004 – Transcript

Just Right Episode 004

Air Date: May 10, 2007

Host: Bob Metz

Station Disclaimer: The views expressed in this program are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of 94.9 CHRW.

Malcolm Reed (from Star Trek: Enterprise): Sometimes I think you North Americans read nothing but comic books and those ridiculous science fiction novels.

Commander Tucker (from Star Trek: Enterprise): Well, I’ll have you know that Superman was laced with metaphor. Subtext layered on subtext.

Bob Metz: Oh. Good morning London.

It’s Thursday, May the 10th. I’m Bob Metz and this is Just Right on CHRW 94.9 FM where we’ll be with you from now till noon. No, no. Not right wing. Just right.

Bee Gees (song clip): Black and white under the bedclothes. Everything will be alright.

Bob Metz: And this is the place where everything will be alright from now till noon because this is the place you can come to feel centered on the right because that’s what this show is all about. A lot of stuff for you today. Wanted to of course do some follow-ups on a number of the stories and editorials that I talked about last week. Everything from television shows to gas prices to of course the ever present follow-ups on the whole environmental craze.

That’s what I have to call it. And of course I’ve been promising for a little while too that I was going to do a little bit of a reorientation of what I mean by left and right on the show. But to begin off with I would like to start, let’s begin with some reactions to some of the things that occurred last week. You’d almost think someone was tuned into the show because I saw a number of the very opinions reflected by myself being reflected in other media as I was just perusing the papers and listening to the media over the past week. Some of you might have remembered last week I did some of my own personal complaining about one of my favorite shows.

Favorite already. I only saw one or two or three episodes of Drive being cancelled so quickly. And my previous comments about how I find that a lot of television is really better than a lot of what you see in the movies. But there’s an interesting story developing around all this. I was really surprised to see someone share my perspective on this and I’m referring to the television column in the Free Press May 6 by Sun Media correspondent Bill Harris. And he made some fascinating points here that I just would like to reflect on if you’re wondering what’s going on with your favorite TV shows and why the scheduling is such a problem. But he comments in his column that he’s been asked by so many people, can you explain why my favorite shows disappear for months on end? And he talks about, he says that the issue for him is why the shows disappear. He says that TV executives have found that with serial dramas, that audience apparently are getting kind of mad and furious when they toss in reruns into the mix. And apparently it confuses people so the networks have concluded it’s better to take a show off the air completely for four, six or eight weeks rather than putting reruns into the same time slot. Now of course, as I mentioned myself, and he says here too, quote, the challenge for the viewer, of course, is keeping track of when all these shows are returning. And he says, I swear, quote, I watched Heroes last weekend was almost as if I’d missed about five years, end quote.

He tells you what that joke’s about, but unless you’re a fan of Heroes, I’m not going to give away what that joke was really about. But interestingly, Bill Harris shares my opinion here as well. And this is something I said, I think quite a few weeks ago when I was actually sitting in for Jim Chapman on his show one time and I said, here’s Bill Harris saying it basically, quote, Personally speaking, the quality of top end TV shows these days is higher than it has ever been. Intellectual and narrative boundaries are pushed far more vigorously on TV than in movie theaters. But that said, I’m also sensing a high level of frustration among TV viewers. It’s sort of like seeing something in a store and wanting to buy it, but every time you try to hand over the money, the cashier has moved to another corner of the room. And that is exactly, exactly the problem that I was outlining last week with my frustration with the show Drive. Here I was, I was looking all forward to seeing this great show, seeing the next episode and they keep moving it around. And even when it’s listed in the guide, it’s not on when it’s supposed to be.

So what do you do? Interesting item yesterday too. I was surprised to see this really. I know again, I think on that same show that I sat in for Jim back then, I gave you all my theory of what really lost was about what the real story was. We’ll get into that now, but there’s an interesting item in yesterday’s paper that apparently I guess, I guess lost is having some kind of ratings problems. And now their ABC is trying to boost the ratings by telling everyone that the show will definitely end in 2010. I’m not sure what the logic behind that is, but they’re going to promise a highly anticipated and shocking finale in the 2009-2010 season ABC announced. The series, which saw its ratings drop this season amidst complaints about scheduling, there you go again.

The networks are really having a problem with the scheduling deal. An increasingly meandering plot. Well, that’s true if you don’t really get it. And unpopular new characters. And that surprised me. I thought some of the characters were more on the popular side. But anyways, they say it still must prove itself to disenchanted viewers to survive.

That was the danger I brought up with the whole lost scenario. That they have to play it. They can play it. They can pretend it’s a fantasy. They can pretend it’s reality reflected in some way.

Or they can make it science fiction. But I think that they’ve actually hooked in more of the reality crowd. And if suddenly they switch it to a type of show that some of the people weren’t into watching in the first place, you can imagine some of the frustration people who don’t like science fiction. All of a sudden the show they were watching, it turns out to be science fiction.

They just won’t watch it. Reminds me of a story, when my father was still alive, we were sitting around. My dad and I, he would never sit down and watch Star Trek or anything like that. And never really understood why. Because there were, he could stretch his limits on certain types of shows.

But one day we were sitting around, I think it could have been New Year’s or Christmas or even Thanksgiving. And we were talking about TV shows. And out of the blue my dad says he doesn’t like those shows where guys wear masks.

And just everybody around the table kind of got quiet and looked at him and were guys wear masks. And turns out he was talking about Star Trek the next generation and was referring to Worf. And apparently he got hooked into the show a couple of times, not realizing what he was watching. And then when Worf walks into the room he got all upset and didn’t want to watch the show anymore. He doesn’t want to watch that thing with the guy with the mask. The idea that Worf could be another being, another race or species was not in his way of thinking. That wasn’t the kind of show for him. So, it was just one of those things.

But anyways, at least it’s nice to know I’m not alone on that particular issue in terms of my frustration with television. Just as an aside, I noted that my old friend Mark Emery was in the news again this weekend. I guess there were 20,000 people that gathered in Toronto at the foot of the legislature, talking about wanting legalized marijuana laws. Mark, of course, I spoke to him quite a while ago, seems to be doing well. He’s still facing that indictment to the United States, which could be a major problem for him. But, it says here in paper, just May 6th again, that he’s been arrested more than 20 times in Canada. It’s going to be in the B.C.

Supreme Court. I guess that’s later this month. So this is going to be an important time for him. I know a lot of people who know Mark Emery and they generally either love him or hate him. But whether you do love him or hate him, I have to tell you, it’s guys like Emery who make it possible for the rest of us to bitch about guys like Mark Emery, if you know what I mean. And you might not like that, but that too is reality, as someone used to say in the media. It’s just the way it is that so few people are willing to really put it on the line. Because generally all laws that work in the direction of liberty generally require somebody to break them, defy them, or otherwise challenge them in a court and be willing to take that personal risk on behalf of all of us.

So, don’t take people like that for granted, whatever you may think about the basic issues. Another big thing going on, of course, the gas prices. The frenzy is going on today, just heard from some groups that came out today.

Prices are actually slightly down today, but I guess the Center for Policy Alternatives, a left-wing think tank, has today released a report saying that we’re being ripped off at the gas pumps. And on what do they base this? Well, based on the cost and the traditional profit margins.

Well, how can you be a think tank and be thinking like that? That’s not the way prices are set? Have they never heard of supply and demand? Do they not know that supplies are down now? Apparently they do. Their statement says we’re paying 15 cents more per liter than is justified.

Well, justified by what? Again, this is, again, one of those key issues, so much like the global warming issue where people, you can really see, the lack of information and knowledge that people have about basic economics, about basic supply and demand. But if you put simple questions to them and how they affect their personal lives, sometimes they see the economics of it clearly, but when it’s a big, big picture, then all of a sudden everybody’s on the take, which is it’s really not possible to fix oil prices or gas prices. It is what the market will bear. For example, suppose a supply of gas and oil was down to the last few barrels or gallons of oil? Would you still argue that the price of those last few drops should just be above the cost of production when the demand for them is relatively infinite?

I mean, that’s utterly ridiculous. It’s called a think tank. I heard a spokesman this morning on one of the other stations talking about that they, for this think tank, talking about he wanted a regulatory regime and when asked why, he says, well, because gas is essential. We need it, and right now the market is, the enormous amount of market power, he said. And he says the market is not working for consumers. This is absolutely nonsense, folks. When you hear the word market, remember what the market is.

It’s not some abstract philosophical notion. The market is you. The market is me. The market is the producers. The market is the consumers. The market is the retailers. They all work together.

This is the true democracy. And sometimes we don’t like the price of something that we’ve all arrived at together, as long as we’re in a voluntary situation, and the price is what protects our supplies. This is not about making profit per se.

The profits are going to be necessary. There haven’t been any new refineries built in North America in over 30 years. The oil companies are going to have to invest more.

There’s more expected of them in terms of environmental concerns. So for a group to be complaining that they’re making, quote, excess profits, which isn’t even true, they might be making more money per liter. But profits are not necessarily earned by higher prices. You can lower prices and increase profits.

Now, of course, they talk about the, again, the market being dominated by four players. I went through that whole thing last week. It’s really interesting to hear it all thrown back at me. But you can tell that this is a left-wing group that is putting this out, because ironically, the one thing that they dismissed and that they called, quote, a red herring was the tax part of your gasoline prices, because that’s what they want. The left always wants higher taxes, more government control.

I mean, regulatory regime, that’s what they said. So, and what is their solution to the gas prices? Well, you’ve got to direct your rage at politicians. That’s what you do. You just get rage and get angry and get real mad at those politicians out there, because by gosh, they’re just doing everything wrong for you, aren’t they? Anyways, when we return on the other side of this set, we’ll be coming back to a little bit of a reorientation about what I really mean left and right.

I know some of you might not have heard me the first couple of times around why it’s different from being right-wing, in terms of my perspective on being right. So, when we return, that’ll be the first thing I get back to.

Jeremy Hotz (comedy clip): Sometimes people worry because my jokes are serious. They go, why are your jokes so serious? Are you trying to change the world? And I’m not trying to change the world.

The world is balanced. We’ve all had our lives. I figured out about life?

In case less about your life and your problems than you do? Everybody. So, now I’m not trying to change the world, man. Plus, I did some research and people that try to change the world end up dead, if my history is correct.

Malcolm, Dr. King, Gandhi, they’re all gone. So, it seems kind of risky to try to change the world. I mean, I’d try if I knew I wouldn’t get hurt. But that’s not saying much, is it? We’d all do a bunch of stuff.

We knew there was no pain involved. Think what you could do. I’d go to a clan rally and roast marshmallows if I knew I wouldn’t get hurt. I’d be like, hey, why not? I’d come in drunk with a stack of monastic and I’d be like, wow! You guys know how to build a fire. Call.

Call. The other day I was stopped at a red light in my car, I’m driving. Stop at a red light and the squeegee, the squeegee dude comes at you. The squeegee dudes that come over and the squeegee or windshield, and you give them a nickel or whatever? I don’t know what you give them. But that’s it.

Here you go. This guy comes over. He was the skinniest person walking the planet. The squeegee guy, he’s got to be 74 pounds this guy. That’s holding his dirty water bucket.

71 pounds. So this guy starts squeegeeing my windshield. I notice he’s wearing a t-shirt. It says Anarchy on it.

It’s got the A with a big circle. Anarchy. I’m thinking, yeah, you think he’s thought this through? You think he wants to live in a world without rules?

All 74 pounds of him? You think he’s going to do well in a Mad Max society? They’re going to give him the grand poobah horns and let him call the shots? You figure? Or is he going to be the hood ornament and the dune buggy around day two? Some 300 pound biker eating soup out of his skull. That’s what’s going to happen.

Bob Metz: I’ve been called an anarchist so many times just because I think there should be a little bit less government in our lives than we have right now. Anyways, Bob Metz here on Just Right. You’re with us. We’ll be here with you till noon today. It’s CHRW Radio 94.9.

You can join us here at 519-661-3600. Just before I get into what I was talking about before, I was going to get into a reorientation on left and right. Just one little extra note I got. I remember regarding the gas prices. A friend of mine sent me an email and he said, thanks for this, Jack. Did you guys see that Iran is issuing ration cards for gas? The price of gas in Iran is 9 cents a liter and is heavily subsidized. The government doesn’t want to raise prices so they’ll be rationing instead. Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer but doesn’t have the refining capacity it needs to meet its own needs. So it imports almost 50% of its gas. Think about that for a minute. It just goes to show you again that when governments get in there and you want your prices fixed, yeah, they’ll fix them for you.

Real high and then you can start standing in line waiting for rations because that’s just how it works. Anyways, left and right. This is an issue that, of course, I’m in politics. I’ve run municipally. I’ve run federally. I’ve run provincially. I stopped running a while ago because now I think I’m more useful sitting in a chair like this, talking to people and being on talk shows.

I do a lot of that kind of thing. One of the greatest confusions that I consistently run into is what people think left and right is. What’s the difference? A lot of them don’t know, don’t care to know. They look at the three basic choices as they see them, don’t see much difference between them. There’s always that small percentage of people who are the hardcore supporters of any political party. They certainly see differences in their eyes.

Now, me, I’m sitting out here all by myself. I have this whole different view of what left and right is. Yes, there’s a historical perspective of course left and right. You go back far enough. It literally referred to which side of the house you were sitting on, whether you were on the left or the right side.

But it goes far deeper than that. There is a definite ideological definition that you can consistently apply. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about what you perceive as a left, right, center, whatever party. The actual left values and right values are very consistent. It just depends to what degree any political party may practice them, whether that party is regarded as properly left or right.

I leave most of those kinds of things in the individuals. You can decide for yourself whether a party is too right, too left, whatever. But basically, if you go back to as early as we can go back to in defining the basic differences between say left and right thinking and you’re going back to Plato and Aristotle, thousands of years ago, and Plato of course. It’s not that they were the only people to have ever defined these issues.

It’s just that they are almost the starting point for our current run of civilization, if you would. They were the first to have their work so recorded that we can still refer to them unto this day and see the original writings, etc., etc. Of course, Socrates, who actually taught Plato and Plato, New Aristotle, it’s amazing. The three of them lived at very close to the same time. Socrates being the oldest and Aristotle being the youngest. But within, we’re talking, a lifetime and a half of each other.

But nevertheless, the basic breakdown goes like this. And I’ve done this once before on the show. I’ve gone a little further with it this time. I’m going to compare left and right. I’m going to go left right now. We’ll start with the left. The left basically will lead you to a totalitarian state, to tyranny. In fact, that was Plato’s Republic, which was all about the ideal state being totalitarian, believed in everything from government education to controlling the citizen on every level. And of course, the right as such generally represents freedom, individual choice. So you start on the left, you’ve got Plato. You go to the right, to contrast Aristotle.

What was the basic difference with them? On a metaphysical level, Plato was into unreality. He actually believed in mind over matter. He didn’t think that the reality we saw was the real reality. Now, we’re not talking about science here in the sense, although that was part of the discussion, whether you can see atoms and molecules and things like that.

Of course you can. You see them as the matter around you. And you have evidence of that. But no, this is going beyond that. This is saying that there’s a supernatural realm somewhere up in the ether. And this is why often Plato is referred to as mind over matter. Aristotle, on the other hand, matter over mind.

He said, it doesn’t matter whether your brain is here on earth or not. The earth is still going to be here. The objective reality is here. The ground is here.

The sky is there. They won’t change just because of your perception of them. And that battle rages to this day. It’s remarkable that that’s basically the starting point of everything on the left and on the right. On the left, you have more of whim, mysticism, literalism. On the right, you have reason, principle. On the left, you have involuntary, forced.

You’re forced to do everything. On the right, you’re talking about voluntary. This doesn’t mean you never use force in self-defense and to keep a society voluntary. That certainly justified use of force.

But to initiate force against someone just to get something you want because they have it, that would not be a, quote, right thing to do. On the left, you have very limited choice or no choice at all. On the right, you have freedom of choice. On the left, you have what is called social justice, which means individuals aren’t really directly responsible for what they do, but society bears some responsibility. And, I don’t throw that view totally out the window, but I don’t think it is the determining factor in guilt or innocence.

But that’s another issue. And of course, on the right, you have individual justice, where individuals understand that their rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. On the left, you have basic anti-science, junk science. On the right, you have real science, all that is always questioned. You can tell junk science and anti-science when they tell you, you can’t question it anymore.

The door is closed on this. Well, that’s junk. Because that’s just not the nature of science. That, again, is mysticism. It’s whim.

It’s literalism. On the left, you have government-controlled economies. On the right, you have economic freedom. On the left, you have advocacy of force to implement all the other things they want to do. On the right, you deal mainly with persuasion and consent. You have a contract society, where people are held to their promises. The government will use force to keep you to your promise, but they’re not going to force you to make the promise.

It’s up to you to do that. On the left, you have statism, which means that basically the government is held in a higher status than the individual. Whereas on the right, you have freedom, which means that whether you’re a politician, government, or anyone alike, that you’re all equal before and under the law. On the left, you have group rights. On the right, you have individual rights.

Now, group rights, of course, you hear them expressed in many ways. It could be by the color of a person’s skin. It could be by their profession. It could be by their nationality. It could be by anything that the government can think of to pit one group against another, or to sound like they’re favoring one group with the money of another group. This kind of thing is what causes so much dissension and conflict in societies.

Basically, group rights end up being inequality under the law, practiced as egalitarianism of kind. You hear that a lot. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter might have earned twice as much money as Paul, but the left-wing person thinks, well, Paul should have just as much money as Peter, so we’ll take it from Peter. Now they’re equal. Whereas on the right, we would say, well, all other things being equal.

They had an equal chance to make the same amount of money, maybe made different choices, but they’re still equal before and under the law, whether one person is in poverty or the other person is wealthy. On the left, you’ll find that you have a very limited or almost no right to self-defense. You want proof that we are living in a left-wing society? You can’t even legally defend yourself in your own home right now. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this case of 70-something-year-old fellows being charged for pulling a gun on somebody that invaded them in his home. And not only the intruder is being charged, but also the homeowner. I think that’s outrageous myself, but again, that’s because I’m on the right where you do have the right to self-defense.

On the left you have increasing, always intolerance, it’s always on the left. Intolerance for differing points of view, intolerance for differing groups, things of that nature. On the right you have respect and tolerance. Whether you agree with someone doesn’t mean you have to agree. One of the most important things in a free society is having the right to disagree and that’s one of the things that distinguishes a free society from a non-free society. In a non-free society if there’s two sides and one side says I disagree with you and the other side says well too bad, you’re going to agree with me and I’m going to force you.

You can’t go your own way or act according to your own conscience, you’re going to be forced to do so. And so those are the basic what I would call properties. Now in a more concrete sense I guess you could say on the left the left use government as a player in the game. They’re into government education, government health insurance, government welfare, government control of everything. And on the right you’d have more government as referee, government and private education, private health insurance, private charity. Doesn’t mean that government can’t help and doesn’t do some of the quote welfare functions that people expect it to do.

But it does play a different function than the government taking over these complete institutions. Just as an observation, I keep seeing the left is constantly sort of screaming feel, feel, feel, don’t think about anything, just follow us and do what we say. You don’t have to think it out whereas the right is saying think, think, think which is probably part of the problem the right has because thinking requires effort and it’s not always that easy to see what an issue is made of just by looking at its superficial, superficialities rather. So, basically on the left, in the net result you have what I would call irrationality. On the right you’re promoting rationality. And when governments protect irrationality or protect against irrationality rather you have a free society and you have capitalism.

When governments promote irrationality or fail to protect rationality in law then the result is some form of collectivism whether it’s socialism, communism or some such other thing. You’re listening to Just Right with Robert Metz on CHRW94.9. We will be back right after this break with more. And this time on the environment because boy has there been a lot of fallout in the past week on this issue, Elizabeth May and all. We’ll see you on the other side.

Speaker 1 (comedy clip): I live in Los Angeles now. All my friends are hippies, really liberal people and they’re horrified that Bush is the president in the United States but I refuse to buy into the negativity. I prefer to look at things in a more positive light. I’m thinking Bush, Republicans, tax breaks. Who doesn’t like tax breaks? But all my friends are like, Tony, this Bush guy, he’s only out for the rich white man. And I’m like, hello, thank you.

Finally.

Speaker 2 (comedy clip): Canada, the superpower. You got United States on one side, Russia on the other. Either one of them starts shooting and will be like, great light show, eh? Supposed to get new weapons. You always say we’re going to get new subs, new helicopters. We’re too nice.

We’re too nice. I could just see this Canadian submarine rises out of the water. Attention invading vessel. You have entered Canadian sovereign territory. Can we get you anything? Let us know who to make the cheque out to. We’ll have it sent right over. Attention, invading vessel.

Bob Metz: You’re listening to Just Right with Bob Metz here at CHRW 94.9 FM. You can call 519-661-3600 to join us here as Marcel has this morning. Thanks for calling in and joining us for the conversation, Marcel. What can we do for you today?

Marcel: How are you doing there, Bob?

Bob Metz: Not too bad.

Marcel: First, I’d like to say, I think you got a pretty good head on your shoulders and I do respect some of your opinions. I’ve also noticed that you and Jim Chapman seem to have had a specific take on the environmental issues. You seem to attack the more unscientific, unsophisticated perspectives of the environmental movement. And once you do that, you leave the rest of us thinking that, okay, well, we don’t have an environmental problem.

Let’s go about our merry way. Now, I do look at the science. I am very environmentally conscious. And let’s not forget what the industrial revolution has done to our lakes and rivers and air quality and our health. And right now, China is going to be passing America as the biggest polluter on the planet. And there’s a lot of third world nations who are going to go through a sort of industrial revolution type phase. India is coming with one billion people. China over a billion people.

And there’s many more countries that have given the chance that will pollute this planet to the point where the future is very scary.

Bob Metz: Well… Okay. And I know that there are environmentally minded people who are raising up their arms and crying, and all that.

Can I ask you a question? What would you… Okay, I understand your concern about industrial revolution and certainly pollution is a legitimate concern.

Marcel: Yeah, remember acid rain?

Bob Metz: And I can’t recall, I’m not a member of any of the major political parties, trust me. I can’t recall any party or politician ever in the history of my entire political career having said I’m in favor of pollution. I’m in favor of a worse environment.

It’s just a non-issue on that level. And the very industrialization to which you’re expressing a fear against is the ultimate solution to the pollution problem. The problem today is that they’re making us all go crazy over silly things like plastic bags, light bulbs, and above all CO2, which is… I’ve seen no evidence of CO2 being of any harm to anything or anybody.

Marcel: I understand that perspective there Bob, but are real issues whether you want to take a nuclear issue, like what are they doing with all the nuclear waste from nuclear reactors? They don’t even know what to do with it.

Bob Metz: Well, yes they do. In fact, Ontario is even buying waste from certain other countries. The amount of space that nuclear waste takes relative to the energy we get out of it is minuscule. You could fill a person’s bathroom with a year’s supply of stuff.

Marcel: Well, let’s talk about Chernobyl. Okay? The accident can happen. And I’m not saying do away… The thing is it’s…

Bob Metz: Well, I’m not… I don’t know why you’re bringing up the nuclear issue. I’ve never really discussed that. It’s a whole lot separate issue. It’s considered one of the cleaner fuels. Chernobyl was in a… A disaster. …iron-curtain country. A disaster. Yes, it was.

We are surrounded by nuclear reactors. Let’s not forget three-mile island. One of these… One of these babies start going. It’s in our backyard. We’re surrounded by about three nuclear plants, right?

Bob Metz: Well, I have to hand it to Jimmy Carter at the time. He had a lot of guts walking into there to try to convince people like you that there’s no danger from things like that.

Marcel: Well, actually, Jimmy Carter was one of the people who went up north to stop a meltdown of a nuclear reactor.

Bob Metz: Up north. Here in Canada?

Marcel: In Canada. Well, did that make news? I haven’t even heard of that one.

Well, look it up. But never… Search it out. Jimmy Carter was the guy who risked his ass to go up north and stop a meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Canada.

Bob Metz: You’re sure you’re not talking about the one we just talked about? No, not Chernobyl. But listen, Marcel, what would your solution be? Would you stop all industrialization?

Would you have a scope of that?

Marcel: Well, see, we don’t have to go industrial. That’s the whole thing. Green movement can become a big money-making new enterprise.

Bob Metz: Well, that’s called industry. How do you…that’s industry.

Marcel: Well, okay. We can talk about green industry, right?

Bob Metz: Well, green industry, miles ahead of you. They’re already out there. I know at least seven or eight or nine inventors and scientists myself. Some of them do work here at the UWO, who are miles ahead on this issue. And I support that. Well, that would be industry. So what’s your problem with industry?

Marcel: Well, China is not playing that game. You can drive in China…

Bob Metz: Marcel, come on. Do you and I have any control over what China is going to do? They could drop a bomb on us tomorrow, and they’re even talking about doing it. So why would… Why are we worrying about China?

Marcel: Oh, so the things we have no control over are just forget about them and let them talk about it.

Bob Metz: No, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all. That’s what it’s on about yourself. I’m saying that you can think globally, but you can only act locally because this is where your jurisdiction is.

Marcel: Well, we can change minds? That’s what the movement is all about. That’s what Greenpeace was all about. That’s what a lot of…

Bob Metz: No, that’s not what Greenpeace is all about. Greenpeace…you’re actually demonstrating for me something that I wanted to convince people in another way. The Green Movement, if you’re a representative of it, is very…

Marcel: I am not a representative of it.

Bob Metz: Well, you support it.

Marcel: But I know that this plant cannot survive as long as there’s dioxin in our drinking water, as long as there’s PCBs in our drinking water.

Bob Metz: And who’s in favor of that? Who’s in favor of that? You call me in favor. You tell me I’m in favor of PCBs in our drinking water and I’m a favor of pollution.

Marcel: Well, the thing is… My original point, my original point, Bob, was that when you talked about the more unscientific aspects of environmental movement, you give the impression that somehow our environment is okay, it’s all safe, it’s all hunky-dory, and we can all go back and watch TV.

Bob Metz: Well, that’s not the impression…

Marcel: And then you can look for your TV guide and wonder why your show isn’t listed. Those are your biggest problems, your biggest concerns.

Bob Metz: Oh, come on, Marcel, please.

Marcel: But I’m trying to say that there are a lot of things in the environmental movement that are legitimate.

Bob Metz: I never said they weren’t. And I’ve always said that pollution is a legitimate concern.

Marcel: And I think that’s the impression when you attack the more unscientific and unsophisticated aspects of the environmental movement that everything’s hunky-dory and everything is not hunky-dory.

Bob Metz: Well, maybe you’ve left with that impression. I certainly haven’t been. In fact, I think that the things the environment…

Marcel: Well, I think you’re aware of the impression you’re leaving a lot of people that you and Jim Chapman just want to keep doing what we can do for the last hundred years to do this planet.

Bob Metz: You think we’re the only ones saying this? Do the facts not matter to you? Does it not matter to you that perhaps CO2 is not the cause of the Earth warming?

Marcel: Well, I understand that. See, I understand that. I understand that it could be other factors. Okay. Okay. But there’s nothing right about putting mercury in rivers and lakes. There’s 14 different carcinogens in our lakes.

Bob Metz: Marcel, I can only talk about one subject at a time. I realize that if I’m talking about global warming, I’m not talking about mercury. If I’m talking about global warming, I’m not talking about pollution.

Okay. I’m talking about the issue that’s being shoved down our throats, not the issues that you seem to be concerned with, which, quite frankly, are almost kind of solved. I don’t know how old you are, but I’ve been in this city for 50 years, and I can tell you right now the rivers are cleaner, our air, we’re still getting smog warnings, but that’s not mostly our fault. It’s our location and smog coming in from elsewhere. But these are issues that are being dealt with.

Marcel: Out of nowhere, from China.

Bob Metz: Sorry? From China.

Marcel: Well, China’s going to have to clean up their act. There’s no question. Yeah.

So, wait a minute. Are you bringing up China? Are you telling me there’s no dioxin and PCBs in our water? There’s 14 different carcinogens in our drinking water. People that drink from the Great Lakes have a high-ice cancer rate in the world.

Bob Metz: What’s that got to do with CO2 and global warming and things I’ve been talking about?

Marcel: Well, we have talked about CO2s. We already talked about CO2s, and I agreed with you that it could be related to other factors.

Bob Metz: So you’re attacking me on this issue for what reason again?

Marcel: Well, because of which was my original point, when you talk about the environmental movements, and you and Jim have a history of making them sound like complete idiots.

Bob Metz: Right? Yeah, I think they are actually, but I’ll keep saying that.

Marcel: And you’re leaving the impression when you do that, Bob, that somehow there are no environmental issues when they’re in fact in our…

Bob Metz: Then you just haven’t been listening, Marcel.

Marcel: Well, I have been listening.

Bob Metz: Well, even in this conversation…

Marcel: But you admit to China, you admit it to me that China was a real concern, and a lot of third-world countries will get industrialized, and there’s still you burning coal, still burning caveman-type industry, right?

Bob Metz: Is your point of bringing up China because you agree that we should be sending our money to China through Kyoto? Is that why you keep bringing up China?

Marcel: No, I keep bringing up China as just an example of the amount of pollution that is going on on this planet.

Bob Metz: Well, listen, if China didn’t have that pollution right now, they would be like they were 20 and 30 years ago starving in the streets, and people literally starving in the streets, which is not the case in China anymore. And so when you say you’re opposed to that kind of pollution, then you have to be in support of the starvation and the misery of the Chinese people.

Marcel: And if you think China has solved a lot of problems by using child labor, we can go and buy shirts for 50 cents.

Bob Metz: You’ve got… you’re carrying a lot of chips on your shoulder.

Marcel: Is China not using child labor?

Bob Metz: Absolutely. Okay then.

But what’s that got to do with it? That’s part of their whole mentality. They do repress the people.

Marcel: Of course, and I’m probably one of the loudest opponents to the Chinese regime and I’m born to be.

Bob Metz: They’re a communist country.

Marcel: Well, the kinds of policies that would have to be implemented to put into place the ideas you’ve just expressed to me would create a country exactly like China, because you’d have to have a totalitarian state.

You would have to have the very things that you’re saying you object to.

Marcel: No, we just have to get the message across that do you have kids, Bob?

Bob Metz: Yep.

Marcel: Okay, so do you spray your lawn?

Bob Metz: Never did, but I got nothing wrong. I have no problem with it.

Marcel: So if they’re playing on the lawn and they got their nose in it, that’s okay?

Bob Metz: You don’t put your nose in the lawn, no.

Marcel: Yeah, okay. Well, kids do play on lawns. They do wrestle.

Bob Metz: Yeah, and if I had a kid that played on my lawn, I wouldn’t be spraying it, or if I sprayed it, I wouldn’t let my kid play on my lawn. That’s an easy problem to solve.

I don’t need you running to the government to tell them that if I spray my lawn, they’re going to take some money, find me, or put me in jail.

Marcel: Well, I didn’t say that, first of all.

Bob Metz: Well, no, no, you didn’t say it. You never would say it. You would never say the consequences of your idea.

Marcel: Get those factories to stop putting dioxin and PCBs in our drinking water, where our children swim, where our children drink, okay?

And every time they do have heavy water spills from the nuclear reactors, it does go into the lakes that you swim in and that you drink.

Bob Metz: Okay, Marcel. Marcel? Marcel? Marcel? Marcel, you think I’m being an extremist here?

Marcel: Yeah, you are. You’re wrong. Well, you are being an extremist.

You’re drinking and swimming dioxin and PCBs, which has the highest… It’s prone to give you the highest cancer rate.

Bob Metz: And you think I’m in favor of that?

Marcel: Well, you seem to be saying there’s nothing to worry about. I’m being an extremist.

Bob Metz: I never said that. But you seem to be. Anyways, I think you’ve had your point here, Marcel, and do call again. I don’t agree with you on anything you said today, in fact. But anyways, we’re at the ad point and I’m being queued here that we have to go to ads.

Marcel: Well, have fun drinking your chaplain.

Bob Metz: Oh, well, thank you very much. And we’ll see you folks on the other side of this. You’re listening to Just Right on CHRW 94.9 FM.

Dick Martin (from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In): And now, looking into the future, for the news of the future, here is our future… The news of the future for my news of the future man. Here’s our future man, Dan.

Goldie Hawn (from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In): Oh. No, no, no, no, Goldie. Don’t feel all distressed. I think you’re getting better. You do?

Yeah. Oh, well, thanks, Dick. And listen, if you see Dan, will you tell him I just introduced him?

Dick Martin (from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In): Oh, I’ll do it.

Dan Rowan (from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In): California 1988, 20 years from now. Los Angeles finally succeeded in catching up with New York City today, when mayor’s Shirley Temple Black officially opened and newly completed LA Subway System.

She was immediately mugged. Item 1988, an effort to correct the image of history was made when the remaining American Indians were asked if they had any grievances. Both said no. 1988, Washington, D.C. The Warren Commission today handed down its long-awaited second report. Clearing up 20 years of doubts and rumors in spite of the fire in the National Archives, and the mysterious disappearance of Dallas, Texas. The, the commission was able to reach a definitive conclusion the report was entitled, What Assassination?

Station Disclaimer: The views expressed in this program are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of 94.9 CHRW.

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): Once we can head him off this open government nonsense.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): But I thought we were calling the White Paper open government.

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): Yes, we’ll always dispose of the difficult bit in the title. It does less harm there than in the text?

The rule of inverse relevance, the less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): But what’s wrong with open government? I mean, why shouldn’t the public know more about what’s going on?

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): Are you serious?

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): Well, yes, sir. I mean, it is the minister’s policy after all.

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): It’s a contradiction in terms. You can be open or you can have government.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): But surely the citizens of a democracy have a right to know?

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): No.

They have a right to be ignorant. Knowledge only means complicity and guilt. Ignorance has a certain dignity.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): But if the minister wants open government…

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): You don’t just give people what they want if it’s not good for them. Do you give brandy to an alcoholic?

If people don’t know what you’re doing, they don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): Well, I’m sorry, sir Humphrey. I am the minister’s private secretary, and if that’s what he wants…

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): My dear fellow, you will not be serving your minister by helping him to make a fool of himself. Look at the ministers we’ve had. Every one of them would have been a laughing stock in three months had it not been for the most rigid and impenetrable secrecy about what they were up to.

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): What are you going to do about it?

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): Can you keep a secret?

Bernard Woolley (from Yes Minister): Of course.

Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister): So can I. Excuse me, I have to make a phone call.

Speaker 3 (from Yes Minister): Well, I can’t keep a secret.

Bob Metz: You’re listening to Just Right here on CHRW 94.9 FM. We’re talking about a number of issues. Just had an interesting conversation with Marcel. I understand we’re joined now by Justin. Hello Justin, thank you for calling in. And what’s on your mind today?

Justin: I just wanted to say Bob, I’ve never really too much into politics, but I really do agree with you. More so than the left, and what do you stand for?

Bob Metz: It’s funny to say that because I’m not really in the politics either, and I found myself in this situation basically playing self-defense. Because everybody’s after your money and your freedom and your time and your resources.

I’m more enjoying your opinions than that, but that Marcel guy was just way off the deep end.

Justin: Yeah, it’s great. It seemed like he was trying to bring in everything he could into one subject, like the entire problem of the entire Earth. It seemed like everything was wrong, the Earth was coming from China.

Bob Metz: Well, again, I think what Marcel was doing was trying to deflect from… Every time I answered one question, you notice he pushed me onto another subject, and he’d go on to the next one and the next one. And by continually deflecting, he got so far away from the original issue that, that’s a tactic I’m quite used to seeing in terms of when I answer a question. But we appreciate you calling. Was there anything else you wanted to add to that?

Justin: Not really.

Bob Metz: Okay, well thanks for calling, Justin. I hope there’s a few more people out there that feel the same way.

But again, we may be in the minority right now, but hopefully someday people will understand what their governments are all about and things of that nature. But thanks for calling.

Just not agreeing with that whole, if we don’t change the green thing now, the world will end in 20 years.

Well, yeah. Actually, I think they said 15.

Oh, goodie. I got five years left. Right.

You got that right. Okay, have a good day, Bob.

Justin: Okay, thanks for calling, Justin.

Bob Metz: In fact, that was almost going to be my segue in because this week there was a report out saying, Chilling Report, time running out in 15 years. Now, when you think about it, what’s 15 years?

Two, three elections away, three majority governments, let’s say. So does this sound a little bit like a salesman trying to close a deal in a hurry or what? It’s almost as if the frenzy right now is completely irrational. It’s not being given consideration.

The due consideration it requires so that the public can actually weigh each side. We’re not even told what the science is. It’s amazing how fast the time has gone today. I was going to go through a lot of this today, including some of Elizabeth May’s own responses. And you’ll find that in all the stuff that I’ve clipped and gone through this week, there is no science. There’s all just feeling, spirituality, things of that nature and very little science and a lot of name calling. But the bottom line is, of course, they’re all coming at us and they’re talking like, we’ve got to kill ourselves or even worse things might happen. And that’s the way the whole issue has been, unfortunately, framed. And the most chilling part, if I was going to use the word, what’s chilling about the report or any of these reports, is that they want to tell us the science is in, that it’s done, that there’s nothing to argue about anymore. Well, I’ll tell you, that’s not the nature of science. Science doesn’t work that way.

Science continually discovers it, continually finds new things. And to say that you can just put a close on it and that’s it, done, we’re done. Boy, you would never, ever want to be in that situation. I look at the whole situation too with just the symbolism of some of the things we’re seeing around us right now. The symbolism of the light bulb ban, I think that’s almost symbolic of snuffing out some sense of rationality. We see the McGuinty government now with the Ontario Ministry of Environment. They want to establish a 50% cut mandate in the use of plastic shopping bags, of all things.

Talk about deflecting from the real issues. And when I heard an interview, what are the main reasons for this plastic bag ban? Well, number one, litter. Litter? I mean, litter is not an issue. Litter, you can pick something up.

It’s not an environment issue. I see a lot of litter on my parking lot and I don’t see too many people picking it up. And then the other reasons are it creates and generates waste for landfills and the wind blows them around. Well, that’s litter, litter and litter for heaven’s sakes. Plastic bags are reusable. They are not contaminating to the environment. I use them to buy carry groceries, freeze food, store other stuff and put garbage in.

So I have multi-uses for them and I actually do pay for them at my grocery, so I wouldn’t be wasting them. Anyways, I cannot believe how fast time has run up today. We’ll be seeing you next week at this time when I hope to be joined by a guest who will enlighten us on these issues. So, until then, stay right.

Chris Rock (comedy clip): To me, I don’t know what the welfare system is here, but in America we’ve got to fix it. Because it’s basically designed to make people dependent on welfare. And nothing that’s good for you should make you dependent on it.

So that makes sense. Have you ever heard of somebody getting hooked on working out or eating right? No.

Ever see somebody strung out on the corner like, man, these vegetables is messing up my mind? Ain’t going down like that. See, because you’re handing out money to people that don’t know what to do with money. That’s cruel. Don’t do that. Nobody will give a crackhead the night shift at Radio Shack, why? Because in the morning, there’s an empty shack with no radios. That’s why they don’t do that.