I studied and lived in a range of experimental communities in my early years and also helped design and run two alternative therapeutic communities to help those diagnosed with mental illness stay out of the institutional system. One had a large organic garden in which we taught the residents to grow their own food.

I also spent many years doing group and milieu therapy, and since I still work as a therapist and consultant by day, I am reluctant to get pulled into that role in my off hours. A community of “peers” would be great, but I have standards I suspect few would want to meet.

I appreciate how you speak about working with people, both in this comment and on your website. I also educate about herbs, supplements, and alternative approaches to dealing with life’s challenges, in part through my own adapting to Lymes, chemical and GMO sensitivities, etc. Cultivating my own raw milk kefir (no refrigeration) has been part of my healing from antibiotics, so the constant attack on raw dairies has been in my face for years and I often have to buy it under the table.

I am fascinated to watch our dialogue about GMOs here on Jon’s blog as we grapple with the usual tendency to polarize and to observe how mature people deal with that. I am a revolutionary like Jon in most ways so I generally avoid institutional forms of anything, but in managing agencies I had to learn politics along the way, as well as that sometimes one can do both. Couples therapy is one of my specialties, so helping autonomous individuals find their context of common ground is central to my work.

As you say, its a “fine line” between head bashing and leading, so tracking that line as it moves between extremes is one of my favorite disciplines and forms of play. I address this at length in two long comments @ Jon’s recent post on “The Myth of Limited Solution.” I highly value “the problem ‘contains’ the solution” idea but for me that requires digging deep in this many layered play of illusions.

I not surprised at the fact, in the thinner front section of the paper; the grade seven class at St ClusterFuok Catholic Primary school raised the most for Breast Cancer….wow the little brain dead darlin’s. Or the one article on how we in Saskatchewan should be so proud for our farmers because they feed-the-world…cough, gag (dry heave).
It’s the middle size supplement in the center, between the front section lies, and the fat back section post harvest automobile ads that appeal to your bumper crop money.

These middle section supplement un-authored articles, anonymous propaganda…and I say that because, all the articles on GMO’s, Round-Up, herbicide, ‘GMO seed versus Organic Seed’, and interesting GMO slanted facts for the kiddies had no authors, that I politely, could have responded too… in a co-existent way, I mean.

In between these GMO pep points are the half page or quarter page Ads for their deadly poisons.
This rag sheet purported to come to common ground with such article titled like:
“Labels on pack help Canadians select the perfect cut of beef”……….the illusion of choice. But nothing on the GMO’ed pellets that are feed to cattle here in Saskatchewan.
“Organic and conventional farming have a lot in common”………yeah ok, GMO crops have the disposition of a bad weed; you can water them with Round-Up, several times as a matter of fact. But organics need herbicide too. Bullshit!
“New bee species named after curator”……….the optimum word here is ‘Curator’, as in museum. The article failed to mention, he found it in the basement of the museum, in a dusty back closet. And it’s extinct now. But it presents the illusion we are moving forward. And we have new bees, instead of those old stupid bees. That keeps making bee colonies that collapse.
“Global increase of biotech crops is rapid” ….sort of ah, diatribe to the organic fellows, ‘if you snooze you loose’ thing.
And finally we have the……….
“BASF reminds growers about post harvest applications”……BASF (Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik) reinvented and amalgamated with IG Farben the company that brought us Fluoride and the gas Zyklon B used on the Jews in gas chambers.
Under a post-harvest study by the researchers at the University of Alberta (amazing how quickly these studies are completed we are only two weeks post harvest, and some areas are still harvesting) there is 7.7 million hectares of western Canadian farm land infested with herbicide-resistant-weeds. Therefor an application of BASF ‘Distinct’ herbicide, a registered trade mark, can reduce the seed set in weeds by 50%.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit.

You are perfectly right Jon. If we took out full page middle sections in local farming community Newspapers. Exposing the Lies and liars, the cheaters, the bribed politicians, the lawsuits against small organic farmers by the Mega Corp Monsanto. The collusion by Universities faculties in science and Biotech with the Big Agriculture. Expose the ministers of provinces and secretaries of state that are plants for Big Agriculture so that government laws that impede their progress are pushed aside or appealed.

I personally watched and read my way to the Agricultural Minister of Canada Gerry Ritz, dismantle the CWB (Canadian Wheat Board), the only stop against the Tsunami of GMO. A hundred and some odd years of perfecting Canadian wheat is thrown away with a pen stroke. Cargill Inc. asked him to oblige them by postponing the dismantlement of the CWB for a year while they restructured locally. I’ll bet dollars to grenades, Gerry baby has a six figure job when lives public office. Sixty-six thousand farmers and their legal vote against the CWB dismantlement were vetoed by Gerry Ritz. Can you say Achtung Baby!

I sorry but these little Monsanto demonstrations are ‘Occupy’ ideology for the mediocrity. It is feel good for the ‘why can’t we get along crowd’. These marches are turning out to be flavour of the month ideas. As opposed to those conspiracy theorists, they are ruining the Internet, and our compromise marches every month….Bastards :)!

I moved to Saskatchewan because I thought I wanted to live the bucolic rural life. Fresh air, fresh water, wildlife everywhere. The smell of home baked bread and the sound of bells from the church next door. Clanging away in the while the Chem-trailed snow falls. Well I’m here to say, those frakin bells that clang at noon and six o’clock have driven me mad. I am surrounded by the most toxic environment a human being can possibly live in. From our solitary town worker who claims “you can drink that stuff” while spraying Round-up in the cracks in the sidewalk. To the farmers who dump millions of liters of Monsanto, BASF, Bayer Crop Science (and the list goes on) poisons onto the landscape. Wet lands are cover in algae from field run off. I have witnessed birds falling from the sky during Helicopter spraying, and the toxic harvest dust. They are waging war against us Jon. It’s a nightmare.

A little march and a lot compromise, and fraking GMO labels are not going to do it….we are losing the war here. And it is a information war.

Saskatchewan is the only province in Canada that allows 1500 ppm of TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in its drinking water, while the rest of the provinces in Canada have to abide by the 500 ppm of TDS. Why do you think that is?… I will leave the answering of that particular question to those that are able to still think.

Michael Burns