<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Bob, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">With all due respect…about time. When I started receiving the “Assisting virtual Craic” e-mails I initially read them but stopped rather quickly. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The Covid problem in Ontario goes back to Trump’s dismissal followed by Ford’s incompetence/stupidity or simple following of Big Brother Trump and I had no time to waste on what went on in those “Assisting virtual Craic” e-mails.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’m 78 and growing up in wartime and post war U.K. I owe my life many-times over to the multiple vaccinations I received through the N.H.S.(National Health Service). But I also grew up with politicians like Clement Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Heath whose prime concern was”the people.” This is why I have been interested/involved in politics my whole life in England, Jamaica and Canada. I have been asked to run for political office on a number of occasions and from the end of my high school education (6th Form) thought I would eventually do so. I shouldn’t even put Doug Ford’s name on the same page as this aforementioned politicians. The Greek “polis” and Aristotle’s "<span class="mention-tr tr Latn" lang="grc-Latn">ta politiká</span>” are so far from what Ford and under his leadership the current Ontario government has done.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Politics was once a noble profession but the Ford’s of this world have truly changed that</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Be well in these strange times</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">John Q</div><div class=""><a href="mailto:scouserquinn@gmail.com" class="">scouserquinn@gmail.com</a></div><div class="">905-934-9115<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 17, 2021, at 2:26 PM, Rob Anderson via craic <<a href="mailto:craic@lists.integralshift.ca" class="">craic@lists.integralshift.ca</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div dir="auto" class="">Follow up to the Mercolas missive and the recent Ford shut down. Here’s a better article about some of the poor leadership we have had on the local front.<br class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">Of course, I am concerned about the experimental vaccination formulas, the profit windfall for big pharma, the overreach of the corporate media self-interest, Wall St. hucksters, big banks, the enormous reach of mega tech, the power of large corporations and big governments from China and Russia to the USA and even Canada. But my concern with the Mercolas thinking is that it creates a “bloated blockchain” of complex issues that all get jumbled together in one gigantic ideological pot of stew, a kind of pile on that distorts the immediate issues by resorting to an intensely overcharged perspective. It wasn’t long into that Mercola letter before the big communist red scare theory with a twist of Ayn Rand dominated the argument with how all our freedoms are at stake as we drift toward communism.</span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">I think it would be a far better exercise for these folks to hold off on the cluster of conspiracies and do a “put on the hat of the Premier” exercise. Here too I think this is a necessary exercise because contrary to the Mercolas letter, Ford on the flip side of the coin wants to blame each of us as individuals for not stepping up in this crisis. The one blames with speculative assumptions about vast conspiratorial social and political agents while the other blames individuals for our mess.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">In both cases, we take our eyes away from what, in this case, the Govt of Ontario should have been doing all along. We clearly see that the major problem in </span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">Ontario is the lower income population that works in more hazardous working </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">conditions. Even Ford knows this. Schools, while presenting a modest risk, are not the central problem and certainly parks aren’t. Paul and others will certainly disagree with me about schools. Nevertheless, shutting everything down isn’t the answer. Creating more fear and then policing the general population is going to generate a major crisis in confidence with this Ford government. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">The big conspiracy analysis that focuses on partly true but often nebulous conspiratorial speculation and the “small c” analysis that places the problem squarely in the laps of individual failures allows Governments such as Ontario to blur the picture regarding their failures to play the chess game with any intelligence and certainly without any anticipatory thinking 3-4 steps ahead.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">That is why my view is to hold off on the big philosophical narrative for a bit and put on the Premier’s hat. What would I do? Right now, today. Not who would I blame. At this point, right wing blaming of China, the big banks etc. doesn’t do much in the immediate circumstance.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">For my part, and I wrote about it a couple of months ago, I would not have closed schools, but I would have heavily supervised factories, warehouses, meat packing plants and construction zones to ensure compliance with Covid safety regulations. I also would have ramped up vaccinations for these workers. Instead, the various right wing and left wing media and government fear campaigns about everything from the vaccines to playgrounds have driven groups such as many in the workaday immigrant and black communities in the GTA to fear vaccinations. And now, the very people who are most vulnerable trust no one. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">Both Mercola’s big train approach blaming a vast array of others and Ford’s it all up the individual responsibility or we will punish you approach de-energize people at a critical juncture as we try to determine the immediate way forward.</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">It’s not a bird or a plane...it’s actually a very weak government whose policies are all over the place instead of focusing on the actual areas where the outbreaks are clearly evident. Let’s turn our attention to the specific issues at hand and see if we can find a sensible way forward that addresses the critical issues associated with controlling this pandemics. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">But I am afraid that more and more people are going to be joining the Mercola crowd who have decided to couple conspiracy theories with the vaccination. </span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">In any event, my May 1st call for a summer respite before the next wave looks like it has gone up in smoke and mirrors!</span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" class="">Bob</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="ltr" class=""><b class="">Subject:</b> <b class="">Here’s an article that makes sense....Government ineptitude. Most of Canada is in a punishing third wave. How did it come to this? - <a href="http://Macleans.ca" class="">Macleans.ca</a></b><br class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="ltr" class=""><span class=""></span><br class=""><span class=""><a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-did-it-come-to-this/" class="">https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-did-it-come-to-this/</a></span><br class=""><span class=""></span><br class=""><span class=""></span><br class=""><span class="">Sent from my iPad</span><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br class="">craic mailing list<br class="">To send message: <a href="mailto:craic@integralshift.ca" class="">craic@integralshift.ca</a><br class="">To manage Subscription: <a href="http://lists.integralshift.ca/listinfo.cgi/craic-integralshift.ca" class="">http://lists.integralshift.ca/listinfo.cgi/craic-integralshift.ca</a><br class="">To Unsubscribe: "<a href="mailto:craic-unsubscribe@integralshift.ca" class="">craic-unsubscribe@integralshift.ca</a>"</div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></body></html>