My mistrust of media grew into a mistrust of government and its institutions. Under the guise of saving jobs and helping people, Ocean Falls was purchased by the NDP in 1972 (It had been privately owned and operated by Crown Zellerbach since its inception in the early1900's) but they soon discovered that it was a lost cause. While spinning the production numbers, they were losing money by the truckloads, until, finally, even they knew it was a lost cause. The town was abandoned and instead of exploiting the existing town and its infrastructure for some other purpose (tourism for example), it was demolished.
We moved on in our lives and when I returned to civilization, I was having difficulty finding work. I had paid into what was known at that time as UI, unemployment insurance. After 6 months of jumping through hoops and filing job seeking reports etc., I was still stonewalled and never did receive a dime. At that point I decided that I would strike out on my own with anything that I thought I was capable of doing. I was done with unions and unemployment insurance.
The paint contracting business I started was slow getting off the ground so we started another business, as a supplement to our income, that involved sales of a product line and recruitment of other sales associates. It was known as multi-level marketing and the company was Amway. There was a lot of inflation and unemployment at that time and people were looking for additional streams of income, and although it was not easy, the business grew into a modest success.
I began to notice that multi-level marketing, and Amway in particular, was getting some bad press. I was puzzled by this as it was a positive thing and those who joined the ranks were, as a rule, quite thrilled with the opportunity. The meetings and rallies were happy, positive, and energetic affairs, a bright light in the midst of hard economic times. This type of business was being labeled as a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme had a legal definition and Amway in no way fit the description. In fact, MLM, as it was known as, was being taught in business schools and universities as a legitimate business model and indeed, since that time there have been many very successful national and international companies that worked that business model.
My political interests were being awakened and I began to realize what was happening. I was gradually getting a sense of what was meant by left wing and right wing politics. I was learning that the left is no friend of free enterprise, but rather leans to socialism, which puts people under the care and control of government instead of personal responsibility. So I gathered that the media was 'left' as they supported the left leaning socialist NDP government and as such, would help to discourage people starting their own business. Thus, the bad press for Amway.
This proclivity to left leaning by the press was particularly evident when the NDP were replaced by the ultimate free enterpriser, Bill VanderZalm as premier of the province, under the Social Credit banner. (Not to be mistaken with the present day social credit system used to control and manipulate people in Communist China). He was pursued relentlessly with trumped up wrongdoings, and although he was great for our province and the economy performed well under him, the pressure got to him. He was good, honest, and a hard working man, and it was not until I read his autobiography that I realized the animosity of the press towards him and how they continuously colluded against him, to discredit him and sully his name.
In the next post, I show how this left leaning philosophy of government destroyed our business. Literally and deliberately.
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