ABOVE: A little something from my photo files; a graduation ceremony at Trent University, in the summer of 1984. Hey; who's that in the upper right hand corner of the photograph, wearing a light grey suit? Why, it appears to be none other than Jean Chrétien, current head of the Liberal Party, and prime minister, of Canada.
If you'd like to read what some prominent members of the First Nations are presently saying to Jean Chrétien, then have a look at:
An Open Letter To Jean Chrétien):
[So: when I began this research project, the issue of Aboriginal Land Claims in British Columbia seemed to hinge in part upon whether the First Nations used a written language before European colonists arrived. At THAT point in time, I was moving around between jobs but, I had a good place to live and I was functioning as the photo editor and environmental columnist for a small East Vancouver newspaper, the NOISE. Then "things" started happening, which quickly escalated to an insane level of occurrence... and which usually seemed to be happening with someone from Trent University nearby, in the background.
Well, political power in British Columbia shifted from the conservative Social Credit party to the left-oriented NDP in 1992; and that is about when we decided to close down the NOISE (we weren't making any money and, the SoCreds were our main source of humorous material).
Now, in 2002, the provincial Liberal party is in more or less absolute political control of British Columbia; and guess what? Turns out they are really just a bunch of SoCreds using a different name! Their latest idea is to use a public referendum to re-define the Treaty Process in B.C. and to try to use that means to turn back a Supreme Court decision supporting Aboriginal title to the land. Of course, I still haven't been able to find any academic or financial support for my research here in Canada].
And me? Well, I'm saying all sorts of things that I can't really print in public. I'll just note for the record a few of the major dynamics which shaped the situations surounding my ongoing research: a steady progression in the level and degree of violence directed against me; a growing concern on the part of those who would rather not see me harmed; and an ongoing, aggressive campaign to cover-up and delegitimize my concerns over the first progression of violence by those who did not want the interested parties of the second progression to actively and directly intervene in the situation(s) I was addressing.
I'm also going to comment here that this is remarkably similar to the way in which the pedophiles in (and under) positions of power within at least one of Canada's dominant religions have managed to completely avoid having to admit to and pay for their crimes - a situation which is completely the opposite of that which their counterparts in the United States face.
I would bet that anyone making such complaints in Canada found themselves being followed around by creepy, repressed religious types - instead of having their concerns addressed and the guilty parties punished, as has happened in America.
Who were you expecting; William Blake?
(No, I am not the person who wrote that biology text called "Guts").
You know (well, you don't but I'll tell you), I've come across quite a few famous people over the years while I've been out canvassing door-to-door for various organizations or, in the course of my travels while conducting the field work for this project; people who live in Canada permanently or on a part-time, seasonal basis or, temporarily while working on movies: Northrop Frye, Malak Karsh, Billy Crystal, Robert Conrad, Harrison Ford, Charleton Heston, Mellissa Rivers, Alanis Morissette (to name a few; none of whom were encountered on Cortes Island)...but I've never told anyone else where those people were living at the time or, bothered them for an autograph; and I've certainly never gone back to their residences with a camera or, in an attempt to get an autograph. As far as I am concerned, if such people want others to know where they are living, they'll just tell them...and they don't need me to do that for them. So, I really don't understand what is the matter with the people (in particular those from Trent university) who have made a point of bothering me where I live.
Oh; and if you are wondering why my sense of humour is evident in the above section's subtitles...well, this is about the area where I lost my sense of humour so, it stands to reason that this is around the place where it would still turn up. But you would not find what I think about all of this very funny at all.
To begin summarizing: yes, I am quite pissed-off that engaging in this research project almost cost me my life (due solely to reasons of political expediency); that nobody seems to particularly care that things came to pass in this way; and that those who have, in Canada, concerned themselves actively with this situation have done so with the sole intention of covering up the fact that there were indeed machinations at play in this which were designed to end my research by ending my life.
I suppose, though, that is the sort of thing one must expect to experience when dealing with a situation such as the structural racism inherent within Canada. After all, if this were a thing which was being openly discussed and dealt with, then it wouldn't still be the major problem that it is for the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada.
Instead, all one finds are people who ignore these situations, or who do their best to control the reporting of these situations (instead of dealing with the situations themselves). After all, it takes a lot less effort to manipulate the perception of events ("spin doctoring") than it does to actually rectify situations which need to be properly addressed: as the empiricist philosophers say, "It is a characteristic of reality that it resists the will".
It is far easier for the Canadian Government (and the many individuals who come under its influence and economic sway) to try and assert control over the public perception of circumstances (since this allows for the exercise and application of control mechanisms), than it is for them to relinquish the control that they have established over the lives of others (specifically, the First Nations) to those most directly concerned with the issues in question.
And it is far easier for those who are implicated in such situations - Government departments and officials, church organizations and clergy, the anthropological and archaeological community in Canada, and so on - to simply ignore these situations and pretend as if nothing untoward has ever happened in relation to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada... to make-believe that the present day status quo relative to the First Nations is somehow an empirical "given", rather than the result of arbitrary and ethically unjustifiable actions undertaken, throughout the post-Columbian history of North America up to and including this very day, by the non-Aboriginal colonizers of North America.
IN SUMMARY
"It is a characteristic of the real that it resists the will"...
...From here, we can define (at least) two very different approaches to knowledge: one in which the primary goal of thought is to dominate, to manipulate, and to control the real; and one in which, thought uses the resistances characteristic of the real, as a ("the") way through which to trace the outlines of reality.
The first of these approaches is designed for re-territorializing the world: it is dedicated to producing new designs and descriptions, and to making the world conform to the designations it so imposes; whereas the other approach is concerned with de-territorialization: it proceeds by abandoning pre-determined designations and pre-judged evaluations in favor of an authentic engagement with the existential reality of the world.
Ideally, the presentation of my research should focus upon my successful attempts to trace residual outlines of realities persisting through non-metrical image writing. However, I also encountered secondary contours associated with the interference patterns of those (from the non-Aboriginal community in Canada) who forcibly involved themselves in my efforts, precisely with the intent of manipulating, controlling, exploiting and/or suppressing the results of my efforts. Thus, I have included something of the outlines I have traced from these secondary contours in sections such as this one.
I suppose there are those who think of this, "Oh, get over it!" All I can say to that is, "Okay; let's see YOU try to do what I've done here"; because, it is no simple thing to train one's grasp of their own self-consciousness to the point where such a thing(s) as I have done, in the course of my research, is possible.
Although it is, of course, much easier to disrupt another person's consciousness beyond the point where such an accomplishment is no longer possible (which means, needless to say, partially destroying the functionality of a person's mind).
Having people who wanted to prevent me from undertaking my research badly enough to try to kill me didn't make what I've done here any easier (obviously). And having people from Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) applying their asinine antics to my life is akin (not was since, as of February 2002, they still are) to (as much as I dislike using metaphors) telling a rape victim that her therapy will consist of forced sex with people she knows...and that she has no say in this, because her therapist 'knows better' what is good for her than she does (to the point where she need not be consulted on this).
Of course, Trent University has always been a substandard school; really, it is little more than a country club where the stupid and lazy children of the rich and well connected can obtain artificially high marks (in other words, actually pass courses) thanks to being spoon-feed through the high proportion of teachers to students. I probably never would have attended Trent if it hadn't been hyped by one of its alumni: a high school teacher who gave me a mark of 90% in my last year of high school English; but it wasn't until a few years ago that I found out that she was actually from Peterborough, a conflict of interest that, had I known of it, would have influenced my decision more toward one of the other universities that had also accepted me for admission (the University of Toronto and, Western U.). One of the other deciding factors which influenced my decision to attend Trent was the "student darkroom" advertised in their course calendar... a darkroom that did not actually exist. Well, that's Trent: false promises followed by substandard substitutions, and an almost cultish determination to force its viewpoint upon whomever and whatever comes under its sway. I really don't know why people from that school continue to harass me by showing up, from out-of-town, to drive by where I live; maybe they think that, as the staff photographer for the university's student newspaper for two years, I might have photographs of people smoking the free and pre-rolled dope which the student government use to supply for the annual, school-wide 'Reggae Night' celebrations; (some sort of "Yuppie Dred" thing) or, something similar: but I really don't know what their problem is (among my many aquaintances, you would not be able to find a single person who could remember me ever taking purposely photographs of drug use... even though I am known for push-processing black and white film to 6400 ASA, instead of using a flash). It could as easily be that, these Trentites are being manipulated by a Federal Government which has an agenda of its own (or rather, of the vested interests which fund its election campaigns) concerning the resources within the traditional territories of the First Nations...which are the unresolved focus of treaty talks and land claims trials.
Still, when all is said and done, I suppose the overall situation which has attended to my research can be summed up thus: as with the true history of what has befallen the Aboriginal Peoples in North America, what I have encountered is (a localized version of) a situation of active oppression which has undergone a transition into a covert structural suppression (structural racism); for, when attempts to stop me from proceeding with my research failed, they were replaced with an intention dedicated to keeping both my research AND knowledge of what had happened to me, in the course of conducting my research, from being generally know (or, at least, believed).
Which seems to have worked, since not even PEN U.S.A. will bother to involve themselves in this issue.
Of course, it is not unusual to find an individual condensing the sorts
of
events outlined above (and on the linked page) into what might be
called 'an
apperceptive kern of associative connectivity'. Any individual's natural,
uncritical perspective upon such events tends to stabilize into a
point-of-view that produces a very particular configuration of subjectivity;
wherein, the distinct and separable identities of those encountered as
part
of such events are subsumed by the commonalities found to be holding
between
such events.
Thus, a transferential matrix is formed as the stabilization of the
resultant point-of-view; and this trends to be subjectified into that
rather
nebulous ascription of indistinct group identity that we all know of as "the (A) conspiracy". As
Roland Barthes noted:
"Let me therefore restate that any semiology postulates a relation
between
two terms, a signifier and a signified. This relation concerns objects
which
belong to different categories, and this is why it is not one of
equality
but one of equivalence. We must here be on our guard for despite common
parlance which simply says that the signifier expresses the signified,
we
are dealing, in any semiological system, not with two, but with three
different terms. For what we grasp is not at all one term after the
other,
but the correlation which unites them: they are, therefore, the
signifier,
the signified and the sign, which is the associative total of the first
two
terms."
Roland Barthes, “Mythologies”; 1972 translation by Jonathan Cape Ltd. (Granada Publishing), pages 112-113.
"...myth is a peculiar system, in that it is constructed from a
semiological
chain which exists before it: it is a second-order semiological system.
That
which is a sign in the first system, becomes a mere signifier in the
second.
We must here recall that the materials of mythical speech, however
different
at the start, are reduced to a pure signifying function as soon as they
are
caught by myth...myth wants to see in them them only the sum of signs,
a
global sign, the final term of a first semiological chain. And it is
precisely this final term which will become the first term of the
greater
system which it builds, and of which it is a part."
Roland Barthes, “Mythologies”; 1972 translation by Jonathan Cape Ltd. (Granada Publishing), pages 114-115.
Indeed. Perfectly true...when one treats consciousness as a
systemization of
associative semiology, and thinks this within the linearity which characterizes phonetic systems of writing. As for myself, though...well, I've spent close to
two
decades practicing various stretches designed to sensitize my body's
motor
reflex memory to the feeling-tones of my muscle/tendon groups; and, in
practicing Tai Chi Chuan at a speed which raises these feeling-tones
into
waveform oscillations. Co-extensive with this somatic, proprioceptive
grasp
of waveform articulations, I have an extensive familiarity with a very developed systemization of
grammatological functions, coupled with (my attempt at) a personal
dedication to descriptive phenomenology...which is interlaced
throughout
with post-structural philosophy. So, generally, I really don't have much of a problem
discerning the inherent separability natural to events - or, the inherent
commonalities that sometimes holds between events.
[A distinction should be made here between 'conspiracy' and 'structural effects'. A conspiracy is a conscious, covert association of individuals organized toward a common, concealed goal of mutual benefit; and as nefarious as such arrangements tend to be, the more common 'structural effects' are all the more insidious.
Any structural organization needs to be maintained: they are not physically given objects, and so need to be constantly produced in order to continuously exist. Any structural organization tends to persist as a 'status quo', as an accepted associational state.
However, such productive maintenance occurs most definitively within those structurally self-definitional moments when the structures in question 'break'; that is, when they encounter their 'other' and so are most clearly defined as that which they are (in contrast to that which they are not).
Unfortunately, this means that structural organization tends to maintain itself by defining what it isn't, in order to better assert what it is. This conceptual maneuver has become so ingrained in Canada that it has become a distinct, almost defining feature of Canadian culture... which almost always describes itself as, simply, "not American".
This is also where what we call "structural racism" arises: when structural association proceeds in its self-productive maintenance through exclusions which, although peripheral to the functions of the structure in question (and thus covert or hidden/denied), are none the less inherent in the functional persistence of the structure.
In more advanced stages of structural organization, the maintenance of structural associations is generalized within the function of 'crisis management'; and thus the persistence of such structures becomes to some extent contingent upon the creation of crises through which the persistent structure in question can be actively defined.
This is the point where the effects of structural organization are easily mistaken for 'conspiracy'. The underlying distinction, however, is clear: structural organizations are essentially mindlessly endless axiomatics which are primarily concerned with maintaining themselves and with justifying the persistence of their existence].
As a matter of course, I just don't allow myself to be drawn into attributing
meaning to occurrences;
instead, I try to assess the practical functions associated with occurrences. You might say that my
extended experience with technologies dedicated toward
personalized motor
reflex training tends to orient me toward what might be called 'motives'; and my
grammatological (and scientific) interests tend to orient me toward 'functives' (both of which, it
should be
noted, share the commonality of differentiation). I pretty much know what
I am
interested in doing: and it is nothing like what the people who have
been
peripherally harassing me are into (apparently).
I really don't understand why these people would think that their
acting
like jerks would make me want to have much of anything to do with them.
I
guess that their life-long immersion exclusively in metaphor and
semiology
leads them to think that the ongoing and inevitable collapsing of their
conscious processes in onto thiselves (yes, I just made that word up; nothing else seemed to fit as well) - accumulatively accelerated over time by the
inevitable, attritional, one-by-one death of their brain cells -
somehow
justifies the imposition of their subjective and ever engorging sense
of
'oneness' upon anyone they feel like dragging into such a personalized
state
of singularity, with them.
Hmmmm...no, I don't think so; rather not, thanks. And, trying to force or manipulate me into such a situation constitutes an assault against my personal freedoms.
* * *
"Sure, you can get a table in a restaurant (on short notice) - but why don't you just call the restaurant the day before or go eat someplace else?"
Jodie Foster, on fame.
Quite so.
* * *
April 2nd, 2002: At the moment, I am conducting a close reading of Edmund Husserl's short essay, "The Origin of Geometry". I find it rather a disturbing piece of work. Written in 1936 (the year in which Moritz Schlick was murdered), there seems to be a lot less in this work that has to do with geometry than there are things that have to do with Nazism. Of course, the references to Nazism are quite covert but, given the socio-political context in which this essay was written, these references are none the less quite pronounced. Husserl died within two years of writing this essay, which was published the year following his death.
I would have to say that two things immediately stood out for me about this essay: how far post-structural philosophy has moved from the position Husserl advocates; and, how much the temper of Husserl's covert comments upon Nazism reminds me of my own oblique references to to those whom I have encountered as operating in opposition to my research, and in opposition to the concept of self-determination for the First Nations.
It is difficult at a first reading to decide if Husserl opposed Nazism; or, if he simply wanted to see it re-directed away from its elements of propaganda-oriented romantic mysticism, toward a more scientifically-based tradition of communality. With this in mind, I suppose I shall have to endeavor to express myself a little more clearly on matters pertaining to how this whole research project of mine has been received, in both general and particular instances.
As a general rule-of-thumb guide, I should point out that my research has been more or less favorably received by people in the United States, and in other places outside of Canada; and, that it has generally been negatively received by people within Canada (whom are not members of the First Nations).
* * *
"It is better to be too honest to be polite than too polite to be honest."
André Comte-Sponville, author of
"A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues".
* * *
And I suppose that I simply can not resist adding the observation that, there is a big difference between children using threats of physical violence to steal lunch money from other children - and adults using psychological violence to extract information from others, or, to otherwise manipulate the lives and day-to-day activities of others because of political ideologies. Apparently, though, this seems to be quite acceptable in Canada as long as cattle prods, car batteries, and alligator clips are not being used.
Hey, I don't think so; and if the people responsible for such acts themselves thought that it were okay then, they wouldn't put any effort into covering up, justifying, and distracting others from noticing that such activities occur.
So, please excuse me while I defend myself - which I feel perfectly justified in doing.
I Guess You Had To BE There...
Ever get that feeling that you are being watched?
Ever go and see just exactly who or what might be watching you?
I have! I have!
Here's a picture that I took in 1990, while camping with some friends
in
British Columbia's Coast Mountains, in the Pemberton area. You might be
able
to just make out our tents off in the distance, centered in the photo,
by
following the course of the stream (which leads directly to them; one is covered with a yellowish rain fly)).
While hiking away from our tents, I had the very distinct feeling of
being
watched by something that hid whenever I turned toward it in an attempt
to
see it. This first photo was taken from the position from, which it
seemed
to me, something had been watching me.
I say "something" because, there certainly weren't any other people up
there. As you can see from the second photo, there wasn't much of
anything
else but scree slopes and a boulder field stretching back toward where
a
glacier comes down from the surrounding mountain peaks. Of course, members of the First Nations had lived there once, before Europeans arrived in this part of North America... but then, the First Nations lived pretty well ANYWHERE they wanted to - and, that means pretty much EVERYWHERE - before Europeans arrived here.
A closer look at the large boulder located in that vantage point
overlooking
our camp reveals a clue as to what was watching me. In the bottom area
of
the first photograph, there is a very distinct pattern of red dots,
which
appear to have been left the bloody claws of a cougar's paw. Judging
from
the size of the paw/claw print, it was a pretty big cougar, too.
I
guess it
had just caught something to eat so, it wasn't all that dangerous;
although,
when I found its lair dug out beneath some boulders about 100 feet
behind
where this photo was taken, I didn't bother to take a picture of the
large
bones (animal vertebra, pelvises, etc.) scattered about outside that
little
cave - because line-of-sight visibility in that boulder field was
between
about two and, oh maybe at most ten or twelve feet... well, I didn't feel all that comfortable standing there
and
looking through one eye while I focused, framed, and set the exposure
for a
photograph (I prefer using a manual camera; it's more fun).
The reason I am particularly fond of this photograph is that the bloody
paw/claw print of the cougar was placed on this rock right on top of where a
glyph/ non-metrical image of a snarling, open-mouthed cougar is located (roughly outlined here in color: there are many other such images on this stone; and even better cougar images can be grouped out from the diagrammatic features near where the blood drops from the live cougar's claws are). Apparently, this
vantage
point - overlooking, as it does, the stream below where animals come to
drink - has been a favorite place for cougars (and perhaps even real "mountain" lions, judging from the rounded ears on some of these big cat images) to gravitate toward for a
long, long time... although I didn't really grasp that and put it all
together until several years after I took this photo, which is to say
until
after I had learned how to spot read non-metrical image writing.
This brings up a certain constellation of questions: for instance, if I
can
see these glyphic images; and even wild animals can see these images
well
enough to respond to them, then, why is it that the archaeologists,
anthropologists, and other academics I've approached with my research
say
that they CAN"T see these images? What's up with that?
Well obviously there is something more going on here that an inability
to
grasp the existence of this form of non-metrical image writing. Kind of
reminds me of the reaction one gets from pedophilic priests, corrupt politicians, and sleazy police when they are caught in their deceits: to just ignore the situation's existence in public but, try to privately remove or otherwise neutralize whomever is drawing attention to their misdeeds or their complicity in the unethical actions of others.
Which brings me to the point I would like to close this section with: I
can
think of no finer place than this boulder field to drop off such
keeners,
jerks, and creeps as have been periodically 'stalking' me over the past
several years. Perhaps then they might gain an appreciation for what
being
stalked is really all about... and, for the kind of response that they
really should expect from other humans when they engage in that sort of
activity themselves.
As one expert notes:
"...California is one of the few "non-retreat state" which means I don't have
to walk away or avoid the potential conflict and that I may strike the first
blow. The "threat" is what the lone one individual perceives or believes it
to be. They are the ones standing there. It may be real or imaginary. The
legal test is "what a reasonable person would do".
A common police saying is "rather be tried by 12 then carried by 6"
demonstrates the uncertainty that does exists. When, How and Do we act.
Police are the only ones held to a higher standard and have to respond to
appropriate levels of force. Civilians are not restricted. Force is whatever
is necessary including deadly force that is necessary for protection. The
person in that situation is the one that determines what force, including
deadly force, is necessary to act. A person standing outside your shoes can
not judge. Again the legal test is "what a reasonable person IN YOUR SHOES
would do".
Sad but true of ALL the court trials I've been to the ONLY person telling
the TRUTH was the victim.
(FYI. family and friends that afterwards ask you "why where you there, you
should've known better" "God, that was stupid" "What were you thinking" "I
never would of done that" Your martial arts teacher that states "you failed
us" are NOT SUPPORTERS , and are not helping you. Don't carry their
baggage. Get rid of them. Call a crisis team, mostly volunteers of people
that have suffered similar incidents - get support).
...and it isn't 'Just Me'.
ANYWAY; I'm sure that some who read the above section will think, "Oh, it's all just his imagination". But, it is not; and, I am quite capable of discerning the effects of my imagination within my own mind, thank you very much. I'm quite use to being the person that I am; which is to say, that through the course of my entire life I have become quite use to hearing things such as:
(May 16th, 2003 - my, what interesting things one can find upon the Internet! Well, in fact, I suppose that I'd have to say that this found me - arriving, as it did, unsolicited in an e-mail).
"THE BRAINTEASER TEST"
"John, you answered 28 out of 30 questions correctly!
"Congratulations! Your score is in the 99th percentile. This means that if one hundred people took the test with you, your score would rank higher than 98 of them on average.
"When we analyzed your test, we also discovered that when it comes to visual-spatial ability, you measure in the 100th percentile. This score indicates you have unusually strong abilities when it comes to spotting patterns in the world around you. You're easily able to envision things spatially in different positions, and this allows you to determine what spatial patterns are present. Compared with you, most others lack the creative ability and/or skill to imagine the movement of objects or patterns in time and space."
SO: just by the way of a comparison, here is a little something by someone who also encountered much the same sort of circumstances as I did, when working their way into more or less the same overall area of inquiry as I found my research leading me toward.
If you won't believe me, a post structural philosopher, then perhaps you will believe this person... a priest. We may have taken different approaches in our encounters of these issues; and we may have reached different conclusions as to who might be manipulating circumstances in our lives from behind the scenes; but I can assure you of one thing: if you have a post-structural philosopher and a priest agreeing upon a set of circumstances, then you KNOW you are dealing with a situation which actually exists!
The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples
by Church and State in Canada, by (Rev.) Kevin Annett
(Kevin Annett is a former United Church minister in Vancouver, Canada, who was fired without cause in 1995, and then expelled from the same church without due process, after he had unearthed evidence of the theft of native land by church officers, and of the murder of native children at the United Church residential school in Port Alberni, British Columbia, where Kevin ministered.
Since his firing and blacklisting by the United Church, Reverend Annett has worked as an advocate and counsellor in aboriginal healing circles on the west coast. He organized the first international Tribunal into Canadian residential schools in Vancouver in June, 1998, at which a United Nations affiliate, IHRAAM, presided. This website is a partial summary of that investigation.
Men and women of the Pacheedat, Ahousat, Cowichan, Haida, Songhees, Penelakut, Carrier, Halalt, Tseshat, Inuit, Chemainus, Squamish, Hesquait, Cree, Blood, Sto:lo, Dene, Lakhota and Metis Nations wrote this report with their own witness, suffering, and courage. Some of them have chosen to remain anonymous in the face of death threats and other perils both to themselves and their families which have been made by agents of the state, the churches, the RCMP and government-funded native organizations).
Published by The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, a public investigative body continuing the work of previous Tribunals into native residential schools, including the United Nations-affiliated IHRAAM Tribunal of June 12-14, 1998, convened in Vancouver, Canada.
copyright © The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, 2001 (2nd edition)
This Report is the result of more than six years of research and investigation, and contains the tesimonies of nearly 200 aboriginal eyewitnesses to murder, torture, sterilizations and other crimes against humanity committed at church-run residential schools and hospitals across Canada. More than 50,000 Indian children died in these facilities between 1891 and 1984, according to government statistics which indicate a continual death rate of between 35% and 60% in these schools.
The genocide of aboriginal peoples in Canada continues today, as evident in their third-world standard of living - 64th in the world, below that of Mexico and Thailand - the continued loss of their land base and resources to multinational corporations, the deliberate killing of native people by police and vigilante groups, and the exploitation of aboriginal children in pedophile networks protected by government, church and police officials, especially on Canada's west coast.
Hmmm... well, the following sounds all too familiar. I guess the only major differences between what happened to me and what has happened to Kevin Annett are that:
1) What happened to me started happening a lot sooner than that which has happened to Rev. Annett did; and,
2) No one bothered to try and directly threaten me... they just went directly to trying to beat me up and, when THAT didn't work, on to trying to arrange my 'accidental' death. I suppose that this is because they rather quickly realized how I would probably respond to any directly uttered threat... or, that I would not hesitate to document any physical evidence of such threats (which would undermine "their" 'accidental death' scenarios).
With that as a 'given', one can see why so much effort has gone into this whole asinine activity of "stalking" me using people I have met in the past... it is simply an effort being made to detract from the incidents which occurred when I initially began to make public my research into the form of writing used in pre-Columbian times by the First Nations of North America. Rather than admitting that something is wrong here - that there are vested interests in Canada who will kill those doing legitimate academic research which undermines the political agenda of said vested interests - the decision was made (and resources mobilized) to try and undermine my credibility and/or destabilize my life and/or interfere with and suppress my research.
Addendum: Attacks on Rev. Kevin Annett made by The United Church of Canada and their associates since January 23, 1995:
As presented by The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada
1. Firing him from his job in a brutal and illegal manner, contrary to The Criminal Code of Canada, The UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the Manual of The United Church;
2. Permanently expelling him from his livelihood in ministry;
3. Conducting a sustained and public smear campaign and character assassination against him across Canada and over the internet;
4. Subverting his academic studies and career at The University of British Columbia;
5. Intervening in his divorce and custody trial, and assisting in the break-up of his family and denial of his life as a parent;
6. Preventing speaking and preaching engagements by him;
7. Inciting violence against him;
8. Inciting a police investigation of him on false charges;
9. Denying him income and livelihood;
10. Undermining and destroying his personal friendships and relationships;
11. Verbally and physically assaulting him in public;
12. Making direct threats to him;
13. Stealing his personal possessions;
14. Cooperating with the RCMP and the federal government in smear and disinformation campaigns against him;
15. Assisting the federal government in legal action against him.
I am not going to comment on the following item but, am including it here well after this page was completed because it just seems to fit here so well...
The Globe And Mail
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Page A1
DRUG TRAIL LED RCMP TO LIBERAL STAFFERS
by Robert Matas (Vancouver) and Brent Jang (Victoria).
"The RCMP raided two ministerial offices in the B.C. Legislature as a result of information gathered during a 20-month investigation into massive drug deals involving an exchange of B.C. marijuana for U.S. cocaine, police say.
"The Mounties and Victoria police arrested nine people earlier this month who were alleged to be part of an organized-crime ring dealing in drugs, RCMP Sergeant John Ward said yesterday.
"Three were from Toronto and the rest were from Vancouver and Victoria.
"In the course of their investigation, police discovered information of possible criminal activity touching on aides of top ministers in the British Columbia cabinet, Sgt. Ward said..."
Of course, it should be noted here that there are really just two major political camps at the provincial level of British Columbian politics: the left wing, which fields the New Democratic Party; and the nebulous 'right wing', which runs candidates from political banner to political banner as one and then another of its guises looses favor with the electorate. Thus, what is now called 'The Liberal Party of British Columbia' is primarily composed of people who use to be affiliated with the ruling Social Credit Party; and they could as easily call themselves Conservatives if that particular name happened to be in favor.
Now, the old Social Credit Party was driven from office in the early 1990's after a series of scandals; but during their time in office, they developed a political strategy called "vindication". It worked like this:
- an elected official would be publicly accused of a breach of ethics;
- said official would be 'investigated' (by people their political cronies appointed to do so);
- the official under 'investigation' would be "cleared of all wrong-doing"... they would be VINDICATED.
The purpose of the political act of "vindication" seems to be directly linked to what has been called 'the society of the spectacle': by creating the illusion of propriety around government officials through the public spectacle of vindication, the government delegitimizes any other ongoing complaints about their ethical breaches. After all, if everyone in the government has been publicly vindicated of one thing or another, then, none of them can be doing anything wrong, can they? Why, no: they've all been 'vindicated'.
Whatever is going on with the above noted investigation, given that it is occurring in British Columbia and is centered around people who at another time would probably be calling themselves The Social Credit Party, you can just about bet that, in the end, everyone involved will be VINDICATED. Then, if any such allegations arise in the future, said allegations will be brushed aside as baseless - regardless of their origin in fact - because all of the people potentially involved WILL ALREADY HAVE BEEN "VINDICATED".
For my part, though, nothing has changed: I happened upon evidence of a writing system used during pre-Columbian times by the First Nations; I happened upon this system of writing at a time when it appeared that the potential success of unresolved land claims then before the courts in British Columbia might to some degree depend upon establishing the fact of the existence of such a writing system; shortly after I began to talk to people about what I had discovered, a strange situation evolved at the apartment building where I lived which ended up with someone with martial arts training - who didn't even live there - trying to beat me up; and after I published an article about what I had found in the small alternative paper which I was the photo editor/environmental columnist for (in Vancouver; but, we also distributed copies as far away as Bellingham and Seattle), I was set up in a situation through which I was almost killed.
Please note that this set-up seems to have been contingent upon knowledge would only have been available at that time and in its totality to the Canadian government's security services.
Afterward, all manner of devices and ploys were engaged in a concerted effort to discredit any claims and assertions I might make concerning what had happened to me; and all along, a certain complicity in the ongoing situation seemed to be evident between certain well-placed persons both within the government, and at the university I had attended during the early 1980's.
Indeed, there is absolutely no way anyone in British Columbia would have known that I did indeed possess the conceptual tools and training needed to prove my assertion that the First Nations had in fact used a form of writing in pre-Columbian times... except through people somehow associated with the university I had attended. The efforts to stop me from proving the existence of such a form of writing started a couple of YEARS before my article on my preliminary research was published in Semiotext[e] CANADAS; and, the sort of interests and training required to prove such a claim occur as a very rare combination of applied expertise (particularly when you factor in my photographic skills - needed to show others what that form of writing looked like - and my past history of working for, and with, First Nations groups. I'm not even going to touch upon my martial arts training, which I will always contend should never have been made a factor in the successful completion of what I have done in documenting this form of writing; or, my training in Taoist meditation techniques - because that aspect of my approach is all together too 'unscientific' for me to make very much of a fuss over).
Oh; and of course, the fact that I'm NOT FROM British Columbia - and thus not associated with any vested interests there - and never studied anthropology or archaeology (and thus am not associated with any vested interests THERE) certainly allowed me to proceed in a manner characterized by an objectivity all too rare where such matters as these are the going concern.
That the people most actively trying to kill me, at the point when I was apparently being set-up for such an eventuality, were actively involved in the drug trade (or so it would seem: growing pot; smuggling it into the United States; and laundering any money so obtained, back here in Canada) is really quite incidental: more telling is that I was set up in a situation through which such people might be manipulated into trying to kill me... because that implies that whomever set me up so, knew quite well that these people do indeed arrange the 'accidental death' of those that they come to feel they have reason to mistrust or suspect of 'spying' upon them - and chose to use the knowledge of such murderous tendencies to their advantage. Whomever set up said situation would also have had to have very advanced knowledge of Prince Charles's visit to Canada, and would have had to know where he would be saying almost a year before his visit. Said persons must also have been in such a position as to expect that, should I have died so very close to that location, they would have been able to gain control of whatever records, journals, photographs and negatives I might have had kept which could potentially have indicated their involvement in what almost happened to me... on the jurisdictional grounds of "national security", or some such justification.
Now, over a decade later, there STILL haven't been any new treaties signed in British Columbia through the encompassing process put in place at around the time all this stuff was happening to me (the idea being to move said land claims out of the courts and into open 'good faith' negotiation - which is always the route that the First Nations prefer to take). I still haven't found any source of funding for my research, and what I have documented has all but been supressed (except for what I've managed to post here on the World Wide Web - which didn't even really exist when I began my research - and what I had published in Semiotext[e] CANADAS in 1994).
As well, we still haven't gotten to the bottom of what actually happened in Bute Inlet during 1861... or how that relates to what happened throughout British Columbia in the following year.
Well, let's face it: Canada really, really sucks big time; and all you'll ever find up here within the inner circle of the public sphere are people who will deny that such things happen, and who will help in covering them up - instead of exposing such activities and forcing the way that things are done here to change.
Saturday, March 6th 2004:
Well, there is one more item that I would like to add to this long and winding section. I wasn't sure just how to edit and introduce recent news reports of what has turned into a perfect illustration of how Canadian Liberals latch onto flows of government (and other) capital for their own ends; so I think I'll just post the words of a local opposition politician (bearing in mind that I have nothing politically in common with this person):
"It appears that we are headed for another federal election - the third in seven years. We're going to the polls because a corruption scandal of unprecedented proportions was exposed in Ottawa and the Liberals want a new lease on life before you and I know the full truth.
Thanks to the Auditor General, the Opposition parties and the media, what we know already is sickening. Public institutions like Canada Post, Via Rail and even the RCMP were politicized by the Liberal party to serve as middlemen in phony advertising schemes that allegedly permitted more than $100 million to be siphoned to financial supporters of the Liberal party. We know that scores of the most senior civil servants in Ottawa turned a blind eye to the commands of Liberal politicians while shamelessly ruining the careers of anyone who tried to prevent the abuse by sticking up for taxpayers and integrity in our government..."
That's right: it seems that Liberal party suporters managed to steal $100 million dollars by pretending to do ad work for the government, and by skimming from money they were ("for some reason") 'delegated' to pass on to other groups. Typical; and now you can see why these people will do anything to assure their positions next to such flows of government capital.
[July 20, 2005: and so, about a dozen years after those incidents which led me to postulate a rather covertly tenuous ‘relationship of political convenience’ between the RCMP and the Liberal Party of Canada, I see that prominent politicians from other parties are starting to postulate the same sort of de facto linkage…]
A “very unnatural and cozy relationship” between the RCMP and the federal Liberals could be to blame for the force’s reluctance to investigate the party over the sponsorship scandal, Deputy Conservative Leader Peter MacKay said Tuesday.
McKay calls the relationship between the RCMP and the federal Liberal government “deeply disturbing”.
During a meeting with Charlottetown Guardian’s editorial board, he said the RCMP has investigated allegations surrounding the advertising firms Groupaction, Groupe Everest and Groupe Polygone, and has put former bureaucrats like Chuck Guite under the microscope in the wake of the startling allegations at the Gomery inquiry.
“What's the one entity that hasn't been investigated by our national police force? The recipient of the money, and the party that's in power, that controlled the purse strings, that funneled the money back to themselves. Isn't that a bit odd?” said MacKay.
“I find it very curious as a former Crown prosecutor when there's overwhelming evidence that the responsible body, that was both the perpetrator and the recipient of the money, isn't under investigation.”
... which, of course, brings us back to a look at the nature of the situation being examined here; and a consideration of those ends to which said situation is directed. As I have noted, what happened to me in the course of my early investigation into the existence of a form of pre-Columbian writing used by the First Nations of North America is typical and symptomatic of the sort of direct oppression and violence with which members of the First Nations' communities are being targeted by the various institutions of the Government of Canada.
West Coast Warriors Society Disbands
FINAL COMMUNIQUÉ
The West Coast Warrior Society has disbanded.
As a result of the unlawful and unethical activities of Canadian police agencies in targeting our members and our organization, and the unfair branding of Indigenous activists as terrorists, we have concluded that it is no longer possible for us to be effective in carrying out our responsibility to defend Indigenous lands, communities, and rights as we have been doing. The police have used lies, misinformation, threats and intimidation by law and force to create a climate of fear surrounding our organization and have undermined our support.
It must be understood that we are first and foremost men are who are committed to our families and communities. This commitment is stronger than our adherence to an ideology or allegiance to an organization. We have talked with and listened to our elders, our women, and our children, and it is out of love and respect for them and concern for their well-being and security that we have decided to end our association and operations.
We have never advocated the use of violence to advance our cause. We reiterate that our actions in Burnt Church, Cheam, Esowista and Saanich, and in all of our other involvements, were acts of self-defense. They were legitimate and justified responses to the direct threat posed to Indigenous peoples by racist policies and overzealous law enforcement agencies. We restate our disavowal of the use of violent means to achieve the goal of Indigenous self-determination. However, the police killings of Dudley George, J.J. Harper, Neil Stonechild, Anthany Dawson and thousands more of our people confirm the need for us to maintain the right to defend ourselves and protect our families from physical harm.
We restate our dedication to fight for the survival of our people and to protect our way of life. Our communities, cultures, and lands must be defended. We are disbanding as an organization dedicated to the physical defense of Indigenous communities and we are embarking on the path of strictly nonviolent political and social struggle. We are rededicating ourselves today as warriors and we are committing to advance Indigenous people’s cultural and political and social resurgence.
Coast Salish Territory
August 2, 2005
