THE RECORD
May 23, 2001

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

The best comment I've heard on this past election came from Hubert Beyer that he wouldn't want to be in Gordon Campbell's shoes. We have a pool going on around here on how long Gordon is going to last in the job of Premier. The longest estimate is two years. His own Party may get rid of him because of his incompetence, or on the orders of the Liberals' big business bosses to hasten up the sellout of the Province before people wake up and stop them. It will happen one day, albeit the timetable is impossible to predict.

The only TV we watch is the BCTV 6 o'clock news, solely because of the time frame as 90 percent of it is pure sensationalist garbage of petty crime and sob stories, while the real news is hidden from the public. It was a safe bet for a long time that the first stories would be either some doped up punk beating up or shooting another, or with the words: "The Ennndeeepeee government........." , followed by a line of brainwash.

The propaganda line of BCTV and the rest of the controlled media is not necessarily against the NDP, but against the powers of any elected government. This won't change. The long term purpose is not the installation of governments friendly to people, but who are friendly and subservient to the artificial corporate entities that overrule the rights of human beings. This propaganda is directed against all forms of elected government for the purpose of their replacement with corporate dictatorships. The constantly repeated line is that governments are incompetent and all the problems can be solved by blanket deregulation and privatization of all services. In short: Governments are bad, business is good.

This is called democracy. Very similar to the so called "Peoples Democracies" of the Soviet era, where the Communist parties proudly proclaimed that by not having to make decisions and choices people were free. Their anthem was the Internationale, just another form of globalization under the control of a self appointed ruling class. Now we call them transnational directorships. In both cases the purpose was and is the total control of the thought process and of the economy to divert the benefits into the hands of the rulers. As the universities under Communist control were forced to teach Marxist economics, now they must teach the neo-classical, Chicago School kind of capitalist garbage.

Anybody with a computer hooked up to the Internet can look up the professional assessment of the potential impact of the presently negotiated GATS on public service systems. It is on a BC Government website at: http://www.ei.gov.bc.ca/Trade&Export/FTAA-WTO/WTO/ governmentalauth/htm.

It won't be there long because one of the first actions of the Campbell crew will be to erase any traces and doubts over the consequences of corporate globalization.

One of the funniest and most objective newsclips of the past election was when Campbell's bus was surrounded by about 20 or 30, mostly First nations, protesters and he didn't dare to come out to face them. He just sat in the bus for an hour scared out of his tree. There was no violence, or threats against him, but the demonstration was against the pre-programmed scripts and Gordon lost his cool. He was shown looking out of the window of the bus at a guy burning him in effigy, with terror written on his face. Then, when he met some of the protesters, his contribution was again the memorized propaganda line. Very similar to Ronald Reagan in the USA, and now with Dubya, who didn't have enough brains to get out of the rain without a script.

Well, the economy will be turned around all right, but what Gordon saw on Hastings St. is chicken feed in comparison of what is coming his way. For one thing, I don't think the new government will have any grace period. The owners of the BC Liberals have now tasted blood and their demands for payment for their investment will accelerate. It will take about a year to have the effects fully sink in, but the summer of 02 will be a hot one I am not looking forward to.

I expect to see large scale public service layoffs through privatization. Here again I agree with my friend Hubert Beyer that with the slump in the economy ICBC and BC Hydro will be cut up and put up for sale. The excuse will be to pay for BC's "horrendous debt", which in reality is only a fraction of Ontario's and just below Alberta's.

The new owners of the privatized services will swear that they won't cut staff and competition will lower costs, prices and improve service. A few months after takeover the wholesale firings will begin and our bills multiply. Services will go down the drain and if anybody dares to complain will be slapped with defamation suits as they are in New Zealand and other places.

If these Manning reformers think that their planned referendum and legislated expropriation of First Nation lands will be accepted they will be rudely awakened. Those days are over. This whole irresponsible exercise will bring on road blockades, violence, and world condemnation. Then we'll have the elimination of the Forest Practices Code and the inevitable devastation bringing on boycotts, the loosening of the fish farm regulations that may see the destruction of natural fish stocks, unchecked drillings for gas and oil to feed the energy waste causing irreparable pollution, the increased exports of raw logs, mill closures, the reawakening of the Solidarity movement and so on and on.

With the controlled media the people of BC are being kept in the dark about the worldwide growing desperation caused by policies now proposed for BC. Yes, they do create wealth and prosperity all right....for a small number. The majority are thrown to the dogs, but we can rest assured that they won't put up with it forever. There were over 800 major demonstrations, some involving millions of people, uprisings, and revolutions around the world last year against corporate rule. The numbers are growing every day, yet our media are like the little monkeys who see, hear and say nothing, while keeping the public opiated with petty crime stories.

Copyright (c) 2001, West's International