He who dares not offend cannot be honest. – Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809)
I expect this newsletter may offend some, but so be it. What does it mean to be honest? And why should honesty offend unless people don’t want to hear the truth?
Good News
Before getting into the meat of this newsletter, there is good news from the FAN Poster Competition. William Woeger, our Fluoride Free Lethbridge artist, won second place with his art work submission. You can view his work in the January 2, 2015 FFL Newsletter. We look forward to seeing more of William’s work expressing the truth about fluoridation.
The results of the poster competition
We [FAN] and many of you (we had over 150 comments on these posters) were bowled over by the variety and excellence of these posters. They have also given us some very potent campaign ideas, which will become apparent over the next few weeks and months.
In the voting system we awarded 3 points for a #1 vote, 2 points for #2 vote and 1 point for a #3 vote. The final tally was:
- Coming in first with 146 points: Ben Garrison (entry 2): The jig saw puzzle
- Coming in second with 131 points: William Woeger: CDC bottle-feeding baby a poison
- Coming in third with 119 points: Donna (entry 2): “Do you really want her drinking a neurotoxin?”
The winners are online here. Again we would like to warmly and gratefully thank all the participants: you really got our juices flowing here!
Other good news from Flouride Action Network
Our first VICTORY of 2015
Councilors in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania (pop. 5,500) voted on Wednesday to rescind their Feb. 2014 vote to restart fluoridation. The council had originally ended fluoridation at the end of 2010, but due to pressure from the dental lobby they voted to restart the practice this past February. Since last year’s vote several councilors, as well as the Mayor, reported hearing concerns about the practice from many residents, causing them to ultimately change their minds on the issue.
This is a great example of why campaigners should never give up their education efforts in their community and keep educating elected officials about the risks associated with fluoridation, even after a council has approved the practice.
Op-Ed
Did you catch that last statement: “This is a great example of why campaigners should never give up their education efforts…”?
Some of you have given up on fighting fluoridation in Lethbridge. As a result, there has been very little public activity in the last year (2014). The following letter may help put some perspective into what has happened with Fluoride Free Lethbridge.
Victor Hafichuk wrote his letter a few weeks ago, but was delayed in submitting it. A local business person sent a comment to the December 19th FFL Newsletter, which fits right in with what Victor was articulating.
This image by William is an appropriate expression of Victor’s letter.
Letter from Lethbridge business person:
Hello Marilyn,
This news letter is a good idea to keep in touch with your members.
Is there any effort to make the circulation bigger?
I suggest that your group should get out and touch general public through protest or procession on the streets. Lethbridge public is not well informed, I believe. Many families don’t read news papers or books. That is where the focus should be to make them aware of this issue.
I strongly believe it is not necessary to add fluoride in water, municipal or otherwise. There’s no substitute for good brushing twice daily even with simple thing as powder charcoal and salt mix.
Toothpaste is a luxury.
Thanks,
What’s wrong here?
This person is encouraging “us” to take action, but has done nothing to help – no signs on the lawn, no t-shirts, no signatures on the petition, no attendance at the events we had all thru 2013.
Why is it up to “your group”? Isn’t it up to everyone? Is this why fluoride is still in our water? You think? Is it up to somebody else to do the work? How “strongly” do people believe that fluoride is bad?
Let me tell you, not strongly at all! Otherwise, we’d see more mothers on the streets protesting, more letters to City Hall, more editorials in the newspaper, more signs around town, more people saying enough of poisoning me and my family.
What do you say?
Here’s Victor’s letter.
To the Mutual Anti-Fluoridation Society
Bringing God into the Issue – the “Great Mistake” –Or Is It?
From Victor Hafichuk
It’s been on my mind for some time to inform the anti-fluoride community in the Lethbridge, Alberta area of the past inner workings of Fluoride Free Lethbridge, an unregistered association.
This report is to inform you:
- What has been done by FFL
- Who contributed to the work and how
- What I perceive has happened in our anti-fluoride campaign
To the best of my knowledge, this is an accurate disclosure of costs and contributions people have made. Corrections and additions are more than welcome.
Contributions of labor, materials and finances
The following persons attended about twenty 3-hour committee meetings at Harvest Haven every two weeks to plan and organize. Regular attendees were Neil Alho, Christina Zehn, Suzen S, Peter and Linda Rose, Mark Benson, Trevor Benson, James Sorochan, Martin Vanpopta, Sean Fife, Dena Dahl, Marilyn Hafichuk and yours truly.
Occasionally, Lance Chong attended, and initially so did Sebastian and Mike Machula, who provided ideas and the original suggestion for the lawn signs.
Harvest Haven and the Vanpoptas provided refreshments.
Mariko Benson of Harvest Haven designed www.FluorideFreeLethbridge.com with much help from others.
Suzen S set up a Twitter account for FFL and gave us some excellent marketing tips.
Christina Zehn held a garage sale at her home in April 2013, to which she contributed items, as did friends and neighbors. Total sales receipts were approximately $1,000.00. Besides Christina Zehn, Larry Elford, Tony Hall and Harvest Haven, I don’t have the names of others who contributed; however, I thank them and would be glad to give them public credit.
Marilyn Hafichuk, Lois Benson, Sean Fife, Mark Benson, Trevor Benson, James Sorochan, and I helped Christina to set up, operate and dismantle the sale.
Fran Cofell provided some of the refreshments for the workers, as she did for the FFL booth at the Word on the Street event at the Lethbridge Public Library.
Lorrie Anne Turcotte helped at the garage sale, the Word on the Street booth, and the Children’s Festival booth at the Exhibition Pavilion.
Bob Fife, sign shop owner in Toronto, printed the lawn signs without charge. Harvest Haven paid for the shipping and purchased the step stands and backing for about $700.00.
Several persons bought signs at cost. We still have some left. Some bought books at Harvest Haven’s cost and organic cotton T-shirts at a slight profit to raise funds for expenses.
Some people were willing to place signs on their lawns until…they found out they were $10 or $15 each (about 1/3 to 1/4 the normal cost). Some were willing to wear T-shirts, provided they were free. So who was supposed to pay for them? These were Lethbridge citizens who wanted fluoride out but couldn’t find it in themselves to incur minimal expense to help.
Al and Sue Lillemo came out to Harvest Haven once or twice to “weed” (peel and mount) signs, as did Neil Alho, Christina Zehn, Marcel Puurveen, Martin Vanpopta, and Alexandra Crook. Harvest Haven did much of this work, as well. Sue was and still is active in passing on FFL messages by Facebook.
Neil Alho bought several lawn signs for himself and for friends or neighbors who had theirs stolen or destroyed by pro-fluoride vandals (shows you who the dark side is).
Neil also contributed $100.00 for literature and $45.00 for the rental of a room at the Lethbridge Public Library.
Harvest Haven made all of the arrangements for rooms for the monthly events, as well as the press releases, advertising and all preparations of materials to be distributed at these events.
Harvest Haven paid $75.00 for the theatre gallery rental, $100.00 for the Word on the Street booth and $144.50 for the booth at the Children’s Festival.
Harvest Haven set up and operated the FFL booth at the Lethbridge Farmer’s Market downtown every Wednesday for a total of 12 to 14 days.
Peter and Linda Rose were active in distributing thousands of pieces of literature throughout streets, parks and parking lots. Linda also helped man the FFL booth at the Farmer’s Market for part of one day.
Catherine Abel contributed cartoons and spent a day at the Children’s Festival FFL booth sketching caricatures for passersby upon request for free.
Fay Ash of Calgary came to speak once at the Lethbridge College. Besides making the arrangements for the room, Harvest Haven provided Fay and her driver with meals and accommodations for the night.
Harvest Haven made all the arrangements for Dr. James Beck to speak at the University of Lethbridge. Sean Neufeld and Chris Karl helped usher people to the meeting room.
A friend and HH customer (F. E.), quietly contributed $40.00 to the anti-fluoride cause. Other than the persons already mentioned in this letter, she is the only person who gave financially to the cause. Bless you for that, F. E.
Thousands of handouts were freely printed by Minute Man, as well as some at a discount.
Paramount Printers provided some posters and considerable amounts of literature at half price. Over all, Harvest Haven paid for most of the printing.
Paterson Photography provided the FFL home page picture of the High Level Bridge for $50.00 – half-price, paid for by Harvest Haven.
Several business locations willingly displayed and promoted the petition forms to be signed by their customers (see http://www.fluoridefreelethbridge.com/takeaction/petition/petition_index.html) – kudos to them.
Others, though against fluoride, were unable or unwilling to display petitions or anti-fluoride posters because their clientele were offended and threatened to cease doing business with them.
People at Harvest Haven spent several thousands of hours cumulatively researching, confirming information, reviewing materials repeatedly for accuracy and effective expression, formatting, and designing the literature and website materials. Each picture and piece of literature took much consultation and study to implement. The Alberta Health Services Rebuttal (AHS) was one such paper, a major document of many documents that required significant work.
I calculate Harvest Haven’s labor costs to be well over $120,000. Does that sound outrageous? It wouldn’t be hard to do some professional estimates to confirm or deny these claims; the FFL site is up and the literature available for assessment. Most people have no clue about operational costs.
Dr. James Beck provided us with prompt and invaluable counsel at no charge when we were composing our documents. Drs Beck and Dickson are to be commended for staunchly refusing any remuneration for their work and presentations.
Harvest Haven paid for signs ($708.53), literature ($1272.10), FFL T-shirts ($800.00), and the excellent books, The Case Against Fluoride by Drs Beck and Connett, and The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson ($855.66). We purchased the books from Amazon and sold them at our approximate cost. There are books, signs, T-shirts and literature remaining.
Janelle Wensley filmed and edited videos of three FFL public meetings, charging only $200 for all of her time and work, which was worth much more. Harvest Haven paid the $200. Thank you, Janelle.
For the Lethbridge Whoop Up Parade in 2013, Harvest Haven provided the two anti-fluoride vehicles. Denny Hleucka of the L. A. Auto Spa donated the banner. Brad Gadd from Boarderline, the skateboard shop on 4 Ave S, allowed us to use their vinyl and cutter without charge for signage on the trucks.
Thanks go to the 20 people participating in the parade: Neil Alho, Marcel Puurveen, Alexandra Crook, Janette Sorochan, Jonathan Hafichuk, Brandon Nguyen, James Dahl, Peter and Linda Rose, Tony Hall, Catherine Abel, and several from Harvest Haven – Marilyn Hafichuk, Whitney Van Bezooyen, James Sorochan, Trevor Benson, Mark Benson, Dena Dahl, Sean Fife, Martin VanPopta, and Courtney Morris. I was there, too, to make 21 participants.
Add to this work done the innumerable phone calls, many hours spent at many meetings, planning, organizing and generally working long hours for over a year to make these things happen. Harvest Haven built and manned the booths at the
Children’s Festival, the Word on the Street, Exhibition Park and the Farmers’ Markets.
Thank you, Mario of Calgary for contributing many CD’s and time going door-to-door in Lethbridge campaigning against fluoride.
Is the intent of this report to complain or boast on anyone’s behalf? I hope better than that comes of it. Is it offered in hope of gracious remuneration? Not at all; we expect nothing in return for a work we believed we needed to perform under God’s direction regardless of who was willing to help or what the odds were.
We were amazed at the ignorance of the general populace that is getting poisoned while told by treacherous “hellth care” authorities it’s good for them. Naïve and trusting citizens are being medicated with a proven highly toxic poison, without their knowledge, against their consent, and without control of dosage or monitoring the effects per individual. Water fluoridation is outrageously immoral, unethical, illegal, fraudulent, and perfectly criminal. Many studies prove artificial fluoride is deadly, entirely beyond reasonable doubt.
I was somewhat surprised at the apathy of many who even knew artificial water fluoridation was evil. For example, a woman said to me at the Children’s Festival, “Thank you for what you’re doing for us. I appreciate it and support you.”
She gave no money; she didn’t buy a T-shirt, lawn sign or book and she distributed no literature. I asked her to sign the petition to be presented to City Council against fluoridation. She declined, saying, “These things will work out by themselves.”
I shook my head with incredulity and annoyance. “These things don’t happen with fuzzy thoughts, mere oral support or without some kind of commitment and action,” I replied. There was no getting through to her. Her idea of support is to let someone else do the unpopular and unsavoury work for her.
Two chiropractors to whom we had given thousands of dollars worth of business said, “Thank you for fighting fluoride on our behalf.” But did they contribute anything? Could they not at least have given some complimentary treatments to those in the trenches, even one? I suppose it didn’t occur to them. For what it’s worth, they allowed us to put up anti-fluoride posters.
As far as I’m concerned, those aware of the evil and in a position to oppose it, yet do nothing, are almost as guilty as the perpetrators. Tell me how this isn’t so, anyone.
So, to sum up financially, expenses ran way over $120,000. Contributions freely given amounted to no more than $185 in straight cash donations,
$1000 of donated garage sale items, a $50 discount for the site picture, and a few hundred dollars in printing materials by the aforementioned printers.
People were afraid of bad publicity that would affect their business and social life. I understand. We suffered. There were many angry people, some incensed at our opposition to fluoridation, even violently so, convinced in their ignorant, brain-soiled, dumbed-down, pineal-encrusted minds we were fighting a precious health measure. We were maligned and slandered by many. We were accused of the very things our accusers were guilty of.
Take Mayor Chris Spearman, for example. His Facebook campaign site accused us of slandering and threatening them. When we asked them and others to produce the evidence, they fell silent. On the other hand, Chris Spearman’s political team and friends most certainly slandered us and we copied and kept the Facebook records to prove it.
Would you like to offend people? Speak the truth. Would you like to preserve relationships? Don’t speak the truth.
We also had our share of armchair quarterbacks, people who know it all and are swift to judge and criticize, yet will not lift a finger to help.
But those who do nothing commonly make two grave mistakes – doing nothing, and faulting those who are doing something.
Harvest Haven was accused of making an issue of fluoridation just to sell frightened people water filters. How ludicrous is that? Dr. Antonius Hall was one of those people who later backed off.
We fought the fight against artificial water fluoridation and thus far haven’t seen the victory. When city elections came in the fall of 2013, there weren’t enough councilors persuaded against the egregious practice.
Those councilors opposed to fluoridation remain silent, expecting others to remove crime from their city. Is it acceptable for those in public office to remain within their comfort zones and preserve their positions and social benefits at the cost of those who elected them?
Some have speculated that Fluoride Free Lethbridge harmed Bridget Mearns’ chances for mayor by making fluoride an election issue. The pro-fluoride camp required Bridget to declare her known opposition to fluoridation. In 2011, she had made a motion to council to end fluoridation of Lethbridge water. It appears she was betrayed at that time by Councillor Jeff Coffman, who said he’d support her “based on ethics.” When it came to the vote by council, he voted for fluoridation “based on science.”
Bridget didn’t want us pushing the fluoridation issue thereby risking votes. But we know it was not the cause of her defeat. In discussing this matter with other prominent citizens, it seems provincial politics played a significant role in the election. Many Liberals were offended that Bridget’s mother, Bridget Pastoor, had crossed the floor to the Progressive Conservatives just a couple of years earlier. As well, it was the opinion of some that “small c” conservative Lethbridge just wasn’t up to having a woman as mayor.
Bridget, please don’t hold us responsible for your defeat and don’t even hold yourself responsible for it. We see no fault on either of our parts in this matter. After all, you did run again successfully for councilor in May 2014. You have gumption.
According to several, we DID make one BIG mistake – we mentioned God! What a whopper that is! “DON’T, just DON’T bring God into social issues – we don’t believe in Him. Keep your beliefs to yourself! Unless you take Him out of the campaign, we will not support you.”
Some can barely tolerate mention of God. “Now you’ve done it!” they cry. “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! We’d rather drink poison than have anything to do with God! Give us Barabbas, the criminal, instead! Give us Alberta ‘Hellth’ Services! Give us the murderous fluoride-peddling mercenaries! Do you HEAR?! You keep your Jesus to yourself!” Yet, these same people advocate freedom of speech, religion and medication. Go figure.
Even the churches who presume to be guardians of their congregants have no idea of the wickedness of artificial water fluoridation. Their pastors and leaders have no stomach for informing themselves, speaking out and standing against evil, not even for themselves, much less for their congregations and neighbors.
I wrote a letter addressed primarily to the churches: To All Citizens in Lethbridge and Surrounding Areas Concerning Water Fluoridation
I heard from one concerned secretary asking how she might help and one pastor who was offended that I should question his integrity.
Frankly, if people don’t want to get off their butts, learn and dig into their pockets to get rid of lethal poison to protect themselves, their families and neighbors, I’m tempted to say, “Have at it – drink your poison; you deserve it.”
Victor Hafichuk
