GUEST COMMENT: LOCKER SNIFFING DOG NO SURPRISE

Your Aug. 22 opinions section carried an piece by one G.D. Chaster in
regards to saving the Mound. In it, he claims "the Natives" don't care, and
appeals to the local Liberal MLA to help save the mound. I find it humorous
that the collective opinion of an entire ethnic and cultural group is so
thoroughly summed up in the words "don't care". It is obvious that the
Cowichan Tribes is organized into a class society, just as our society is
from municipal to federal. To blame the actions or lack of interest
inherent among a particular minority ruling class in the Tribes government
for apathy on the part of the entire ethnic group is ridiculous.

Further, you carried a piece regarding the use of police dogs in schools, a
plan that will surely go ahead whether or not the community supports it.
The RCMP will go to many lengths to criminalize youth, and would prefer to
do so rather than attacking the real heart of the problem: the criminal
organizations that are responsible for the distribution of hardcore drugs
to street-level dealers. If the RCMP cared at all about the problems posed
by the proliferation of hardcore drugs, they would confront the problem in
"ahem" Nanaimo and in Victoria on a larger scale. Busting street dealers,
among whom any number can be recruited from those desperate to get out of
poverty, merely criminalizes the poor and ignores the source of the
problem. More important, however, is the continued RCMP crackdown on public
dissent. I found it interesting how the letter to the editor regarding
police dogs in schools mentioned A. Einstein as a figure who opposed state
interference. Actually, he was a figure who opposed the state - and for it
was classified in the U.S. by the FBI as a "dangerous anarchist".

In fact, right here in B.C. an anarcho-syndicalist union which still exists
today, the IWW, was bloodily supressed by the police in the early part of
the 20th century. (The IWW helped organized large sections of the forest
industry and several books have been written about its involvement in BC
labour history.)

The police will always attack those doing the most social good, at the
behest of the state, in support of the real criminals - those profiting
from the misery of the majority.

It therefore comes as no surprise the RCMP will criminalize youth in their
farcical attempt to stop the drug trade. They brutally supressed protests
in Quebec City and even went as far as kidnapping organizers. What's to
stop them having their fun here out west?

Paul Finch is a North Cowichan resident.