THE ELECTION SEASON BEGINS -- SOME CAUTIONARY WORDS

THE ELECTION SEASON BEGINS -- SOME CAUTIONARY WORDS

For at least the next six months and probably longer, we will be bombarded by various kinds of election propaganda from all the expected and usual sources and of course from some less likely ones who have somthing to gain. It is therefore very important that we lobby ALL candidates whether for local elections or for the looming General Election and remind them that the majority of the public in this country and across Europe are opposed to water Fluoridation and will not be voting for or recommending those who say they are in favour of this redundant, wasteful and dangerous practice.


Friends of the Earth are not affilliated with any political party although there are undoubted sympathies with some of the aims of The Green Party and some LIb Dems at the Local Level from some of our members. We cannot as an organisation therfore be seen to be be publicly recommending any political party lest the Government use it as another excuse to saddle charitable groups and organisations with even more draconian controls which limit groups powers to actually be useful. This does not mean that when we see environmental stupidity we should not name and shame the offenders, whosoever they may be. If we did not we would be failing in our aims and duties.

This method was referred to by the late and certainly great Andrew Lees as the "the carrot and stick approach." ie. If someone wishes to or better still actually does, something environmentally usefull like for example standing up against fluoridation we get out the carrots and distribute them, on the other hand of course if we encounter those who seek to defend and continue this barbaric and outmoded practice its clearly stick time.


In the Thatcher era its true that the Tories did pass some useful legislation on water quality for rivers and drinking water etc but usually only after much local and national pressure from a wide range of green groups and also leaving large holes which smart lawyers and polluters could drive a coach and horses through. New Labour made many large promises in the run up to 1997 most notably to be "the Greenest Government ever" but other than joining in the clamour about Global Warming and CO2 emissions has done even less than the Tories did. If the Conservatives "rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic," New Labour "repainted them." Sadly, i dont seem to get many canvassers knocking on my door nowadays, do you think it could have been something that I said?

I will leave you with some wise words in a quotation by Noah Webster of American dictionary fame, sent to me by a campaigner in the USA. "If the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.": Noah Webster - (1758-1843) American patriot and scholar, author of the 1806 edition of the dictionary that bears his name, the first dictionary of American English usage."

SLAYING THE DRAGON THAT IS FLUORIDE

If fluoride were indeed a Dragon, killing it would be comparatively easy, assuming that there were only one of course. But how would St George have faired if the Dragon had turned up with some mates, all of them itching for a fight.? At this point the analogy of fluoride as a Dragon begins to fail. It is in fact more like a Hydra.

According to legend, the Hydra possessed at least 9 heads and the poets go even further saying there were more heads than the vase-painters could paint. The Local Campaigner and Hero at the time was a guy called Hercules, noted for taking on very difficult tasks. Smoking the Hydra out of the cave was the easy bit, the trouble started when he began cutting off its heads. Each time he managed to remove one, two more grew back in its place. If this was not bad enough, he must have realised that one of the heads was also immortal. Although he probably began to wish he had stayed in bed that morning, our over muscled hero was not entirely devoid of brains and About this time he must have realised that he needed reinforcements and called on his nephew Lolaus for help.

Lolaus appears to have been something of a smart cookie who quickly realised that bravery and muscles were indeed not everything. He came up with the idea of using a burning firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation. So, Hercules cut off each head and Iolaus cauterized the open stumps thus preventing them from growing back. In one fell swoop, Hercules and his Nephew had not only rid the populace of a deadly menace but had also invented division of labour which put the Greek Clock forwards thousands of years.

There is an alternative version that talks about dipping his sword in the venomous blood to burn each head but this doesnt really make much sense and is probably the work of his publicists or agents.

Although the Dragons may have gone, the Hydra that is Fluoride which can take on many shapes and forms, is still rampaging through our western society. poisoning not just our bodies and the environment but even the minds of those one would have thought had more intelligence.

To defeat the evil menace that is fluoride will take much more than one over muscled hero and a smart nephew, it will take many of both. Not only this but they will have to work in tandem, together, regardless of all other differences and cut off all the Hydras heads. We must defeat the poisonous pseudo-science used to promote fluoride and denounce the poisonous pseudo-scientists who try to excuse and promote it. We must expose and cut off the heads of publicists and apologists in business and industry and of course Government and its PR machine which spread this discredited and dangerous nonesense. We will need to use the very tools which the Fluoridistas use to defeat them and yet remain uncontaminated by they poison which we confront which underlies fluoride, ie; financial gain. We will need to work together and share our knowledge and skills.

Negaativity is not enough though, we will not just need to campaign AGAINST fluoride but also FOR a clean environment, pure drinking water and an unpolluted food chain. The campaign to end fluoridation is a moral, ethical and spiritual campaign and only by recognising this can we inspire and win the support and the supporters to defeat fluoride. Together individually and collectively, we can defeat fluoride and its supporters not just for our own vanity but for the Planet and the People.