We hear two contrasting stories of people who had the courage of their convictions. We start with a reading from "The Moneyless Manifesto", by Mark Boyle, who has been living without money in the UK for years. Our main speaker this time is a new one on the show, Rev. Kevin Annett, who recounts how he uncovered systematic genocide in Canada and how when he raised this issue he was defrocked by his church.
Music: Money made man mad and When Love Becomes Our Philosophy by the Jesus Christians
We begin this time with a new speaker on the show. Quoting from the Gospel of Mark, former minister of the United Church of Canada, Rev. Kevin Annett asks "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?" This is by way of explaining that his fellow clergy had "surrendered their own conscience", i.e. how they had lost the ability to make a personal moral choice which opposed the institutional church which employed them. His condemnation of the church that defrocked him is nothing if not forthright - he likens such institutions to "demonic entities" that "have the power to possess" people.
With this new angle on how the money affects it users in mind, we start reading from "The Moneyless Manifesto", a book written by Mark Boyle after living moneyless in the UK for a couple of years. The foreword is by a regular speaker on the show, Charles Eisenstein, whose Ascent of Humanity we have already released as an audiobook. After the introduction, we conclude Chapter One, "The Money Delusion" in which Boyle describes why he made the decision to live without money, and some of the larger perspectives he has become aware of because of his decision.
A musical interlude, "When Love Becomes Our Philosophy" introduces our main interview, from 2011. Kevin Annett retells what followed from his investigation as to why his church's congregation included no native Canadians. Over the years, he gradually pieced together some dark personal stories of abuse, forced sterilization and murder and discovered that they were not isolated incidents but part of a systematic campaign. Some sleuthing uncovered documentary evidence of a huge genocide to facilitate land grabbing from native populations. Smallpox was deliberately introduced (Annett refers to the process of deliberate infection as 'inoculation'). The residential school system (running right up until 1996) was used to spread TB amongst malnourished children and abuse and outright murder of children was widespread amidst a culture of impunity. Annett reports the persecution he faced for his persistent efforts to uncover the truth. When his PhD was blocked, he converted it to a 2007 film, "Unrepentant" which contributed to an official apology from the Canadian Government the following year. and a "truth commission" purportedly to investigate what happened. Annett is scathing about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the establishment set up - suggesting that it was more about damage control than uncovering truth - and he notes that once the genocide became public knowledge, some formerly publicly accessible records were sealed.
Kevin Annett notes that people within the system have regularly encourage him and let him know that in a personal capacity they applaud his principled stance. He opines that maybe 90% of people within "the system" would are just going along to get along, and are seeking an alternative. The last 15 minutes or so of discussion (which focus on the occupy movement) are trimmed.
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