EssenceWest

Heaven help me, I’ve been watching Television for longer than I care to mention, a figure that can now be expressed in decades. While TV programming has become more diverse, the promise of an educational media that enriches our lives has fallen far short of its mark.

In the innocent early days of TV, there were war cartoon and  “mom and pop” shows which we now recognize as pure war-time and consumer propaganda, demoralizing our enemies or portraying an “ideal” and imaginary American lifestyle.

So, since most people’s real lives were far from ideal, this began spurring rampant buyer madness and causing credit debt, as well as eroding savings and causing trouble in families.

The lasting effect of these shows can be seen years later, runaway  economies  require escalating media blitzes to keep the economic engine running, while taxpayers who are unable to cope prop up a crumbling real estate and banking system, and live as working slaves.

Violence has been a staple ever since the beginning, and we have seen the hero characters in TV shows go from upstanding good guys to gritty and nasty killers. The occasional punch in the chops isn’t enough any more, we require greater violence, more explosions and more electrifying stunts than ever before. Ever since the   Sept 11th disaster,  every second film coming out of North America is a pawn of state sponsored, politically motivated counter-terrorist propaganda.

We are now angry and violent as a result of television gradually easing us into it over decades, and then the News Media want to know WHY the rates of crime are so high, WHY there are homeless in the street.

Now, the cable and local medias are even fighting it out in the ‘forum of public opinion’,  pure corporate propaganda, and a disgusting display of how media giants exercise their influence.

How is TV educating us? How is this good for us and our children? Should we not demand more from the media? The future that TV sells in present day time is violent, ugly and only provides the barest minimum of educational services.

What kind of responsiblility does TV have to the audience it is supposed to serve? More to the point, does television serve us or do we serve IT? They don’t call it ‘programming’ for noting.

Dan Boughen

Well, the cowardly Prime Minister is up to his old tricks again.

Wasn’t it just last year that Stephen Harper prorogued parliament to avoid a vote of non confidence?  December 4, 2008  Stephen Harper suspended Parliament, a move that avoided a confidence vote that could have toppled his minority government, and he’s at it again. For the second year running, the Prime Minister has given himself some extra time off, and in the dead week after Christmas, again prorogued parliament to break until late January after the Vancouver Olympics.

Shall we as Canadians begin to expect this kind of underhanded tactics from the leaders of our country? This proves to me how little Stephen Harper cares for the many Canadians out of work. Every bill in progress now has to be reintroduced in a new session of the legislature, wasting time and tax payer dollars. This means starting from scratch on every bill it is a colossal waste of time and money.

Stephen Harper is a poor leader. His old school tactics for hanging on to power now subvert the democratic process and sends the message to Canadians that leaders in power bear no responsibility, and will accept no blame whatsoever for the misfortunes that befall its citizens.

I’d like to see  an early spring surprise for Stephen Harper, as we demand a new leader, and that he be thrown out of office for neglecting the needs of Canadians while he and every tax paid legislator in Canada take an extra month off.

Stephen Harper does not want to take responsibility for the mess the country is in, but if something were to accidentally go right you can be absolutely sure that he would be the first in line to take the credit for it.

I’m sure this won’t be the last we will hear from democracy.

Dan

Recent stories of innocent citizens being killed in confrontations with the police are becoming a disturbingly frequent event, as it seems officers of the law are escalating to a much more violent stance towards dealing with members of the community.

Its a pretty sad state of affairs to hear of an officer pulling a gun on a homeless senior with a box-knife in east Vancouver, its as if the police don’t have the communication skills needed to compassionately deal with the public.

It is evident in the Robert Dziekanski case that they went far beyond their mandate when they murdered a defenseless citizen of another country, and far more sinister is the officers refusal to take responsibility for the actions that led to his death at Vancouver’s international airport.

The use of force against the citizens of Canada by its police force is an unacceptable development, and the instances of officers injuring or killing Canadians in custody is a symptom of something going wrong inside the organization.

When officers of the law engaged in the performance of their duties forget who they are supposed to protect, society loses respect for the rule of law and even officers of conscience who do protect the public are smeared and have a more difficult time engaging the public in fruitful law enforcement.

There are many law abiding people who think the hand of law is too heavy, and that they should never deploy weaponry  (lethal or otherwise) against the mainly unarmed constituency. Tests performed on New ‘non lethal’ weapons such as the ‘Taser’ prove that they are defective and dangerous, in spite of the manufacturers assurances to the contrary.

It seems to me the shell-shocked police are too afraid to do much but shoot first and ask questions later. They have developed a hair trigger, and we just cant be sure when the gun is going to go off, and accidentally kill another innocent citizen.

Sadly our local and national police do not trust us. Maybe we could get them a shrink?

Dan Boughen

..as the I.O.C. tightens security and strangles local business in the surrounding communities. Locals are finding out that Vanoc and the I.O.C. are planning a systematic rape of the local economy as the 2010 Winter Olympics come to Whistler BC this February.

Already Local mountain resorts are realizing that access to the mountains is too restricted to allow normal business and at least one heli-ski company has been denied access to local air-space citing I.O.C. security, and so has closed business for the year. Restricted access to airspace could also impact local search and rescue teams ability to perform needed operations on the mountans around the area.

This story has been already repeated in other cities, where the I.O.C. has left an enormous hole in local economies where it is hosted. It appears to this blogger that the highly paid and generously bribed V.A.N.O.C. and I.O.C. officials hold big rich parties for themselves and their wealthy and influential friends, while the recession weary local residents are left out in the cold, unable to pay the outrageous prices on double scalped tickets.

What is wrong with this picture?

Dan Boughen

The most common argument for legalization of cannabis these days is that the medical befits outweigh the negligible side effects caused by its use, and that on the toxicity scale, Cannabis is safer to use than any other pharmaceutical drugs, including aspirin. Add to this argument the damage that prohibition is doing to the fabric of society, and the picture becomes clearer.

In fact, prohibition of alcohol was once repealed for this very reason. The violent empire of Al Capone was founded on the existence of government prohibition. It grew fat on murder, rackets and violence until it reached into the highest levels of government and invaded it.

If Capone had not gotten this assistance from government policy, his and many of the other huge criminal organizations in North America might never have reached their present level of power and control over our lives. Regardless of whether alcohol was good for us or not, the level of corruption its prohibition produced and the violent empire it spawned became a severe social problem once it reached the highest levels of official government. He simply bribed crooked police officers and paid off political figures to look the other way in order to get the job done.

This policy failure is being repeated and continued due to the over 70 years of prohibition of Cannabis in the social marketplace. Clearly the demand for the product are still there, and the statistical  demographic percentage of people inclined to smoke cannabis has not changed, hovering in the single digits in spite of warnings of greater numbers of users. These stats too often are misrepresented by the ridiculous claim that based on a larger population, more people are being harmed by cannabis and its use.

So while the administrations of governments ignore the facts, new and more sophisticated crime agencies are arriving from Hong Kong, Russia, eastern Europe, and setting up fast growing enterprises, relying once more on prohibition to finance their activities and buy into legitimate business, influence and corrupt government on a scale never seen before.

The trouble begins there, and escalates as the new gangs compete with one another for rival territories, employ violent new weapons to attack each other and protect their interests,  causing terror and mayhem, and introducing more addictive drugs to their clientele. Soon they may own large companies, and begin influencing policy locally, treating society as a thing to be used for the sole purpose of greedy profits. Prohibition allows organized crime to become a monkey on everyones back.

There isn’t a single good thing that comes about from prohibition. You can bet your bottom buck that the Triads, Mafia and the Hell’s Angels don’t give a rats ass for social health-care, since in the eyes of organized crime, old people represent a spent resource. The time for making nicey-nicey talk, shunting propaganda  and quasi-debating the pros and cons is finished.

Go ahead and ask your local politician this:

Are you in favor of  patients being punished by the prohibition of Cannabis?
Will you   Aid organized crime by supporting prohibition in the 21st century?
Will you stand up for your constituents and  end the corruption in government caused by prohibition?
And you don’t have to be nice about it, those officials are your servants.

with hopes for the end to social warfare.

Dan Boughen

Welcome to EssenceWest! This is my first post.  I am in Langley, BC and i will be blogging about local issues here on the west coast, nationally, and pretty much anything I feel like. Look out world!
Dan Boughen