Dyer bunk

[Re: “Hot times of the apocalypse,” News, Nov. 27] The war-torn, resource-stripped and refugee-filled future Gwynne Dyer envisions for the planet is nothing short of fear mongering.

His suggestion that a single degree in temperature change will send the delicate balance of world peace into turmoil, with mass migrations north and U.S. snipers lining the Mexican border is exactly the kind of scenario leftist governments and organizations want you to believe will happen if we don’t “stop climate change now.”

Man-made climate change, however, has been proved to be nothing but a construct of leftist politics, designed to squeeze more tax dollars out of its already broke citizens. The real outcome of the future is unknown, which Dyer himself admits. So why worry about something that’ll never happen?

Clearly there’s a reason Dyer’s read more in “alternative weeklies” than respected, nationally distributed daily papers—they have the common sense not to believe in his bunk.

>>W. Tournay

Haven for the homeless

[Re: “City in action,” News, Front, Nov. 27] In light of a few recent articles and letters regarding public housing and homelessness, I would like to say that I strongly hope Montreal will not decrease its efforts to combat homelessness.

I moved to Montreal from Toronto where homelessness seems to be a much bigger and more noticeable problem. When I came to Montreal, two of the very pleasant changes were:

1) There appeared to be very few homeless people.

2) Strangers seemed a lot more open to each other.

I wondered why people seemed so guarded, by comparison, in Toronto, and almost immediately realized that a large part of it has to do with the fact that virtually every downtown block bears the depressing spectre of someone harassing you for change.

It doesn’t take long until people begin to develop an impenetrable wall around them and some sort of mental tunnel vision. I would see so many homeless people on my way to work in the morning that I tried buying a loaf of bread to hand out, but would still feel like I had to avoid giving out change almost everywhere I went (not many takers on bread sandwiches, btw).

What I hope the public housing commission realizes is that Montreal is regarded around the world as a beautiful city for many reasons, and it would be painful if any one of them were to change.

>>Graham Reid

Subverting the dollar?

[Re: “One nation under debt,” Film, Nov. 27] Matthew Hays’s review of the documentary I.O.U.S.A. is a timely topic which would rather be forgotten by worldwide banking interests. 

Indeed, the U.S. national debt remains a nebulous, uninvited guest, whose “chickens have come home to roost.” And roost they will, over this huge credit card in the sky, for which the amount due is $12-trillion and climbing rapidly. A trillion—that’s a thousand billion, folks!

As Hays reports, the U.S. has moved from the world’s biggest creditor (circa 1950) to the world’s biggest debtor—in a span of just 10 years. Currently it is climbing at almost a trillion a month. HELP... we need a good war!

Are other nations critical of this debt? Answer: “Don’t ask, don’t tell. If you’ve gotten paid for our military ventures on your soil, then shut up—we’ll ship you a supply of arms as part or as full payment.”

Military contractors are also paid. All this money is totalled and is so monstrous that it gets assigned to that credit card—the national debt, which no one will be required to pay, except perhaps “our children,” which has become the debtor’s cliché.

Meanwhile, annual budgets are addressed by all nations, and end with a surplus or deficit. But the U.S. budget deficits have been so huge as to become untenable and not carried over into the following year. Hence they are stacked onto a lasting deficit—the national debt.

But our military hegemony allows this debt, and the integrity of the dollar.

Financial crises will recur as money becomes less and less dear, by continuous bailouts with stimulus and rescue packages. Re: “Quick—bail out the auto industry with a $70-billion rescue—no sweat, we’ll tack it onto the national debt!”

By its very nature, money is valued because of its scarcity, not its abundance. Is the meaning of money being subverted?

>>Edward Abramic

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