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46 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW TOM WAYMAN REPLY TO A CITIZEN, USING LOTS OF NASTY WORDS AFTER Víctor García Robles I'm sick of it, Citizen: this whining about "national unity" or "independence/sovereignty-association". To me, it's horseshit because I was reading your article "Thoughts On A Native Land" right after another so-called election where we got a choice between a piece of cow pie and a genuine millionaire with an advanced case of the usual arrogance. I was reading your article (one more among many) on a sunny day with a million Canadians out of work — give or take a few hundred thousand depending on whether you think the government can ever tell a lie, with the Indains rotting on the reserves, with halfthe human population ofmy City fearful ofwalking alone on the streets at night (I'm talking about women, in case you don't get it) and meantime the bulk of us go steadily offto work each day and at the door ofthe plant or office transform themselves from members ofwhat they assure us is a democracy into people with approximately fuck-all say over what happens to us in the next eight hours (in which, incidentally, the entire wealth ofthe country — both goods and services, from digging out ore to slinging beer—is produced.) 47 WAYMAN And the unions haven't altered this situation a bit: the years of wage hikes haven't carved one per cent into profits (you can look this up yourself). On the contrary, the bosses' take continues to rise even faster than inflation. . . I could go on. Want to know about housing, or jail, or welfare? Or how about something on Unemployment Insurance or what is now jokingly termed "Employment Canada"? Yet here you are, Citizen, one more asshole who claims to be concerned about "Canada" or "Quebec". Of course Quebec should separate if that's what they want to do! But when the shouting dies down, let's see what difference there is in anybody's daily existence. And I don't mean that of drones like politicians or political commentators but in the lives of those of us whose work gives you pricks a society you can babble about and/or control. You complain about those "who can understand Chile and Allende, but not Levesque and Quebec. Neruda but not Godin." Well, I'll explain the difference to you. When they elected Salvador, he tried to make some changes, he made a lot of mistakes, but the generals killed him. When Levesque was elected, the first thing he did — thefirst thing— was to run to New York to kiss the ass of Wall Street. Can you understand this difference, Citizen Fuckface? What is it Quebec is going to be independent from? The English language? Okay, that's something. But not from bosses. Not even from those international corporations with their head offices in certain English-speaking countries. 48 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW Only Trudeau is stupid enough to want to shoot Levesque for this (and that's largely because after believing in the idea himself for some years Trudeau abandoned it due to concluding it wasn't a serious possibility.) What Levesque proposes may be progress of a sort but it sure isn't change. Here's some news for you about change: there are no ends, only means. You don't get to be independent by kissing the rosy red ring of the masters. And you don't get free by endorsing the wage system. Now if what I'm saying is still a mystery to you permit me to add that I didn't care for Allende's policies all that much either. Pm not real big on any government that rules from the top down and so far on this planet that's been standard practice. Trudeau's government perhaps more obviously than Levesque's, displayed the lies, self-interest, and cowardice that any of these collections of crooks do — no matter how pure their motives — as they suckhole the bosses and heartily approve the daily robbery at what they call the point of production: someone getting rich offour work and us somehow...

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