19970512 Monday Nomination Day
I can just see
the headlines now. "Interloper Turmel crashes
debate to laugh at poverty-stricken family."
It's amazing how things
can get blown out of proportion but here
is what really happened on
Nomination Day for Election 1997 and the
debate at the Unitarian
Church in Ottawa West.
God was good
to me last week and the Poker tables paid the rent
and my $1,000 registration fee. I registered
today in Ottawa West an
hour before deadline. I found out that
there was going to be a
candidates' debate at the Unitarian church
so I attended.
I handed out
two pieces of literature:
the June 20 1993 Toronto Star article
on LETS;
the Jan 9 1990 Australia Bulletin article
on LETS.
I had a placard
which read:
Local Employment-Trading System;
Save us with LETS Greendollars; www.u-net.com/gmlets.
Of course, I
wore my trade-mark white construction cap with "The
Engineer."
The night started
off well when Pauline informed me that one of
the organizers belonged to LETS and wanted
to start a LETS for the
Unitarian church. In the lobby, I also
saw a Peace and Environment
News letter where I found an article by
Carla Brown titled:
Applying Ethics to Choosing Camping Equipment.
In it, she wrote:
"A $200 tent will be just fine for the casual
camper. If you don't want to collect all
the "toys," you can always
join a group like LETS (Local Employment-Trading
System) and rent
equipment for barter."
Wow. What good
omens.
Yet, on the very
night where all but five of Canada's political
party leaders were excluded from Canada's
national party debate, I
found out that church organizers had only
also invited 5 parties to
participate. With one difference. The
Green Party had been invited to
this one.
First, I informed
the CPAC technicians that they were going to
need another chair. The end microphone
could be shared. They went away
happy there were no logistic problems.
An organizer
informed me that the debate had been planned not as
an Ottawa West all-candidates debate but
as an invited-party
spokesperson debate. It just so happened
that all the party
spokespeople were also the candidates
from Ottawa West. I pointed at
the cameras and said it's available to
the public and I want in.
He rightly chided
me for not calling earlier though I explained
that I had just registered 6 hours ago,
I didn't know the organizers'
phone number and that in 99% of the cases,
the extra chair is
immediately added while in the other 1%,
I put up a major fuss.
Pointing out the technicians were already
preparing for the additional
chair cinched it and he welcomed me to
the panel. Everything went fine
until the very last question of the day.
Now this was
supposed to be a CPAC Parliamentary Channel
production for only selected parties.
Excluded Ottawa area parties
were the Canada Action Party, Christian
Heritage Party, Commonwealth
Party, Communist Party, Libertarian Party,
Marxist-Leninist Party,
National Party, Natural Law Party. Included
were Liberal,
Conservative, NDP, Reform and Green parties.
So, Independents
and non-preferred smaller party candidates were
not supposed to get a share of this free
national coverage. I
personally consider this a form of political
cheating and though I
never allow myself to be cheated without
a fuss, I do feel that those
party candidates who were excluded were
cheated out of their fair
share of free time though they didn't
have to accept it until the game
was over.
There are many
who would once again say that Turmel crashed
another political debate I was not invited
to. Getting in proves that
righteous demands are often granted but
only if one makes them. Had
the other little guys from my riding showed
up, I'd have got their
message on national TV too. There are
lots of little guys who can
thank me for getting them their time because
they backed the loud-
mouth up and others who got their time
even though they didn't.
So I think a
real fluke occurred. Here I was, a local Independent
candidate, walking into a nationally televised
debate which was being
held, by a fluke of all Canadian ridings
for CPAC to pick, in my
riding of Ottawa West and getting on because
I'm known for always
making it come down to the police.
It just so happens
that the moderator was Mr. Van Iterson whose
son Andrew represented the Green Party
in the Provincial riding of
Ottawa Centre in 1995 where we had both
been excluded from a debate. I
had taken to the stage and had to be escorted
out of the hall by
police and it still didn't get me my time.
Though it did make lots of
news. Considering how Andrew complained
about his exclusion, I knew
there was no chance his father wouldn't
exclude me. And he didn't.
Questions:
The first question
had to do with employment so I told them as
much as I could about extrapolating LETS's
wonderful local results to
a higher level. I pointed out that I don't
object to how I'm being
taxed, I object to how they waste it by
reciting my little ditty:
I'll pay my tax for army and police to
handle strife;
I'll pay my tax for doctors, nurses who
protect my life;
I'll pay my tax for all engaged repairing
road and sewer;
I'll pay my tax for social servants helping
out the poor;
I'll even pay my tax for bureaucrats with
no regret;
But I object to paying tax for interest
on debt.
To another question,
I used the cartoon from the 1993 election
where I was on one side of the page as
the organ grinder with a monkey
on a leash dancing with a LETS disk in
hand in front of the sysop at
the Bank of Canada's computer and all
the other party leaders'
pictures were on the other side asking:
Who would you
vote for?
The high tech
monkey with the Local Employment-Trading program on
disk or the lo-tech candidates big on
promises, small on programs, and
no disk.
About problems
blamed on global competition, I explained how
"mort-gage" death-gamble worked to create
poverty and how interest-
free LETS trade solved the problem. I
pointed out how all good
religions prohibit usury. I pointed out
the growth of LETS web sites
made the information to plentiful for
me to provide and concluded that
all we wanted was a national LETS.
As to whether
services should be cut or taxes raised, I pointed
out how we were wasting almost a billion
a day in debt service for
which we receive nothing and cutting debt
service should the Third
Way. Then I did the poem:
When you were little, did you ever dream
of printing cash?
Of filling up your wallet with some money
in a flash?
Creating money accurately means TO HAVE
THE PLATES,
The stamping of some paper into notes
best demonstrates;
Or stamping metal into coins; or blips
computerized,
Into your bank account deposits, checks
now authorized.
Now if you printed to spend, the others
would bewail,
They'd call it counterfeiting and send
you off to jail.
But what if government would let you print
it up to lend?
With only what you could collect in interest
to spend?
If you could print and lend a thousand
out at ten percent,
You'd make a hundred interest on printing
that you lent.
But if you could print up and lend a million
out you'd get,
An extra hundred thousand dollars for
your fee on debt!
If government stops using its own plates
and comes to you,
A billion printed nets a hundred million
revenue!!
With everybody being taxed to pay you
interest,
Of all the scams in history, TO HAVE THE
PLATES is best!!!
Though governments of old ruled "Treasury
run money plates,"
Without the interest to middle-men at
rip-off rates,
Today most governments to banking industry
have lost,
Control of money plates so interest is
now a cost.
We Abolitionists would get the plates
back from the banks,
Have LETS create the money for a service
charge and thanks.
After a question
on health care, I explained how a Hospital LETS
would work but where the Montfort Hospital
could make up the cash
shortfall with Green just like Canadian
Tire money to provide the
fullest of services and then accept Montfort
dollars back at the
hospital.
I did come up
with a great joke. Other candidates had been
promising to coordinate policy, coordinate
process. I pointed out
their problem was just like in golfing.
I stood, took a swing, stepped
back and observed: "Nice coordination
but the hole's in the other
direction."
I pointed out
how politicians who have no solutions always start
their sentences with the following words
and combinations of words
which all refer to what they dream and
not how to engineer it:
I believe in... (my dream)
We need... (a dream)
We need to have... (a dream)
We want... (a dream)
We want to have... (a dream)
I'd like to see... (a dream)
I believe I'd like to see.... (a dream)
We should have... (a dream)
I believe we should have... (a dream)
I care about... (your dream)
My priorities are... (more dreams)
We think there should be... (our dream)
We'll take steps to move toward... (your
dream)
I keep wondering
why people claim politicians break their
promises when politicians don't actually
make promises. They only tell
us what they'd like to see and people
construe it as a promise to
deliver which it is not.
I think I'll
have a poster of these "I have a dream" lead-ins at
my side during debates and I think continued
usage of those lead-ins
by my opponents may prove comical. I have
a video tape of the leaders'
debate and counting how many times the
leaders fell back on expounding
on their dreams for a better future without
getting into any
engineering would be of interest too.
The last question
dealt with problems using Gross National
Product and Gross Domestic Product to
measure our economic and social
progress: "What would you do to adopt
yardsticks which do measure the
quality of life and which more accurately
measure the productive
output of our society?"
Of course, it's
a simple LETS answer. Count the LETS tokens
representing all our wealth, like casino
cashier counts all the chips
in the casino representing the wealth
held in the cage, where money
becomes a receipt for collateral, it becomes
arithmetic. I had to
point out that they were having all this
trouble with their
measurements because Economics was the
only so-called science whose
yardstick is a variable, a rubber ruler,
which would account for its
"dismal" reputation among real sciences
which use stable yardsticks.
Finally, I told
them of all the LETS politicians recently elected
to the Australian, New Zealand and UK
Parliaments. I told them that
the Islamic Party had declared LETS "halal"
and the current usury
system "haram." I could only urge them
to go find out about LETS if
they wanted to fix it themselves.
One lady criticized
government accountability due to the growth
in debt and wanted to direct a question
to the Liberal, Conservative
and Reform. Of course, only the Reform
haven't had their chance to
screw up in the same way yet, and the
Liberal and Tory couldn't really
answer. I said: "I agree they're all bums,
whether Liberals, Tories,
NDP, they've always been turfed after
doing lousy jobs. But which set
of bums are you continuing to vote for?"
As to the threat
of Quebec separation, I honestly admitted that I
didn't believe that it would ever be possible
for politicians and
lawyers to split up the debt so I don't
worry about it.
But I'm sure
the whole night will be most remembered because of
the uproar caused by the last question.
A angry dude on a disability
pension asked the candidates to explain
to his 13-year-old daughter
what they would do help his family cope
with all the financial cuts
they had had to suffer.
Except that he
didn't want to hear any more about LETS. I laughed
thinking I had another drunk not wanting
to look for his keys anywhere
else but under the lamp-post because that's
where he can best see.
"It's not funny," he answered. I replied:
"You're in misery and you
don't want to hear from the only candidate
with the solution. Sure
it's funny." Much like the man who finds
out after 20 years that his
cell lock never worked but he never bothered
to check is funny. I told
the daughter: "Check out the LETS web
site and explain it to dad."
Up until that
point, the whole evening had been loads of fun. But
some thought that I'd been insensitive
when the dude had only asked
that LETS be excluded. As anyone who knows
me on the Internet, if some
guy wants to take a verbal shot at me
or LETS, then they're going to
get their brains beat up. Why would the
dude single out LETS as the
only program he didn't want to be bothered
with if he wasn't looking
for a scrap. I gave it to him. Whether
it's some rich guy on the net
or some poor guy on the street, knock
LETS and you'll leave with the
barbs of many jokes in your hide. And
don't think this barb was
that offensive.
Still, Liberal
Marlene Catterall was extremely shocked at my
laughter. Let's face it, as the incumbent,
she's had to deal with all
the poverty cases she cannot hope to help.
She came over and said that
after 18 years of enjoying my political
shows, it was the first time
she thought I'd been despicable. Or some
other equally expressive
word. I could only answer that she had
been in power and had not
helped the guy and she'd heard about LETS
for years.
One person shouted
to me: "You discredit LETS." As if Henry Ford
could discredit his machines. I replied:
"No. He discredited LETS." I
think it was a perfectly valid barb to
anyone, and I mean anyone, who
lives in poverty and would discredit a
LETS that would be his life-
boat. Anyone in poverty who isn't desperate
enough to try National
LETS yet is a joke. I think it humorous
that someone in poverty would
not be interested in interest-free loans.
I really do.
There is more
to this story than meets the eye. My laugh could be
misinterpreted in many ways. It will be
interesting to see if the more
than meets the eye comes out in tomorrow's
press press.
If you live anywhere
in Canada and they play the debate on either
this Tuesday May 13 or Wednesday may 14
evening, you'll be able to
judge for yourself whether I was too abusive
or not. Of course, CPAC
might cancel the broadcast because the
number of contestants didn't
follow their approved script.
I know that this
kind of stuff is made to disappear.
For instance,
in the original 1983 broadcast of the "Road to
Patriation" by the National Film Board,
there is clip of me picketing
the Patriation Conference Centre and explaining
how interest wrecks
economies. In subsequent versions of the
film, that scene is deleted.
Who knows, maybe
CPAC will simply delete me out of the debate
though I made sure to throw in enough
funny one-liners that it would
be quite hard to do and explain all the
laughter.
Day 1 of the
1997 3-week campaign is over.
The objective
of the campaign is to put pressure on candidates
from different parties who promote LETS
to sign a petition for
national LETS.
Most of this
will be done over the Internet as the Internet is
the Pauper Politicians' new tool of choice.