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The Labrador Syndrome. Tomorrow the election in Labrador will reveal whether there is any hope for Democracy left in Canada. Harperism means that partisan politics is policy for Neo Cons and elections are to be bought by bribery. Some will argue this is not new to Canadian politics but what is new is the belief that Government is not obliged to serve those who voted for someone else. This policy decision is further revealed by the undeclared war Harper has unleashed on Ontario and attempts to sabotage Ontario economic and science goals. The refusal to repair the docks that enable the Chi Cheemaun ferry to function is a direct blow to the Economy of North Eastern Ontario. The refusal to quickly enable Ontario and Manitoba to run, finance and manage The Great Lakes experimental Research Station is about hating science and environmental protection and protecting Canadians. If Penashue wins tomorrow we know the Joyce Murray way is the only hope.

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    Joseph Gold

    May 10 via Causes

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      PETITION: Get the Chi Cheemaun Running Again for Manitoulin Island

      Joseph Gold has invited you to sign a petition on Causes

      Your voice will make a difference. Sign the petition.

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    Joseph Gold shared a link.

    May 8

    My view is that Monsanto is the Number 1 enemy of humanity in the industrial world. Their plan to control and privatize all nature is the worst of horror fantasies becoming real. if we can not stop them somehow the end of this Earth Home is hastened. I am boycotting every company they own like Green Giant and Heinz. Get the list and buy NO MORE

    You won’t guess what they’re patenting now.

    act.watchdog.net

    Monsanto isn’t just forcing through patents on herbicides and pesticides — now they’re patenting common seed varieties and breeding methods too.

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    Joseph Gold

    April 22

    Rationalize means to explain AWAY, using reasoning to excuse some behaviour. For Instance, “good will come from this because even though he got lost for three days because I hid the compass, he came out of the bush having learned a lot”. The PM is one of the most accomplished rationalizers of all time. For instance he invented The Economic Action Plan whereby replacing Canadian workers will mak…See More

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The Labrador Syndrome. Tomorrow the election in Labrador will reveal whether there is any hope for Democracy left in Canada. Harperism means that partisan politics is policy for Neo Cons and elections are to be bought by bribery. Some will argue this is not new to Canadian politics but what is new is the belief that Government is not obliged to serve those who voted for someone else. This policy decision is further revealed by the undeclared war Harper has unleashed on Ontario and attempts to sabotage Ontario economic and science goals. The refusal to repair the docks that enable the Chi Cheemaun ferry to function is a direct blow to the Economy of North Eastern Ontario. The refusal to quickly enable Ontario and Manitoba to run, finance and manage The Great Lakes exerimental Research Station is about hating science and environmental protection and protecting Canadians. If Penashue wins tomorrow we know the Joyce Murray way is the only hope.

Rationalize means to explain AWAY, using reasoning to excuse some behaviour. For Instance, “good will come from this because even though he got lost for three days because I hid the compass, he came out of the bush having learned a lot”. The PM is one of the most accomplished rationalizers of all time. For instance he invented The Economic Action Plan whereby replacing Canadian workers will make us all more prosperous; piping oil across the continent is good for the environment; gutting the pension plan is good for the economy; firing government workers improves public service, etc. You get the idea? Does this mean that when he attacks Justin Trudeau for “rationalizing” he must be right? Only the PM tells the scientific truth, while opponents rationalize? But can we trust an expert rationalizer to detect someone else’s motivation? Is the PM also an expert character analyst or is he just an expert attack adder? Is this a case of don’t explain yourself, just silence and shout down the opposition? I just want to understand what is going
on. Too much root thinking for my own good?

Sorry guys but I can’t get over it, I mean the idea that wanting to know root causes is something anyone can be attacked for. My entire adult professional life has been devoted to understanding stories that shape people’s lives, in a search for root causes. But look, there is a bright side to this extraordinary attack from Stephen Harper on Justin Trudeau. What could be more helpful in searching for root causes than this confession from Harper? Now we know why Harper hates science. It searches for root causes. Now we know why he is so afraid of science. Because science goes where the evidence goes. It will not be restrained by an existing story. Harper does not want to go where the evidence might challenge his existing story. That is what ideology means. It means believing in an existing story that must not be changed by experience, and so experience must be contained. Thank you Mr. Harper for at last giving us some insight to the root causes of your need to bully and to your paranoia about being human. it must be torture to live trying to control everything and watching the attempt crumble.

Watching the news reports on both Boston bombing and Texas industrial disaster, I am struck by the continuous search for the root causes of each event. Americans want to know what happened, how it happened, how it grew from idea to action, what motivated the terrorists, how houses came to be allowed to mushroom into an immediate adjacent neighbourhood to a very dangerous facility, what are the social characteristics and contexts for these events and so on. In fact, Justin Trudeau was exactly right in honestly explaining that as PM he would want to know everything about this instead of resorting to a knee jerk ideological religious dogma about good and evil and punishment. Thinker versus Bully? I am about to send a donation to the Liberal Party and to The Canadian Liver foundation. I find Harperism intolerable and offensive to every kind of decency in a modern democracy.

The death of M. Thatcher reopened a chasm of competing beliefs about the role and purpose of government, as between ” Government Must Clear Obstacles from the Path of The Mega Rich”; vs ” Government must collect taxes to serve the basic needs of all those citizens who pay for it and of those who cannot afford taxes.” Reduce this to The Greed Party vs. The Service Party. Political Science 0.1
So if as M. Thatcher said, people must rely on themselves and not on the Government they pay for, why should they pay taxes at all and why have a government at all? Apparently so that working class slobs can get ripped off by directing money through Government to the rich and must not have the right to ask for anything back. Tommy Douglas asked why the mice always voted for the cats. I heard him ask this question in the days when I supported the NDP. He did not give the answer. My answer is that either the mice believe they can become cats,(as in the US), and if you controlled Cats how could a mouse become a filthy rich cat?; or being timid by nature they hope cats will protect them, being more powerful. But cats eat mice, as they are doing now in Canada. ” What a good place for cats,” they say to each other over lunch. “I am glad we came here.” There are no hungry cats, only hungry or dead mice and their number is growing. And Canadian Cats are getting fatter. This proves the Cat success of Thatcherism.

Justin Trudeau says that as Prime Minister he would want to know root causes of Crime and Terrorism in order to better understand the society he governs and to improve it. Mr. Harper says that is not necessary and as Prime Minister all he needs is to know who committed Evil and to punish them heavily. It is clear, is it not? Neo Cons, Thatcher and Harper, only want or wanted to view the world al Black and White, and they are or were devoted to Dualism and Simplicity. Mr. Trudeau wants to deepen our understanding and change a society to prevent Terrorism. And by the way the NDP are quite ready to join with the Neo Cons to defeat thought and research. What a boring and reactionary response to Evolution.

Since the Harper robo government has been very successful in dominating the process, why is the Opposition so incompetent as to be obsessed with Content?
Without effective process, the content cannot be addressed. Imagine you want to dump Toronto’s garbage into the headwaters of the Ottawa River valley. You know this is a bad, dangerous idea leading to major damage to health and environment. But the proponents of this bad idea have control of the process. The opponents agree to be gagged; they agree to a “scoped”, i.e. extremely limited approval process. Until they take back the process they must lose the battle, because the content cannot be reached. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Opposition, you have surrendered the process to those who want to dominate for Commercial Interests only. Take back the process or lose this struggle. When Kelly Leitch gets onto Power and Politics as she frequently does, she is sent there to control the process. At some point when she does not like the opponent comments enough, she raises the volume, yells non stop over all other voices and so drowns out content with process. Even Evan the host appears helpless to stop her and no on has yet challenged Evan or Leitch on this blatent abuse of process. And what about the Process of Omnibus Budget Bills? When will that be debated and banned?

Yesterday I watched QP in the Commons. April 15th. Have you ever done this? This has now become an exercise in being insulted. Pierre Poilievre, a Parliament Assistant, was appointed by the Harper government to answer a question on the ethics of Peter Panashue now running in the Labrador by-election in spite of having betrayed the trust of voters in the last election.
Watching this government directed theatre produced in me a feeling of being profoundly insulted, contemned, and defrauded. Three times in a row, Poilievre rose to repeat, word for word the same memorized defence of the resigned Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada. This defence could not should not be termed a “Speaking Note.” It was a memorized evasion of the question, pre-learned, unresponsive to the question, and repeated in imitation of a robotic, programmed phone message prepared by a corporate advertiser, only less human sounding. The effect of this was to reveal the depth of contempt for Parliament that characterizes this majority robo government.
And yet, day after day, the Opposition parties sit in total frustration and can do nothing but ask questions to which they know they will receive only robotic answers. How do they bear this? What else can they do? I know that I would be quite unable to stand it. I know that as an Opposition MP I would soon be thrown out of the House, if not charged with something. Long ago the Parties I support might have been willing to be thrown out one by one, so that every day someone would join the exiled growing group of outraged M.Ps who would then gain press interviews. But that was in the days when Canada came before personal ambition and money.
I seriously implore the two Opposition Parties to talk to each other at least about a rebellion in the House. At the first sign of a Robocall response from the Harper benches, and led by their Leaders, would you please do this for me, the voter: file out of the House to restore some dignity to our House of Commons and restore our belief in protest and resistance. You need be absent for that day only and return the next day, when once again, rather than be insulted again on our behalf, you would leave at the first hint of a robo reply to a real question. Since the House is obviously dysfuctional why delude the world that Canada is conducting democratic business as usual. It is not. At best we are keeping up appearances. It is broken. Those soldiers positioned on the roof of the Foreign Legion fortress as though to defend it are only a sham, they are dead. Reveal it is broken and stop lending credibility to the Harper regime by asking questions of human beings programmed to act as not human. Please wake up, we voted for you to defend our processes. Do not lend them credibility. You cannot debate with the Borg.

Teen age boys collude to bully and then rape and then cyber humiliate a 15year old schoolgirl. So what are they thinking and/or feeling? What drives them? What is the cultural setting or petrie dish environment in which these specimens grow? I don’t know that but I do know this. There is no norm left for transmitting decent, honest, caring modelling from their leaders, in Politics, Religion and Commerce. The Church with its Prince in Rome tolerates sexual abuse by priests and preaches forgiveness for child abusers by psychotic adults. Business and the Rich and avoid taxes by using Tax Havens offshore. Government encourages creating a jobless society in a managed race to the economic bottom and return to a wage slave economy. The gap between rich and poor gallops along without restraint. Banks lie. The environment is trashed by Harper acting on behalf of Oil interests. Native Canadians receive no Justice. What ethical framework can we offer our youth while we educate them to compassion, honesty, connectedness, and responsibility? Are we not all hypocrites? When will our outrage at injustice spill over into just saying no and refusing to cooperate with Governments, Churches and Business. When will we insist on teaching dissent at home and at school. We must recover courage and honesty. Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.