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The Brussels Post, 1978-07-19, Page 2CARE with all your heart.. YOU? gift to CARE helps send MEDICO doctors, nurses and technicians to developing countries to train their counterparts in modern medidal techni, OUOS as Well as to treat the sick and injured, In remote areas of the developing world where preVentatiVe Medicine IS of the utmost importance{ your dollars help support MEDICO nurses in community health prOgrarns. They teach local girls nursing skills and emphasize the importance of nutrition, hygiene and sanitation for good health. bto..yqut gift 1.6-day,td tAltE Cana da Dept`. Elank Ottawa K1S SH7 801stored tehddltuirk OBrussels Post swissE LS cerMisio WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1978 scn.ving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean fIros.Publishers Limited. Evelyn Kennedy Editor- Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association eNA Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year, - • . • • Others 517.00 a Year. Single Copies 20 cents each. It pays to speak up The squeaking wheel gets the grease. That old adage may once again be coming true in the complaints to Bell Canada about phone service in the Ethel area. A concerned group gathered signatures and made a case for better phone service to Bell's Stratford office, Bell responded, both with an explanation of what was causing the problems and an outline of what the company plans to do about them. Most of us who have an 887- phone number experience the hassles that the Ethel area people 9utlined...noisy lines, rings not going in etc. What's news is the fact that a British made system, different from Bell's other equipment, may be causing the problem. Bell deserves credit for promptly answering the petition and for letting the Post know about the complaints and its plans for improvement: The Ethel people who organized the petition to Bell deserve credit too for speaking up. Phone service isn't perfect yet, but Bell now knows people are unhappy and is trying to improve. That would not have happened as long as we were content to grounch on the street corner and to our neighbours. The brave souls (or fed up souls) in Ethel who complained have proved that the way to get action is to get together and approach those in charge. All of us who have 887- phone numbers may eventually be in their debt. If you're like me these days, you're probably a little confused as to which way to turn when it comes to world affairs. My current problem centres around the controversial civil rights trials in Russia in which several dissidents have been sentenced to long terms at hard labour for "crimes" against the state. Curiously, these trials take place at a time when things were just beginning to improve interms of understanding between the Com- munist part of the world and the rest of us, We'd been told for decades that the Communists were monsters, then _gradually were coming to the realization that they were humans like us, and now we're beginning to see them as monster s again. One hardly knows what to believe. For the ordinary citizen, reaching a valid conclusion oil something that happens on the other side of the world is difficult. We have to depend on 'reports in the media and on the expressions of governments on both sides. We have long distrusted the other side, of course, because they control information and only let things out when it will be in a favourable light. In recent years following the horrible enlightenment after the Watergate affair and assorted other scandals involving rigged publicity stunts, break ins and downright lying by governments invarious Western countries, we now have come to view with suspicison even our own side of the story, If we've been fed a false view of things for as long as we were with the Vietnam war perhaps the view we're getting of events in Russia is also distorted for soniepolitical or military purpose. Our final hope for information in such cases should be our own free press but it too has become discredited in recent ,years. For one thing, the press cannot print the truth until it knows the truth. Operating in Russia, it is very difficult, to find the truth. Operating in international circles it is very easy to find what a reporter thinks is the truth is. actually information manipulated by one government or another. EVen if the reporter could get the 'Truth" on an incident, there are Still many Obstacles to be overcome on the way to Worthing the public. The reporter has his own biases which can subtley change the story. The editorial process of getting the repotter's Story into print through editors at different levels can also distort the "truth'. In other words, the likelihood'of you and I getting the straight dope on something that happens in a country like Russia is bleak. There was a time a couple of years ago when things seemed to be growing clearer in our dealings with the Soviets. Those were the happy days when old tensions seemed to be resolving. De tente was the key word. Exchanges of information, sporting links between East and West and greater co- operation between governments brought new hope to us that we didn't have to live in a constant state of readiness for war. We'd been trained since the Second World War to distrust everything the Soviets did or said. The long years of the cold war had hardened our opinions, had built walls of misunder- standing between ourselves and the Soviets, Surely if the press was now seeing the good side of the Communists we could trust this picture. But we'd hardly begun to relax when the voices of gloom perked up. One such voice was that of Aleksand Solzhenitsyn, the exiled Russian writer who had spent so much time in Soviet prison camps. At the height of our euphoria at the new relationship with the Soviets, Solzhenitsyn was warning that we were being sucked in, being duped by the Soviet leadership. When the Helsinki Accord, guaranteeing civil rights around the world in exchange for recognizing border changes in Eastern Europe was being hailed as a breakthrough for peace, Solzhenitsyn was warning we were selling millions of dissidents in Eastern Europe down the river. Was this man right, or was his bitterness against his old government causing him to lie? Frankly, I don't know what to believe. I tend to believe Solzhenitsyn because I have some friends who have excaped from behind the Iron Curtain and they tell some horrible stories. But then I think, "would I want the Russians to accept as truth the stories that Might be told by sonie of radicals such as the FLQ terrorists who went to Cuba with their distorted view of Canadian society". I feel in a quandary about the whole. situation. We've been tricked so often before that I'm constantly on guard agAinst being duped again. Leaders wonder today at the apathy of the general public on such important issues. With the past record of giving the "truth" to the people, what else can they expect, Moving day in Brussels Behind the scenes By Keith Roulston What do we believe?