THE RECORD
March 20, 2002

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Let's start off with some quotations from various, never a dull moment, BC politicians. Jenny Kwan of the overworked Opposition caucus of two was here in Williams Lake last week, listening to the horror stories already enfolding in this area with people losing their jobs, homes and health in this new era of wealth creating prosperity.

Quoting from a report by the Williams Lake Tribune, Kwan claimed that not a single Liberal MLA stood up and expressed concerns over the cuts to women's centres, legal aid and so on. All they did was to praise the budget and the Throne Speech, without the slightest concern for the many thousands who might be ruined. Then the report goes on: "Kwan said when she raised a question about forestry, Forest Minister Mike de Jong stood up, pointed a finger at Joy and I and said, 'you two women sit in your cappuccino bar in Vancouver and don't know anything about forestry issues" Nice guy! I suppose it takes a lawyer from Abbotsford to know!

Thank goodness, I came across de Jong only once, when the first Budget Committee came to town in November of 2000 and that was enough for a lifetime. The rules were that each presenter had ten minutes, followed by a five minute question period. I was the first in the line and in my presentation I explained why the currently raging neo classical economic theory, or if you like the neo-liberal ideology of capitalism, was false, criminal and mathematically impossible to deliver. Why it's worldwide effects are growing destitution and environmental destruction, which I backed up by a long list of enclosures, facts, figures and evidence. Now, a year and a half later, I am sorry to say that everything I wrote then and for the past fifteen years on the subject, has come true in spades and things will only get worse. There's no way out, as long as this theory is permitted to rage.

De Jong was sitting first on the right side of the Chair and as I was reading he was getting redder and redder in his face, right to the top of his head. I thought he'd have a stroke at any minute, but neither he, or any of the Liberals have said a single word, or asked a question. They just sat there in stony silence with steam pouring out of their nostrils and ears. The whole process was obviously way above their intellects and dogmatic beliefs. In a way I was hoping de Jong would say something so I could have laid him flat, but he never gave me the chance.

How are your Liberal MLAs for accessibility? All we can hear from all around the province is that they are hiding and don't answer their phone messages or correspondence. Our two local seatwarmers are very good examples of the disappearing politicians. John Wilson was a deadbeat since the very beginning in the previous parliament, now he's hiding so deep in the woodwork that it would take a woodpecker with a jackhammer to find him.

Here's another quote from the Cariboo Advisor, from the pen of Ernie Engemoen: "Mayor Bonnell told the story of former MLA David Zirnhelt who showed up at the huge, 1000 person Unite the Right rally. Zirnhelt sat in the front row and looked at his detractors square in the eye. This was during a time when the NDP was at its most hated level. Posters hung in the room quoting an embarrassing line uttered by Zirnhelt. Cat-calls and boos rained down, but Zirnhelt held his ground without flinching. However, a puny, peaceful 30 person protest in front of MLA Cobb's office had the door latched in their faces. Mayor Bonnell wondered where the local Liberal MLAs stand on some of these important issues.?" End of quote. This is true, I wasn't there, but this was well covered in all our media. Dave was accompanied by Terry Tate of the IWA.

Both the Mayor and Ernie can keep on wondering, as they'll never get a straight answer out of this lot. The best they can come up with are quotations from the Fraser Institute, Preston Manning and Stockwell Day that everything will be allright, just sign the blank cheque.

The award for the silly quote of the week goes to Health Minister Colin Hansen, who said in a media scrum on BCTV that the doctors' awards must wait because "money doesn't grow on trees"

Well Colin, this is where you and your pathetic bunch are wrong, because money does indeed grow from trees, the land, the sea and the waters. Most people, including many politicians, still think of money in the long gone gold standard and regulated banks times. I've never been in favour of the gold standards, but at least under them money represented something and in effect it was a form of barter. Goods and services in exchange of solid values represented in gold, or its symbol in paper money. There was still some kind of a reality involved when banks were only permitted to loan out monies at the rate of $20 for every dollar on deposit. It was still some kind of a limiting factor governed and enforced by inspectors responsible to the public.

Then the US government under Ronald Reagan deregulated the banks, as many if not most American banks have exceeded their money creation limits and were in fact bankrupt, or should have been closed down by the then existing laws. Ronnie gave them the green flag to go wild and make their own rules, while transferring the liabilities of their mad money creation schemes on the public. After that came Mulroney, who jumped on the bandwagon of competitiveness and deregulated the Canadian banks in 1991. Things have been going downhill ever since.

These deregulated banks are now permitted to create almost endless amounts of monies against resources in other lands and the hoped for profits, then account these loans as assets against which to create more worthless dollars. They know that the majority of that imaginary capital will go to other countries, forcing them to give up their resources at the cost of millions going hungry and little kids dying of starvation, because if they don't they'll be crushed.

We can rest assured the resources of BC are standing in the account books of foreign banks as their properties, to which the citizens of BC have no right and as we can see in the actions of our provincial and federal governments, we are forced to submit to this pyramid scam, or our great friends, cousins and neighbours will come and lower the boom on us.
So, you see Colin, money does indeed grow on trees, but we who are supposed to own the trees are not permitted to pick from them and your gang will make it sure that we never will.

Copyright (c) 2002, West's International