Senior Dies In Alberta After Hunger Strike

I guess Belinda is more attractive then this story about the suffering our seniors are dealing with? Sad, no wonder the voices of the oppressed are never heard. This makes me very sad, and very frustrated!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

I think the real question here is why do Albertans keep electing governments that think taking care of corporate interests first and foremost will automatically address social problems. From the start this Klein government has been going around putting out these little political fires, usually ones they have had at least a hand in creating through their zeal for privatization (senior long term care was just recently turned over completely to the private sector here).

In case anyone is wondering what sort of conditions this senior was protesting here is an example. It has been reported just recently in the papers here that it is common for staff at these facilities to start dressing residents at 3:00 or 4:00 AM for breakfast at 8:00 AM because they are so short staffed. There was another reported case given by a staff member that residents who are incontinent of stool or urine are being allotted two adult diapers per day because the budget doesn't allow for any more than that (they are left to wallow in their own feces and urine if they need more).

Not only should the Tory government here be ashamed but anyone who has voted time and again for a government that has so little regard for the citizens who built this province should be equally ashamed. Maybe in the next election here before people are allowed to vote Tory they should be forced to wear soiled diapers for two or three days so they can make a more informed choice the consequences of their party's policies.

<p>As a diabetic, not eating for four consecutive days was like playing Russian roulette with no empty chambers. Both she and the facility staff must have been aware of that…</p>

That is how desperate she was to get help, that is what we have reduced our seniors to, crying for help from a government that simply doesn't care, and refuses to hear. The auditor general's report, was critical to exposing some of this stuff, and the minister in charge, tried to downplay the report. Rather than address the concerns, which have been complained about by many, for several years. We had a lady in one of our homes, that had stopped going to the dining room to eat with the other residents, in a seniors home, because she couldn't bath herself, she was in a wheelchair, and she felt she smelled bad, could only get a bath once a week. This is disgusting way to treat people, we have people out there screaming about dying with dignity, everyone is for letting them die, but how about letting them live with dignity!!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

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“ I think the real question here is why do Albertans keep electing governments that think taking care of corporate interests first and foremost will automatically address social problems.”<br />
<br />
It is becoming more and more difficult to restrain myself as I read some of the offering here in regard to Canadian voting habits. <br />
Drop the sanctimonious posturing and begin to realise the problem exists wherever there is an electorate.<br />
BC has elected the exact same mentality and Campbell’s government flies the Liberal flag.<br />
The party name means little these days <br />
<br />
Until people get their head around who is behind to-days politicos expect more of the same.<br />
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<a href="http://www.sfu.ca/cmns/research/newswatch/pcc/95-5.html">http://www.sfu.ca/cmns/research/newswatch/pcc/95-5.html</a><br />
<p>---<br> "There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." <br />
Alfred Korzybski <br />

We over here know the problems in BC. We also know that these problems started to manifest themselves when BC voters elected the same sort of government as Ralph Klein's tories with a Liberal name. It is not sanctimonious when describing such stupid, destructive, and selfish voting habits. Maybe your one of the ones voting these governments in and your feeling guilty. I for one can proudly proclaim that I have never voted for Ralph Klein in my life, although I voted Tory when Loughheed was in charge because he was a true conservative and understood how to use society's resources for the benefit of the general population. If's that santimonious, so be it; please join the club of the santimonious and we can get rid of these people and start to get our country back. Otherwise, I hope you are looking forward to the same treatment when you are in the same situation as these seniors today.

As a 78 year old BC voter myself, albeit in good health, still working full time on a variety of projects and completely free of any medications, I would like to point out that governments, aristocracies, ruling classes and dictators through human history have always relied on and used the blessings of priesthoods to justify their dirty work and even mass murder, sold to the public as the "will of the gods". All conquests and colonizations in history have been excused as the "spreading of the faith". These horror stories we're witnessing and hear about today are not instigated by governments, but by the economics departments of our universities, the new pseudo priesthoods, who are developing the theories as the ideological background for the biggest crimes against the environment and humanity in history. Yet, like the priesthoods of the past, they remain untouchable and sacrosanct from any questioning and criticism. The governments are only the puppets in the hands of a vicious, insatiable ruling class who buy and pay the professors, and "conservative economic think tanks", like the Fraser and CD Howe Institutes, teaching these theories as "sound economics". Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

OK Michael

About what percentage of Albertans constitute the “we” you speak of?

Apparently not enough, otherwise there would be no need for the quasi retort – “We Albertans… blah, blah, blah…” in your subsequent response

Your initial post opens with the perhaps rhetorical question, and goes on to display a fine grasp of the ‘lack of knowledge’ in its continuation.


“I think the real question here is why do Albertans keep electing governments that think taking care of corporate interests first and foremost will automatically address social problems.”

I made an attempt to respond to your question and stick by that response.
“Until people get their head around who is behind to-days politicos expect more of the same.”

You claim, “ … these problems started to manifest themselves when BC voters elected the same sort of government as Ralph Klein's tories…” and I’m telling you the problem started when a gullible electorate started accepting without question the lies fed to them by Parties in the employ of bankers and international corporations.

The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is more important of all, the banker of the backer. Throned above all, in a manner without parallel in all the past, is the veiled prophet of finance, swaying all men living by a sort of magic. - G. K. Chesterton


OK Now I’m kinda finished with my little rant, BUT!
Here is the situation as I see it those of us with backgrounds in the working class MUST educate ourselves, and our fellows, to the techniques of the ruling class.

I may owe you an apology for my manner of response. I haven’t quite decided on that.
And one thing is certain our bickering will not serve either of us.
And by the way Michael, I have been suffering at the hands of the corporatists and bankers all my life, as have all others who are working class and fully expect to continue to do so until either I take personal responsibility or there is a massive intellectual awakening.

(I’m stickin with the personal responsibility)





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"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking."
Alfred Korzybski

Well I ran for MLA in Alberta last provincial election and I can tell you that, the con candidate did not say much, in fact when he did speak he stated party line, which was everything is fine, we like it the way it is and we aren't going to change much; but the voters did not chose to hear, I was impressed by the youth, they listened, they cared about not only education, and jobs, they wondered about their grandparents care, and the healthcare system. The youth gave me hope, whereas the middle age group somehow still can't hear, due to(IMO) the cultural revolution called, 'me first' which has stuck with many of them.

But I wanted to call attention to this matter, because this woman put everything she had on the line, not really for herself, as she knew what it would do to her, so she did it for the sake of others. That is a huge sacrifice, and it should be noticed! The fact that it is happening everywhere, means that the majority of their voices are not being listened to, so we that can speak, have a moral obligation to do so. IMO

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

See my blog comment on this story and the whole issue of the Klein governments failure to support seniors and children at: <a href="http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/05/killer-klein.html"> Killer Klein</a>

Shame on y'all
Using volume of enteries as a gauge the martyrdom of senior Marie Geddes goes by with barely a whisper of response while some 'wiser than thou' American (?) troll jumps into the fray with a bunch of sophist poo and y'all are after him like a pack of braying hound dogs catching the scent of a gravy smeared hare.
How many of us have the kind of fortitude of a Marie Geddes?



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"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking."
Alfred Korzybski

hear hear! Volume of comments is no indication of anything useful.

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Every time you complain about the moderators, god kills a kitten.

That was a very sad situation.

You think with all the money Ralphie brags about that they have, they could put more of it into health care.

Well, as I remember it, it was Lougheed who stopped paying the bills and started putting the money in the Heritage slush fund instead. Then when the bills piled up and the interest piled up , his government began taking apart the provincial workforce. Downsizing, wage cutting, selling off government corps to the private sector, raising students tuition fees, charging premiums for health care and allowing the municipal infrastructures to atrophy. Yes, if you voted for Lougheed then you were duped.
The important thing is what you are doing now because we can't change the past.