4 - Sunday, August 7, 1988 - North Shore News 205 HUNTER © strictly personal @ THE GENTLE reader vill appreciate that your correspon- dent has been absorbed somewhat as of late in the fascinating, mysterious and elusive world of mass dream manufacture, i.e. the movie biz. So much so that | actually refer- red to Defence Minister Perrin Beatty as Warren Beatty not long ago. Deep blush. Apart from this being the low point of my journalistic career (no, wait, | did something worse once...never mind what), it may have reflected a generalized at- titude I have at the moment: that the line between reality and illu- sion is less thickly-etched than we are led to believe. Perrin Beatty (the defence minister, that is) is a case in point. A young fellow, he admitted in an interview recently that he had been influenced by the values of the ’60s. [ take it from that he means a certain lovebeadedness, if I can put it that way. Now if someone tells me Iam part ofa misinformation scam by sly media manipulators in the Kremlin, I will have to admit that, indeed, this might be the case.”” How he made the jump from there to being a pusher of nuclear submarines is a piece of Procrus- tean intellectual contortion I would never want to experience, personally. I just wonder what he’s been see- ing at the movies. What programs has he been watching? What books has he been reading? Cold War genre stuff, I presume. People conjure reality according to the illusions they hold to be truths. This is as much the case with ambitious cabinet ministers as it is with mere mortals. Therefore it behooves us to think hard about the kinds of illusions we wish to perpetrate. And to watch for what wild fantasies people harbor. Somewhere along the line, Mr. Beatty (not the actor, unless you call what Perrin is doing acting), picked up a weird set of notions that led him to the belief that Canada needs a fleet of nuclear submarines. Now if someone tells me I am part of a misinformation scam by sly media manipuiators in the Kremlin, I will have to admit that, indeed, this might be the case. It might be that everything gciny on in Russia in the name of Glasnost is a web of illusion being spun to lull the West into stupidly letting down its guard. That’s paranoia, I figure. Yet there is surely truth in the adage that if you're not paranoid, you're insane. And therefore it may well not be paranoia at all, With a zillion megatons of nu- clear hardware aimed at them by a country that refuses to forswear first-strike capability, ic. the United States — like all others, only an imperfect democracy, where mad generals have been known to get their fingers peril- ously close to The Button — the Sovicts would be idiots not to have uptight moments. The trigger-happy Yanks, bless ‘em despite everything, have managed to blunder through the last 40-odd years without blowing up the world, and that’s to their credit, given their sometimes neo-messianic tendencies (Manifest Destiny, etc.). The point being, we are still in seriously dangerous times. Megadoom is far from ruled out, even if we do seem to have inched back from the nuclear apocalypse we'd been expecting since the '50s. Enter Perrin Beatty, trying to conjure up a nuclear submarine fleet for Canada. In response to...what? | am willing to ac- knowledge that Beatty's paranoia may be real. It depends entirely upon his illusions. And both depend on a delicate balance between believing some- thing to be true just because you think it is, and taking the reflec- tive position wherein it’s all somebody’s dream until material- ized one way or another, In other words, if Beatty’s fan- tasy — however he got to it — becomes reality, it in turn tends to create the fantasy that preceded its existence, making it quote real unquote. Politics is the essence of self-fulfilling prophecy, or at least prophets seeking self-fulfillment. Between a mad producer making a movie and a mad cabinet minister trying to make a nuclear submarine fleet there isn’t all that much difference in style or ap- proach. In both events, reality gets bent. In the one, the real world is af- fected. In the other, the illusions that help to shape the minds that in turn create the real world are affected. The line between real and unreal gets crossed somewhere in the brain — which we can think of as a transformative prism through which beams of ideas pass from the realm of dreams to the quan- tifiable here and now. in the movie industry, it is perfectly understood that the goal is hypnosis and brainwashing. That's what movies do, That’s what television, at its finest and worst, does. I knew we shouldn’t have tet Perrin Beatty go see Rambo. Now look what he's s upt lol @ ‘Booze who’ on the N. Shore RECENT CONVICTIONS in North Shore courts have resulted in the following fines and penalties for drinking and driving related offences. WEST VANCOUVER: Glyn Richardson, . 26790 Ottawa Ave., West Vancouver (breathalyser refusal, $600 fine); William Harold Wells, 61, Surrey (over .08, $475 fine); Dennis Blaine Kethler, 31, Delta (breathalyser refusal, $800 finc). { expect _ | EXCELLENCE - 8 ONE YEAR TERM MARYLIN TOWARD @ NON-REDEEMABLE —@ MINIMUM $7500." | offer experience, en- thusiasm, and ability proven bya consistently successful Bus: 925-2911 Realty ) Res: 926-5890 ussex Group-S.R.C, Realty Corporation ¢ ey t Support Your Lung Association ee Iiterest Fant al Mertuvaty [=] NORTH SHORE Ne CREDIT UNION Clee Doratile Wwe ext ih e Poo albes TAU Ross Rab sg Bree Me Maer Dp tind SED dgenesny Mead te SET Oa TE Davie 8, (say 440 Dallerton Haw Norm shi) @ Uber 10D Ta Alberni St (685-4.4rty FOUN DAES EPOCH UNG FOR MORE INFORMATION FIGHT THE LUNG \\ CRIPPLERS A Whoder TLE Vilage Care Bh ih TET Beat the Heai of those lazy, hazy, hot summer days by taking advantage of Jubilee Chrysler’s August Service Specials LUBE, OIL 1& FILTER Includes filter, and up to 5 qts. 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