, replete with music and words from his Jewish heritage. The opening lyric, “You Want It Darker,” employs a Jewish cantor and sighing violins. In the second song, “Treaty,” the desired treaty is not only a peace treaty between himself and God or the divine presence with whom he wrestles but may suggest the Jewish covenant between the Holy One and Israel. Because of its many allusions to the life of Jesus (the “bloody hill” of Calvary, the water and the wine), the song also plays with a possible treaty between the figure of Jesus (who for Cohen could be his Jewish brother, a radical insurrectionist mystic rather than the founder of Christianity) and himself.

The second tradition of Cohen’s last album evokes what some might see as a form of agnosticism (an unknowing about the mysteries of life and death). However, if we look back to the Middle Ages, “unknowing” is not equivalent to modern or postmodern skepticism, but ties to the theology of “apophatic mysticism,” or the way of denial of certainties about God, the Holy One, and other metaphors by which we attempt to name the unnameable. This tradition is well-represented by the fourteenth-century anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, who encourages the seeker to “strike that thick cloud of unknowing with the sharp dart of longing love, and on no account whatever think of giving up.” (2) This impulse is a form of Eros or desire for the infinite that resists linear ways of knowing.

Rather than remaining in depression and despair, the lover of the divine mystery falls into a posture of humility before what is larger than the individual selfhood. This is a state that holds in abeyance doctrine, belief, and truths of the past, but enters the deeper spaces of the heart. It is not a place of consolation and promises, but a place in the present moment where doubts and uncertainties can be expressed and held. It is a threshold to the unimagined, but here one cannot claim to have “seen the light” or been healed. It is, in fact, where one is present with extreme pain and fear, simply observing but not clinging to them either.

Interestingly, Cohen’s album cover and liner notes are not printed in a monochromatic black, but in black …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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SUSAN MCCASLIN, LEONARD COHEN’S LAST ALBUM, CONTD.

tempered by shades of grey, brown, and tan. On the inner cover of the cd is a graphic image of a dove flying either into or out of a parallelogram, suggestive of the dove that was released by Noah from the ark to become a harbinger of dry land and refuge. However, here the dove of peace does not bear the olive branch.

The image is ambivalent. Will the dove find harbour?

Cohen leaves the question open.

After meditating further on the songs, I noticed a nexus of allusions to the figure of Jesus. When growing up, Cohen’s Irish-Catholic nanny introduced him to the figure of Christ, and his upbringing in Montreal opened him to a fascination with Catholic saints, icons, and images, as his early songs “The Sisters of Mercy, and “Suzanne” suggest: “Jesus was a sailor, when he walked upon the water/ and he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower…”

(Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967). Yet his embrace of Christian stories and metaphors does not make him an incipient Christian. He remains an interspiritual writer synthesizing elements of Judaism, Zen Buddhism, and the universals of Christianity, moved by scripture and ritual, but never dogmatic.

In his last songs, Cohen focuses on a quarrel between himself and the Jesus figure. Cohen’s early friend and fellow poet Irving Layton was, like Cohen, educated at McGill in Montreal. Layton had a similar ambivalent relationship with the figure of Jesus, as expressed in his volume of poetry, For My Brother Jesus (McClelland & Stewart, 1967). He inveighed against Christianity because of what he saw as its appropriation and diminishment of the Hebrew Bible, its contributions to anti-Semitism throughout the Middle Ages, and its role in the Holocaust. Yet Layton claims Jesus as a revolutionary Jewish prophet.

The song “It Seemed the Better Way” is replete with an apparent repudiation of the Jesus figure: “It seemed the better way, / When first I heard him speak / But now it’s much too late/ To turn the other cheek.” Cohen continues, “At first he touched on love/ But then he touched on death.” Cohen first alludes to an episode from The Gospel of John where Jesus speaks of Mary of Bethany’s desire to converse with Jesus as “the better way” over that of Martha her sister who fusses over household matters. In Medieval tradition, Mary’s “better way” was interpreted as that of the mystic or contemplative. And “turning the other cheek” is Jesus’ well-known teaching to not resist evil but to love one’s 38 dialogue

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enemy. The lines, “I wonder what it was / I wonder what it meant/ At first he touched on love / But then he touched on death,” could suggest that Jesus “touched on” (covered) the subjects of love and death in his teachings. But the more existential meaning could be that Jesus experienced (touched down on) both love and death in his life and crucifixion by Rome. The apparent focus of this song is that Cohen once was drawn to the figure of Jesus but can no longer believe in this “better way.” Being meek and mild doesn’t always seem to work as an absolute. Yet when he says that these things “seemed the truth” but “aren’t the truth today,” he is more likely pointing out that collectively our cultures seldom operate on principles of love and forgiveness coming out of our primary interconnectedness.

The song “Treaty” which reappears at the end of the sequence, is where the Jesus allusions are most evident, as the Cohen speaker addresses him directly: “I seen you change the water into wine/ I seen you change it back to water too/ I sit at your table every night/ I try but I just don’t get high with you.” In the extremis of dying, the speaker cannot relate to the Jesus of cultural tradition, but still expresses the longing for a “treaty” or a “truce” of reconciliation: “I wish there was a treaty/ Between your love and mine.” Then he adds, “You were my ground – my safe and sound/ You were my aerial.” The beautiful metaphor of the “aerial” suggests an antenna oriented toward the realms of mercy and love. So the poem may be less a rejection of the Jesus of the imagination, than a lamentation. The “you” Cohen addresses could be both a Jesus figure and a divine “Thou” whose presence provides spiritual orientation.

In the song, “Travelling Light,” Cohen also uses the phrase “the you” in a way that suggests the relation of an I and a “thou” or divine other: “I guess I’m just / Somebody who / Has given up / On the [italics mine] me and you.” Here the definite article suggests both a lover or human other and possibly a divine other where the relationship is not an I-it configuration, but one of mutual difference within unity rather than objectification. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber’s classic book, I and Thou (1923 & 1937), explores this ground. This song is the “lightest” in mood of any in the album, as it sings of divesting oneself of “baggage” when travelling toward death. The music suggests a jaunty caravan song evoking younger days.

As I listened further, I came to feel the album wasn’t nearly as heavy as I had first assumed. This is not only www.dialogue.ca

due to the lyrics, but to the music itself. In the opening song, “You Want It Darker,” the Shar Hashomayan Synagogue Choir sets the tone, which is taken up by the soloist cantor, Gideon Y. Zelermyer. Cohen honours the Jewish tradition of Kaddish, the mourning of the dead, by bringing us to the world of a synagogue and inviting us to become participants in an ancient religious ceremony. The chorus, “Hineni Hineni,” meaning, “Here I am. Send me,” are the words of Abraham to God, indicating total availability.

“Hineni” also can be translated as, “I’m listening, I’m present, I’m available to serve. The beauty of the voices conjoined by the words express how God or the divine unity itself “wants it darker” as we approach death, but we ourselves “kill the flame.” This could refer to our own killing of the light, or as our participation in severing the threads of life when death comes, rather than clinging to life. The refrain, “I’m ready, my Lord,” hardly implies a rejection of faith, but is rather an acceptance of the way the darkness and the light interweave.

Cohen’s lyrics must be read at multiple levels. In the phrase, “You want it darker,” the “you” primarily refers to God or the divine, that opens us to love through dark nights of the soul. Yet it could also include our collective culture that has chosen a path carved out by greed and self-interest. In this sense, Cohen’s lyrics are prophetic. It is indeed uncanny that he died one day before Trump won the presidency. However, in the Hebrew Bible, a prophet is not merely someone who predicts the future, but a visionary who sees so deeply into the present that his or her words contain the potentialities of the future.

In his album The Future, Cohen declares, “I’m the little Jew who wrote the bible,” not inflating his status, but presenting prophecy as something that pours through artists and visionaries, of whom he is one. In Judaism, the prophet is an advocate for social justice, not merely

someone speaking about other-worldly realities. In the last song, “Steer Your Way,” Cohen uses his ironic humour by changing the words of the patriotic American “Battle Hymn of the Republic” from “As he [Christ] died to make men holy, / Let us die to make men free” to “As he died to make men holy, /Let us die to make things cheap.” The parody of the patriotic “hymn” suggests that an imperialist culture wages wars to exploit cheap labour in other parts of the world.

Finally, the “String Reprise” at the end of the album is a serene and tender instrumental consisting of violin, viola, and cello which circles back to the theme of seeking a treaty, in this case a peace treaty, between ourselves and whatever we conceive as ultimate reality. How we name this mystery is not important. The words are expressed not as an assertion, but as a longing, which is where this album leaves us—in the arms of desire without offering final answers.

Cohen’s last message to us is that we are human because we long, not because we know.

Susan McCaslin (1)

John Keats, in English Romantic Poets, ed. David Perkins (San Francisco: Harcourt, 1967), 1209.

(2) The Cloud of Unknowing, trans. Clifton Wolters (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1973), 54.

Susan McCaslin is a BC poet who has published fifteen volumes of poetry, including Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna, 2017). She has recently published a multi-genre book of creative non-fiction in collaboration with J.S Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (Wood Lake, 2018).

Susan resides in Fort Langley, British Columbia where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect an endangered rainforest along the Fraser River. www.susanmccaslin.ca Susan McCaslin’s “Endarkenment and Release: Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker,” in Hamilton Arts & Letters Magazine, Issue 11:2 (May 2019), editors Paul Lisson & Fiona Kinsella. LINK: https://tinyurl.com/samizdatpress-hal-11-2 ♣

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Laughter & ‘Lightenment

Once there was an elderly man… and one evening

he was taking his usual walk. He was enjoying the cool night air and the wind blowing gently. But suddenly he heard a voice crying out, “Help me! Help me!” The man looked around and saw no one and so he continued his walk. Again he heard a tiny voice, “Help me, help me!” This time he looked down and saw a small frog. He gently lifted up the frog and looked at it intently. The frog spoke, “I am really a very beautiful princess. If you will kiss me, I will turn www.dialogue.ca

back into a princess and I will hug you and kiss you and love you forever.” The man thought for a moment, placed the frog in his top pocket, and continued walking. The little frog looked up out of the pocket and asked, “Why don’t you kiss me?” The man look down and said, “Frankly, at this stage of my life, I’d rather have a talking frog.”

And so began a Sunday reading at Trinity Church about our need for companionship and community… ♣ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Fear of Electric Toys…

David M Foster, Port Perry, ON

I envied those who have more or better electric toys than I have, ever since the age of 6 when my 3-years older brother got an electric train set for Christmas and I didn’t. So deep inside me was this unfulfilled wish. I am now in my 80s. Over the past 5 months I have saved my pennies and bought 5 electric toys I am now afraid to play with. I blame my fear on three highly educated academics and their three books. My desk top computer is of course a sixth fear. The technology keeps changing, and with it any hope of my really understanding what the three academics were saying.

‘Were’ because one (Michael Crichton) died in 2008 before the other two had had their say. Crichton was an enormous man 6 foot 9 inches tall who died at age 66.

He wrote many of the techno stories you have seen as movies. Loved the new possibilities every technical advance made possible. It all seemed so good. ‘Gee’ was a common pause we in the English speaking world of the 1960s used, to gather our wits before replying to a train of thought. It then was employed in a dozen other government and bureaucratic labels. It also was a label for the word ‘Generation’ meaning the tide of change that comes with each epoch. ‘G1’ was the first generation of wireless technology. We are now up to ‘G4’ and my five ‘toys’ depend on that. But in the wings is ‘G5’ and the voices of Martin L Pall, and Arthur Firstenberg, and Michael Crichton predicting ‘doom’ of various kinds. Possibly others too whose work I have not read nor held up in the light of my Big Three. Crichton, by the time I got to page 502, comes to the point in 5 pages... What makes the world of modern mankind work is ‘PLM’. Decoded that is big Politics, big Litigation, and big monopoly broadcast Media.

For speaking to a public, I had bought a clever loudspeaker contraption you can hang around your neck, and hands free, wave at an audience in fuller explanation as we all do in conversation. ‘Performance Storytellers’ use them. $200 to $600. Then I bought a flying 16 inch 4 propeller ‘drone camera’ like the police use (for less than $200.) Most recently I was feeling left out of the personal carry-phone world and bought a Walmart tiny 2x4 inch ‘smart phone’ GO FLIP for emergencies if needed. It has even tinier instructions and warnings that to ‘use it improperly would give me horrible diseases’ as well as an inferiority complex for resisting so long the use of tapscreens since they first came out.

As the toll of old age chips away at my eyesight and hearing, I wondered if a ‘new technology’ in hearing aids 40 dialogue

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would be worth acquiring. I tried, right to the point of taking one home and plugging all the wires into batteries and wall plugs, but alas, it was just a new electric variance of the same old fuzzy noise that doesn’t work for me. That cost me several old books as bribes to the franchise owner before I got free.

I buy more books than the average book buyer, modern and old ones, so that points of interest pages I can mark with a fat pencil. Firstenberg’s The Invisible Rainbow was the last straw... He has the audacity to ask, ‘Who said electricity can or should be harnessed? Maybe it is all bad.’ No one ever looked in depth as to what it actually does (natural or contrived), besides offering short-term convenience to some cultures and stark envy for others without it. That would be the worlds of the indigenous and poor. Those without refrigeration, or lights (mostly in other countries). The enquiring mind asks ‘What is a ‘country’ and how did they come about?’ For me, that means back to snooping through old notes and old books from my youth to trace the history. See where difficulties may have arisen.

The instructions on operating each of these new toys are written in 5 point print. Oriental origins whose native writing is pictographs, not alphabets. So I have to ask those with microscopes too render the print in 14 point (more like this). Unfortunately I don’t know anyone with a microscope. So I have my toys sitting in a row on a couch, begging to be put to work. The loudspeaker is from Korea. As indeed is my microwave oven that I DO know how to use, the others on the couch all from China and I assume thoroughly explained in 5 point...

The most recent is a simple cell phone sold by Virgin through Walmart for $35 a month over 2 years. I can afford that, but can my health? The tiny enclosed booklet apparently tells all the technical standards it observes that Firstenberg and Prof Martin L Pall’s team of some 200 very serious world scientists say is inadequate for ‘5G’ technology. That is now hanging in the wings so we can get even more PLM adventures among Politicians, Lawyers and Media cartels in the super heavy range. Super heavy profits for some. Totally beyond local political control.

Thousands more satellites due to be launched next year, billions more EMF voltages, and even more damage to most Earth surface life-forms. Of benefit to whom? Perhaps ‘PLM’ and their shareholders. Are you one?

– David Muir Foster ♣ LOTS MORE ABOUT 5G: JERRY FLYNN et al, P.51-57 ♣

www.dialogue.ca

Bear Medicine – a Short Story Susanne Hare, Wickaninnish Island BC (1994)

I could hear a distant wren's song echoing through the forest nearby as I stared, my heart pounding. The bear stopped, turned toward me and rose on his haunches, sniffing the air as he took on immense proportions. It was a moment of one to one ... a being of the forest, the wild, the earth, meeting another from a society of mechanical, technical and chemical worlds.

We met in the heart, and in the soul as lightning bolts of timelessness surged around us. Ancient pictures of a human mother breast-feeding her two bear cubs, forest paths travelled together amongst towering trees, fishing side by side in rivers teeming with salmon, walking elk trails together, the howl of the wolf calling me, calling us back to the source.

I went beyond fear as a shamanic voyage took over me and I slid into a world of bear medicine. As he lowered himself, the bear scent of fish, berries, grasses and damp fur exploded in my senses. He turned away and as he did so… his eyes invited me to follow him.

I stepped softly on the grassy trail that had been well worn to the beach where we met. It led into the giant trees ... cedars, hemlock, spruce and ancient ferns that brushed my face. The moisture made the forest a place of ferti1ity. The damp ground and spongy root systems, mosses and lichens and the humus of leaves, cones and needles burying and nurturing the seeds.

The bear’s occasional grunts seemed a comfortable sound as I followed him carefully through the trail by the river. We started to rise up a side hill of the mountain, away from the rushing of the shallow areas and crystal waterfall pools. The berries were lush and drooping on the fragile huckleberry bushes. Many were bent over, some broken, the thin branches stripped by his great mouth, and several large piles of purple berry-0seed droppings were alongside the trail.

My wren power followed me - the precious little mouse-sized brown wrens who are the keepers of the forest and beaches along the West Coast. Such a small, yet amazing being darting in and out of branches and under logs with its· "tsch tsch" sound.

The bear turned to look at me, just his great head and neck – a beautiful being, so black that he shone a dark blue with eyes deep and knowing. He sniffed some mushrooms and ate one, then took his big paw and slid his claws under a chunk of bark on an old fallen www.dialogue.ca

tree. It slid off like a shell and under it were fine patterns of worm-like shapes that held many grubs. He snuffled them in easily and continued on. I stepped over the chunk of bark, marvelling at the hieroglyphics that the patterns formed.

They seemed to spell a word… "mystic."

In that instant, my hearing and sense of smell expanded to take on something akin to the bear in front of me – a profound awareness of all life and energies around me.

I could hear acutely the river in the distance and at the same time, the fine sounds of a far-off raven calling.

As trees and ferns breathed, the ground rose to the sky with a dance of life that was marvellous.

We approached a rocky cliff face and in front of a crevice, the ground was worn bare and smoothed. It was dry as an overhang of rock protected it from the rain.

Dream world and reality were in limbo as I stepped into the darkness following the bear. Smells of damp earth and musk, the aroma of living earth dwellers, grasses that had been stuffed into the den... all enabled me to see with my nose. My eyes saw nothing but blackness, as black as the bear himself. But eyes looked at me, reflecting the entrance to the outside world, and I was drawn into a world of other beings ... of wolf, ram, mountain goat, of elk and moose, even into the liquid worlds of whale, dolphin, sea lion, into skies of eagle, hawk and owl, of earth, air, water and rock and then through the fire of the soul as 1ightning coursed through my body in rivers of liquid light.

I was sucked through a vortex into timelessness – into the cosmos where planets whirled past in a blur. I floated, I became particles, then merged into droplets, falling to earth. I became a trickle, then a current flowing into a river. I crawled up on land. I slithered into the roots and bloomed into mushroom flowers from fine root hairs and puffed into the air to drift into bark crevices and all forest places. I was all and everything as I entered that darkness.

Time had forgotten me as I floated ... drifting through fish rivers, sticky bee hives, realms of purple berries …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Susanne Hare, Bear Medicine, contd.

and grass roots, grubs, worms and thick fur.

My hands became claws, I grunted and rolled, scratched and gnawed, rubbed and swam. I slept a long and drowsy sleep, birthed tiny babies which nestled and suckled for many months.

Slowly I arose. I felt as if I had been sleeping, as the ground and warmth of the womb-like rock made me drowsy. I turned toward the light at the cave entrance.

I could feel the bear's thick, rich fur ... the warmth called me to it, to curl up in it, to surrender. I struggled toward the light with another consciousness. I wanted to stay, to learn more of his world, to experience the seasonal gifts of the earth as the bear knew them.

I stumbled over a rock and fell at the entrance. It woke me from the shaman’s circle, from the earth world, but I wasn't gone from it. I had experienced a new world, another path and could remember it and draw it into me.

I turned to the bear, grunted and s1id along the rock on my knees, acknowledging his gift and thanking him silently and then raced ecstatically down the hill, through the ferns, along the river bank to the beach. It seemed that time had passed but I didn't know if it was days or moments. I looked around the bay and sat down on a log to contemplate what was happening.

As I sat there, I realized the tide had not moved from the moment I had landed on the beach in my canoe. No time had passed. Had anything really occurred, had I slept and dreamed it all? I was confused and tried to mentally and logically define time, space and experience. I looked around for the trail where I had followed the bear. I could find no sign of a trail, nor tracks. It had been more real and vivid than daily life presents itself – I could recall the pungent smells and sounds.

And then I heard a sound. I whirred around and there facing me was a man in a bear skin. He spoke to me, at first in a low grunt, then in audible sounds that seemed transmitted through the cortex of my brain and assimilated as thought.

He stood there with the skin draped over him loosely, his face was brown, weathered and strong, his eyes were piercing. He started slowly, speaking directly.

"I am bear, we have chosen this path and place. We are dreamers, and keepers of Turtle Island. We are medicine beings and hold the salmon people and rivers close to us. We are teachers and can see your people in colours from dark to light beings. We teach 42 dialogue

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and help you as we are very close in kinship to your people, eating and living in ways that are similar. But your people have forgotten and in this they are lost.

They are not full or satisfied, they are removed from the earth, and the mother is the way to the stars and to our source.

In spirit they are poor even though they have many religions.

Everything in the wild speaks to them but they do not hear. The clouds, the winds, the forests, the waters and rock can talk. Busyness keeps their minds full but their hearts are small and tight. The land is calling to you but the heartless destruction is vast, and the material gluttony is never satisfied and' never will be.

Our souls are linked and I have shown you a glimpse, but as we disappear and the wild is eliminated, your connection to the source gets dimmer. All the religions and beliefs will not reconnect you here as you have been given this world to learn this. It is a marriage of spirit to body, of soul to beauty and 1ight.

All your efforts will not reconstruct this world if you destroy the genetic blueprint. It is a gift, the most beautiful gift in the cosmos – a diversity found nowhere else.

We are your map to the source and it is being erased every minute, but the wild is still around you and we guard it in the hopes that there will be one who hears us. Open your hearts, eyes and senses to see what you have been gifted with, surrender to that voice and nurture this for it is the essence of life and the connection to us all."

With these words and a last sigh, he turned and dropped down onto four legs. He grunted and turned his head back to me with black piercing eyes and his large bear snout. His eyes were inviting but I knew my path. My heart opened and the wren seemed to sing through me. I sang this power song to the forest, to the families of the hemlock, cedar and spruce as they watched me. My song seemed to fade into the forest with the great bear as he disappeared into the green bush, but it reverberated in my soul and in the heart of the mountain behind me and it is my gift and I knew I would attempt to translate it into human words.

Susanne Hare Lawson, councilfire@hotmail.com A booklet originally published by: Council for International Rights and Care for Life on Earth, CIRCLE Box 394, Tofino, BC V0R 2Z0; 250-726-5265 or 250-726-6009. With special thanks to Bear Watch. ♣ www.dialogue.ca

BOOK TALK” J.S. Porter, Hamilton, Ontario www.spiritbookword.net THE STRENGTH OF HYPHENS: MARY GORDON ON THOMAS MERTON Review of Mary Gordon’s On Thomas Merton (Shambhala, 2019)

by J.S. Porter for Jim Forest If Thomas Merton had been a writer and not a monk, we would never have heard of him.

If Thomas Merton had been a monk and not a writer, we would never have heard of him.

– Mary Gordon to hear the accusation.” Any reader of a specific Merton Mary Gordon writes writer to writer in her new work or utterance needs to ask in rapid succession – book, perhaps the first time in Merton Studies what’s the date? what’s the mood? who’s the audience? where a novelist of considerable achievement turns her eye towards the literary quality of a famous, and As he makes clear in his journals, “…to write is to love.” As early as December 20, 1939 Merton is inspirational, monk. able to say to himself, and hence to us as eavesdropThomas Merton was a writer-monk, someone pers on his private confessions, “I only know I am whose way of being in the world was to make writing well about the things I love: ideas, places, things (poems, essays, journals) out of words and certain people: all very definite, individual, identifishare them with the world. He was a writer before able objects of love…” he became a priest and a monk, and was a writer all Merton comes to the realization that “writing is one his days as a monk. A man who could swallow thing that gives me access to some real silence and paradoxes as easily as a whale swallows plankton, solitude …Also I find that it helps me to pray, he was ever-talkative, even within his vow of because when I pause at my work I find that the silence within the Cistercian Order. With 50+ mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and deep and books in his lifetime, he seems to grow a book a serene and God shines there and is immediately year, with yet another anthology or compilation of found, without hunting, as if He had come close to his work appearing somewhere in the world.

Mary Gordon recognizes that words were his home- me while I was writing…”

Later in The Sign of Jonas, Merton writes, as if land and writing his instrument for growth. And coming to new insight while in the act of writing, what growth it was: a pious Catholic-convert when “I must also put down on paper what I have he writes the international bestseller The Seven become… To be as good a monk as I can, and to Storey Mountain in 1948, critical of the world and remain myself, and to write about it: to put myself ways of being in it different from his own, to the down on paper, in such a situation, with the most open-hearted, open-minded writer-monk who complete simplicity and integrity, masking nothembraces the world and revels in its diversity in ing…without exaggeration, repetition, useless The Asian Journal in 1968. Writing is how he emphasis.” Few writers, past or present, more learned who he was and accepted himself and completely communicate their fullness—all their shared himself. hyphens and hybridities— than Thomas Merton.

Merton seemed to be always under construction, always in process. He tattooed on his flesh, so to speak, a single If Merton had been a monk and nothing else, he radical idea: you grow and change or you pay the price would have become a footnote perhaps, a name, for staying the same. Merton chose to grow. In his jourwith dates, on a cross in the Gethsemani cemetery nals, he writes of “[t]he need for constant self-revision, just outside of Bardstown, Kentucky. If Merton had growth, leaving behind, renunciation of yesterday, yet been a writer and nothing else, he would have bein continuity with all yesterdays… My ideas are always come a different kind of footnote: a minor poet who changing, always moving around one center, always translated Latin American poets from the Spanish seeing the center from somewhere else. I will always be and translated, along with John Wu, The Way of …/ accused of inconsistencies – and will no longer be there www.dialogue.ca

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J.S. Porter, re Mary Gordon on Thomas Merton, contd.

Chuang Tzu, a work of great spirituality and wisdom. Take away that all important hyphen between the nouns writer and monk and you have a man’s lifework without spark, flame or fire.

With the hyphen, you have a steady flame, which includes The Seven Storey Mountain, New Seeds of Contemplation, The Asian Journal and the private journals. Merton is, of course, more than a singlehyphenated man; he’s multi-hyphenated. His hybridity is as vast as his artistic and spiritual production.

Thomas Merton is the poet-monk, the photographer-monk, the calligrapher-monk, the intellectualmonk, the political-monk, the translator-monk and so on. If you get tired of him in any one of his masks, or identities, you can pick up another one.

Tired of the visual art, you can turn to his words.

Tired of his politics, you can turn to his meditations and prayers. The strength of Merton’s hyphens is to make him seem almost inexhaustible.

Mary Gordon touches on the inexhaustibility with great finesse and elegance. She speaks writer to writer about her personal relationship with Merton’s writings, on his Seven Storey Mountain, on his novel My Argument with the Gestapo and, most importantly, on her engagement with his posthumous journals. She spends no time on his poetry, which is for me a shortcoming, yet correctly implies that his best poetry lies in his prose, especially the prose in his journals.

A discerning reader, herself a hybrid, a writer-critic, she writes in a personal, conversational voice everopen to the ambivalences and ironies of a complex man. She, like many before her, recognizes that Merton was a failed novelist-- novelist-monk is a hyphenated self that doesn’t quite work—and yet his novel My Argument with the Gestapo brims with startling imagistic phrasing such as: Window glass falls all around me like a shower of money.

The windows of the shops glowed like bright and friendly aquariums.

She rightly observes that these sentences could serve as first lines in a poem.

Gordon has a knack of saying things incomparably well. Merton’s mission? “His goal was to combine 44 dialogue

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the sacred and the secular, preserving the breeziness of American informal speech while retaining the grandeur of the European Catholic tradition.” Gordon writes in a warm, folksy style, not unlike Merton’s own.

She, like her subject, is not afraid to express her feelings. Merton to her is not some object to dissect, but a subject who has presence within her and within the society she is a part of. She acknowledges that she “fell in love” [her phrasing] with Merton through her first reading of the seven posthumous journals. That’s where Merton is at his ardent, heartfelt, headlong best. He reveals himself most in the journals. He’s like a Stephen De Staebler sculpture – mixed materials, some smooth parts, some rough parts, parts finished and parts unfinished, but ever striving, ever expanding.

She writes: “The journals present us with a person who is above all volatile, alternately tormented and ecstatic, but I feel most deeply his conflicted anguish about his role as a writer and a monk.”

Merton wrote under the threat of monastic censorship, but also his own self-censorship. He “had taken a vow of silence and had a compulsive need to write.” Out of his writer-self rubbing up against his monk-self comes the fire of his work.

Before reading Merton’s journals, Gordon “had never encountered such an articulate and extended examination of these grueling and insoluble problems…” Gordon sees deeply into Merton as someone who “didn’t know who he was, moment to moment, until he wrote.” He wrote in order to know himself, and to be himself. According to Gordon, “What makes Merton so approachable and so lovable are his inconsistencies, his rare ability to name and to own them, to move from one phase of life, one image of himself, to another.”

She notes his talent for description, particularly description of nature’s fluidity: “A thousand small high clouds went flying majestically like ice-floes, all golden and crimson and saffron, with clean blue and aquamarine behind them…”

And: “Large dogwood blossoms in the wood, too large, past their prime, like artificial flowers made out of linen.”

The strength of these images lies in “their capturing www.dialogue.ca

of disparate elements, netting them in an image that startles and satisfies.” For example: “There was a tanager singing like a drop of blood in the tall thin pines.”

Gordon is intrigued by Merton’s “hyphens” in their “whirling, sensual overfullness.” His signature is not only I write, therefore, I am, but also I love, therefore, I write. When I read Gordon on Merton, I have the feeling that she is drawn to his personal, intimate voice for the same reason I am. He tells us what it’s like to be a human being alive now.

This is simply the voice of a self-questioning human person who, like all his brothers,

struggles to cope with turbulent, mysterious, demanding, exciting, frustrating, confused existence in which almost nothing is really predictable, in which most definitions, explanations, and justifications become incredible even before they are uttered, in which people suffer together and are sometimes utterly beautiful…

Merton never forgets the utterly beautiful within turbulent, mysterious and demanding existence.

J.S. Porter, co-author with Susan McCaslin of Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine, reads and writes in Hamilton, Ontario with his wife Cheryl and his dog Sophia. www.spiritbookword.net ♣

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Tales from Fruitvale…

Thoughts on Perfection…

Paul Bowles, Fruitvale BC

Nothing is more inspirational than a perfect artistic performance, yet we are not all professionals whose skill and experience have honed their art to the highest level; but even so, the notion of perfection is relative to our age and stages of accomplishment in every field of endeavour. Our endeavours require the ENERGY to ASPIRE... for us to play a part in the world agenda.

Many roles may be played in the agenda of our life.

Perfection is a term which describes the pinnacle of our standards of human judgement. We judge everything in life: our circumstances, our gardens, our work, our body’s health, a night’s sleep. We judge music, dancing, writing, architecture, science, education and in a democracy, our freedom to speak and enjoy the privilege of life to come and go without oppression.

We judge the planet we live on, its condition, which, like our lives and endeavours, is always changing. Sun brings joy but drought brings misery, then rain is perfect. Spring brings blossoms, which may be perfect for a while, yet in time they fade. Fruit may be perfect but then the crop may not be abundant.

Perfection is subjective, individual. A new mother may see perfection in the smile of her child. Perfection is the ENERGY of LIFE, dispersed throughout the universe in the growth of stars and planets, flora and fauna and in human development, which may www.dialogue.ca

ultimately be to have love for all of life and the wisdom to know what is good and fair as we struggle for harmony against natural and psychological impedances.

Perhaps perfection is a sliding scale somewhat dependent on our temporal perspective. Also, time may have a way of changing our evaluation of what seemed perfect or imperfect in our past.

Perfection may be a fleeting thing, like inspiration, for we are not always inspired but if we are, it would be perfection to be able to express it. We could aspire to it. The ENERGY to ASPIRE may be called PERFECTION itself, for without it we cannot achieve our goal.

We all have goals, ASPIRATION is the driver. At the level of basic communication, just as in the movie The King’s Speech, where King George V1 drives himself to overcome his stammering speech while addressing the nation over radio in the late 1930’s, his aspiration was to be able to speak with confidence, openly and without fear in public.

IN CONCLUSION, we can’t say with certainty that our speech, should we ever have to make one, or performance of any kind, in coffee house or at a festival, interview, examination, or magazine production, we don’t know that it will turn out perfectly, but aspiring to that.... is sufficient and when we step up to the podium or out into the world, whether it shall be a perfect or imperfect rendering... is subject to evaluation.

Paul Bowles , scribepoet@hotmail.com ♣ SEE ALSO PAUL’S CALLIGRAPHY ON P. 60 VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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“The Vagabond Writer” THE GOOD WEEDS Wayne Allen Russell Clearwater BC 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.

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)

WILD BILL Pop figured we needed a horse around to make things a little easier on the farm, so he bought old Billy for one hundred dollars which was a fortune at that time. I have no idea why we called him old Billy, as he was a very young horse. He had been proud cut, which means; somehow they missed one testicle when they tried to turn him from a stallion into a gelding.

He was cantankerous and ran at the drop of a hat. We would hitch him up as a team with the neighbour’s horse, Dolly. This would hold him back and seemed to keep him calm. Of course, the old guy that sold him to us neglected to inform Pop of Billy’s wild spirit.

Billy was pure black, right down to his heart. He had a white diamond between his eyes; I always wondered why we didn’t call him Diamond Bill.

The first time we hooked him to harness he stood peacefully and was also very peaceful as we hooked the harness to the stone-bolt.

A stone-bolt is simply two poles about three feet apart, with boards nailed across and one end axed to a leading edge, like a ski or a toboggan. This stone-bolt, as the name indicates was kept close to the ground for rolling big rocks onto it from the fields. This time 46 dialogue

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however, we loaded on two 45-gallon barrels to haul water from the creek. I was helping George. That day, we got to the creek off the main road culvert and with buckets filled both barrels with water. We climbed down the slope to the water each with two pails, up and down until the barrels were full.

This was great; this big horse was sure going to save us a lot of work. Before him, we had to haul the water with a five-gallon bucket in each hand. I remember hauling water like this when I was so short, and I had to carry the buckets with the wire handles in the crook of my arms so they didn’t drag on the ground. It was about 300 feet from the creek to our lane-way and at least the same distant down the lane past the house to the barn. So you can see the work this great big horse would save us.

We had to haul water from the creek because our well just barely had enough water for household use.

Sometimes the well went dry so we were very water conscious. We had rain-barrels on the down spouts of the house and barns. Mom called this soft water. It was good for washing our hair, clothes, and bodies but not for drinking.

We had the barrels loaded and were heading down the main road into the lane towards the barn; we were taking the water for the animals. George was on the front of the stone-bolt with reigns in his hands; I was standing on the back hanging onto the rim of a barrel. We could see Pop ahead of us up a ladder putting some new siding on the house.

To this day we don’t know what set him off but old Billy bolted like a shot out of hell. Both barrels tipped over just about drowning me, dumping me into a wet muddy mess. When I looked up, George was riding the old stone-bolt, leaning back on the reins and yelling, “Look out!” I swear he looked like John Wayne without the cowboy’s hat.

Well Pop didn’t make it, the ladder went flying and so did he. George, Billy, and the stone-bolt were heading across the ploughed field full tilt when suddenly the board beneath George’s feet broke and one leg went through getting pulled down and under the stone- bolt.

Lucky for George (if you can call a skinless leg broken in three places lucky), Billy was forced to stop www.dialogue.ca

running since he was cornered with a fence on his right and the creek on his left.

When the rest of us eased up to Billy, his eyes were rolling from left to right and his chest was heaving in and out. He looked like the devil himself. The result of this runaway was a destroyed ladder, a broken leg on George and a dislocated shoulder on Pop that kept him off work for some time. George’s leg never did heal properly. He remembered old Billy for the rest of his life.

Months later, Pop made a new ladder and was going to finish the house siding, having also bought a new hammer. He had been giving us lectures on using and losing his tools for these last months. Well Pop went up that ladder and there was his old hammer hanging on the nail he’d been ready to pull when, as the saying goes, the shit had hit the fan.

George never gave in to old Billy. He would ride him bareback all the time while we younger ones took turns riding Dolly. It was Bucky's turn on Dolly; ‘Bucky’ was Bob’s nickname before it was changed to ‘Stretch’. He was trying to keep up to George and Billy. They were flying across the field when George jumped Billy over a narrow part of the creek. Bucky being a self-proclaimed cowboy, tried to do the same with Dolly. When she reached the edge of the creek, going all out, she hit the brakes. All four legs dug in at once stopping her dead in her tracks and sending Bucky flying head-over-heals into the middle of the creek. There he was, flat on his back and had he broken his neck, we still would’ve been rolling on the ground laughing. Fortunately the only thing injured was his pride. We wouldn’t let him live this one down for years to come.

We kept working Billy, usually in double-harness with Dolly. He never once run away while hooked up with Dolly.

I can’t remember why we were going, but we were probably going for a load of hay. Pop had hooked old Billy to the single wagon and we were on our way to the neighbours with June driving and three of us boys on board. Pop had gone on ahead with the old Buick and the rest of the kids. We were moving along at a slow pace, no hurry, Billy just walking along. We boys were laughing, joking, and punching each other as boys do to pass the time. The day was beautiful, sun shining, birds singing, June sitting on the driver’s seat, whistling away. www.dialogue.ca

All of a sudden, as per his habit, Billy took off on a dead run. With bit tight in his teeth it would be hard to stop him. Within half a mile not one of us was left on that wagon but June who was standing up leaning back on the reigns with her beautiful long blond hair streaming out behind her. With the bit clamped in his teeth, no pulling on the reins could’ve stopped that horse.

We were on the run far behind but could see that Pop and the Jenkins boys had lined up across the road at the farmer’s lane. They figured they could stop the horse but Old Billy had other ideas. When he reached that line-up, he turned full tilt into the farmer’s lane. I was sure the wagon was going to tip over when two of the wheels came a foot off the ground.

Old Billy hadn’t lost June; she was still standing, leaning back on the reins. As the wagon slowed, making the turn, Pop jumped out and grabbed for the bridle but Billy jerked his head up and Pop missed.

He fell under the horse’s hooves and although they missed him, the wheels on the one side didn’t, so bump, bump, over him they went. We ran over to Pop. He was moaning and cursing. When we asked if he was okay, he yelled, “Get out of here, I don’t need your help!”

We knew better than to question Pop, so we took off after the runaway. We thought the barn gate would stop Old Billy as he’d always stopped at a fence before. This time he ran right through, boards and splinters flying everywhere. When the wagon went around the end of the barn on two wheels, June may have felt like Calamity Jane, but that turn was the end of June’s ride. She was thrown so far and wide she looked like a big bird. But she didn’t stay up there long, landing with a SPLAT! When we ran past her, she was moaning and gasping for breath but we didn’t stop, we just kept on going after the horse and wagon.

Old Billy kept going, out through the back barn gate, down the lane towards the fields and the bush. He had quite a lead on us, but we could still see him running, mud flying from his hooves and off the wheels. He was moving to beat the band! In that big field there was one lonely, huge rock that had been too heavy for the farmer to remove. We could see Billy was going to pass close to it and he missed it by a whisker. However, the wagon didn’t make it, colliding with a …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Wayne Russell, Wild Bill, contd.

loud crashing sound. Billy kept right on going, dragging the wagon forks. Unbelievable!

He finally stopped at the back fence, huffing, wheezing, and snorting. He was so wet and lathered up that he looked all white instead of black. His eyes were rolling back, showing just the whites of his eyes making him look like a devil. We all stayed back to give him a chance to calm down.

The results of this runaway? June had a broken arm;

Pop had two broken ribs and many bruises. Lucky for him, he had a leather jacket on; it saved him further damage. Needless to say, we didn’t get our load that day. The wagon was a pile of smashed boards, the wheels were all broken and the steel rims bent, a total write-off for sure. While some of us started rebuilding the farmer’s gate and cleaning up the mess, George took Pop and June to the doctor. More lost work for Pop. Wayne Russell, The Vagabond Writer slyolfart@gmail.com ♣

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“Observations from Lithuania”

Ken Russell Slade, Vilnius

Changing for Ageing: [… Ken’s Tips on Cleanliness & Hygiene] Part 2, continued: ‘Some of the Micro Considerations’

by KR Slade Continued from Spring 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 is completed here in this Summer 2019 issue.]

Recap: This section concerns some of the ‘micro’ (i.e., meaning small, relative to a larger grouping) considerations, using some examples (i.e., ‘some details’). By providing some details, there can be some illustration of the possibilKen Slade ity to consider some small changes for better-living in advanced age. Of course, everyone is unique, so everyone needs to consider their own -- personalized -- changes ...

▪ Close-proximity of people spreads contamination: public toilets, public transportation, elevators, schools, churches, public buildings, office buildings, airports, airplanes, taxis, cinemas, theatres, concerts, etc. Hospitals and doctor’s offices (especially waiting-rooms) are ipso facto: diseaseprone environments; at a minimum, at least wash hands upon leaving.

▪ Hot tubs and/or saunas should have a maximum duration of use of 10 minutes; avoid over-heating your body, as well as dizziness and weaken legs. In sauna, do not allow your skin to contact the wood, 48 dialogue

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which can be filthy. Hot tubs are commonly breeding-grounds for spreading diseases. Swimming pools must be mould / mildew free (especially the tiles and grouting). In gyms and swimming facilities, always wear footwear: sneakers for dry surfaces (including in locker rooms); and for wet surfaces (including pool-surroundings, and especially in showers), rubber sandals that cover the front-top of your foot (not flip-flops that are open-toe, and offer no support when walking). You do not want to catch a skin-contact infection that will require six months of medications to cure.

▪ Storage: under-the-kitchen-sink is not a place to store food !! ... this is a place to store cleaners, as well as anything-else that is toxic (e.g., insectsprays’; but excluding flammables, which should not be stored inside of any dwelling-place) ... Furthermore, the bathroom is not a good place to store pharmaceuticals -- dampness, heat, and changes in temperature are not good for any chemicals, and destroy labels; moreover, availability to guests is anti-social.

Under-the-bathroom-sink is not a place to store anything that will go into, or onto, your body. I wonder if under the bathroom sink might be a good location to put the cat’s litter box; the cat likes the privacy of an enclosed area, which can have a sufficient holein-the-door for entry / exit; and, the bathroom fan is often on, for ventilation; and any odour may be more noticeable, so to encourage changing the litter.

▪ My cooking implements / utensils are all stainless steel, except for stone-coated pans, glass cookingdishes, and some glass-covers; Cost: ~80 euro. …/ www.dialogue.ca

My eating utensils are all stainless steel; Cost: 20 euro. My plates / bowls / cups / drinking-glasses are all glass; Cost: ~60 euro (service for 4). The glass is all tempered glass: clear-glass for drinking-glasses; white glass for cups, plates, and bowls. I have no stemware: such glass is too thin, and the stem makes the needlessly-tall glass unstable on any surface. I have no china because it is too expensive, and too delicate. I have no crockery because it crazes (i.e., tiny cracks). I have no crystal because it contains lead, and if dropped will shatter into a zillion pieces. I use no wood, because wood harbours germs, and will always crack. My cutting-board is plastic -- not wood (because every day, I am not going to clean with chlorine bleach, as does a butcher). I like the good-value, available, replaceable, and simple and timeless classical design of tempered-glass products for serving food that are made by LuminarcTM, but only the clear or white -- not the coloured, and not the 3-D surfaces. I will not have the trendy 'ceramic knife', because it easily chips, with ceramic sharp-pieces into your food !!

▪ If you have a two-storey house: 1) you might install a lift-mechanism on the stairs; or 2) use a room on the ground-floor for your bedroom, and install an adjoining full bathroom.

▪ Is it time for a re-think about your security at home ?? The function of an exterior door is to keepout unwanted visitors. Therefore, it is completely illogical to think that it is necessary to open the door whenever someone may knock on the door, or ring a doorbell. Without opening the door: you need to be able to see who (and/or what) is there, and, if you choose, to be able to speak with that person. So, at the least, you need to be able to view. The speaking requires some type of electronic gadget. The current state-of-the-art gadget-system (to view, light, speak/ hear, record, generate an alarm), which requires your smart-phone use, is $400-500, and requires installation. Such system does not require monthly subscription fees.

Your local police department probably provides some type of service of a home-visit to advise you about your home security.

A home-visit by a locksmith will enable his advise on the quality of your locks (including for windows; and, especially for sliding-glass doors), and the manner of installation.

If you are renting your living-place, you should have www.dialogue.ca

all of the exterior locks ‘re-keyed’, by a locksmith, who will make a house-call (and perform the re-keying in his van). For every lock, you need a minimum of three (3) keys: one for you, one for your safety-deposit box (off-premises), and one for a trusted person.

▪ Anytime is always a good time to think about: accumulations, clutter, and especially cleanliness -meaning currently clean, and easy to keep clean. Everyone has the freeloading false-friend called furniture and furnishings, as well as the companion of a lifetime's accumulation of personal treasures -- stacked as in King Tut's tomb.

Perhaps, it's time to: eliminate, or at least hide, the clutter; hang nothing on doors; reduce the number of bookshelves (as well as the books and useless / silly displayed objects); increase storage in the kitchen, and optimize accessibility of needed items.

Perhaps, furthermore, the time has come, to realise that with 'things': enough is enough, and when is much-too-much. Too-much of the: 1) sentimental items, memorabilia / mementos, souvenirs, nickknacks, hobbies, ethnic / religious symbols, books, and collections; 2) plants; 3) drugs, i.e., prescriptions, over-the-counter, and remedies; 4) clothing. When I was 56, and leaving Quebec (city) for Vilnius, I took only two suitcases, and mailed (i.e., 'surface mail' -meaning via boat, not 'air-mail') nine cardboard boxes to myself in Vilnius (which arrived 3 months later). I disposed of everything else I owned before I boarded the plane. The only thing I miss is my cat.

▪ Doors should swing freely, passageways should be cleared, and zones should be created that support your daily routines and activities. Some re-arrangement of objects may be in order, especially furniture that you repeatedly stumble against -- such as that odd-shaped coffee table, or the corner of your bed.

None of these tiny, little things -- each on their own -is a big deal, but taken together, these things can damage your mood, as well as your body. Establish passageways of at least 24 inches between furnishings ▪ No side-of-a-bed against a wall; have a small-table (with a lamp) on each side of the bed; have a small table beside every chair (that is not in front of a table); have a foot-rest at your desk, and in front of your easy-chair(s); have more than one easy-chair (each of a different design / shape). …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 49

Ken Slade, Changing for Ageing, contd.

▪ Make further efforts to rid the house of mould / mildew; and to lessen accumulated dust with more vacuuming; clean outside areas near windows, by sweeping and washing with white vinegar; increase ventilation (e.g., using kitchen and bath exhaust fans, and using fan in window to force air in / out). This concern is not only about sinus / allergy, but also skin, as well as disease.

▪ 'My daily constitutional' is what I call my daily walk: a distance of about 1 km (.6 mile); walking is the most basic of exercise. Walking can help with less reliance on prescription medications and/or over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Another name might be 'walking the dog' -- even if you do not have a dog -- walking is naturally anti-constipation, helping the natural movement of the bowels.

Walking works for dogs!!

▪ Footwear and foot-care are very important to me: I have fifteen (15) separate / distinct foot problems (i.e., 2 curved small-toes, 2 broken toes, 2 enlarged bunions, 2 crossed toes, 2 flat arches, 2 heels spurs, 1 split toe-nail, and circulation problems). Moreover, to make matters worse: I have two feet, which I usually like to use at the same time !

For me, it is ideal to have custom-made orthotics for shoe-inserts; such orthotics are available via the Internet (~100 euro), or from a foot doctor. I use only shoes/boots that are 'athletic' (i.e., not 'dress shoes'): not leather uppers, but some/all of artificial fabric (breathable and waterproof), which can expand; thickrubber soles and heels (ideally VibramTM); laces; with a stiff plate in the unbendable arch. Cost is always more than 100 euro (but, they last 3+ years); anything else is junk (and lasts a couple of months).

Conversely, the trendy footwear is with thin cloth/fabric uppers, thin soles, absolutely no support -- not unlike slippers, if not like the pseudo-shoes of a Spanish matador or a Renaissance pope. This footware trend of today will become tomorrow's problems for feet, legs, and back.

▪ Is it time to dare to be not-trendy ?? Consider the effects on the body and budget: ... [some trendy, notso-healthy examples…] TV screens at a height of a painting on a wall (such as over a fireplace) ... bedrooms with plenty of light (for what type of bed activities?), and a view (for photography, or 50 dialogue

SUMMER 2019, VOL. 32, NO. 4

drawing/painting ?) ... seating that is all of the same form / shape / size / design ... blue walls (the leastdesirable colour for sleeping) in a bedroom ... tile on kitchen counters / backsplash (grout cleaning challenge) ... small ceramic tiles, with much grout on: floors (especially showers, bathrooms / washrooms) ... laminate-flooring (cardboard impregnated with formaldehyde, with an ultra-thin topping of plastic -photographed to look like wood), which floats and buckles ...window 'treatments' (especially curtains for design / effect; ideal to gather dust / mould) ... all lighting (exclusively) of one-kind (i.e., LED, florescent, halogen, or incandescent) ... home exercise/ gym equipment (without benefit of any professional guidance) ... opening the door to anyone who knocks or rings your doorbell ... not locking entry doors when you are at home, or when you are in your yard ...

These are all ‘trends’ you should consider abandoning – for your health and well-being! *** The passage of time brings changes, and the need for changes; and the passage of time is therefore reasonin-itself for considering change.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." per ‘Future Shock’ (1970), Alvin Toffler Ken Russell Slade, Vilnius, Lithuania

Note: this series of "Changing for Ageing" continues with 'Part 3: Some of the Macro Considerations' in the Autumn 2019 issue.

All Rights Reserved: 2018 kenmunications@gmail.com ♣ **************************************************************

Laughter & LIghtenment

Wordplay from Herb Spencer spsi99@telus.net a) I changed my iPod's name to Titanic.

It's syncing now. b) England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool. c) He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed. d) I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me. e) I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down. f) Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end. ♣ www.dialogue.ca

5G – Without the Public’s Knowledge or Consent…

Captured Governments Are Permitting Industry to Irradiate Canada’s Unsuspecting Population With Harmful Radiation Without Either Their Knowledge or Consent!

Letter from J. G. Flynn, Captain (Retired), Bowser, B.C From: jerryjgf@shaw.ca Sent July 21, 2019 To: Professor Joel Bakan, PhD., Professor of Law Email: bakan@allard.ubc.ca Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC, 1822 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 [cc: Colleagues at Allard] Dear Professor Bakan, PhD: My letter (attached) easily was the most difficult and preposterous-sounding letter that I have ever written! Yet in it I deliberately understated the facts, because they are so surreal that they would boggle any sane person’s mind! Note though, that non-industry scientists around the world and other ‘informed’ people (including myself) know that what I have said is factually correct! Please read how the electric power generation, and wireless and telecommunications industries have ‘captured’ Canada’s Federal Government and Provincial Governments, which is now causing the most serious threat - to all living things, not just to people in human history!

Scientists say that if we can’t stop 5G (Fifth Generation) technology, man won’t have to worry about Global Warming (implying that humans will no longer exist on planet Earth) ! [See LINKS:] http://themillenniumreport.com/2019/01/internationalappeal-stop-5g-on-earth-and-in-space-2/ https://www.pugetsoundradio.com/2019/06/24/5g-couldwipe-out-humans-plants-animals/ In closing, please note that the Government of Canada, the Government of BC, including BC’s Provincial Health Officer (PHO) are stubbornly silent on this entire ‘radiation’ issue!

What recourse does the public have (or you, yourself, or any of the Cc addressees)? How can people stop governments from allowing Industry to harm them?

Sincerely, J.G. (Jerry) Flynn, Captain (Retired) 5181 Gainsberg Road, Bowser, B.C., V0R 1G0 Telephone: 778-424-9609; jerryjgf@shaw.ca

Dear Professor Bakan, Captured governments are permitting industry to irradiate Canada’s unsuspecting population with harmful radiation without either their knowledge or consent.

This is precisely what is happening today! Capturedgovernments, aided by a sinfully-silent news media, are allowing industry to irradiate Canada’s entire population (including you, Professor Bakan) with NONthermal (explained below) electric and magnetic fields (EMF)s, and pulsed radio frequency (RF) EMFs! Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his whole family, all Federal Cabinet Ministers, all Members of www.dialogue.ca

Parliament, all Supreme Court Judges, etc. are unwittingly being intentionally irradiated with what are known to be hazardous ‘Power Line’ 50/60 Hz EMFs and RF EMFs – without either their knowledge or consent! Absurd as this sounds, the ugly facts speak for themselves! (My military BIO is shown at the end of this letter.) http://www.stayonthetruth.com/neil-cherry.php and - https://bioinitiative.org/conclusions/

The Effects of EMF Radiation – Explained The effects of the man-made radiation at issue here are either thermal (the kind that heats the skin and which the body can detect) or NON-thermal (the kind that does not heat the skin but which the human body cannot detect!). Radiation is invisible, silent, odorless and tasteless, yet today it is so dense that it can be detected from space! In 1985, two-time Nobel Prize nominee, Dr. Robert O. Becker said: “The entire North American continent, Western Europe and Japan generate such strong EMFs that they can be sensed by satellites in space! These populations are continuously bombarded by ELF (Extremely Low Frequency, also called “Power Line Frequency” (50 Hz/60 Hz electric and magnetic) EMFs! Dr. Robert O. Becker, “The Body Electric” pp 295 One needs an electronic meter to detect and measure the strength of NON-thermal EMF radiation.

Man-made Technologies - Explained 1) ELF or “Power Line” (50 Hz/60 Hz) EMFs Radiation, in the form of EMFs, is emitted by overhead power transmission and distribution lines, electrical substations, power transformers, smart meters, household electric appliances, household wiring, electric vehicles, electric machinery and tools, etc. Non-industry scientists globally have known for decades that this form of radiation CAUSES leukemia and other serious illnesses (such as those listed below). https://tinyurl.com/emf-leukemia-pdf https://bioinitiative.org/conclusions/ http://emfsummit.com/dr-samuel-milham/ http://www.stayonthetruth.com/neil-cherry.php

2) Radio / Microwave (RF) Frequency EMFs All wireless radio products emit pulsed NON-thermal EMF radiation, which militaries have long known is even more hazardous to human biology & health …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 51

Jerry Flynn, 5G-Without Knowledge or Consent, contd.

than is continuous wave (i.e., the kind emitted by microwave ovens). Militaries have long known that microwaves make the perfect weapon, for they are silent, invisible and virtually undetectable. http://stopthecrime.net/docs/microwave%20warfare%20barrie%20trower.pdf

Products that emit pulsed RF EMFs include: ‘smart’ meters (which contain two microwave radio circuits), baby monitors, cell phones, cordless phones, cell phone towers, Wi-Fi routers, Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX zones, Bluetooth devices, tablet and laptop computers, wireless keyboards and mice, GPS satellites, approximately 2,000 other military, scientific & commercial satellites, the already approved 20,000 “5G” satellites, remote control units, household and commercial security systems, TV Games, self-driving vehicles; vehicular collision-avoidance systems, AM & FM radio and TV towers, Amateur radio towers, radars (police, aeronautical, marine, military, municipal), etc. New York Times, January 18, 1968 Public Law 90-602, Oct 18, 1968 http://www.magdahavas.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Glaser_1972 shortened.pdf “Effects of Modulated UHF Fields on Specific Brain Rhythms in Cats,” Brain Research 58 (1973): 365-384 https://www.scribd.com/document/219710624/Dangers-ofElectromagnetic-Frequencies-to-health-privacy-democracyand-national-security https://electroplague.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dia-report-1976.pdf (Page vii). https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA282886 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/opinion-cellphone-health-risk-40449 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xehJzyttZr8 http://www.riseearth.com/2013/08/death-lies-and-mutations-proof-military.html http://electromagnetichealth.org/electromagnetic-healthblog/the-seletun-statement/ http://www.feb.se/Bridlewood/NEWS1999.HTM

Unprecedented Pandemic Corruption Few people have even heard of, let alone know anything about, non-ionizing EMF and/or RF EMF radiation. So people would be shocked to hear of the corruption that began back in the early 1960s, which began as US Military-Industrial-Complex (US M-I-C), but which has since morphed into an even larger, far more powerful Government-Corporation-Complex (US G-C-C). [LINK:] www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-ofmilitary-industrial-complex

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To understand today’s unbelievable corruption, which now poses the greatest threat the world has ever experienced, readers need to note: 1) EMF scientists within Heath Canada’s Radiation Protection Bureau (HC’s RPB) and their colleagues within the corrupt cabal of Western radiation regulatory agencies (to which HC’s RPB has belonged since at least 1966): the WHO (World Health Organization), ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection), the IEEE/ICES (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety) and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) ALL recognize ONLY the thermal effects of EMF radiation; 2) Whereas, the man-made technologies at issue here, which scientists know cause (albeit not exclusively) today’s autism, cancers, Alzheimer’s suicides, etc. (see below) all emit hazardous NON-thermal EMF radiation!

Protectors of Public Safety and Health Given the above, the public should be shocked and outraged to learn that not only do both household 50 Hz/60z electricity and all of today’s wireless products emit hazardous NON-thermal EMFs, but, unbelievably, that there is not a single senior health official anywhere in Canada – repeat – anywhere in Canada with credible expertise in non-thermal EMFs, non-thermal pulsed RF EMFs and EHS! Those lacking the expertise needed to protect Canada’s population include Canada’s Minister of Health, her Deputy Minister of Health, their provincial counterparts, all Provincial Health Officers (PHOs) and all provincial Centres for Disease Control. This means that all of the above depend on the corrupt scientists in Health Canada to tell them the truth about this extremely arcane and terribly dangerous subject! Because PHOs also lack any credible expertise in this field, they too are obliged to simply echo and support whatever HC’s corrupt scientists say on any aspect of EMFs! (Over the 11 years that I have been researching this subject, I have often encountered conspiracy theorists. But one could not have planned a more perfect crime! Absolutely disgraceful!

Illnesses linked to EMFs Leukemia, breast, brain, thyroid, pancreatic, liver, testicular, colon and other forms of cancer, brain tumors, neurological conditions, ADD, Autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), miscarriages, depression, suicides, sleep disorders, cognitive problems, cardiovascular irregularities, www.dialogue.ca

hormone disruption, immune system disorders, metabolism changes, stress, fertility impairment, increased blood brain barrier permeability, mineral disruption, DNA damage, Tinnitus, asthma, etc.

How International ‘Safe’ Exposure Limits for RF EMF Evolved • In 1953, the US Navy established the first ‘safe’ Exposure Limit of 10 mW/cm² (10 milli Watts/centimetre squared), which was meant to protect US sailors who were exposed to the navy’s huge radars, which emit pulsed microwave radiation in the 1800 MHz frequency range - based on the thermal effects ONLY! •

In 1965 the US Air Force and US Army adopted the US Navy’s Standard and,

•

In 1966, all militaries of the ‘Five-Eyes’ intelligence-gathering community (in which I toiled for at least 16 years): the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand adopted them, as did the USA itself!

•

In 1979, Health Canada established Canada’s first Safety Code 6, which looked similar if not identical to those of the Canadian military, both of which recognized ONLY the thermal effects and had the same outrageously-high 10 mW/cm² ‘safe’ Exposure Limit!

In 1979, when Canada’s 1st Safety Code 6 was established, it was already known in the United Nations that EMR (meaning electro-magnetic radiation, a term often used inter-changeably with EMF) can be hazardous to humans! “As a result of research into the effects of electromagnetic radiation on biological targets, the existence of harmful effects of radio-frequency radiations within a wide range of frequencies on such vitally important organs of the human as the heart, the brain and the central nervous system may now be regarded as a firmly established fact.” UN Committee on Disarmament Document CD/35, July 10, 1979, "Negotiations on the Question of the Prohibition of New Types of Weapons of Mass Destruction and New Systems of Such Weapons," V. L. Issraelyan, Representative of the USSR to the Committee on Disarmament.

Safety Code 6’s most glaring deficiencies are listed below: •

LINK: https://slt.co/Downloads/News/1092/No%20One%20is%20Protecting%20Canadians%20From%20Man-Made%20Radiation%20Oct%2010,%202016.pdf (Although Safety Code

6 ‘safe’ Exposure Limits were lowered in 2015 some 66 times (to about 4.4 mW/cm²), non-industry scientists say these are still far too high) Safety Code 6 – Naked Deficiencies (Note: All RF EMF emitters in Canada must comply with or adhere to Safety Code 6 ‘guidelines.’ To understand today’s corruption – which is harming Canada’s entire population - readers need to note that there are glaring and dangerous deficiencies in Safety Code 6!) Safety Code 6 never was intended to apply to provincial and territorial jurisdictions. Originally, it applied only to federal sites, and even then it was established to provide ‘safe’ radiation Exposure Limits for federal workers who could be exposed to thermal RF radiation! Tragically, all jurisdictions in Canada saw fit to simply adopt Safety Code 6, for which Canada’s entire population continues to unwittingly pay a terrible and ever-increasing price! www.dialogue.ca

It never even mentions “Power Line Frequency” (50 Hz/60 Hz) EMFs, which experts say CAUSE leukemia and other cancers, and many of the diseases listed above! Whereas non-industry scientists say that a safe ambient level of magnetic field in a school or home should not exceed even 1 mG (one, one-thousandth of a single Gauss), Health Canada endorses ICNIRP’s recommendations which say that magnetic fields of up to 2,000 mG are safe! In the USA it is even worse: ICES (Sub Committee 3) says that the Public can be exposed to 9,040 mG! It also says that Workers can be exposed to 27,100 mG! (See below how these outrageously high ‘safe’ Exposure Limits save the US Military and electric power utilities literally billions of dollars.) www.stopsmartmetersbc.com/201712-22-bioinitiative-updates-with-as-many-as-90-ofnew-studies-showing-harm/ and: www.hydroquebec.com/fields/limites-exposition.html

•

By deliberately not mentioning Power Line EMFs, Health Canada is being Machiavellian, in that its silence allows the profit-focused and self-regulated electric power generation industry to situate its hazardous infrastructure dangerously close to schools, hospitals, residential areas, places of work, public parks, etc.! This saves Western militaries and electric utilities literally billions of dollars in real estate costs they otherwise would have to spend …/ to purchase the land necessary for them VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 53

Jerry Flynn, 5G-Without Knowledge or Consent, contd.

operates on the microwave oven frequency of 2.4 GHz and emits millisecond pulses of RF EMF radi-

to provide the public with larger (safer) buffer zones separating the public from electric utility infrastructure!

•

ation in all directions out to about 100 feet. The ZigBee’ function is to control the approximately 15-or-so ‘smart’ appliances electric utilities expect typical homes will have. Again, each ‘smart’ appliance will have its own ZigBee-compatible microwave radio circuit which will exchange millisecond pulses of RF EMF data back and forth with the ZigBee receiver inside the Smart meter! It is also known that ‘smart’ meters are the quintessential ‘Trojan Horse’ for they surreptitiously invade the privacy of a person’s home to purposely collect consumption data of all electricity-dependent devices in the home, which is then available to the electric utility for sale to 3rd parties – without the owner’s knowledge or consent! ‘Smart’ meters also surreptitiously deprive occupants of their intimacy and privacy, which every occupant of a home takes for granted and to which they should be entitled.] LINK:

By refusing to recognize the NON-thermal effects of RF EMFs, the public understandably have been duped into believing that wireless products are all SAFE! Were it otherwise, wireless ‘smart’ meters and the ever-expanding constellation of extremely profitable consumer wireless radio products would not be permitted in Canada!

LINK: www.emfsafetynetwork.org/?page_id=872https://truth11.com/2015/01/24/ safety-code-6-enabling-depopulation/

•

Because Health Canada and/or Safety Code 6 permit electric power utilities to utilize wireless ‘smart’ meters, even small communities of just 500 homes can expect to see an additional *8,500 microwave transmitters, all of which will emit millisecond pulses of NON-thermal RF EMF radiation regularly throughout each and every day – all of which is on top of whatever level of EMF radiation was already in the community prior to the introduction (imposition) of ‘meshed-grid networks! (*8,500 is based on there being two transmitters inside every smart meter, and electric utilities expect the average home will have at least 15 ‘smart’ appliances, each of which will have its own ZigBee microwave transmitter and receiver circuit.) The largest ‘meshed-grid’ network communities of 5,000 homes are expected to add an additional 85,000 microwave transmitters to those communities, each of which will emit millisecond pulses of NON-thermal RF EMFs regularly throughout each and every day! This ‘new’ radiation too is on top of the EMFs that already existed in the larger meshed-grid community! [Note: It is known that a smart meter’s primary transmitter, known as the “LAN” (local area network), operates on 910 MHz and emits - in all directions - an average of from 14,000 to 190,000 millisecond pulses of microwave radiation daily for distances out to about 3 km! This means that every LAN transmitter in an entire ‘meshed-grid’ community irradiates the occupants of every home in that entire community and, in turn, is irradiated by all the other smart meters within the community! A smart meters 2nd transmitter, called the “ZigBee,”

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www.eeherald.com/section/news/nws201206102.html

•

By refusing to recognize the NON-thermal effects of RF EMFs, Safety Code 6 enables wireless and telecom companies to install Wi-Fi routers, cell phones, cordless phones, tablet and laptop computers in cancer clinics, hospitals, schools, residential neighborhoods, churches, public transit systems (such as BC Ferries, Vancouver’s rapid transit system, etc.). It also allows telecom companies to erect their cell phone towers dangerously close to kindergartens, schools, hospitals, medical clinics, residential developments, etc.!

•

Safety Code 6 makes no mention of and therefore refuses to formally recognize the existence of a condition or disability known as electro-hypersensitivity (EHS), which leaves those suffering from EHS to fend for themselves. Those worst affected are literally incapable of holding a job and/or even living in their own home – due to the EMF radiation that now floods most neighborhoods in all countries of the world. https://www.emfanalysis.com/ehs/ Two years later, 1981, world-renowned American scientist, Dr. Ross Adey, PhD, reported that “there is unequivocal experimental evidence that (electric and magnetic) fields from ELF to UHF (10 Hz to 450 MHz) interact directly with brain tissue”! Adey WR, www.dialogue.ca

1981. “Tissue interactions with non-ionizing electromagnetic fields.” Physiological Reviews, 61 In 2011, when the WHO classified RF EMFs a Class 2B (“Possible” carcinogen), Health Canada failed to honor its mandate (to protect the safety and health of its people) by not imposing the “Precautionary Principle” (which, in part, would at least have put the onus on electric power utilities to prove their pulsed NONthermal RF EMF radiation was SAFE to humans, of all ages, of all sizes, of all levels of wellness 24/7/365 days a year in perpetuity). Instead, Health Canada ignored the WHO and permitted electric power utilities to continue rolling-out their insidious, pernicious and invasive wireless ‘smart’ meters, which British Columbia’s government legislated on Apr. 28, 2010 were to be placed on every home in the province. ‘Smart’ meters now flood every community in North America (and countries elsewhere) with incalculable amounts of pulsed NON-thermal RF EMF radiation, all of which is in addition to the staggering amount of EMFs (from the accumulated ‘Power Line’ EMFs and 2G, 3G and other 4G RF EMF radiating devices) that existed prior to the advent of ‘smart’ meters.

and especially not the quintessential ‘Trojan Horse’ i.e., the ‘smart’ meter, has had to undergo pre-market testing (by qualified, independent experts) to first prove that it is SAFE i.e., to be used by, on and around people of all ages, of all sizes, of all levels of wellness on a 24/7/365 day basis in perpetuity!

Clearly, Health Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISEDC) (and their predecessors) are responsible for causing this inconceivably cruel crime against an unsuspecting and defenseless public! But the worst is still to come – and it is coming quickly: “5G” (Fifth Generation) technology, which, unless it is somehow stopped, will simultaneously irradiate every inch of planet Earth with (untested for safety) millimetre wave radiation from: a) more than 20,000 satellites; and, b) literally millions of microcell towers, each of which will also emit (untested for safety) millimetre wave radiation from towers installed in front of every 2nd to 10th home in every community, in every town, in every city, in every country on Earth! (Millimetre band are those frequencies between 100 to 300 GHz which have wavelengths from 2.73 to 1 mm)

LINK: http://humansarefree.com/2017/02/more-smartmeter-dangers-exposed.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_high_frequency

Not once in Health Canada’s history - despite the Soviet military’s 50-plus years of studies, despite the US Navy’s own thousands of studies, and despite the tens of thousands of peer-reviewed studies around the world that show, conclusively, that NON-thermal EMFs are hazardous to human biology and health has Health Canada seen fit to impose the ‘Precautionary Principle’! Instead of Health Canada putting the onus on Industry to prove that their technologies are safe; Health Canada puts the onus on the public to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that today’s technologies are NOT SAFE! https://emfrefugee.blogspot.com/2016/01/1976-us-defenseintelligence-agency.html https://www.emfresearch.com/us-nmri-studies/ https://healthybuildingscience.com/2013/01/07/emf-healtheffects/

Non-industry scientists know that there is NO ‘safe’ threshold of non-thermal EMFs; the only safe level is ZERO! http://www.stayonthetruth.com/neil-cherry.php www.emfacts.com/2017/11/bioinitiative-report-medicalconcerns-intensify-over-deadly-brain-tumors-from-cellphone-use/

Not a single wireless product, not even baby monitors, www.dialogue.ca

Yet, on February 6, 2019, US Senator Blumenthal, heard from five senior executives of the US cell phone industry that Industry had spent ZERO money to determine if 5G frequencies were SAFE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekNC0J3xx1w

Internationally-renowned, Dr. Martin Pall, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences, Washington State University, provides compelling evidence of the dangers of 5G technology in his free, online book: LINK: http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/files/5g-emf-hazards-dr-martin-l.-pall--eu-emf2018-6-11us3.pdf In his words: “No rational government anywhere would allow 5G!” With respect to “5G” frequencies, it is known that the Russians knew in the 1970s that “millimeter waves adversely affect human skin, blood and bone marrow, conditioned reflex activity, tissue respiration, etc.! The degree of unfavorable effect depended on the duration of exposure and on the individual exposed.”

[LINKS:] http://www.stopsmartmetersbc.com/ https://www.globalresearch.ca/5g-resistance-concerngrows-european-rollout/5681177

It is also known that, in 2007, the US military took delivery from Raytheon of an ‘Active Denial System’ …/ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

dialogue 55

Jerry Flynn, 5G-Without Knowledge or Consent, contd.

that emits a 2 to 2.5 megawatt, high efficiency continuous wave (CW) 95 GHz millimeter wave radiation!

Once again, 95 GHz is a 5G frequency! https://mdsafetech.org/2019/02/13/no-research-on-5gsafety-senator-blumenthal-question-answered/

Since 2008, I have repeatedly attempted to alert (via email letters and mailed letters) Canada’s current and previous Prime Ministers and their key Cabinet Ministers (Justice and Attorney General, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, National Defence, Health Canada, Industry Canada (now ISEDC), etc., of the known hazards of EMFs and of the historic pandemic corruption which is ongoing within Canada’s EMF community! All to no avail! Either my emails are being blocked or trashed! With 5G now looming everlarger globally, it is out of desperation that I am now contacting you, Professor Bakan. Please view the following link, which asserts that Wave Technology is Worse than Global Warming (by Nina Anderson) https://books.google.gg/books?id=WJvJImsKzGcC&printse c=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

To conclude: the evidence of corruption and unbelievable greed involving the Government-CorporateComplex, aided and abetted by a sinfully silent new media, is overwhelming and irrefutable, as is the evidence that man-made EMF technologies CAUSE the unsuspecting and defenseless population illnesses and countless premature deaths! Between them, Power Line NON-thermal EMFs and NON-thermal pulsed RF EMFs already threaten the human race; unless it is stopped, 5G will end all life on Earth – not just people! Those responsible for this are truly mad, for they know not what they are doing! Although time is rapidly running out, vital questions which Canada’s lawyers must answer include: • Do Canada’s current laws permit governments and/or industry to irradiate an unsuspecting and defenceless general population with hazardous Power Line (50 Hz/60 Hz) EMF radiation and non-thermal pulsed RF EMF radiation?

• Do Canada’s current laws permit electric power generation utilities to ignore homeowners’ objections and attach their vile wireless ‘smart’ meters to everyone’s home, given that –  both internal microwave transmitter/receiver circuits emit pulsed NON-thermal RF EMFs which are known to CAUSE many forms of cancer and many of today’s disease epidemics?

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 ‘smart’ meters are the quintessential Trojan Horse in that they surreptitiously enter a person’s home – without their knowledge or consent - to glean electric consumption data of every item in the home that consumes electricity,  ‘smart’ meters deny any/all occupants of the privacy and intimacy to which all home owners expect and are entitled?  ‘smart’ meters have been known to cause damage to a home’s electrical appliances, although no electric utility has ever admitted this!  ‘smart’ meters CAUSE a shocking number of electrical fires; once again, no electrical utility has ever admitted culpability!  ‘smart’ meters each have a ‘switched-modepower-supply (to convert high voltage A/C to low voltage D/C), which greatly increases the level of ‘dirty electricity’ within a home, which is an additional cause of CANCERS and other diseases!

• Do any of Canada’s current laws not consider any of the above to constitute: a) a Crime Against Humanity; b) a Violation of Every Person’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and/or, c) a Violation of the Nuremburg Code!

If the answer to any of the above is “Yes,” then clearly laws are being broken and crimes are being committed, for which: a) 5G must be halted immediately – nationally; b) the Precautionary Principle must be imposed on ALL wireless products; and, c) the RCMP must be directed to launch an immediate national if not international Criminal Investigation to rout out those sick, soulless, greedy individuals responsible for this unthinkable crime against all the unsuspecting and defenseless people of the world – without either their knowledge or consent!

In closing, I can make myself available to you (and others if your wish) via Skype. Alternatively, even though I live on Vancouver Island, I can come to your office(s) at UBC in Vancouver to discuss this matter at length with you – and any others you would like to invite!

Allow me to once again reiterate what non-industry scientists say: if we don’t stop 5G, man won’t have to worry about Global Warming! Thank you for your time, Professor Bakan.

Sincerely yours, James G. (“Jerry”) Flynn, Captain (Retired), jerryjgf@shaw.ca Bowser, BC (778) 424-9609 …/ www.dialogue.ca

My BIO I am a retired Canadian Armed Forces captain (commissioned from the ranks in what was then the Royal Canadian Navy) who spent 22 of my 26+ years in the ‘Forces’ in Electronic Warfare (EW) and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), the former of which included two years in National Defense Headquarters (NDHQ) Ottawa, in the Directorate of Electronic Warfare (DEW). In EW I worked closely with U.S. and NATO armies and, of my own initiative, attended a major NATO army EW officers’ course in Anzio, Italy, and participated in a major NATO army EW field exercise in Germany. I accepted invitations to visit both the U.S. Pentagon and, subsequently, Fort Bragg, North Carolina (the US Army’s principal EW base). Earlier still, I conducted Radio Warfare/EW at sea aboard two Canadian warships. In SIGINT, I was the Executive Officer and Operations Officer for two years at one of Canada’s largest and most sensitive radio intelligence-gathering stations, where I employed some 200+ specially-trained radio operators who conducted both COMINT and ELINT under my direction. Throughout this period, I worked closely with the USA’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ. Although I finally retired in 2005, since 2008 I have spent most of my time researching, writing and speaking out publicly on all aspects of this unbelievably evil issue caused by the corrupt US military-industrial complex, which has since morphed into a larger and more dangerous Government-Corporate-Complex!

History will record that this ongoing corruption now literally threatens all life on earth! Tragically, too few Americans heeded then U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1961, when he warned them to be on guard against the emergence of a corrupt US M-I-C! In the fall of 2016, cancer very nearly took my life! Out-of-

the-blue, I was suddenly stricken with a particularly virulent form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma – which, in hindsight, I attribute solely to my own indefensible stupidity and naiveté in presuming that Health Canada had tested and verified that all wireless electronic products on the market were ‘safe’ for the public to use! On leaving the Forces, in my second career, which also lasted 26-years, I was extremely fortunate and quickly had a client list that eventually included the Saudi Arabian government plus other large multinational corporations who collectively had major operations and/or projects in various countries on five continents.

Consequently, I quickly embraced all things wireless: a Blackberry cell phone, Wi-Fi routers (in the office and at home); cordless phones (both locations), microwave ovens (both locations), laptop computer (wireless, of course), Bluetooth cell phone and heated seats in my vehicles, electric in-floor radiant heat in my homes, not to mention the silent and invisible EMF/EMR I was exposed to in my working and living environments. In retrospect, were it not for an excellent medical team and for my wife’s tireless attention and endless nursing, and for her stubborn determination not to let me go, I would not be here to fight this Mother of all Crimes!

SEE ALSO: Letter from Jerry Flynn to then Health Minister Jane Phillpott, January 2017: LINK: https://maisonsaine.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/jerryflynnroguescientistslyingtophilpott.pdf ALSO from Jerry Flynn: No One is Protecting Canadians from Man-Made Radiation (Oct. 2016): https://tinyurl.com/JF-no-one-protecting-Cdns

**************************************************************

Pending Government Immunity for Telecoms’ Uninsurable 5G Network?

Received from Eva Lyman, evalyman@gmail.com Sent: July 4, 2019 To: John Horgan premier@gov.bc.ca ; Andrew Weaver a.weaver@leg.bc.ca ; May Elizabeth leader@greenparty.ca ; Cc: greg.kyllo.mla@leg.bc.ca Subject: Information worth paying attention to!

LINK: https://medium.com/@devradavis/pending-governmentimmunity-for-telecoms-uninsurable-5g-network-cffc43f61e8b

By Devra Davis President of Environmental Health Trust, June 14, 2019 [EXTRACT]

Wired Systems Faster, Safer, More Secure […] With so many localities objecting to new antennas essential to the 5G network, companies admitting their financial vulnerabilities to their shareholders, and scientists recognizing that currently anticipated 5G exposures exceed safety guidelines and also endanger weather prediction, another option urgently needs to be considered: Rather than insisting that 5G be transmitted wirelessly throughout the urban environment, hard-wired fiber-optic cable should be provided directly to and through military, medical, corporate and research facilities. This would be faster, safer and www.dialogue.ca

more secure and would avoid wirelessly radiating millions of unsuspecting citizens and critically sensitive wildlife, as well as mucking up disaster preparedness by interfering with systems critical to meteorological forecasts.

Dr. Devra Davis is an award-winning writer and Visiting Professor of Medicine, The Hebrew University, and President of Environmental Health Trust, a Jackson-Wyoming based scientific think tank, and the author of more than 220 scientific publications and the books Disconnect — the truth about cell phone radiation and The Secret History of the War on Cancer. LINK: https://medium.com/@devradavis **************************************************************

Dr. Martin Pall: EMF Research Papers: www.radiationresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/EU-EMF2018-6-11US3.pdf Dr. Martin Pall, PhD is Professor Emeritus in Biochemistry and Basic Medical Science from Washington State University; he is a leading exper t on the biological effects of radiation from cell phones, WiFi, & proposed 5G wireless technology. Re Dr. Pall’s Town Hall Series: www.CETH.ca – Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Humans. ♣ VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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Contributors in Andersen, Erik, BC…..............16 Annett, Kevin, BC……………23 Arney, Jeremy, BC…………..29 Atlee, Tom, Oregon………….59 Bjork, Jim, ON………………..25 Blair, Andrew, AB…………...04 Bowles, Paul, BC………..45, 60 Bruce, John (historical)...……05 Curtin, Edward, US…….........21 Davis, Devra, US (links)……..57 Flynn, Jerry, BC……...…..51-57 Foster, David Muir, ON…..19,40

dialogue, Vol. 32 No. 4 ~ Summer 2019

Global Research, QC……......17 Hall, Anthony James, AB 19-20 Hare, Susanne, BC…..cover, 41 Health Action Network………27 Kazdan, Larry, BC…………...04 Kemp, Penn, ON…….34-36, 59 Koenig, Peter, CRG, QC……17 Langman, Monica, MB………05 Lonsdale, Derrick, M.D.,US…31 Lyman, Eva (from)…………...57 Mathews, Robin, BC…..…..9-12 McCaslin, Susan, BC…....37-39

Moore, Richard K., Ireland….30 Neilly, Michael, ON………….28 Nikiforuk, Andrew, (link)…….59 Pall, Dr. Martin (link)...…..40, 57 Porter, J.S., ON………......43-45 Richard, Kelly Marie…………04 Riel, Louis (historical)…….….05 Ross, Lois, Rabble.ca ON.….07 Russell, Wayne, BC…...….....46 Shadbolt, John, ON………….06 Slade, Ken, Lithuania………..48 Spencer, Herb, BC.……...50,.59

If you missed the Special Edition (V.32-3SE) -with complete articles by R. Mathews, A.J. Hall & S.J. Webster You can read online at: https://tinyurl.com/dialogue-32-3SE [Read full-screen, with active links & downloadable pdf]

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Poems of Penn Kemp – W is for Wonder and for Wild Poems from Fox Haunts, by Penn Kemp: Why Here, Why Now

Your Lair is My Lair, Apparently

Like Canada geese, Fox may be adopting city life to avoid hunters, the tough slog of country life. Clever fellow.

Enter Fox through the cat door as it were his place. He offers a shoe one morning, then a sandal, then a clog, none paired.

Like their bandit raccoon brothers, Foxes are opportunists. Like coyotes, coydogs, even cougars, they encroach on what was once their own territory.

They look on the easy prey of pets, soft and vulnerable bichon frisés left outside by themselves in the yard, those with no defence but a petulant, startled bark— before they are meat, carried off dangling in the soft jaw of a mother triumphantly keen on feeding her kits. Given such ready supply of sweet, fat food, Foxes laugh and move in.

Return to sender all the assumptions from family patterns of illness and death. Return to sender whatever does not further. Return the template, tempus fugit. Fugue state in the face of the present.

Tennyson may have been thinking of Fox in declaring, “Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed–” Penn Kemp Fox Haunts, Aeolus House (Sept. 1 2018) ISBN-10: 1987872142

DIVIDED MINDS: A REVIEW/ESSAY OF “THE MASTER & HIS EMISSARY” by IAIN McGILCHRIST (2009) © H. J. Spencer [July2018] This is one of the most significant books I have read in my extended life; I have read thousands of books in the last sixty years but most disappear in that abyss we call memory. But not this one. This one has brought very important insights into my life that have transformed my present views on humanity:- it is Life-Changing.

After wasting too much of my life studying physics and mathematics, I have finally realized that it is biology that provides more answers; in particular, neuroscience is igniting with valuable new insights into psychology.

Unlike too much science that gets lost in details, this book is synthetic: it offers new views of the Big Picture.

The good news here is that these findings are optimistic for our future, while being readily understandable by any non-specialist. Ironically, this book is being better received by the educated public than by many of the specialist psychologists, who cannot face up to its dramatic implications. This is why I am reviewing it here.

This books attempts one of the broadest syntheses of modern times, as it lives up to its subtitle: “The Making of the Western World”. This book offers a new integrated overview of western civilization from Ancient Greek times onwards; it provides radical descriptions of the few www.dialogue.ca

times European thought has made positive leaps forwards and explanations of why and how we “went off the rails” so many times.

Although this book approaches its subject from a structural perspective, viewing our brains in terms of its two major halves, referred to throughout as the Left- and Right-Hemispheres, the author continually reminds the reader that we each possess a single brain that presents its activities to each of us as a single mind. He shows convincingly that when we try to ignore one half of our head, our lives suffer radically: hence divided minds.

This book succeeds in describing which functions of our mind are better managed by each hemisphere. Like all mammals, we need all of our brains working together to survive in a challenging world. However, the western intellectual tradition has over-emphasized domination by the Left-Hemisphere and its negative consequences are reviewed here in historic detail, as major cultural eras are analyzed to demonstrate the principal thesis.

I most highly recommend reading this important book.

Unfortunately, too many western intellectuals have spent many years improving the left side of their brain and will prove too incapable of altering their behaviors or beliefs; VOL. 32, NO. 4, SUMMER 2019

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so much so, that many will totally resist reading this book; others will simply reject its implications.

My only caveat is that the author wishes to preserve his acceptability within Academia (and conventional opinion) by not emphasizing the gender differences between the two hemispheres. As a result, those today in charge of our masculine, Warrior-based world, with their LeftHemispheres, will be surprised when the Women (who pay more attention to their Right-Hemispheres) ultimately inherit our damaged civilization to clean it up.

I can only confess to my growing pessimism about surviving in a world threatened by the technologies launched by my first profession. We may already be too close to the ‘Edge-of-the-Abyss’ to be salvaged. We’ll see.

READ HERB’S REVIEW at his website: https://herbspencer.academia.edu/research#bookreviews

Jessica Ernst has suffered another setback in her landmark fracking case Jessica Ernst’s 12-year legal battle over water contamination no nearer resolution… Jessica Ernst has spent 12 years and $400,000 pursuing a lawsuit against the Alberta fracking industry and its regulator. Now her Ontario lawyer has let go most of his staff and given up the case.

“I was shocked and felt terribly betrayed,” said Ernst.

“The legal system doesn’t want ordinary people in it.

They don’t want citizens who will not gag and settle out of court for money so corporations and government can continue their abuse.”

In 2007, Ernst, then an oil patch consultant with her own thriving business, sued the Alberta government, Alberta’s energy regulator and Encana. She alleged her well water had been contaminated by Encana’s fracking and government agencies had failed to investigate the problems.

Wise Democracy Pattern Language I’m Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute in Eugene Oregon. Years ago I worked with Tree and many others co-creating the GroupWorks pattern language.

That work inspired my friend and colleague Martin Rausch to help me develop a companion pattern language on “wise democracy”. After major support from GroupWorks advocate Rosa Zubizarreta - who many of you know - we created an expanded and improved version 2.0 of our wise democracy pattern language and have finally published it as a card deck you can buy!

Like the GroupWorks deck, these beautiful cards are well designed for individual use or for group exercises for... a) identifying key focus areas for generating collective wisdom; b) evaluating collective wisdom potential in initiatives, methodologies and systems; and c) deep learning in a vital emerging field of study and practice: to enhance the capacity of society’s governance to generate collective wisdom, i.e., long term broad benefits and healthy human and natural systems.

Our new card deck provides 96 patterns to facilitate wise outcomes and build systems capable of generating participatory wisdom on a regular basis. Every pattern is represented by a companion webpage filled with additional information and juicy questions, along with examples and resources to learn from and be inspired by.

We invite you to watch our 2-minute introductory video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-yKw_4Nx0E&feature=youtu.be (You can also watch me give an 8 minute intro at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBU6xndznpc&feature=youtu.be ) To get more info about this new resource or to buy a deck for $38, visit https://www.wd-pl.com/buy/ OR you can preview the patterns and cards at https://www.wd-pl.com/pattern-list-v2/ or download a free pdf copy of the whole deck at https://www.wd-pl.com/download/

For more than a decade the case has been bogged down by legal wrangling, legal posturing and constant delays. Three different judges have been involved.

Story by Andrew Nikiforuk at TheTyee: https://tinyurl.com/tt-80819 Andrew Nikiforuk’s book on the Ernst case, Slick Water, won a Science in Society Journalism Award from the U.S. National Association of Science Writers in 2016.

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