managed or real - democracy in canada

8/15/2019 Managed or Real - Democracy in Canada

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Managed or 'Real' Democracy in Canada??

byDave Patterson, Oct/06

Outside-the-box Green Island Docs[p

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important

element in democratic society. ... Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an

invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. . . . In almost every act of our daily

lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are

dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social

patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

- (Edward Bernays (1928) Propaganda)

"These students are in high school now,and they will do what they are told. They can start to think for

themselves when they get to university.."

(G MacDonald, principal of a junior high school in PEI c1989, in a dispute with teacher Rick Morin wherein Morin

lost his job for trying to show a film concerning religious fundamentalists in the USA - the CBC stories seem to be

unretrievable, but the 1999 judgment against Morincan be found here)

1: Thesis:Canadians are told, and seem to generally believe, that they live in a 'democracy', that is to say, (1)they elect their government through regular and fair elections, (2) that government is responsible to the Canadianpeople and to them alone for the way the country is run, and (3) therefore the Canadian people, as a whole, control

their country - there may be different opinions between various groups of Canadians concerning any particularpolicy, but in the end, the majority rules, as in any modern democracy.

Actually, although the above statement does indeed reflect the theory of government in Canada as taught in schooland promoted through the media, the reality is somewhat different - as two of the statements are completelyfalse in practice, and the third leaves out considerable important information so that, while not actually false onthe surface, it conveys a meaning that is completely false in practice.

In brief, although Canadians do have regular and more or less fairly administrated elections, the pool of peoplethey choose from is compromised and restricted in various ways and the different candidates not presentedequally, rendering the actual decision of the voters something less than 'fair and free'; following the election, the

people they elect are not under their control, but under the control of 'the party', which in turn is much moresubject to the wishes of the wealthy elite in Canada who fund them than to the people who 'elect' them, and who inreturn set the policies of the Canadian government for the benefit of that elite, policies which are in virtually allsuch cases contrary to the best interests or wishes of Canadians. Thus Canada is not actually a 'real' democracy,run by the people, but more correctly something more like a 'managed' democracy, with the managers presentingthe illusion of 'we the people' democracy whilst actually controlling the country from behind the scenes for theirown best interests, rather than the interests of the people of Canada.

The 'prima facie' case for the assertion is pretty much unassailable, if one agrees that the single central tenet of

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'democracy' is that 'the majority rules'. Consider a simple example:

60-70% of Canadians have consistently indicated in polls for decades that marijuana should not be illegal, yetgovernment after government refuses to remove the often serious criminal sanctions for growing or smoking it(sanctions which were never implemented through any sort of 'democratic' demand in the first place, one mightnote). Quite obviously, the 'representatives' being elected by Canadians in their 'representative' democracy,

election after election after election, are not representing the wishes of a solid majority of Canadians concerningthe legal status of this widely used (or accepted) drug. This is a serious matter, not something trivial, as it involvesthe jailing of and/or saddling with criminal records tens of thousands of people yearly, with huge financial costs tothem as well, and also provides a basis for much of the organized crime in Canada, which causes many relatedproblems and also absorbs huge amounts of taxpayer money. This matter not being addressed by one government oreven a couple might be explainable by various excuses, but continually over many years and governments, with thewishes of Canadians not changing and being well known to the 'representatives' in various ways, with such seriousconsequences, is clearly systematic and must make it evident that some other force is directing the Canadianparliament to over-ride and/or ignore the wishes of a majority of Canadians.

It is thus quite obvious that those 60-70% of Canadians who disagree with the drug laws in regard to marijuana, a

consistent and solid majority, have no input into what happens in Canada - so it becomes equally obvious thatsomeone behind the scenes is managing the 'democracy' for their own personal interests and priorities, whateverthey might be, overriding the will of the majority - the 'rule by majority' being normally the benchmark of ademocratic system.

The marijuana situation is, of course, far from some sort of 'exception that proves the rule' or some otherrationalisation of this obvious, longterm, systematic and very undemocratic situation, and one might note manysimilar things over the past few years. A small sample only might include such major things as the fact thatconsiderably more Canadians voted against both the FTA and NAFTA than supported them - yet both were signedinto law; the fact that for the last 25 years a solid majority of Canadians (upwards of 80%) have expressed theirdesire for the health care system to be properly funded and maintained, whilst not really being concerned about

reducing corporate taxes, yet government after government since the Mulroney years has done just the opposite,slashing spending on health care and other social programs most Canadians value while also slashing corporatetaxes, budget after budget; or military excursions following the lead of the US, such as the bombing of Yugoslaviaor the current 'occupation force' in Afghanistan, which are and have been opposed by solid majorities of Canadiansyet the government pays no attention to the wishes of the majority of citizens and follows the US along on theseillegal international aggressions (some might protest that these are actually NATO missions, which they technicallymay be, but they have still been opposed by most Canadians and it's a separate discussion as to who is actuallycalling the shots - I myself feel it would be dishonest to pretend to believe the NATO fiction).

One might note two other things also. First, this 'non-representativeness' is not related to 'party', as both majorparties switch sides with winning or losing elections - that is, the Mulroney Conservatives tried to implementNAFTA, but were voted out very decisively in favor of the Libs of the day, who said they opposed NAFTA as didmost Canadians and promised very firmly to at least change it to something better - but as soon as the Libs wereelected, they decided NAFTA was fine as it was and signed it into law and have been ever since its greatchampions; and in terms of, for instance, tax cutting or supporting the Afghanistan operation, most members ofboth major parties support such policies - leaving the majority of Canadians who oppose the whole thing where????- and secondly, that the government undertakes various initiatives with no consultation with the people whatsoever,no mention in election campaigns, no national debate, no pretense of 'democratically driven initiatives' at all, fromrelatively minor but quite distasteful and cynicism-breeding things such as continually raising their own 'benefitpackages' immediately after elections whilst cutting back all services for the people they supposedly work for

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(have you EVER heard in an election campaign "If elected, we plan to raise our salaries as we feel your MPs areterribly underpaid - if you agree, please vote for us!!!"?? - of course not), to things of considerably more substancesuch as incurring the huge 'national debt', a scam of monstrous proportions, done with no consultation whatsoeverwith the Canadian people, actually in considerable secrecy overall, the details of which have never been revealed toCanadians (for a brief explanation see The Great Canadian National Debt Scam, orthe COMER website has manyrelated articles - check esp the ones on banks and bank bailouts in the early 1980s and 1990s; the Canadian Action

Party also has some interesting info on sane financial policies).

And we might note also in a related sense - the other side of the coin, as it were - that when the behind-the-scenes managers wish something, such as 'free trade' treaties and related things, or the ongoing corporate taxcuts, the government manages to act quite expeditiously with minimal 'consultation' and delay, even though amajority of Canadians oppose such things, while with things the behind-the-scenes managers evidently do not want,such as strong environmental protection laws in Canada or proper maintenance of the health care system and othersocial programs, which a solid majority of Canadians say they do want, the government manages to find excuses toavoid acting more or less forever (they talk a great show, of course, in response to the obvious wishes ofCanadians, but always manage to find excuses to actually avoid doing anything useful). Such behavior, ongoing overmany years, through various types of governments, can be seen as little else than systematic, in that someone

behind the scenes is managing the 'democracy' in the interests and wishes of someone other than the citizens ofCanada.

So the question remains - if the government, that is to say the 'democratically elected representatives' ofCanadian voters - are not following the wishes of a majority of Canadians, as they quite obviously are not in theabove-mentioned and many other things - then under what rationale is the country called a 'democracy', whose oneessential premise in every definition you care to look up is involved with 'majority' rule? (As to whose wishes theyactually are following, well that would be another longish tangent in an already longish essay - perhaps if you findthe arguments herein persuasive that Canadians themselves are not actually in charge of their own country, youcould do a bit of your own research and thinking as to who actually is running the place - it's no great secret whosegeneral policy wishes are being carried out by the Canadian government, really, it's just something you won't find

talked about in the mainstream media - about which more later).

So it is difficult to deny that the political situation in Canada looks very much like some kind of 'manageddemocracy', wherein 'you the people' are given the trappings of democracy (mainly regular elections and a more-or-less universal 'franchise') - but when decisions are ultimately made on at least the more important issues of theday, they are made not according to the wishes of a majority of citizens, but according to the wishes of someother group of people. And that may be called various things, but true 'democracy' is surely not one of them.

2: Why the false beliefs?Well, the case is, one must admit, one would think, somewhat persuasive - if the wishes of 60, 70, 80% or moreCanadians are systematically being overruled by some other power, it's hard to call the country a 'democracy'alright. But on the other hand it is equally obvious that Canadians seem like a free and intelligent people in a freeand prosperous country, not some dumb brutalized peasants in some terribly impoverished Dickensian mining townwho tug their forelock as master demands or a bunch of mindless giggling munchkins under the spell of the wizard -so why do most Canadians falsely believe they live in a true democracy of their own making and rule then?

There are five related reasons, I think.

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a) The country has the superficial appearance of a 'real' democracy, with elections and so on, as noted above, b) inmost day to day activities the citizens are allowed considerable autonomy in what they do, and discuss things goingon in their country with considerable freedom of opinion, giving the appearance of 'democratic freedom', c) Canadais a prosperous modern country, and most citizens live quite comfortable lives, with most modern amenitiesavailable to them, and thus have no serious reasons to complain about the way the country is being run, d) for the

last 100+ years, everyone in a modern 'democracy' like Canada has been required to spend substantial and growingamounts of their most formative years in a government-controlled school system wherein they learn the things thepeople who control the curriculum want them to learn, and although there is considerable attention paid to factualthings such as science and geography, there is also considerable attention paid to belief systems, such as the ideathat Canada is a great democracy with free elections, Canadians are served and protected by a free andresponsible media, justice in Canada is ensured through an honest and egalitarian justice system, there is a god,good people do not smoke but they wear seatbelts when they get in cars, etc and etc, beliefs many of which can beat the very least strongly contested as to their veracity, and e) the Power of the Media as both reinforcer of the'central dogma' learned in school, and the primary disseminator, relying on its trusted status as taught toCanadians during their school years, of new ideas that the managers wish Canadians to believe.

Let's look at those things in a bit more detail.

2-a) The 'democratic' electoral system: I have written a longer piece about the managing of Canadian electionshere - Managed Elections - Is Canada Reallya Democracy? - briefly, although the actual elections are fair enoughin terms of open franchise and honest ballot counting, the top-down control of political parties, the overall controlof the major parties through money, and the marginalising of those who try to oppose the major parties throughmedia gatekeeping (and also their lack of money), and the 'first past the post' electoral system in a multi-partycountry which ensures 'majority' governments for one of the controlled parties regularly occur with that partyreceiving a simple plurality of votes but much less than any real majority of votes, typically 20-30% of the supportof eligible voters when those many voters are considered who do not bother voting because they understand too

well their votes make no difference in such a system, make the Canadian electoral system very easy to manage interms of placing in power a party which will act according to the wishes of the Canadian elite, whilst fulfilling thesuperficial appearance of 'democratic' elections.

2-b) - The freedom to talk about controversial things in the society, and believe they have influence on thegovernmental policies, is also regarded as some sort of 'proof' that Canada is a democracy, but it is a false proof,akin to finding presents under the Christmas tree 'proving' Santa Claus is real. It is actually something of a two-edged sword, but a fully evil sword, as BOTH edges are actually slashing at any notion of real 'democracy'. First,most issues talked about in public are relatively minor ones that have no real impact on the running of the countryin important matters, but are hyped by the press as 'important national debates' or suchlike (some importantissues are of course talked about in the press, but not offered as matters for discussion nor is any real discussionof them permitted - more on the media a bit later). But for the issues about which Canadians are encouraged to getinterested in and talk about, which includes almost anything not essential to meeting the major longterm,underlying goals of the managers, such free-ranging talk with usually widely polarized sides instills the belief and'confirms' that Canadians are indeed free to talk about what they want, and to believe their views on importantissues do influence politicians, as polls appear to indicate from time to time, which reinforces the idea that Canadais indeed a 'democracy'. And then in a somewhat deeper sense, such 'issues' are very often quite artificial innature, mountains made of molehills through the media constantly pushing them, things that should not be 'issues'between free and consenting adults in a society at all, if certain vested interests did not spend much time making

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them into 'flashpoint' sorts of issues. Such things - i.e. 'same sex marriage', or a woman's right to abortion, or theright of Quebecers to consider themselves a 'distinct society', or the right of women to equal treatment in labourconditions, getting rid of the monarchy, immigration, welfare levels for poor people - should not be issues at all in amodern, free democracy, as people living in a democracy should be allowed to do as they wish insofar as such thingsdo not reduce the freedom of others, and most mature adults can 'agree to disagree' on most such things whenthey arise at all - it is usually 'leaders' of one sort or another trying to increase their own personal power who

make serious efforts to get one group of people angry at another. As such, these largely manufactured issues actprimarily as wedges that divide the people, and prevent them from banding together against their one true enemy,the elite, or managers, or whatever you want to call them, and retaking THEIR government from the people whohave stolen it from them and are quite intentionally trying to destroy it, even as they use it against them.

2-c) Comfortable lives: Most people are not inclined to go looking for trouble, and if things are well in theirpersonal lives, they are content. And so it is in Canada. In terms of the 'managed' democracy, we must rememberthat the fight for democracy in much of the world has been going on for probably almost as long as humans havegathered together in societies, as people try to make lives for themselves without being under the sway of someruler with complete powers of life and death over everyone and all they own - the advantage has ebbed and flowed

between the two sides over the centuries, but those fighting for democracy have slowly been advancing andincreasing their share of the overall influence in the governance of their societies - but never without greatresistance from those who would be and have been kings. In the current historical period, in Canada, during the last100 years or so, those fighting for more power to the people made many good advances, and the elite, the 'natural'rulers (in their own minds, that is to say, based on history and the existing power structure at any given time andthe powers of wealth and simple physical dominance), were forced to allow the people to have certain things intheir lives and communities in the more advanced western democracies such as Canada, a certain physicallycomfortable and achievable standard of living for those who work hard, better working conditions and pay than arefound in less developed countries, a certain freedom of movement and thought, a quite high standard of consumerproducts available for most people, a certain level of social programs to help the citizens when they require help,and things of that nature. And many people confuse this relatively comfortable lifestyle, and their freedom to talk

freely amongst themselves about pretty much anything, even if their voices are not heeded in the halls ofgovernance, with 'democracy' (and are certainly encouraged to do so). But, as the examples mentioned at thebeginning make evident, the true power, in the hands of the managers, the elite, has not changed at all, they havesimply retreated a bit, regrouped a bit, implemented this new 'management' strategy that has allowed the peopleof Canada some small advances in creature comforts formerly known only to the wealthy, whilst keeping a firm gripon the true levers of power behind the wizard's 'curtain of democracy' and the ability to set the important policiesof the country according to their desires. Talking freely and color tvs do not equal democracy. Farmer Jones mighttreat his cows a lot better than many farmers - but that does not make his cows 'free'.

2-d) Aside from the appearances of 'democracy', there are a couple of deeper reasons Canadians believe theircountry is 'democratic', in the face of the quite convincing evidence already presented that in important ways it isanything but.

The first is that a major part of the reasonably comfortable lives that most Canadians enjoy begins with severalyears of what might be called 'social indoctrination', more commonly known as 'going to school' or 'getting aneducation'. As a major part of this program, the people of Canada are conditioned, or indoctrinated, to believetheir country is a 'democracy' through a deep indoctrination process that begins almost the day they are born, andcontinues throughout their lives. The indoctrination is subtle and not normally violent for most people who do notresist, a Soma rather than an iron fist approach, connected to positive things as described in points 2 and 3

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before, thus there is no overt reason to either suspect it or thus resist it - and good enough reason to deny it out-of-hand when others try to explore such ideas. (When people think of 'brainwashing', the more common fictionalportrayal of indoctrination, they have been conditioned through movies and other popular media to think of darkstone cells and thugs with implements of torture and terrible chemicals doing terrible painful things to a personwho eventually succumbs to the pain and terror, things that certainly do not happen to normal law-abiding citizensin Canada - a general sort of belief that, in itself, would tend to make people unaware of much more subtle forms of

brainwashing or indoctrination such as the full spectrum propaganda Canadians are subject to through their mediaand other means (which is, of course, part of the indoctrination, steering the subjects away from any kind ofthought that might expose the indoctrination or create dissonances that might lead to such exposure - as manyreaders are undoubtedly resisting every word in this short article - crazy talk, conspiracy theories, of course wearen't indoctrinated what nonsense!! etc and etc)) (and one of the most important and useful tools of the managersis the almost complete refusal of most people to even consider that such a process might have been performed onthem - A broader question to consider as you read on: What would perhaps the single most important outcome of asuccessful indoctrination program be? Perhaps - The indoctrinated person has no idea they are indoctrinated, andwill vehemently deny it, and they give no overt signs of being indoctrinated. And of course such individuals thenbecome themselves a central part of the ongoing indoctrination program - people who teach and confirm the idea,for instance, that Canada is a democracy, not because they are engaged in some nefarious indoctrination program,

but because they actually believe it themselves. After several generations of increasingly sophisticatedindoctrination, this type of person is the norm.)

So the important component of the early indoctrination (insofar as we are examining Canadian 'democracy') issimply to make the citizen uninterested in, or resistant to thinking clearly about, the many irregularities andindications of elite rule in the Canadian pseudo-democratic process, encouraging them to simply, and ratherthoughtlessly, accept the system itself as evidence of 'democracy', and the endless imprecations from thepoliticians and media spokespeople and other manager employees of what a great democracy they live in, eventhough any examination of the results of that process, such as briefly outlined above, indicates quite strongly thatthe Canadian system should not be termed 'democratic' at all, insofar as that word is commonly understood.

Again, as with the idea of 'democracy', if you see the truth of what has been said above, but are still uncertain asto what is or has been happening, an examination of your beliefs about 'but I don't feel indoctrinated!!' with theguidance of a few pertinent questions might prove of interest - ideas, you will note, that you have never beenexposed to in your previous life by the education system or media which you rely on for your information.

You believe you live in a democracy - but as I have demonstrated quite conclusively above, actually you do not. Howdid a free-thinking person, or a country full of free-thinking people, as you believe yourself and your fellow citizensto be, arrive at such an erroneous conclusion, a conclusion so unsupported by all the facts, facts which have beenfreely available to you? How can you look at a simple set of facts that prove Canada is not a democracy, and yetrepeat by rote that "Of course Canada is a democracy!" as needed, as you and most citizens have done all of yourlives, when this is so obviously a false statement? Is it simply that most people are not too bright, or has everyonebeen led to this belief in some way, and further 'educated' in such a way that they somehow can not see that theybelieve in something that is so obviously false?

To understand this, you need to think a bit about how and where from exactly you get your beliefs, most especiallythose things that are so deeply ingrained in your brain you do not think to even question them - things like yourinsistence that Canada is a 'democracy', no matter what the evidence indicates.

The indoctrination of the average citizen starts in a systematic way when you start school, although thebackground is being laid before then, by the adults around you, who have similar beliefs and received them in the

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same way as you did, and also your very earliest days of television watching which began the process; although a lotof what the child sees on television they do not really understand, it is like slowly loading the cannon, laying thebackground, part of the full spectrum propaganda (in many important ways, the medium is the message, as MarshallMcLuhan observed many years ago - the passive, blank face staring at a screen absorbing information passively,throughout their lives - there are those who create the 'message', and those who 'consume' it .... - managers andmanaged, in every aspect of the modern citizen's life). And remember, at this time in the child's life, those first

few years after birth, most of the brain really is a tabula rasa, a blank slate, or, in more modern terms, a hugecomputer, completely unprogrammed beyond a primitive BIOS that craves food, and the things that are writtentherein, the early programming, the belief systems, etc and etc, are things the child has no control over, as theyare too young to question things or analyze anything critically - satisfy the pleasure centers in these completelydefenseless subjects, and add whatever programming you like over, around and under that satisfaction, until peoplereact instinctively to stimuli as Pavlov's dogs reacted to the bell.

Children at this age are also under the instinctive compulsion to please those who provide them with life'snecessities and protect them to ensure that supply and protection continues, so absorbing the things theseprotector-providers seem to believe will be a very natural thing to do. This pleasing instinct, we might note, is veryencouraged by the managers of the society - the child who recites things perfectly back to the teacher gets many

signs of approval (which young creatures crave), while the child who is less able (or willing) to behave as theteacher wishes gets less approval, and strong signals that such behavior is not wanted in society. As well as simplylearning their way around their society during these formative years, the child is also internalizing the notion (asthey are continually told through their schooling and television) that their authority figures are to be trusted andbelieved.

The child is also being ingrained with more subtle things, such as the lifestyle pattern of going somewhere everyday and taking orders from some authority figure, and generally having various authority figures in one's life, thatthere is a supreme god in the universe, that people regularly eat morning noon and evening and sleep at night, thatwe must wear clothes and not talk about sexual things or bodily elimination things, that there are good people andevil people in the world (and we are always good, of course), and many, many other similar things that become

ingrained at a very deep level, and thus almost impossible to change in later years - when the bell rings, there is nocontrol over the salivation. When someone asks "Is Canada a democracy?" it is almost impossible to say anythingother than "Of course!". This indoctrination is a common pattern everywhere, it is how young creatures of almostevery sort learn, and can hardly be denied - the only questions are about who is doing the indoctrinating, andwhether their goals are benign or otherwise. We always want to assume our closest superior people as we aregrowing up, our parents, are only interested in doing good things for us, and no doubt they are in most cases - butwhat if they themselves have been programmed to pass on certain things that are maybe not quite so good, butthey do so with all the best intentions? In terms at the very least of instilling false beliefs about exactly how'democratic' Canadian society is, one would have to say the goals of the Canadian managers would qualify as'otherwise'.

Did anyone ever during your schooling days come and talk to you about the things I have mentioned above, thatrather prove you do not live in a democracy? Or was every message you ever received during your schooling daysbased on the idea that you lived in a democracy - and not only 'a' democracy, but 'one of the greatest democraciesin the world? - for that is surely the mythology that most Canadians believe (actually the belief may not be exactlyfalse, strictly speaking, as comparatively speaking Canada may be one of the better 'democracies' in the world, butsince most other 'democracies' are equally managed and not actually democratic at all, that is not an especially highor notable bar to be bragging about - unless, of course, for some reason you think it is a somewhat higher bar thanit actually is ....).

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Did anyone ever attempt to engage you in a discussion of the way YOUR society should operate, and solicit YOURopinion on what you might want in a society and a discussion among those of your age group about changes you mightwant to make as you become adults in your society? Did anyone ever explain to you why it was that you were beingexpected to start working as soon as you left school, and pay taxes, a good portion of which, for instance, would beused to pay off a debt that you had nothing to do with incurring, or to send soldiers off to fight in foreigncountries that you knew nothing about? Did you ever have discussions whilst you were in school, or of school age in

other places, about how it was time for you to start considering how YOUR society was organized, and what youthought of it, with various speakers presenting various points of view and initiating various discussions amongst youand your friends? - or was every discussion predicated on the idea that your society was already a very goodsociety, and all you needed to do was decide how you could fit into that pre-existing structure as a good citizen,the best sort of pre-existing job you should strive for in order to earn the most money because that's whateveryone wants is a lot of money, etc and etc? Do you think there was anything in that sort of situation (or is forthose young people going through it now) that might be called 'indoctrinating the new citizen into the ways of thesociety that are good for those who already manage or rule the society'??

After many years of being taught these and many, many other such things, and having the ideas repeated in thetelevision shows and movies you watch, the civic leaders you listen to, everyone in your peer group if the topic ever

comes up, continual reinforcement in the print media you read once you are old enough to do so, etc and etc, withNO attempt to present you with other perspectives - well, the idea of questioning the belief that 'Canada is agreat democracy', or that there might be other ways of organizing a society rather than having you competing forthe best job in the machine after 'getting your education' and then working the rest of your life as part of themachine, simply never arises in the minds of most people - false though these ideas quite obviously are, and notvery democratic at all, as is evident when the beliefs are examined as I have done briefly above.

And then also, of course, insofar as 'indoctrinating with desirable and acceptable beliefs' goes, everyone wants tobelieve they are good people in a good situation, and free people in a great democracy is certainly what mostmodern people want to be, so it is a belief that people do not naturally resist, but naturally embrace.

And if that process, that feeding to everyone of one-sided and false information, beginning during the mostformative period of their lives when such things are accepted virtually without question, while never providingcontrary or alternative points of view that might actually be closer to the truth, is not conditioning orindoctrination - what would you call it?

2-e. Managing Democracy day-to-day: the central role of the Mainstream Media (MSM)

The final major reason that Canadians believe they live in a 'democracy' when rather obviously they do not is theCanadian media, which continually promotes that idea, and simply will not print or broadcast any contrary ideas - as

with any major indoctrination point that actual examination of might expose as the lie it is, discussion is simplyverboten, and the central dogma is accepted without question in any related discussion. Think, for instance, oftimes in the past. When the rulers want to do something that a solid majority of Canadians oppose, what is thestrategy? In a true democracy, of course, there would be no problem, the issue would be largely dropped -certainly anyone is free to speak and to try to change minds about any given issue, but in a true democracy, therewould be no suggestion that the desires of a minority, and often as far as such issues goes a quite small minority,should be allowed to lead the country places most people do not want to go. But what happens in Canada? Thecomplete reverse - the managers undertake a massive propaganda campaign to 'sell' the issue to Canadians - andhow do they undertake this campaign? Through the mainstream media, of course.

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We see it over and over again, from 'free trade' to privatising the health care system to joining the United Statesin invading other countries - a massive propaganda campaign (you cannot call it anything else if you look at ithonestly, although of course the word is complete anathema to the Canadian mainstream media, at least inconnection with their own activities) is undertaken by the managers through the media - and this propagandacampaign has one goal, to sway Canadians to accepting the desired goals of the real rulers. There is never any realdebate about such issues, nor the role of the media in promoting one particular point of view to the almost total

exclusion of others - although the majority position held by most Canadians is acknowledged from time to time, it isonly done so in the context of an endless stream of 'stories' and commentaries explaining to Canadians why theirposition is wrong, and endlessly exhorting them to accept the point of view of the rulers - very much a 'do-as-you-are-told-by-your-betters!' monologue rather than a democratic dialogue. And then when the rulers finally go aheadand do what they want, as they invariably do no matter how many Canadians oppose the idea, there is some kind ofperception in the Canadian mind (always encouraged by the media, of course in refusing to allow questions orcommentary that might expose the non-democratic action for what it actually is) that 'democracy' has beenexercised during the debate, and democracy is ruling in Canada - when, of course, if you actually examine what ishappening, it becomes clear that 'democracy' is nowhere to be found, as the will of the majority is, once again,NOT being carried out by those who are managing the Canadian pseudo-democracy.

The media is of course central, both in the indoctrination and maintenance of these false beliefs - this is one ofthe handful of essential lies we are indoctrinated to accept in our early years, along with 'democracy' and 'nevereven think about indoctrination you are being educated to be a good citizen', this myth that the Canadian media isone of the best in the world, free and responsible, and fighting for the right of Canadians to full information abouteverything the government is up to, so Canadians can be good citizens - when something closer to the completereverse is actually what is happening.

That the Canadian MSM functions as a propaganda arm for the managers rather than a reliable source ofinformation for Canadian citizens can be demonstrated virtually on a daily basis (Green Island Veritaspoints outsome of the more egregious examples every week - only a few, it would be impossible to note every instance as it isas I have noted elsewhere, a 'full spectrum approach' they use).

A couple of examples would be:For instance, something that has been in the 'news' a lot the last few years - Canadians have been subjected to anendless stream of 'terrorism' stories for the last five years, almost never going beyond the comic book level of'They hate us because of our freedoms!! - we are being threatened by a bunch of mindless villains (like we see inthe movies all the time!!) who just love violence and want to cause destruction to 'free democracies' like Canada sothey can take over the world and create some kind of islamofascist hellhole over the entire earth!' - totalunmitigated nonsense as any thinking person understands - yet that is the gist of most of the 'terrorism' coveragewe have seen in the media day after day after month after month after year after weary year, with regular 'new'horrific things like the recent 'story' in August/06, since shown to be basically completely impossible (but neverreported as such in the mainstream media after their initial DUCK DUCK DUCK OHMYGOD THE TERRORISTSTHE TERRORISTS TRIED TO KILL US ALL AGAIN!!!!!! bout of screaming - it really has been that shrill in tone ifnot actual words a great deal of the time, quite pathetic actually from a 'responsible professional' media) that agang of evil terrorists were going to create mass murder by bombing a whole fleet of planes with evil-scientist-comicbook-like powerful explosives mixed from ordinary household liquids!!! they would 'sneak' onto planes inordinary liquid containers and make the bombs in plane restrooms!!! This was quite quickly shown to be utternonsense (although these reports were never carried in the MSM), and the police even had to admit the entirestory was wildly exaggerated in every way - but such stories got little or no coverage in the mainstream press, norwas there ever any examination of what the press was doing making serious mistakes like this - if, that is, theywere actually mistakes, of course.

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Ramp up the anxiety - and then forget about it - 'news' is not the point, simply ramping up anxiety levels in generalat all times, as every study of mass psychology shows that people who are afraid are easier to control. Never in themainstream Canadian media do we see stories such as this recent one from an alternative publication, Green LeftWeekly, Myths and realities of media Islamophobia, or The Mysterious Disappearing Terrorist Plots, or any ofhundreds of others that have been published on the internet or other places not controlled by the managers that

can afford print versions of alternative magazines trying to talk about the overall history of the reason someMuslims are unhappy with the imperialistic actions of the west over the last 100+ years - the mainstream mediaintentionally cultivates the idea that history began on Sept 11 2001 - and the well-indoctrinated citizen sees noreason to question this, apparently.

Or we can consider the current Canadian military presence in Afghanistan - the Canadian MSM has essentially oneperspective on this, trumpeted day after day, the 'humanitarian' mission we are on, humanizing our troops so wefeel a personal loss when they die, but portraying those Afghanis who fight in their own country as faceless robotickillers, as every demonization program in history has done (with the occasional comment from one or two politicalleaders who are slightly less jingoistic) - but there are virtually no stories (one or two honorable exceptions buriedin the back pages) talking about the history of Afghanistan or trying to give Canadians some actual perspective on

the situation in order to help them make reasoned decisions about the role of Canada there, or in other conflictsaround the world - articles such as (such as Afghanistan - Wrong Mission for Canada, or James Laxer - Why Canadashould pull its troops out of Afghanistanor Canada/NATO Invasion of Afghanistan Sows Destruction and Misery-or dozens of other articles about the actual situation and offering good background and commentary on what ishappening, not only about 'terrorism' or Afghanistan, but about every other issue in the country and world, big orsmall - commentary and perspectives simply not available in the Canadian MSM.

The point is not that such alternative commentaries may or may not be true (although generally in contentiousissues such as those mentioned above, and others, the alternative media are a great deal more credible than themainstream media, which, as always in key issues, acts above all in its function of facilitating the management of'democracies' through promoting and propagandizing the message the managers want and gatekeeping to keep

perspectives that might undermine the manager's message away from Canadians), but that if you really lived in ademocracy, with a media that was truly free and responsible and served the people rather than the managers, andif you were a free and independent-thinking citizen aware of the way things were in your country and world withsome understanding of world history (which most people do not get in their 12 long years of enforced education -part of the indoctrination is instilling intentional ignorance about many things people really ought to know about),you would be reading things like this every day in the mainstream media, as information you needed to be aware ofto make intelligent decisions about what was happening in your country. The stories of those who wanted tomanipulate and rule you through fear and lies and disinformation and half-truths would be balanced by storiesabout the same issues from those who had other ideas. A truly responsible and independent media wouldunderstand that they should, of course, report what politicians say, and the arms-dealers and others who profitfrom conflict who support them - but they would also understand that they also have an obligation to report storiesfrom people who feel the politicians are talking nonsense and their motives are quite questionable when theysupport policies such as this, and leave it up to the citizens themselves to decide who is telling the truth, who ismore credible. Quite obviously, of course, in a 'managed' democracy, it is very much contrary to the interests ofthe managers for you to have such information, as you might then understand better some of the things that werebeing done in your name, and be more inclined, along with many of your fellow citizens, to protest, to not accept thedictates of the managers when they so obviously went against the wishes of a solid majority of citizens. And giventhat - if the media choose to report one side of such stories and not another, in virtually every major issue thathas faced Canadians over the last 20+ years - it is quite difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are quite incollusion with the managers, working to instill a certain set of beliefs about the way the world is working in the

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citizens, beliefs that benefit those who would be king, and which work very much against the interests of theaverage citizen.

Simple gatekeeping of information is not enough on its own to reliably push people in a certain direction, as peopleare intelligent and curious and do like to use their brains sometimes if an opportunity presents itself, and to take

care of any such opportunities, on top of people's busy lives as worker bees fueling the capitalistgrowgrowgrowGROW!!! economy, in the bit of time that is left each week to consider what is happening in thecountry and world, the media also serves to provide a full basket of distractions, something for almost everyone,keeping people from thinking about and discussing the more fundamental and important issues they ought to bewatching in society, such as the question of whether or not the country is indeed a democracy in terms of majorgovernment policies. Keeping people focused on these less important issues, such things as the 'debate' over samesex marriage and other sexual issues, the 'constitution' questions such as getting rid of the senate or the currententirely manufactured and completely meaningless tempest-in-a-teapot issue of 'fixed election dates', hockey andbaseball scores, the most important new television show this new tv season, who is the father of the famousunmarried actress's baby and the endless discussions in our sadly repressed society of who is sleeping with whom,police crackdowns on those darn scofflaws not wearing seatbelts, scarestories about 'terrorists', etc and etc, is a

central 'democracy management' technique. Especially when the issue of 'Is Canada a real or managed democracy'is not even on the horizon as something Canadians should be talking about, since everyone is raised KNOWING thatCanada is a great democracy, and not something that needs to be talked about at all.

3: But So What????

Well, finally then, not admitting for a second that any of that conspiracy-sounding stuff is true, but even if it was,so what? What's the point? I mean, we certainly seem to function like a democracy, regular elections and all that,we're good citizens here, trying to create a good society for Canadians and do good stuff around the world as well- even IF we aren't the most democratic democracy in the world or your imagination, which we do not for a secondacknowledge - well so what anyway? What's the point of all that stuff you accuse us of???

There are many problems with the current situation. I'll only mention what I consider to be the major ones.

** Look at what has been happening to Canada the last 20+ years - the managers are taking the country away fromyou. Your parents and their parents and maybe you and many other people of their generations fought like hell overa long period of time to make a good, progressive, prosperous country, a country with things like good rights forcitizens and workers, and good programs for We the People who produce the wealth of the country (a goodeducation system, good media to keep us informed of the way things were in our country and the world, a goodhealth care system to keep all of us healthy and well-looked after, pensions for our old age, good unemployment

insurance for people who lost their jobs, etc and etc and etc) and by the 1960s they were on the verge of realizingthe dream of making Canada one of the truly best and most progressive countries in the world, with one of thebrightest futures. However, this was not in the game plan of We Who Would Be King Over All The Peasants, andthe Canadian elite, those who controlled the major businesses in the country and were wealthy enough to affordeducation and health care and etc on their own and saw no good reason to pay taxes to help others achieve suchthings, began their counter offensive, in secret of course, and they have not looked back since, and We the Peoplehave gone nowhere but backwards - as Paul Martin bragged a few years ago, social services have been regressed toa level something like they were at in the early 50s, and corporate profits continue to soar (see a short version ofthis history here, The Corporate Reactionary Revolution). Two working adults are now required to maintain alifestyle comparable to what one working adult could manage in the 50s or 60s or 70s, and the stress level for all

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workers and families is high and growing, and their job security precarious and satisfaction falling, and their debt-to-savings ratio higher than ever. These things are not just some kind of natural progression of human society -they are things that have been planned and implemented by the people managing your democracy - certainly theyare not things that anyone concerned with the true welfare of most Canadians would plan. The current managersare not good people, and their goal is quite simply to reverse all of those gains made by those of our ancestors whowent before, to take away this prosperous and progressive society you live in and create a new feudalism in Canada

and, with their co-managers around the world, a globalised, feudal society - the same rollbacks are underway in allother western democracies that once considered themselves progressive. It is a pretty immutable rule that forthere to be a few obscenely wealthy people, as we see today, there have to be a lot of poor people producing thewealth the wealthy people steal for themselves - the pie that is baked by the working people of the world, the realwealth, is only so big, and the more that gets sucked up to the top, the less there is for the rest of the people -the rest who actually make the pie. Canada is going backwards, as a progressive, modern, democratic country - andas long as you are under the rule of a 'managed' democracy rather than participating in a real one, that's the wayyour managers want to go and there isn't really anything you can do about it, even if you come to understand thetrue situation and decide you want to. The country is on a slippery slope - and as a Canadian used to Canadianwinters, you should know how much easier it is to get to the bottom of an icy hill than to get back up. Now imaginesomeone at the top of that hill with some barricades and baton-wielding 'security' people, and think about it all.

Please.

** It's not only ideas and progressive programs and security and good jobs they are stealing from Canadians - theyare also outright stealing a great deal of cold hard cash. As noted in The Great Canadian National Debt Scamarticle I referred to above, they have stolen over a trillion dollars from Canadian workers and taxpayers over thelast couple of decades (probably double that if you add in provincial and other debts incurred in the name of 'wethe people' at whatever level of government), and continue to steal to the tune of $50 billion or more a year in theform of the 'service' charges on the accumulated debt - for of course they say you still owe them half a billiondollars. This is not only for their simple pecuniary needs, as most of them are very rich already, but it also has amuch more practical aspect. People with secure and comfortable lives have time to think about things likedemocracy and improving their society for everyone, and even looking outward to try to make the world a better

place, all things the elite very much do not want the people doing or thinking about - but people who are scramblingto keep ahead of the bill collector and are stressed in other ways from lack of time in a busy life with two peopleworking and long commutes etc and etc are usually more concerned with putting food on the table, with not muchtime left to think about things like 'democracy', as long as things seem to be going ok according to their media. Butjust imagine what all of that money, all of it Canadian taxpayers' money, could have been used for over the last 20years - think of Walkerton and the recent Quebec overpass collapse, canary-in-the-mine signs that the Canadianinfrastructure, neglected so long, is a disaster waiting to happen, for instance - that should have been maintainedwith some of that money. Think of people dying in emergency rooms because medical funding has been slashed thelast 20 years, there are not enough doctors being graduated, hospitals foolishly closed, and etc - while 'investors'have waltzed off with a couple of trillion dollars to their Caribbean hideaways. And etc and etc. They steal, we alllose.

** The influence of the managers of the Canadian pseudo-democracy reaches far outside of the Canadian borders,and they are also helping to keep the poor countries of the world poor and suffering and stealing from them too,both 'legally' through 'free trade' treaties and international organizations like the WTO which enforce 'trade'policies that only benefit the powerful countries at the expense of the weaker, and also, more and more, throughinvolvement in American-led military actions that actually go around killing people and bombing infrastructure toinstall governments that favor the imperialistic policies of the west and destroy governments which are trying tolift their people out of the poverty imposed by the western invaders. You will not, of course, read about this in the

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Canadian media, for reasons that should be clear enough in the light of what is written above, and it is a centralpart of the de-indoctrination process that you need to expand your reading considerably to learn about such thingsand learn to treat the Canadian media for what it is, or has become under the corporate managership that hastaken over Canada the last 30 years - primarily a propaganda organ for the managers of the Canadian pseudo-democracy. Canada's managers have been making Canada a strong supporter of the New World Order, a world runby and for corporations and pushing citizens' rights and needs lower and lower, in the race to the bottom we have

been talking about (not in the mainstream media, of course) for the last 20 years, which you can see happening inCanada with the tuition fee increases in universities closing them to poorer students and people waiting months fornecessary medical procedures because the social infrastructure is being dismantled in favor of ever increasingcorporate profits and power. This means that there is a steady trickle UP effect everywhere, with less and lessmoney for citizens everywhere. And the new world order is very militant, with the US military the face of thefuture all over the world. The world does not need to be this way - most people want peace, but peace is not goodfor those who would be king. I don't think most Canadians want a world forever in a state of war - yet yourmanagers are leading you there. You can let them do this - or you can resist.

** You have no security. If you accept the power of others to manage your society in regards to the things thatmatter, and do not care that your 'democracy' is illusional, since things seem to be working quite well now and/or

you maybe see things seeming to get worse but you believe the lies of the managers as they rationalize everythingand tell you it is actually your own fault. If you do not act now while you still have some freedom left, you will haveno recourse once the managers decide to start doing things that begin to upset you seriously - as Canadians areseeing with the slow strangulation of their health care system against their wishes, the increasing following of theUS as it marauds around the world which most Canadians want no part of, the increasing clampdown on citizenfreedoms in the name of the phony war on terror which again most Canadians want no part of. This is a slipperyslope which is much easier to allow yourself to be herded down than it is to recover from. As they are doing in theUS, the Canadian government is fighting in the courts to establish their 'right' to declare you or anyone else a'terrorist' on the basis of 'secret' evidence and hold you indefinitely without bail or lawyer or any rightswhatsoever - with no 'democratic' approval whatsoever for these restrictive measures (did any major partymention these things in the election held a few months ago? Of course not...).

As the Rev Neimuller found out, if you do not protest when things happen that you understand are not very good,but do nothing because they don't really have much impact on you - once things do begin that you do not like andwant to protest - it has become too late, and there is no one left to help you.

Ok - you seem to have a point. What Can I do?

Well, for those few who have managed to get this far, and have managed to step away from the years of socialindoctrination for whatever reason and are wondering what to do if, as it may well be, all that stuff is true, I can

only offer the following.

Turn off the tvuntil you are sure you have developed some immunity to the propaganda feed and understand thatalmost everything you see on that television is related to social conditioning and those doing the conditioning areNOT your friends - if you look at it all with open eyes it can be instructive, but you need to be very careful about itall, it's a dangerous, brain-deadening addiction in large, regular doses. Start reading outside the box and gettingeducated. It takes a while, but it is time well spent - it is growth time. Time spent making money for the capitalistsis wasted time, as not only are you wasting your own life, every day you give them makes them that much stronger -most of us have to do something to make money given the society we find ourselves living in, but don't let themtake your soul along with your time.

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A few places to start - and don't worry that not everyone you read agrees with everyone else - the idea is to get alot of opinions, and put them all together with what you see around you, and just learn to make up your own mindabout what is going on, and who is telling the truth, who is lying outright, and who is just asking questions that seemto indicate the official story is somewhat lacking but aren't really sure what the answers are. Big George is not,ultimately, the 'decider' - you are. Every citizen must decide for him or herself.

**A few good Canadian sites, all of which carry commentary about the way things are in Canada that you almostnever see in the mainstream media - the kind of information people need to help them see through the lies and spinof the government and mainstream media:

Canadian Center of Policy Alternatives - sort of the main 'lefty-progressive' think tank of Canada - checkout their CCPA Monitor for a lot of good articles, and esp Ed Finn the editor's writings

Global Research, Ottawa-based site run by a U of Ottawa academic named Michel Chossudovsky, more'academic' sorts of commentary (i.e. rather than 'ranting'), but very good stuff you never see in the MSM

COMER (Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform) - lot of good stuff on the banking system and thebank bailouts of the early 80s and 90s

The Dominion - more good behind the scenes stuff, main focus on what Canada is up to internationally thatyou don't hear much about in the MSM

Yaya Canada - some kind of raging granny evidently (no aspersion, your main GI correspondent is a raginggramp), but a very well done site with a lot of good stuff

Rabble.ca - a bit NDP oriented, but still some good alternative commentary, different ways of looking atthings the MSM talks about, which is the kind of perspective we all need whether or not we agree witheverything

Vive le Canada - also a bit NDP oriented, but also some mention of CAP (the Canadian Action Party, the onlyparty that actually seems to be grass-roots oriented for real rather than rhetorically, and the place toread Robin Matthews, one of the hardest hitting critics of the Canadian Vichy governments and theirsellout to the US over the years

The Tyee - from BC, but a fair amount of good commentary

Some other places you might check out, related to the above or not:

The Underground History of American Education - a writer and teacher named John Gatto Taylor fromAmerica - obviously the Canadian context is a bit different, but the underlying principles are the same.Just food for thought, a starting out place - the education system really is key to the whole socialindoctrination program - think about it.

One entry point to the discussion on social engineering can be found here, with a bit on one of the earlyleaders and proponents of the whole thing, Edward Bernays

Scholars for 911 Truth - one of the better sites to find things you never hear about in the MSM about howthe Official Conspiracy Theory of 911 has more holes and lies than your average White House press releasethese days, but there are many others as well - you can get to some of the main videos from here, the 911Mysteries is about the best to date for exploding the official conspiracy theory of WTC 'fall down goboom' voodoo magic stuff - the 911 stuff is quite important in many ways - if the US gov actually did this asa 'black flag' operation (of which they have a long history of doing), then everyone who believes the storiesabout the so-called war on terror etc is supporting a set of policies based on complete fantasy and worse -not to mention that the people who did this, including the media who have been so gung-ho in supportingthem, really need to be in jail. At least...

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Well, there's lots of American-based sites commenting on the American-world situation, some of the mainones are Alternet, Counterpunch,Unknown News,What Really Happened, Dissident VOice, and many, manyothers. Search out your own, follow links from all of the other sites. The journey is the goal, as an oldsaying goes - it's the things you learn along the way that matter, not the final destination, which you canknow nothing about and will look after itself regardless.

- whatever you read, it's all just ways of understanding that the people who have been running your life have beenlying about a whole lot of things, and if you want to get to a place where you can call your society democratic andyourself a truly free person in that democracy, living by rules you have participated in formulating, you and a lot ofothers have to start telling them that the lies are no longer acceptable, you are no longer a kid who can be kept akid with Santa Claus stories, but you want to be there at midnight when the toys are put under the tree. Gettogether with other people, expose the managers for what they are, the farce of Canadian 'democracy' for what itis, and become a demander of democracy - don't accept the 'right' of some 'representative' to speak for you,when all they speak are lies and all they do is contrary to what you and most Canadians actually want - if that is theresult of the Canadian 'democratic' system, then the system needs to be changed if you want to call yourselves a

democracy. There is more about how a real democracy operates here, How Democracy Works on Green Island - useit as a guideline if you like, do something else if you like, but it is imperative that if things are going to get better,the decisions made in Canada become the decisions of the Canadian people, not the backroom elite currently pullingthe strings of the major political parties against the wishes of most Canadians in most undemocratic fashion.

In the end, of course, it is up to you. You can continue to believe all of your years of social conditioning andreinforcement, and disregard everything I have written above, and think "I don't really care about all that stuff -Canada is a great country and a great democracy, and anyone who says otherwise is just a stupid hippie or terroristor something!" - and that is your decision. Or you can read the stuff, and start wondering about why so many people

have been telling you things that are quite obviously not true - and wonder what else they are all lying about, andwhy.

ADDENDUM: Some Caveats:

Caveat 1: The argument will be made - "It's nonsense to say that Canada is not ruled by a majority - most Canadiangovernments are majorities, with minorities happening occasionally. That the majority of seats does not always

represent a majority of votes is irrelevant - this is the nature of representative government, and majoritygovernments are much stronger and able to deal with important issues as they arise." - to which one can only reply,that is one of the arguments commonly used to justify the current political non-democratic situation, and changesnothing of what I have written above, and actually confirms a fair amount of it. If you choose to believe that youcan dodge around the issue of a minority of Canadians supporting major policies that a majority of Canadiansoppose by referring to the 'positive' aspects of a 'majority' government which justifies gerrymandering theelectoral system in various ways to provide such governments, then nothing else I can write is likely to change yourmind. But try to be honest - you are really saying that, in your opinion, there are times a minority knows what isbest because they are better educated or more intelligent or whatever, and the peasants should just shut up andfollow their masters. And you should then give us a definition of 'democracy' that you agree with, that specifically

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includes somewhere that 'democracy' does not actually mean 'majority' rule, because ....??? - well, you'll have to filthat part in, my imagination doesn't go that high (I have taken sort of a personal oath to not lie, and the onlythings I could put in there would be lies).

Caveat 2: It's not indoctrination if it's the truth, is it? Are scientists 'indoctrinating' us when they tell us E=MC2

or something? Of course not - but I think I have ably demonstrated above that you cannot simply argue that youwere being educated with 'the truth' about the many things involved with 'social conditioning' - quite the contrary,actually, you were being fed lies and being taught not to question those lies or the fact you were being so taught,which is what makes the whole process 'indoctrination' rather than 'education'.

Caveat 3: There's good rulers and there's bad rulers, that's why we see some things in the paper that seem to goagainst the idea of 'them vs us' - some rulers want to be sort of good and benevolent to we the people, otherrulers just despise us and don't care what misery we live in - and this dichotomy of rulers is what is played out inmodern 'democratic' politics in a country like Canada. It's not that serious of a fight, most of the time (althoughthe politicians often put on a good show for the citizens) - the rulers all believe that there is a ruling class and a

worker class (that is how they are raised, that is their indoctrination, if they believed elsewise they wouldn't berulers), and that's fine (for them), the universe is unfolding as it should, they are used to living lives of relativeease and luxury and not working, and they want to keep it that way - and most of them seem to believe they aredoing the right thing, looking after the simple folk from their exalted position, noblesse oblige and all that. Theyjust have some small disagreements about how to treat us peasants, overall - just like you have some people whotreat pets or children well and have a generally benign attitude towards the world around them, and others whohave a much harsher way of treating people or pets or the world - just different ideas of how to live in the world.You have some farmers who have nice barns and treat the animals well and some farmers who figure any old leakycold hovel is fine they're only animals after all! - but you don't have any farmers getting into the fields andproducing the milk or walking into the slaughter houses to donate their bodies for food for the other farmers, andyou don't see any cows running the farms.

Caveat 4: This 'indoctrinated person' is not a 'catch-22' situation, wherein the reader is damned no matter howthey answer, with both the indoctrinated person and the unindoctrinated person denying indoctrination, soimpossible to distinguish, although one is and one is not. If you can honestly acknowledge the various facts Imentioned above concerning how Canada does not function as a democracy at all, and have thought about suchthings, and believe you have valid, truly considered responses that you find satisfactory to those questions ratherthan a knee-jerk sort of automatic denial - then obviously you have not been conditioned, so there is no 'have youstopped beating your wife' trick question here. Many people do, for various reasons, escape the conditioning ormuch of it and thus understand and question such things as 'democracy' - but they are very much a minority andmarginalised by the managers through various means. But most citizens (according to all appearances, judging bytheir behaviour) seem to have simply never considered such questions in any honest way - the indoctrinationprocess has quite intentionally and successfully turned them away (and continues to turn them away) from suchcritical examination. Such people have, of course, never been exposed to critical questioning of such things in theCanadian mainstream media or education system, and, as they have been trained to do for so many years, simply fallback on the mantra that 'Of course Canada is a democracy - everybody knows that!!!' - and leave it it at that, notconfronting in any way the quite unavoidable evidence that the country is not a democracy at all. Much, onesupposes, as the citizenry in an earlier time followed their leaders and mocked out-of-hand anyone who daredsuggest the earth was round and revolved around the sun.

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Caveat 5- But the obvious enmity between the major parties and leaders would indicate that there really is a choicethere, not some 'tweedledee-dum' situation - their policies are obviously different as well... - well, there iscertainly some real competition between the parties - why wouldn't there be? - note point 2 above that there aremany things about which the managers do not really care and which they encourage distracting debate, and thepolitical parties can do their bit to promote this distraction as well. The life of an MP is one of the better jobs in

Canada, all pretentious whinging about 'long hours' etc aside, and many people also aspire to the power and perks,and even if the power is somewhat limited in any real sense for most backbench MPs, the prestige is still there, andthe perks for those who do as the leaders wish, and the chance to work one's way higher in the hierarchy andmaybe even break through to the 'elite' circle someday for the chosen few. So the fight between the parties atelection time is real enough, as there will be real losers and real winners - but again, it is a mirage in terms ofindicating any real democracy. All you have to do is look, as I have (briefly!) above, at the agreement of the majorparties on the major issues when it actually comes time to walk some walk instead of only talking sound bites forthe tv news - as Chretien and the Libs suddenly reversed their stand on NAFTA for instance the second they wereelected, or how all parties push tax cuts and just can't manage to do anything serious about fixing the health caresystem, or how they all obey the bankers and pretend the 'national debt' must be a top priority and never make anynoise about a sane financial system, and the handful of major issues like that. That they disagree on same sex

marriage and might pass different laws about this makes absolutely no difference to the managers of the country,as noted above, such things are primarily useful in turning any national discussion away from more important issuesand keeping the citizens from getting together to seriously engage the real battle of We the People vs theOligarchy.

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managed or real - democracy in canada

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