The many faces of ‘gaslighting’

By now, anyone who spends any time on social media has seen the term “gaslighting” being used more and more when arguing “content”.
Most such posts do so by rebutting what is perceived as disinformation (e.g.: mRNA vaccines and their ineffectiveness in protecting individuals from Covid) while trying to present substantive fact to online debate. However, since most people on social media are only there to offer their opinion, whether informed or not, our ability to discern truth from fantasy is becoming increasingly strained.
Gaslighting has long been used as a psychological weapon to confuse an individual into questioning their powers of reasoning or even their sanity, the end game being to have the victim becoming the spokesperson of the person perpetuating such doubt. Covid examples abound. For instance, persons having already received fully vaccination yet still become ill by the virus may start to wonder whether it was even necessary to be vaccinated in the first place, when their infection was obviously the result of a mutation of the original virus such as XBB.1.5 Omicron, a much less virulent form that spreads more rapidly because it’s trying to “escape” the human antibodies that one’s body has developed to constrain the original viral form.
Unfortunately, because society has grown accustomed to trusting doctors, we are currently failing to identify the so-called “scrip pushers” – physicians who have in the past written prescriptions for drugs such as valium to keep “mother” from going crazy to OxyContin for pain relief and eventual addiction. Today, such practices are gullibly accepted by an uneducated population distrusting mRNA vaccines, yet oblivious in some “ironic” Alanis Morissette way of accepting newer Tylenol pain derivatives that relieve Covid symptoms, yet were developed through the usage of mRNA technology advancement.
Unfortunately, gaslighting techniques are now being used by our corporate sector. Even in Friday’s Herald the CTF’s Gage Haubrich offered up such research nonsense in presenting an almost fanciful Beach Boys “Wouldn’t it be nice” interpretation as to “why” Saskatchewanians should be forever grateful that our Minister of Coin, Donna Harpauer believes she will be capable of balancing the forthcoming provincial budget – thereby diminishing interest paid on our provincial debt and – eventually – leading to a decline of at least 1% in our PST rate.
Left out of Haubrich’s unicorn rationale is the fact only the province’s corporate sector will benefit from such action; to the consumer, one per cent doesn’t even account for expected moderate inflationary pressures. What it does do, however, is highlight the stupidity of the government still trying to prioritize the sale of our Crowns to private ownership, as they’re now doing with the SLGA, while promoting the establishment of a Saskatchewan-controlled corporate taxation entity to further lower the corporate contribution to provincial budgetary needs, ALL while failing to inform the public that this sector already provides a miniscule five per cent to this fund, whereas the CROWN sector yields OVER seven per cent.
We already know that the Minister of Coin can’t issue cheques for children to help parents deal with our current inflationary malaise because she’s lost the Minister of Health’s number to find out how many children live in Saskatchewan. Moreover, we’re STILL waiting to find our what the Sask. Party did with the $400 million the feds gave the province to assist in the clean-up of abandoned oil drill exploration sites. Add to this list the fact that there isn’t even ONE health care district in the province that doesn’t need more doctors and trained health care professionals, and I have to ask: how much longer does the Russia-Ukraine conflict have to go on before Saskatchewan finally diversifies its economy?
Last week I pointed out how, despite having promised the La Loche community a new elementary school, the community will have to raise some $100,000 to provide simple kitchen facilities to fulfil its public purpose of being the centre of support for the community in times of crisis and celebration. NOW, however, that amount has gone up by another $300,000, as the province left out of its estimation the purchase of playground equipment and gym equipment. Another northern community, Sandy Bay, was looking forward to having improvements made to its own school, only to find out that the walls of the school are filled with asbestos insulation, which means costly removal of the contaminant and a total rebuilding of the structure – but not capable of being accommodated in the budget before 2027. Finally, the Moe government is promising new public housing units to be built in several northern communities, but the rent that the province will be charging will exceed almost 85 per cent of normal social assistance funding.
I’m going to leave my last comments respecting gaslighting being used by the Sask Party until next week; first, however, I’m going to ask readers who might be interested in what I have to say to go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1o8K3DNBjM and watch the YouTube video of this past Wednesday’s “information session” detailing the reasons as to “why” it is now reasonable for Orano to be allowed to decommission the former Cluff Lake uranium mine site.
While watching, please keep these facts in mind:
• the half life of uranium decay is 4.5 BILLION years
• the tailing ponds are only covered with 1 to 2 meters of crushed rock and located on muskeg land
• hunters have recently found their game having bladder systems radioactively contaminated from having drank at the exposed tailing ponds
• a dam that is supposed to forever protect tailing pond seepage from reaching surrounding lakes and rivers is constructed from materials that will eventually decay, and
• crushed rock used for fill does NOT prevent groundwater seepage
If ever there was the need for PUBLIC consultation with First Nations leaders, this is “it”. The entire presentation allowed for NO public input (microphones on our computers were muted by the organizers), and only THREE extremely selective questions were answered by the presenters in the last six minutes of an almost EXACTLY one hour “consultative” presentation.
Should the site be decommissioned? Most certainly, but for the government to ask Orano for peanuts as they did with similar closures in Uranium City (around $250,000) leaves taxpayers, Mr. Haubrich’s “friends”, ending up with a potential to lose untold millions should even a minor disaster occur on this site.
Perhaps the premier feels that because they have a northern MLA, he’s “reaching out” to northern communities. Good luck with that thought; I didn’t even see Mr. Lemaigre’s name listed as having logged into Wednesday’s “information session”.

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