Friday, November 26, 1993 — North Shore News ~ 7

epeat offenders: non-communication in the °90s

“WELL, AS I see it...”

“Time out! TIME OUT!"

It's happened again. { found
‘myself involved in what f thought
was @ conversation, a mutual ex-
change of views between two
human beings. ‘Communica-
tion,’’ E think it used to be called.

° ‘By John Moore
Contributing Writer

I'd listened to his remarks
(making appropriate facial signals
* to indicate | was paying attention
and not fantasizing about Crisco
“ wrestling with Madonna) until an
“expectant pause tipped me it was
“my turn to speak, :
I hadn't said.10 syllables when,
_perceiving I did not agree, he in-
terjected loudly,’ “Time out!,"” his
hands raised in the capital T
"referee's signal to stop the clock.
While | looked around to see
where the game was, he began
with the now ominously familiar,
“opener, ‘What I’m saying is...,”"
and proceeded to repeat verbatim
what he'd said the first time, as if

f really had been day-dreaming
about playing spin-the-scalpel
with Mike and La Toya Jackson,

My train of thought derailed,
wits ungatherably scattered; !
waited until he finished und once
more attempted politely to venture
a dissenting opinion.

“Time oul! Time out!’ he cried
inno time at all, “What f'n say-
ing is..."”

Each successive interruption was
accompanied by the same distrac-
ting hand-signal in the air between
our faces.

Every repetition of his own

epoint of view was prefaced by yet
dnother variation of “What I'm
saying is...,"" the emphasis on a
different word cach time.

tt was unnervingly like watching
Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver
practise the toughest way of say-
ing “You talkin’ (uh me?" in the
mirror.

These techniques of argument
can be traced to the motivational
‘assertiveness’? seminars many
people in sales or middle
management are obliged to attend,

No doubt they “work” within
their narrow mandate. But when
applied in a lavger social context,

rotesters showing

clear, blatant abuse

news: on Monday,:. Nov. 15, |
hough: about the letters to the
ditor that 1 and many others had
written concerning the protesters. -
Many of -us wrote letters com-

; plaining that many of them were
-on' welfare. We. were castigated
-and: vigorously opposed by letters
that were printed which essentially
said; “How dare you. hard-work-
ing: decent) folk who pay your
“taxes ‘accuse. us protesters of being

“on welfare?’ You think we have .

“nothing better to do.”’
- Well, apparently not.

Debra Hope of the noon ‘news

“ opened by: commenting on clips
“showing — protesters lining up. at
‘welfare. offices to: collect . their
‘cheques. ee
*’She - even ‘reported: that some
_Gollected their cheque while i in jail.

I sat'watching. the news in utter
‘disgust, as. I’m: sure many other
hard-working people did.

This is a clear, blatant abuse of

. welfare.

N. Shore News

of welfare system’

‘Dear Editor: -
‘As: watched the: BCTV noon

These people are not sacrificing
anything -—- except our. hard-
earned tax dollars. .

When Harcourt was presented

with the problem he said he was
unaware of it. Nothing new there,

- What {couldn't understand is ©
why he didn’t

promise an. im-
mediate investigation into these
welfare cheats.

People who ‘should be looking
for work are spending their time
preventing others from doing their
jobs... :
They are: breaking laws and
costing taxpayers thousands and |
won't bother to go into the rest of
it.

I thought back to those letters

_ Sent into the editor.

You protesters should be
ashamed of yourselves. The sad
fact. is you’re not.,

Hypocrisy is your crown. and
lies and deceit mark your path..

Far! Banks
North Vancouver,

Mailbox policy

LETTERS TO the editor must be legible (preferably typewritten)
and include your name, full address and telephone number.

Due to space constraints the North Shore News cannot publish all
letters. Published letters may be edited for brevity, clarity, accura-
cy,’ legality and taste. Letters can be faxed to 985-3227 but still

must be signed and fully addressed.

ee
LAWYER

24 Years
Experience |

“LONSDALE QUAY
NORTH VANCOUVER
988-6321

44 They reduce human intercourse
to a series of crude sales pitches. 99

they reduce human intercourse to
a series of crude sales pitches,

Like Hitler's “big lie’? pro-
pagunde method (tell a whopper
and tell it often), their purpose is
not communication, I is simply
the assertion of one’s own opinion
until if prevails, not by persuasive
rational Socratic argument, but by
insistent repetition and intimida-
tion.

Keep implying that other people
are too thick to have grasped your
meaning the first 10 times and;
sadly, many of them wil! start to
believe it.

The misappropriation of
specialized jargon into popular
“buzawords" isn’t new,

It’s probably been going on
since Adam chose to interpret
Eve's interest in the domestic

ve

WS

I've had it with people who
make comments like ‘‘Yeah, but
at least I’ve got a job” and
“They're all on welfare’? when
referring to Clayoquot blockaders.

1 know this has been addressed
before but I keep hearing it, and
in my opinion it’s:a pathetic at-
tempt to avoid the real issue: liq-
uidation of rainforest ecosystems.

A survey: by the Friends of
Clayoquot Sound of 413 of this
summer’s arrestees’ revealed a
grand total of eight classified as
*‘unemployed.”’

cultivation of fruit as an invitation
to wrassle in the long grass.

A few years ago, it almost
became fashionable to refer to a
meeting/conversation between
human beings as an “interface,” a
term derived from the
mechanicel/electricat link up of
two machines.

Fortunately, it didn't take, but
the "90s (already being dubbed
“the sincere decade," after the
“80s ‘*decade of greed") are pro-
ducing their own psycho-linguistic
horrors,

From psychotherapy, we borrow
the placatory ‘Thank you for
sharing that with me/us,” a polite
way of saying, ‘We've Iet you
have your say, so now we're going
to go ahead and do what we'd al-
ready decided to do in the

coanien come from

' Dear Editor: Blockaders come from ali sec-,

tors of the public, including the
forest industry.

There are alternatives to the
status quo message that tells us to
be quiet, consume, die.

‘We have to take time to give
back some of what we take. Any
gardener knows this.

Those. who claim the camp was
nothing better than a hippy
hang-out only make themselves
look bad. :

‘J guess that means Victoria
business people are hippies, too.

‘ A cartoon I saw shows the stu-

first place,"’

Or we appropriate the jargon of
!2-step recovery programs, which
is especially convenient since it
places everybody who deesn't sce
it our way ‘in denial.”’

Such flagrantly manipulative
misusage degrades language by
suborning its most uniquely
human purpose.

Worse still, it teaches people not
to take “No” for an answer — an
attitude that is at the root of
serious problems in our socicty.

‘That said, what can you really
do about it when someone engages
you in a dehurnanizing one-way
non-conversation?

I suppose you could give the
football ref's back-of-the-knee
chop to signify “clipping as you
nudge the offender off the curb
into the path of a cement truck.

Or you could raise your anns in
the hockey ref"s signal for high
sticking and/or spearing as you
reach for that two-by-four.

Realisticaily, all you can do is
walk away, after raising a finger
in the one human hand-signa! that
is unmistakably, universally
understood.

all sectors

pidity of such an issue...

A man with a chainsaw is’ sitting .
in a tree. He is saying, ‘At: least”.
I’ve gat a job’ as he slices into
the very branch he sits on.

I am a. resident of Clayoquot

‘Sound.

! am grateful to every
blockader, ‘and deeply. sorry . they
are being so harshly punished.

1 would join them, but I was
arrested last year. I am not on
welfare.

Chris Lowther
Tofino

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