Are We Being Played?

Good questions Catherine, I have often wondered the same things myself. I suppose it could be the "ignorance is bliss so I must hide from the truth to maintain my happiness" syndrome or "kill the messenger" syndrome. I read a CIA document awhile ago, contained therein was the assertion that a successful propaganda campaign results in people "pulling blinds" on their awareness when certain topics are raised. They immediately tune out the message so that no thought is given at all.

You can see it happen when the "JFK conspiracy" or "911 conspiracy" are mentioned. Normally intelligent people suddenly become unable to hear or intelligently assess any evidence or questions.

I can understand the "reporters" being under the control of their corporate bosses and kowtowing so that they might advance their careers. You don't ask the wrong question if you want to be accepted by the herd, Dan Rather mentioned this recently although he called the process being necklaced, an exaggeration used to soothe his troubled conscience troubled by the his betrayal of journalistic ethics I suspect.

What I have never understood is the common persons inability or refusal to see that we are manipulated by the rich and powerful.

I note all your examples of media manipulation are of a right-wing party doing the manipulating. I am amazed you can overlook the much more blatant fearmongering and brainwashing the Liberals were using during this election campaign. Push polling like the question asked in telephone surveys by the Liberals in Ontario, "Would you vote conservative if you knew that the party had been taken over by Christian Fundamentalists?" is not only encouraging unreasonable fear, but it is implying an event that has not taken place in any respect. Then there are the attack ads and speech references to a "hidden agenda" like the Conservative Party have this huge plan to disassemble Canada. Portraying your opponent like this is ridiculous and unfair - you stop fighting the issues and start pointing out things that cannot be rebutted because they don't exist! It smacks of accusing Jews of having a hidden agenda too ...attempting world domination.

Yet this tactic is somehow permissible by the left. If the liberals use Nazi Party tactics to scare voters into electing them, that is fine, because Liberals are real Canadians, never mind they are led by millionaire lawyers. Contrast this with the Conservatives, led by an average joe Albertan with no contacts in Canada's social elite. Who is representing the real Canada?

We are being played, but not by the Conservatives: by the Liberals. It has worked for 12 years, and it worked again this year.

There's always some "playing" going on in politics; even the NDP does it sometimes. You feel like "the people" don't matter because we don't. The idea is to keep the public in its cage & quiet and nothing else. We're only supposed to show up every few years and pick one or another faction of the business party & then go home & tune out again. A 60% turnout during the election is a huge success for the business community & probably many politicians just because so few people take it seriously. If so few people take it seriously I think the business community & the politicians will be freer to do whatever they want, and that's good for them. The whole point is to propagate voter apathy one way or another. <P> (it's the national treatment clause in the investment & services chapters that would allow the spread of private American clinics across the country. They'd say to a provincial government, "you have to let us because Alberta did.")<p>---<br>"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson

Nice article. I was delighted to see a link to it on the *FRONT PAGE* of <a href="http://news.google.ca">news.google.ca</a> Some nice exposure for vive.

Hear hear! Forcing a your opponent to prove a negative (logically impossible) only creates doubt that is insurmountable. <p> How can you show someone that there is no hidden agenda? But I can prove to you that the Liberals have been wasting our money, stealing from CPP and UI and levying hidden taxes in CPP and UI and Airport Security fees and gas taxes and . . ., for years.<p> If Ontairo wanted to cast a protest vote - knowing the West would go right-wing - why couldn't they go left? They've done it provincially before! Then we would have had a 3 way minority . . . <p> <p>---<br>"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" Mark Twain <br />
"The greatest price of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors." Plato

The Liberals 'played' Ontario and the Maratimes like a tune. Now we're guaranteed poor health that will cost a fortune. No innovative practices are allowed to intrude into health care delivery due to the Canada Health Act and Canadians are suffering because of it. I agree that people should take the time to become more and better informed about health care delivery - there are more than two dozen countries in the world that guarantee access to health care, it is certainly not a uniquely Canadian thing, let's adopt some of the practices that work from their health systems. Cuba, North Korea and Canada are the only countries in the world where it is illegal for a person to pursue care without the government's involvement - where are our Charter Rights? Does this document mean nothing? or does it only have meaning when a Liberal government wants it to? Played or not, the Liberals have guaranteed Canadians that they will line up for health care, a slightly shorter line than before perhaps, but definitely a line up. This is 'progressive' Canada?

One more time, why do we need to wipe out a whole national program just because it isn't working as well as it could? Why not just tweak it? I notice you point out Cuba & North Korea both have ONLY a public system. Isn't it weird that those countries have a universal health system but they aren't nearly as well-off as Canada is but there are still people here who are trying to say that ours is unsustainable? <P> It doesn't sound like you've made an informed opinion either. I think if you actually read some stuff about for-profit & non-profit health system you would have found that ours is much cheaper, more efficient & has a lower risk for the patient than a for-profit system. Privatisation isn't the only way it can change you know.<p>---<br>"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson

??? you're kidding right? North Koreans eat grass they're so poor - they have a 'health care system' in name and law only - not a system that can actually deliver much of anything. The poor Cuban system is not much better, they may have physicians, but few tools that these physicians can use to treat people.

Here is my model of logic explaining how we arrived at this state:

Politics has always been a competition for power and one of the fundamental rules in this game is: you can do whatever the majority will let you get away with.

In other words, you can do anything you want as long as you CONVINCE as many people as you can to let you do it, and you remove/suppress the powerful and stubborn opposers (whether they are another party or just an ensemble of angry people).

As an example, if a "rich" person wants to do something that is currently "illegal", he/she can throw money at law makers to bend/define/expire laws so the desired act is no longer considered illegal. To the law makers (= politicians), more money means more power so they willingly accept and make the change. Most citizens accept all legislation without questioning it (we should be ashamed for this), so the new law is thereby officially accepted and everyone is happy.

Sometimes the politicians go too far and the majority of citizens reject the new law, usually leading to "voting out" the governing party at the next election, or in extreme cases a revolt. Either way, the leading politician has to do everything in his/her power to avoid being voted out and especially avoid a revolution.

Revolts are more complex and, once started, are difficult to stop than the willingness to vote a leader out, but both are still difficult to defend against so it makes sense for the leading party to take preventative action and remove willingness (example, numbing of the mind and/or spirit) or opportunity (example, preoccuping the thought process) to revolt or vote .

I know I'm being very vague and abstract, but that's the basic formula I've seen at work in Canada for many years. Here are some specifics of what I'm talking about when I say "removing willingness and opportunity":

Canada's elections are held, for the most part, when the governing party wants to hold it. There are limitations, but they still can strategically plant the date that best suits them. In this election I'm confident Mr. Martin chose to hold the election early to limit time for the new Conservative party to properly introduce themselves to the country (I think they were 8 months old?), forcing them to quickly organize to advertise. As a result, some aspects of their platform hadn't even been uniformally decided and the resulting confusion caused everyone to ask if there was a hidden agenda, an outcome I'm sure Mr. Martin was aiming for. Had this election date been established several years in advance I think all parties could've had equal chance of preparing.

Mr. Martin also planted the election date right in the middle of vacation season (a few days prior to Canada Day!), and I'm confident this was to limit opportunity to get out to the polls. While this is not a major deal, it's still a tactic used to win (pull out all stops).

But most importantly, Canadians are too dependent on TV & radio and the "news" fed by the media. Obviously, politicians are aware of this dependancy and play heavily on it. Those politicians with the most money and experience in the area can easily convince Canadians of ANYTHING they want.

For example, before the election how concerned were you about the health care system? How concerned were you with the mismanagement of tax dollars (ie. the scandal)? Before the election call, the media was buzzing about the scandal and I thought the Liberals would surely be severely punished for their crime (it was, after all, a crime). However, in just a matter of 4 weeks the Liberals managed to convince the majority that the health care system was more important than the management of their tax dollars, in holywood style (ie. false statements made in advertisements against Conservatives).

This post is getting long so I'll summarize by emphasizing that last point: Canadians are too dependant on TV/Radio for "factual" and useful information. This dependancy numbs the mind because it's easier to "learn" by sitting on the couch and watching a paid-for biased presentation rather than going to the library to research, or than talking directly with the politicians (by letter, phone, email, etc.), or than making a personal effort to ask other people what they think is really important.

As long as this remains the case, Canadians will always make better pawns than kings and queens.

Maybe the examples used were involving Klein but the larger issue is not a partisan one. It is the political "game" and yes Whelan Costan we are being played. We're given the "you can vote" card which most would believe gives us some sort of freedom, power or democracy but then the dice we're given to roll are flat and the game board we're supposed to move around on stands vertical in front of us. I've submitted an article today that I hope shows because it made me think along these same line. It's all to keep the masses thinking we should be feeling good because we have a choice yet our instincts tell us we're being messed with and that feels bad.

Anon,

You're really something. You keep blaming the Liberals for being in government. I wonder who put them there? I'll tell you. All the people that actually voted Liberal, and all the people that did not vote Conservative. Get over it already!!! You do not want to live in a democracy, that's pretty obvious so you may find N. Korea a place you could find some comfort in. And hey, if you're one of the rich you could be the one making all the rules. And I may even suggest that in a few years, if you can keep from pissing your pants, you and your other "we're the only ones that count" buddies will be dictating to all of Canada. Grow up, wait your turn!

You've exactly missed the point of this thread. Who put the Liberals in power? you say it's as simple as "all the voters who voted Liberal". The point of the thread is that the voters were played as pawns in a political game, therefore they did not really choose Liberals out of free choice, rather the Liberals were put in power only because the Liberals did the best job of turning Canadians and the "system" into their personal pawns.

So if they're so dirt poor how can they have an "unsustainable" publicly-operated system like ours? You forget that universal health care was started in one of the poorest provinces of the day. I think you lose the right to even talk about this until you read up on public vs private systems (I'll give you thousands of sources from the medical community) & the Romanow report.

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"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson

....and of course the people in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta & BC aren't pawns in a political game, and surely weren't pawns in the Conservatives' political game. How do I know that? Because you voted Conservative! (right?) <P> If you're referring to the Liberals' "scare tactics" I challenge you to try to independently verify all their claims re: Harper's past. Ever heard of fact-checking? Try to check all their facts & then report back to us.<p>---<br>"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson