Dear members and friends of The Doubting Thomases Our core group is making a presentation of the Doubting Thomases at St. Thomas Anglican Church in Belleville tomorrow. The following is a draft of our introductory synopsis which represents the combined effort of John Mark Robertson, Bill Tomlinson and myself. We also benefited from valuable suggestions from Rignam Wangkhang, Lionel Enright and Eric Caulfield. We would very much appreciate your comments and suggestions. The Doubting Thomases A Brief Introduction The Doubting Thomases, an outgrowth of a core group of St. Thomas Anglican Church, Belleville - is a secular organization concerned with social justice, ecology and human rights. We try to provide fact based information in an attempt to counter distortions of mainstream corporate controlled media. We post articles of possible interest daily on our face-book site. We have approximately 200 members with 167 connected with our face-book site. Participation is by invitation. If you wish to join, please sign the registration and if you are on face-book you can connect to our following links. One of our members will O.K. your request to become part of the dialogue. This is the link to the face-book site: https://facebook/groups/196467593727084/ This is the link to our face-book page: https://facebook/TheDoubtingThomases During the recent Israeli offensive against Gaza our core membership has been especially active. It is noteworthy that members of the Jewish community have been among the most articulate, courageous critics, even when facing imprisonment, loss of academic positions, humiliation, personal smear campaigns and police brutality. We made approximately 90 new international contacts, communicated with political party leaders and continued to post daily on our face-book page and those of the political parties. Ignorance, we believe, is the main obstacle to enlightened action. It is to address this core root of many misguided actions, that we attempt to provide fact based information in the face of widespread misinformation. Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others. Indeed, democracy as a system is not perfect, but it is our belief as is the underlying assumption of any real democracy, that in general an informed public will help assure that the best decisions will be made relative to national and international concerns. The key here is “informed”. A democracy is said to run on information. In the practice of democracy, voters – whether citizens voting in an election, or parliamentarians voting on bills in the legislature – consider and decide on policies and legislation based on available information. The Doubting Thomases was formed several years ago when it became apparent that the Canadian government, until recently relatively open compared to many other governments across the world, had begun to choke off the flow of information, both by defunding and dismantling research institutions and organizations and by preventing access to information. Canada is not alone in this trend – it can be seen across the Western world - but the transition to a state in which information is tightly controlled by, and in the interests of a highly partisan central government is new to this country. Through our facebook site we post and re-post columns and reports that we feel offer information and points of view that are often unavailable in mainstream media. In addition to global concerns, we also highlight political, social, economic and human rights issues specific to Canada. Some of our ongoing concerns include the following: Undemocratic Voting System Our current first-past-the-post voting system is undemocratic. Only those who cast votes for the winning candidate in any particular jurisdiction actually elect anybody. All other votes are wasted. This has led to voter apathy and declining turnouts. It has also led to “false majorities”, where parties garnering only 37-39% of the popular vote end up forming majority governments. Endless War As the United States attempts to form another “coalition of the willing” to destroy ISIS we need to reflect on the futility of the previous attempts to “fix” problems in Iraq and the level of destruction they have caused. Further, we need to finally understand the futility of warfare as a way of doing politics. Enough people have died in enough wars and the time has finally come for humanity to try something different in order to resolve its problems. We can no longer tolerate situations such as Gaza, Iraq, Syria etc. The era of wholesale slaughter must be brought to an end. Climate Change Very likely the gravest crisis facing humanity now is runaway climate change. A recent statement by the World Meteorological Organization outlines the seriousness of the crisis: Carbon Dioxide Concentration Surges Geneva, 9 September 2014 (WMO) – The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record high in 2013, propelled by a surge in levels of carbon dioxide. This is according to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, which injected even greater urgency into the need for concerted international action against accelerating and potentially devastating climate change. The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin showed that between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide. In 2013, concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 142% of the pre-industrial era (1750), and of methane and nitrous oxide 253% and 121% respectively. Despite this little of substance is being done by governments. They are largely in denial or don’t seem to care much about the dire consequences. We desperately need to turn the ship around as soon as humanly possible. It is an incredibly complex issue, but the status quo of unbridled carbon emissions is a definite recipe for disaster. Degradation of Democracy Increasingly, in Canada and elsewhere, governments are making decisions without meaningful consultation with the citizens of their countries. Trade deals, many of which have dubious benefits are being hashed out in secret. Scientists are being muzzled. Institutions such as Statistics Canada etc. are being hindered in their work by political interference and budget cuts. There are robocall scandals etc. These add up to a serious degradation to public participation in public policy. People are becoming cynical and disengaged as a result. This trend needs to be halted and reversed. Should you wish to share in our venture, we welcome your involvement, and look forward to your input and commentary. Once again - The link to our face-book site: https://facebook/groups/196467593727084/ and the link to our face-book page: https://facebook/TheDoubtingThomases We have printed samples of our posts from the past 10 days which will give you some idea of the type of information available through our face book site.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 01:11:10 +0000
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