Hired Ears – the new PRopaganda Mercenaries - Alcyonenews

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Posted July 20, 2020

Hired Ears – the new PRopaganda Mercenaries

Last January I attempted once again to get the Trust to open up to us. I emailed “my local Trustees” asking them to initiate consideration of the Ideas Bank by the SSI LTC and the iTrust Council.

Instantaneously Peter Grove moved to “nip it in the Bud”. No surprising since it is he who instigated the Trust institution of censorship. He responded as follows:

“RE: to include Ideas Bank in the Agendas. Thanks Tom. I am copying this to staff for the record. Peter”

In effect Peter let the other Trustee, the chair of the LTC and the Staff know what he wanted them to do to in respect to my request. This would create kind of a fait accompli, with a fake faint scent of propriety. All his addressees had to do was nothing, he had “the job done” for them all.

Laura Patrick took two weeks to respond. It was she I was really hoping would instigate discussion of the Ideas Bank because she was relatively newcomer and not as yet absorbed by the Trust, or so I thought. It appears she went for the Ideas Bank, but hit the stone wall the Trust has built to shield itself agains the winds of change. Peter Grove, a cub Trustee in 2012, had sought to do the Ideas Bank before the Trust washed “idealism” out his head. It appears it took “them” two weeks to get Laura to deny the Ideas Bank and “compromise” on a pilot “two way dialog” [Trust terminology gem] to be done with a secure “platform”. The compromise done, on January 21 Laura “responded” to my request:

“I wanted to let you know that we did discuss your proposed motions about the ideas bank. I sincerely like the concept of an ideas bank to improve the LTC’s community engagement.”

Dynamite! I went through shock to become seriously distressed. No less, she lets it out that “they” discussed the matter privately, behind the public’s and my back. “They” discussed the Ideas Bank in hiding, Laura reveals, the Ideas Bank the purpose of which is to prevent secrecy in governance. The Ideas Bank, the only known concept, that may make the Trust come to terms with open governance, “they” discussed it entirely in hiding and the outcome is utterly damnable. No wonder they did it in hiding.

Next, Laura switched over to Trust self-insulting mode, that of “playing stupid” to evade the alternative. She “explains” that the Trust is too inept to understand the Ideas Bank concept – this after I have been explaining it to “them” for 10 years in voice and print.

They “are intrigued by the eDemocracy project being piloted through the climate action plan update”, she writes. She then “consoles” me by “reasoning” that the eDemocracy “is a made on Salt Spring product that might work like your ideas bank”. Fantastic, eh?

Having said that, she confesses that she does not really know what eDemocracy is! But she would meet with the “developer” of it to learn why she had become “intrigued” by it! One imagines the eDemocracy “developer” explaining to her why she rejected the Ideas Bank and why she fell for the developer’s “platform”. Admirable!

Finally, Laura gracefully promised to educate me, after she learns about it from the “developer”. She expects to make me join “them” in awe for the eDemocracy , I presume. Anyway, she has not enlightened me as yet ...

I realized that Laura was unaware of the history of the Trust defending its corporate sophistry of “secrecy” with the same dirty trick they implicated her in this time around. I emailed her some facts: The first time I proposed the Ideas Bank, “they” opted for the Facebook “alternative”; this resulted in some “unpleasant” effects and they withdrew quickly.

But I kept the pressure on and to fend me off “they” opted for the PlaceSpeak “alternative” – this too, failed dismally. Now “they” they use the eDemocracy “alternative”.

Laura asked me to let her know my thoughts on the eDemocracy after I had the “opportunity to interact with it.” Well, I have the “opportunity” and after what I saw I would not touch it even with the proverbial 10 foot pole. The eDemocracy “platform” is a show staged by a platoon of “Listening Mercenarnaries For Hire”. They will absorb the public ire caused by the “internal stake-holders” who hire them. And more ...

In sharp contrast to that, the Ideas Bank is designed to make bodies like the Trust abide by the Law and comply with prevailing applicable principles of conduct. It does that by compelling them to operate in the open, as they must. Including listening with their own ears to what their masters, we the people have to say. That is all it does and that is powerful and effective, as evidenced by that long resistance mounted against it by the Trust.

They dread the prospect of having to operate in the open, But governing in front of the public eye is, the keystone of democracy. Irreplaceable.

eDemocracy is conducive to power Corruption. The Ideas Bank is the best known antidote to power corruption. That is all and it is simple.