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Tuesday, January 31, 2017 |
The middle path: Why balance is the hardest to achieve |
I have found inspiration in the vigorous discussions that have sprung up from my previous blog and the writings of others. This is a good thing even if we vociferously disagree that we are talking rather than trying to shout each other down. Yet I see the growing cancer of intolerance, disinformation, and excessive hyperbole within the general discourse. It to me is the strongest proof of the growth of tribalism, which I have written on the topic previously, in the United States today. |
The issue that I am taking up in this post is the often utter lack of context when we discuss a political, social, or religious issue today. I see the rise of meme's, tweets, and other aspects of social media as tools that are being grossly misused by all of us. Rather than permitting facts as we can research and verify for ourselves we are serving up more "soundbites" that make us feel good about striking a blow for "our" side, whatever side that might be. |
I can personally attest to the need for our data to be accurate, factual, and as devoid of bias as possible. Given both my training as an Intelligence Analyst and student of human psychology empiricism isn't just a good idea, it is sacrosanct as without the information is useless. The goal of your research is to provide useful and usable data for analysis and then dissemination to a larger group. It is NOT to allow you to cherry-pick the facts you want to present or ignore those facts that modify your desired end state. |
Given the divisive nature of our recent turn in our national politics and rise of what to many are disturbing parallels given the actions of the Trump Administration and Nazi Germany. The fact that such comparisons made regularly are disturbing yet so are the actions by the Trump Administration to draw such ire from concerned citizens. Rumor and innuendo seem to be propelling headlong into our information stream. Blindly parroting the rumor and innuendo is counter-productive to the imperative need for factual information that informs us to move as our intelligence and conscience would guide us. |
Something to keep in mind, amidst the sound and fury, be mindful of where and what your data comes from if someone else does the research for you. We must be intellectually honest and hold our integrity dearly in the face of such temptations to fight with our hearts. Our emotions are powerful tools to help us, but unchecked can do far more harm than good to ourselves and others. Outrage at what is perceived injustice, racism, and a host of other ills is justified whenever we find it. |
Before we take to the streets and the Internet, let's stop for a moment and gather facts. Groups that have long experienced discrimination have shown us that being armed with factually truthful information is both transformational and infinitely powerful, History provides numerous examples of this such as our revolution against Great Britain. If you separate the propaganda from both sides, you will see that the colonials who fought to break away sought to decide for themselves rather than be told by others, how to rule themselves. |
Thus I again sound my refrain of "Stop, listen, research, gather facts, recognize bias both in yourself and your data" before you act. As for me personally, I find it disturbing the amount of concern with our current political and social climate for a lot of reasons. I will fight for those freedoms I have fought for on behalf of all Americans till it is my time to depart the Midgard. |
Monday, January 23, 2017 |
The justification for violence against those who hate??? |
During the events of the inauguration a known white-supremacist, also someone who openly admires the politics of Nazi's, was struck while on camera. I quickly came to see many people who I respect celebrating this act of, in their words "poetic justice", violence. Their reasons for justification of this glee was he was a Nazi and thus unworthy of any sympathy. I will admit that while it was satisfying to see his arrogance breached and for a moment he experienced an awareness that likely eludes him daily otherwise. There are consequences for this action now immortalized via the internet. |
I have made no attempt to hide my mistrust of this violence and its potential long-term effects upon the very groups that are the subject of the hideous and vile claptrap that is peddled by the white-supremacy movement be they Nazis or otherwise. I have first hand seen the horrifying results of such beliefs that violence is always justifiable against those who are different for any reason. I have seen marketplaces filled with women and children bombed simply to make a political point. Thus while the individual may have gotten his comeuppance, the one who struck him did not strike a blow for justice in any form. |
A World War was fought with the deaths of millions, so much death that the actual human toll is still unfathomable today. With the end of that war the world was ushered in to the nuclear age, promising death on a species scale of annihilation. Thus it is through the lens of history that I see the dangers of violence in kind to the hate spewed by other men. This is not to say that you don't prepare for the worst of their ignorance to cause violence to be used against you and yours. Yet as one who has seen what happens with such thoughts, the human toll is very real when bombs, bullets, and hate are fueled by a desire for revenge being masqueraded as justice. |
Violence is a tool that I understand must be employed at times to defend one's self or others lest they be a victim(s) of that violence themselves. Still I cannot state enough why it is and should always be the court of last resort in the face of hate, even when they call for such violence against yourself or others. I am not tolerant of the speech of hate and will oppose it in any form because of my study of history as well as what I have seen it do in real life to innocent people. Yet my first resort is to entrench myself and others against the temptation to become that which we loathe, thus surrendering our moral justification for the use of surgically applied violence when absolutely necessary. |
This is not to say to be kind to those who would subjugate or enslave you or any other human being. Only that we must understand fully the consequences of using violent means, however justified, against others. There is a heavy price to be paid for this responsibility and one that as of my experience continues to be paid long after the guns have fallen silent. I live with those images and emotions of being part of such every waking or sleeping moment of my life. |
Thus I counsel all of humanity to passionately oppose hate and those who preach it in any fashion, do not be silent or complicit in their oppression. Please be mindful that while in our opposition we do not become that which we fight, this is the greatest trial of the warrior to fight without corruption of the heart and our very souls. |
Saturday, January 21, 2017 |
An Oath I Swore to My Country and why you should swear it as well.. |
On July 11, 1991, I found myself inside the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Military Entrance Recruit Processing Station or (MEPS) in a room with about 25 others. I swore the following oath... |
I, Jared Michael Royka, to hereby solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. To obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me. And to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so help me God. |
Now given our 45th President who was sworn in on January 20, 2017, I am not saying you swear allegiance to Donald J. Trump personally but that we are in service to the nation, her people, and their way of life. That the office of the President of the United States is ultimately as I am bound by that same oath. It is our sacred honor and duty to hold him and ourselves to that oath even when it counters our self-interest. |
My oath did not come with an expiration date nor should any oath we swear for it is a reflection of what we hold sacred and honor most about ourselves, our people, and our beloved nation. I call upon all of us to either swear or renew our oaths to support, uphold, and defend our Constitution as well as our ideals that gave birth to this nation. We as a nation have often failed more than we have succeeded but that is where our greatest strength lies, we despite failures continue to move forward to the future. |
Let us leave no one behind in that march to our future. All Americans are valuable and necessary to our nation even those we would otherwise shun or ignore. Yes even those who espouse hate and spew venom against their fellow Americans, we will lead by example and answer hate with love, violence with peace, and ignorance with the light of knowledge. Growth and change are constant but always painful in some way, I believe that we are more than capable of this and so much more. |
Our nation requires informed and active citizens, if you wish to change things become involved in every single aspect of our government from local all the way through to national level issues. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and always VERIFY your sources never trust anything that is presented to you by anyone else, remember they have an agenda and it may not be yours. Call your elected officials, hold them accountable, and never give up an inch of ground because its hard. |
Support groups and organizations that help do these very things as well for they can magnify our efforts to uphold and defend our Constitution against those foreign and domestic enemies. Do not give in to complacency or brutality given as a response to your efforts to uphold your oaths. I challenge all of us to renew our oaths to our nation, our people, and our way of life. We can do it and I will be right beside you. |
I will hold our government accountable, I will educate and inform myself about the issues facing our nation and act vigorously on them. I challenge everyone to do the same with the caveat of remember to love each other when we want most to hate or denigrate one another. |
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Kunduz 'quiet,' MSF demands probe into clinic attack |
Kunduz residents have returned to the Afghan city's streets for the first time since last week's Taliban assault. Doctors Without Borders says it wants a war crimes probe into Saturday's airstrikes on its hospital. |
Afghan television on Monday showed the national flag being re-erected in the Kunduz governor's compound as residents ventured out to buy food, saying the sound of gun battles had faded away. |
Kunduz police spokesman Sarwar Hussaini said that "all of the city is under our control now." But the German DPA news agency quoted a Qawa Khana suburb resident as saying there was "still sporadic fighting in some areas." |
Residents quoted by Reuters said the city smelt of dead bodies that still lay on pavements. Shops were open in central Kunduz. Food and medical supplies were reportedly short. |
Last Monday, Taliban fighters captured the strategic northern provincial capital, prompting a |
counteroffensive by Afghan and US special forces |
backed by US air strikes. |
MSF demands independent probe |
Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF on Monday demanded an independent probe into |
airstrikes on its clinic |
that killed at least 12 MSF staff and 10 patients and left its main medical building gutted. |
Kampfflugzeug AC-130 |
Slow but heavy armed - an AC-130 gunship |
"An internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient," MSF general director Christopher Stokes said on Monday. |
The Associated Press quoted anonymous US officials as saying that a AC-130 gunship had fired on the site early Saturday. NATO said US forces had carried out a bombardment in the "vicinity" of the clinic without being more specific. |
Afghans call for air support, says US |
Visiting the Pentagon Monday, the top commander of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan General John F. Campbell said the airstrike ensued after Afghan forces said they were taking fire and "asked for air support from US forces." That request was conveyed via US special operations personnel on the ground in Kunduz, he said. |
In the clinic were more than 180 patients and medical staff. MSF quit the burnt-out trauma clinic on Sunday. |
Campbell's description differed from initial claims that the air strike was ordered because US forces were threatened. |
Statements amount to admission, says MSF |
Stokes hit out at claims by Afghan officials that Taliban insurgents had used the clinic as a position to shoot at Afghan forces and civilians. |
kundus afghanistan klinik krankenhaus hospital luftangriff feuer MSF |
MSF's Kunduz clinic in flames |
Those claims combined with US statements implied that Afghan and US forces had decided to "raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital," Stokes said. |
"This amounts to an admission of a war crime. This utterly contradicts the initial attempts of the US government to minimize the attack as 'collateral damage,'" he said. |
MSF had previously said that Afghan and US-led coalition forces had been aware of the exact location of the hospital for four years and had been sent frantic messages during the hour-long air strike. |
Situation was confused, says Carter |
US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told reporters on a flight to Madrid at the start of a European tour on Monday that Saturday's situation in Kunduz had been "confused and complicated." |
He had previously expressed sadness over the "tragic loss of life." |
UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also called for a full probe, saying that an air strike on a hospital "may amount to a war crime." |
MSF's withdrawal from Kunduz leaves the whole region without a medical facility capable of dealing with major war injuries aside from Kunduz' public hospital. |
Health workers unsettled |
Luca Radaelli, the director of another charity, Emergency NGO, which runs hospitals in Kabul, Panjshir and Lashkar Gah, said health workers felt increasingly unsafe. |
"You feel vulnerable, that you can be attacked. you are not a soldier, you are here to treat people, just doing your job, but then you get hit," Radelli said. "It's just scary." |
This kind of act, even if a mistake, cannot be justified," she added. "I don't have real comments, polite comments - just bad, incredibly bad," she said. |
Nicolas Elias Metri, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kabul, said doctors and nurses were "opting not to come and work." |
"Once the trust is lost, that the place you work is not safe, you can not continue working," he told DPA. |
Confirmation would harm Ghani |
Any confirmation of US responsibility for the clinic deaths would deal a blow to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's policy of forging ties with the United States. |
Last Monday's surprise Taliban assault on Kunduz hugely embarrassed Ghani. His predecessor |
Hamid Karzi fell out with his US-led backers |
over the number of civilians killed in past US strikes. |
Most NATO combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan last year but a smaller contingent remains, including 10,000 American soldiers. |
ipj/se (AP, dpa, Reuters, epd, AFP) |
DW recommends |
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3736970470182280842017-09-20T04:52:31.863-07:00The Decarie ReportA critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope. Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.comBlogger2133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-3740402176923916022017-09-11T07:26:00.002-07:002017-09-11T07:26:33.595-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Yes. I know I have said twice that I am taking a break for two weeks. But the Saturday edition of the irving press was infuriating for its disregard of humanity and its lying fear-mongering. But this really is a two week or so break starting today.<br /><br />http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/natural-disasters-flooding-insurance-canada-1.4281597<br /><br />The Canadian government, lacking the wisdom of the writers for the irving press, foresees a Canada hit my storms like the ones we are reading about in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida. These are storms created my climate change. And climate change has been created by, among other things, our massive use of oil.<br />Yes, we are almost certain to suffer and to suffer far worse than anything that has ever been seen.<br /><br />And Mr. irving wants a pipeline so we can burn even more of the stuff. (duh, it will create jobs.)<br /><br />Actually, it won't create all that many jobs, and they will not be lifetime jobs. What it will create is bigger profits for irving. Then there's the hidden price. For that pipeline to be fully profitable, it will have to be pumping oil for at least 40 years or so. So we are being told to do even more climate damage for all those years.<br /><br />This is pure greed without the slightest consideration for human life. It is the short term thinking common in the corporation world which cannot think ahead more than three months at a time.<br /><br />But, according to the news and editorial of yesterday's irving press, the real crisis facing us that confederation is dead. Yes! Canada is over because it has betrayed the wants of Irving Oil. And those who don't agree with Irving Oil are traitors.<br /><br />Saturday's irving press reached the lowest depths of hysteria and dishonest reporting I have ever seen. Is it ignorant of reality? No. We have the examples of Hurricane Harvery and Hurricane Irma unfolding on TV. We have the research climate scientists all over the world. It is not possible to be so stupid as not to have heard of all that. This is callous disregard for even basic survival.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And this is just a modest taste of storms to come - and to come here, too.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/sep/10/hurricane-irma-millions-brace-for-impact-as-superstorm-reaches-florida-live<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And here is a reminder that our wars never end for the people we attack.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2017/sep/08/iraq-killing-fields-lethal-legacy-landmines-in-pictures<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />There is some news the irving press never carries. I wonder why.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/09/amazon-rainforest-michel-temer-indigenous<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Many of us humans are unspeakably cruel. We always have been. The children's home below is not an unusual story. Such homes were common across Canada. And they became common across the western world with the advent of industrialization. The papers of the time seldom reported it. And the wealthy really didn't care...<br />There was a brief period just after World War 2 when it seemed as though the wealth really would trickle down to us. But that's history - and a brief history at that.<br /><br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/10/smyllum-park-lanark-orphanage-catholic-nuns-children-mass-grave-allegedly<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />It's a deadly world for people who try to protect the environment. (and guess who pays the killers.)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2017/jul/13/the-defenders-tracker<br />_________________________________________________________________Currently, the attention is all on flooding and wind. We don't read much about the terrifying growth of forest fires. This is very noticeable in western Canada and the U.S. And that's a result of climate change. And so is the spread of drought.<br />But, duh, we need an oil pipeline. It'll create jobs, duh.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/09/09/in-a-summer-of-wildfires-and-hurricanes-my-son-asks-why-is-everything-going-wrong/<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a story you'll never find in the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/09/slavery-prison-system-170901082522072.html<br /><br />Aljazeera is not as reliable as, say, Haaretz. But it still beats most North American journalism by a big margin. And it has wider coverage than Haaretz does.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Now, hats off to Norbert Cunningham of the irving press. (Never thought I'd say that.) Today, Monday, he has a column that defies the owner's official line that fossil fuels are good for us. He points out that we are suffering the effects of climate change now with massive forest fires and rising water levels. And we're seeing, in the Caribbean, the even worse events that are coming.<br /><br />For decades, the oil industry and others have derided the experts who say that climate change is coming - and with disastrous consequences. That is the real message of recent hurricanes. The day of fossil fuels is over, and we have wasted valuable decades by not preparing for that, and that waste has been encouraged by the oil industry. Indeed, we are now killing millions in the middle east to get even greater control of oil for our oil barons.<br /><br />Oh, how we mourn this day for the three thousand Americans killed on 9/11 by terrorists. So how come we don't mourn the millions of innocent people killed or refugeed or impoverished by the American terrorists in retaliation? What hypocrites we are!<br /><br />(And for those who point to Muslim terrorism, a few words. Islam, like Christianity, is very, very divided. The extremist Muslims - who are relatively few - can be compared to our Christian fundamentalists who are obsessed with getting into heaven and with the thought that we are now in the 'end days'. In other words, they are a lot like those Christians who parade against abortion, but who have no objection to bombing babies on the other side. What draws recruits to these 'terrorists' is our attacks on the whole Muslim world. Our attacks are the cause, not the result, of Islamic militancy.<br /><br />Islam and Christianity - and Judaism - are all much alike. Get used to it.) <br /><br />So what's the bottom line for now? My guess would be that the U.S. empire is going the way of the British Empire. The Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria wars have all been disasters from an imperial point of view - and a black mark for the world in its acceptance of the horror inflicted on those countries. It will be tempting for the industry to make a last giant run for power - and any such run would be disastrous for all of us.<br /><br />What we badly need is to get back to what we founded the UN to do.<br />On immediate issues, the biggest problem we face is capitalism - from the U.S. to Britain to China to Russia - and to Canada. Capitalism can work. But it needs to be under control, and preferably under control by democratic nations.<br /><br />But in several centuries, it has not been under control. It has been allowed to run wild, setting up wars to benefit itself, killing millions, taking us away from issues we have to deal with (like climate change), corrupting governments, creating massive poverty and suffering, effectively destroying democracy..... All of this was evident in this weekend's dreadful edition of the irving press. In the end, the leading capitalists will suffer as badly as the rest of us for what they are doing. But Intelligence, community welfare and compassion are not their strong points.<br />(Well, in fairness, most of us humans are like that. It's natural for us not to see what we don't want to see.)<br /><br />If the NDP and the Greens are going to do anything, they have to recognize that their first task is to make the wealthy behave as citizens like the rest of us, live under the rule of law that we establish through our governments. That means much tougher programmes than we have yet seen from either of those. Failing that, those parties have become simply Liberals with good intentions.<br /><br />And then we need to do something about all the propaganda news media that big capitalists own. To have a democracy, we need to know what is happening.<br /><br />And now I'm off for a couple of weeks. Honest.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-38565573053142201842017-09-09T13:01:00.001-07:002017-09-09T13:01:43.855-07:00Sept. 8: News Is (should be) Fact<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br />I know. I said I wouldn't do another blog for a couple of weeks. And I am still going away on Monday. But I could not ignore the contempt that the irving press feels for us unrich slobs who live in New Brunswick. And this Saturday's paper is a prime example.<br />The front page headline is not a piece of news at all. News tells us what has happened. News is not the same as commentary which is supposed to provide an informed and impartial analysis of the news. (But not so in the irving press. It is all propaganda for Mr. Irving.)<br />Today's front page headline is "Why the fate of Energy East matters to N.B." This is in reference to a move by the federal government that threatens a proposed oil pipeline which (it says) would benefit the province. (Translation - it would mostly benefit the pocket of the owner of the newspaper.)<br />It is not possible that the reporter who wrote this is unaware that this is pure propaganda and comtemptible journalism. It is not possible that the editors don't know that. And it is surely impossible that the editor-in-chief does not know that.<br />Oh, it mourns, the glory and wealth this would bring to New Brunswick. Like hell it would! As always, most of the glory and wealth with go to a tiny minority of the wealthy - who will certainly demand a tax relief for their good works as well as sifting much of that money to their tax havens.<br />The 'story' moans about how this will hurt our budgets for education and health. Ah, yes. The owners of this paper think of nothing but our education and health. That's why they've been sneaking in private ownership of both education and health.<br />The story has not the slightest mention of why the federal government has put this on delay.<br />This is the most blatant piece of ass-kissing and propaganda I have ever seen in any newspaper. And to do it as we're watching the climate-changing signalled by Hurricanes Harvey and Irving suggests a monstrous lack of concern for the survival of the readers of this newspaper.<br />The editorial (which we at least know is written by servant of the owner) also foams at the mouth. It uses inflated language to make this to make the federal government an evil force striking down the wishes of ALL New Brunswickers.<br />Come off it. Plenty of us don't support such a pipeline, not now as we have spent some forty years staring at climate change while seeing nothing significant done.<br />And why did Ottawa postpone a decision to allow the pipeline to go ahead? Well, says the editor, the opponents were 'noisy'. But how could that be? Earlier, the editor writes that most new Brunswickers favour the pipeline. What happened? Were people like the irvings to shy to state their case? Oh. those poor irvings who only want to make us all rich. And nobody listens to them.<br />It is an editorial or pure foaming at the mouth hatred, hatred of all who opposed the pipeline. And it's full of worship for right-minded New Brunswickers who were 'betrayed' by the rest of us scum. The final sentence is a gem of rabble-rousing.<br />"Do not forgive those who saw a tremendous chance for local wealth and irresponsibly said, "No thanks."<br />Damn right. Never forgive. Crucify them! Crucify them!<br />The News&World Section has much the same, dramatic story on the same topic. "Federalism is dead:..." Doom! Doom! Those interviews to comment on this dire topic are, for the most part, people who know nothing about it For example, one interviewee is quoted, "I understand the environemntal side, but I think what is more important is the economic impact and the money."<br />She understands the environmental side? So that means its okay if people die in the long run so that a few others can make big money in the short run? (For Pete's sake, this quoted expert on enironment and finance runs an art gallery.)<br />But fearlessly the reporter did go to the trouble of quoting another authority right at the end of the article, and the only one who opposes the pipeline. "I don't see how it's going to help anybody."<br />That authority is a retired mechanic. The irving press spares no expense in bringing you the news.<br />In other breaking news, nothing is happening in Yemen, Syria, South America or most of the world.<br />P.S. New Brunswick has been ruled by its wealthy from the start. So how come we weren't all rich a long time ago?<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />People who really ARE authorities on the problem of climate change tell us it is happening. Nobody knows how quickly it's happening. Nobody knows how much time we have.But it may not be much at all. Yes. Making essential changes is not going to be easy or pleasant. But the alternative....<br />I'm sorry, Mr. Irving, but I have to choose between your need for even more money, and the need of our children to survive.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />And now a note to the NDP and the Greens.<br />money and power. You have to go to the root of that money and power. And, in this province of highly conformist people, you cannot do anything useful unless you challenge that conformity itself.<br />Democracy has to be about the will of the people - and the control of the people over their whole society. That means we need a society that gets full information, a society that does not settle for conformity, and that is not simply a playground for the wealthy.<br />New Brunswick doesn't need fresh make-up. It needs an overhaul.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________Wake up. Our society needs fundamental changes to survive. We cannot do that if the Greens and the NDP are simply more thoughtful variations on the Liberal party. After all, if voters are going to vote for the status quo flunkies, they'll just vote for the real ones.<br />Nope. You need to recognize that you are in one hell of a fight with people who have lots of </div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-9726234886315437802017-09-08T11:29:00.005-07:002017-09-08T11:29:57.697-07:00Sept 8: A big week for news - and lies.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mexico-earthquake-tsunami-city-central-america-1.4280296<br /><br />Coincidence?<br /><br />Meanwhile, yesterday's irving press had an excellent column by Alec Bruce on the reality of climate change.<br /><br />Alas! It also had its usual 'commentary' by a politician. (If a politician has something to say, that's a news story, not a commentary. There's a big difference between a news story and a commentary. A news story tells us what is happening. A commentary offers independent analysis to help us understand the meaning of what is happening. But most of what the irving press gives us as commentary is simply propaganda.)<br /><br />For an example of bad reporting, check out today's front page headline. "TransCanada puts Energy East pipeline on hold". That's an important story, something we need full information about. (It's a setback for the owner of the newspaper who was looking forward to the building of that pipeline. And its good news for all those who recognize that we cannot go on playing with oil.)<br />But almost all of this 'news' story is about the views of the pipeline builders and their friends. ("Almost all" means all but a couple of sentences towards the end which really say nothing.) And few readers read more than the opening paragraph, anyway. This is bad journalism. We need to know the whole story.<br />World news means, for the most part, Hurricane Irma. Like most North American news, that means it's about how terrible hurricanes are and how everybody is rushing to help. But that's not the story we need. We need to know WHY this is happening, and implications this has for future planning. But there are some very powerful people who prefer us not to think about that.<br /><br />What Moncton needs, for example, is planning for a future that may require mass transportation. And that would mean, probably, a more compact city with a replacement for oil-fuelled busses. But that planning has not happened, and time may be short.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Yes, Kim Jong-un can be ruthless and eminently dislikable. But that isn't the whole story. (American presidents have been ruthless and murderous, too, and so far more ruthless and murderous than Kim jong-un). And Donald Trump...? The U.S. government is now deliberately starving millions to death in Yemen. And that began under Obama.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/08/in-the-court-of-kim-jong-un-ruthless-bellicose-despot-not-mad<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This is the kind of problem we need to concentrate on.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/sea-salt-around-world-contaminated-by-plastic-studies<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Isis may be facing destruction in Syria. So does this solve all the problems?<br /><br />No.For a start, the groups we commonly label as 'terrorist' are quite numerous and varied. They range from ultra-Muslim to very secular indeed. They are not so much the products of fanaticism as they are a reaction to western destruction, particularly of the arab part of the Muslim world, going back to the late nineteenthy century.<br /><br />The arab world was once the successor to the inellectual model that had been the Roman empire. The great thinkers and leader of those days were arabs. Now, they have been smashed into artificial 'nations' by westerners interested only in getting their oil.<br /><br />'Terrorism' has been their means of drawing attention to what the west has done to their world, and drawing recruits to fight against the west. And some are, as Christians always have done, rallying around religion, usually in an extreme form, of drawing in people for their armies.<br /><br />The defeat of ISIS - or of all terrorist groups - will not end the friction. The way to end it is to help rebuild a civilization that can be called arab. But the oil companies are most unlikely to allow that.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/08/retreating-isis-fighters-prepare-for-last-stand-in-syria<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This is the kind of news we need (but are rarely getting) about hurricanes Harvey and Irma.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/06/twin-megastorms-irma-harvey-scientists-fear-new-normal<br /><br />And this is where our energies have to go - not into wars. And that's why we have to get control of capitalism. Capitalism is based on competition.<br />Competition leads to exploitation and wars and, ultimately, our own destruction. We have to bring capitalism under control. Our failure to do that has caused us far more damage that ISIS or Kim Jong-un.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here is another complexity in a war in which you cannot tell your partners without a programme. Syria's Assad is close to defeating ISIS. But isn't ISIS an enemy of Israel, too? So why, at this time, is Israel bombing Syria?<br /><br />Answer, to help ISIS. The U.S. and Israel have both, at times, supported arab "terrorist" groups. Neither wants any arab country to be a winner in this. The U.S. and Israel have both attacked Syria, and the U.S. has given financial and weapons support to ISIS. Like Saddam or not, he is obviously the one with the support of the Syrian people.<br /><br />Similarly, Ghadaffi was obviously the person with popular support in Libya. And Canada helped to destroy him. And in the process, it has destroyed Libya as a livable country.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47757.htm<br /><br />The issue in wars and confrontations rarely has to do with anything but money. And American big money needs wars.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/new-middle-east-policy-west-get-out<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This next analysis is rather more sophisticated than anything I have seen in the irving press (or any other commercial news medium.<br /><br />Rabble.ca is a particularly useful site because it attracts top-level journalists.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/neoliberalism-global-story-has-dictated-our-destiny<br />________________________________________________________________<br />This next one reminds me of another story our commercial news media are largely ignoring. The Sears stores are going into bankruptcy. Senior executives and directors are getting dismissal notices - but those don't hurt because they come with bonuses or six million dollars plus.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the peasantry who work in those stores are just getting fired without a penny. (It was exactly like this in the 1930s.)<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/09/08/analysis/bankruptcy-profit-albertas-oilpatch<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The next seems a terrible thing to say. I mean - I'm sure that the presidents of big oil companies are all great philanthopists who make themselves rich only so they can serve the poor.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/07/study-details-why-climate-criminals-exxon-should-pay-hurricane-destruction<br />_________________________________________________________________<br /><br />David Suzuki no longer appears in the irving press. It needs the space for the wise words of hack politicians and propaganda houses. This one is about the sinking of Mexico City - which hasn't yet caught the attention of irving editors.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/07/nature-offers-solutions-water-woes-and-flood-risks<br /><br />And did you vote for Trudeau because he looks neat in a suit?<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/06/21/trudeau-breaks-another-election-promise-leaving-99-lakes-and-rivers-unprotected<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The irving press has pretty much ignored the flood of refugees from the U.S. to Canada. Montreal is particularly being hit. And that's just the beginning for a world that hasn't begun to understand the consequences of climate change.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/03/asylum-seekers-fleeing-trumps-hostility-overwhelm-quebecs-refugee-resources<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />For over a century, we in the west (or at least our big businesses) have plundered and impoverished the people of Congo - and other parts of Africa. What drives us is pure greed. An old friend was a missionary there for thirty years. But the first need of those people was not to find Christ. Their first need was to meet Christians acting like Christians. If we had some of those in our big business world, Congo would soon be much better off. And then the people of Congo might want to be saved.<br /><br />https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/democratic-republic-of-congo/plastic-bags-buried-soil-threaten-farming-families-livelihoods-kisangani/<br /><br />Global Press, in general, is a pretty good source to read and see what's happening all over the world.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I can see why people in other countries might not be impressed by the Christian world.<br /><br />http://www.globalresearch.ca/yemen-catastrophic-humanitarian-disaster-a-forgotten-man-made-tragedy/5608000<br /><br />Now, think hard. The irving press has not had a story on Yemen for weeks, at least. What does that tell you about the irving press?<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The U.S. and the West have not defeated Muslim rebels in Syria and Lebanon. Inded, the U.S. and the West have often supported them. The defeat is being inflicted by Syria, Lebanon and Russia.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/30/the-terror-next-time-the-daesh-story-is-not-ending/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here is a story I did not see in the irving press.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/09/05/north-korea-says-it-might-negotiate-on-nuclear-weapons-but-the-washington-post-isnt-reporting-that/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This is a very brief report - and there may be more to it. But it seems likely to be true. The U.S. main targets in the middle east were never the 'terrorsts'. The main targets were Syria and Lebanon.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197787.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Funny how most of our news media haven't noticed the sins of Israel's president and his wife.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.811274<br /><br />My experience of Jewish communities is that they don't just sit down and believe propaganda. Their are always many who demand the truth. And many of them don't buy the idea that Israel should abuse Palestinians, treat their land with constant threats, steal large parts of it, kick Palestinians out of their homes, discriminate against arabs who are legally Israeli citizens, and breed a Netanyahu who robs his own people.<br /><br />I wish I could say the same of Christian communities I have known.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I shall be away on business for a couple of weeks. And I may not have access to a computer in that time. we'll see.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-80771292586095885842017-09-06T11:15:00.006-07:002017-09-06T11:15:52.177-07:00Sept. 06: Hey! What's Yer Values...?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br />Values? They're a crock. Most of us humans don't have any values. We just have prejudices that we call values. Canadians have gone from murdering native peoples to holding slaves, to discriminating against Africans, Chinese, Jews, to hating whoever is the enemy of the moment.<br /><br />No. It's not nice. But that's what humans are like. And we, alas, are humans. So let's try to get past being humans as we look at the North Korea crisis.<br /><br />Isn't that Kim Jong-un just terrible? I mean he killed his brother to get power. And he has a really yucky hairdo. Got that? Now let's look at the U.S.<br /><br />In the early 1950s, the U.S. imposed the heaviest bombing in history on North Korea. It destroyed virtually every building in that country - and massively killed civilians. One-third of the whole population was killed. (In World War Two, Canada and Britain each suffered the loss of about 1% of their populations.)<br />Then the U.S. imposed sanctions on North Korea to keep it in poverty and ruin.<br />And what has North Korea done? In the midst of all that poverty, it has managed to rebuild its cities. It also has national healthcare for all (which the rich U.S. does not have.) It's true that North Korea's health plan is not working well. That happens when the world's richest country imposes sanctions that keep you in poverty.<br /><br />And in education? That fat little guy with the funny haircut runs a North Korea which now has the highest literacy rate in the world (along with South Korea). It's ahead of both Canada and the U.S.<br /><br />But, oh, isn't Kim evil for threatening the poor little U.S. with a nuclear bomb? And the U.S. has only 7,000 nuclear bombs to respond with.<br /> <br />Have your news media mentioned that for over 50 years the the U.S. have been carrying out invasion exercises on the North Korean border? And patrolling the seas off the North Korean coast? And even flying bombers over North Korean cities? This is what's called provocation. Can you imagine the U.S. reaction if North Korea were to send its military to Mexico to practice invading the U.S.? <br />Yes, it's true that Kim is not a nice guy, and Korea is not a nice place to live. But he has quite a record of achievement in a country that's desperately poor. And, unlike U.S. presidents, Kim has not murdered over 20,000,000 people in the last 50 years. And he is not deliberately starving the whole population of Yemen to death as the U.S. is.<br /><br />No. The country looking for war is not North Korea. (Kim may be fat and have a terrible haircut, but he's smart enough to know that a war with the U.S. would be suicidal.) It is the U.S. that wants a war. And it wants it for the same reason it wanted one back in 1950. It wants a war because North Korea is the doorway for invasions of Russia and China. <br /><br />But we're just people. So we all think North Korea is the villain. I mean, those North Koreans look different, don't they? And they don't have our Christian values. <br /> <br />Wars are a luxury we can no longer afford. That's particularly true if, like most wars, they are wars of pure greed. Those days are over. That's the message from Houston. And, though our news media aren't telling us, the message from Asia is even worse, much worse than Hurrican Harvey, and with many times the number of dead.<br /><br />We are facing a climate change that is bigger than any war we have ever seen. It needs every penny of our money, and every concentration of our effort. There's not a choice. We cannot fight wars - and survive.<br /><br />But fighting wars is how we usually try to solve problems. There is every possibility this world is going to see a billion refugees within the next twenty or thirty years. They will come from Africa, Asia, Latin America and, quite likely, from the southern and western U.S. What will we do? In our current mood, it is quite likely we shall kill most of them. (But not the Americans. That's because the U.S. will annex Canada to provide space for its refugees.)<br /><br />Even the irving press is starting to notice climate change. As I write this on Tuesday, it carries several stories on climate change - including the destruction of much of New Brunswick's wild life.<br /><br />Our problem is not North Korea. Nor is it Russia or China. And obliterating all of them will solve nothng. Our problem is a wealthy class that can think only of its profits, and that owns the politicians who govern us. It's a wealthy class that now has risen to real power in North America, Russia and Chna. And, so far, it has shown no concern about the destruction it is creating for us - and itself.<br />Here's the next one to watch - along with the North American epidemic of forest fires which can only get worse.<br /><br />http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-change-adaptation-expert-panel-analysis-wherry-1.4271699<br /><br />But don't expect the irving press to tell us anything. All the news for all of Canada and the whole world for today is on one page. (two sides).<br />On those two sides (Wow! talk about a newspaper getting cheap...) only one story is worth reading. "Canada faces risk over U.N. treaty". The thrust of the story is that Canada is no longer trusted by most of the world. For a couple of decades after World War 2, Canada was highly regarded around the world as a nation dedicated to peace. That's why it was highly desirable as a member of the U.N. Security Council.<br /><br />But no more.<br /><br />It has long since been obvious that Canada is now a puppet for the U.S. And the U.S. is one of the most highly distrusted countries in the world. Trudeau has made it worse, far worse, by his call for action against North Korea. And worse still by his refusal to support work toward nuclear disarmament.<br /><br />And do the Canadian people benefit from this? Not at all. The beneficiaries are Canadian corporations that depend on American support for...well, for example....operating mines under near-slavery conditions in South America. That's why the private news media in Canada have never bothered to mention the slaughter of 200,000 Maya in Guatemala.<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Oh, Norbert Cunningham has his usual half-wit, kiss-up column in which he attacks the government for its inadequate operation of medicare. Come on, Norbert. You also attack it for running a deficit. So how can you also attack it for not spending more on medicare? And how can your paper support the slow murder of medicare by privatization?<br /><br />We don't have the money for medicare because some people don't pay taxes. And worse. Those people constantly expect gifts from the government. (You never criticize that, do you Norbert?)<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The following article is about universities in Britain. But it also applies in Canada and the U.S. I was once offered a university preidency - and the terms and 'benefits' were staggering. But I realized the businessmen who controlled the hiring weren't offering to hire me so much as to buy me.<br /><br />And that's a strong reason why, as I have three children in university, the costs are staggering. And that's why many families can't even think of it.<br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/06/universities-vice-chancellor-pay-tuition-fees-finances<br /><br />And this is why, when Mr. irving quite improperly called on university presidents to help him plan the economy of New Brunswick, they all scrambled to get in line.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Why we can't afford to waste our time, money and energy on wars to make the very wealthy happy.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/sep/06/timelapse-shows-spread-of-wildfire-near-portland-video<br /><br />We have very little time to cope with climate change. And killing North Koreans and starving the people of Yemen to death are no longer viable alternatives.<br />These climate change fires and floods and hurricanes are not just happening on the west coast of North America. They are happening all over the world. Dozens have died in Houston? Nobody knows how many thousands have died in Asia. And we can expect very bad news from Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Florida...<br /><br />I'm sorry, Mr. Trump. This really isn't a good time to spend money and energy on killing North Koreans or building a wall along the Mexican border. And it's not a good time for Mr. Trudeau to be kissing up to Mr. Trump.<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/sep/06/hurricane-irma-caribbean-islands-category-5-storm<br /><br />Atlantic all-time record storms, two in less than two weeks. But, hey, we gotta build more pipelines to sell more oil. Yeah. That'll create jobs.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's something you won't find in the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47752.htm<br /><br />The only clear, military victory the U.S. has won since 1945 was over a small, Caribbean island. For a look at the record, see the next item.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />The next one is long. But it's an interesting summary of how the world's largest and most expensive military has done since 1945. For a start, it has created a shambles in the middle east and Afghanistan - and it has done so to the advantage of nobody except the various, extreme Muslim groups like ISIS and alQuaeda.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47751.htm<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />And remember to hit your library to get a copy of Gwynne Dyer, "Don't Panic". It's about the Muslim 'threat'. Dyer points out that extreme islamists are a very, very small part of the world's Muslim population. And those who practice terrorism were (and sometimes still are) organized and equipped by the U.S.<br />They are not a serious military threat on their own. But they've learned that we panic over even small hits - so that's what they do. And, yes, we panic every time and, in doing so, make the situation worse.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Trump is now embarking on a mission to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who had lived and grown up in the U.S. Speaking of this same group 7 years ago, he said how well they have adapted to being, and how they should be treasured.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47747.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />It would be nice to see an intelligent commentary - like this one - in the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/05/beggars-for-war-the-us-north-korea-and-bankruptcy/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's an article highly critical of North Korea. I think it's largely true. It is a terrible place. And the writer is honest enough to see that we have had a large hand in making North Korea the terrible place that it is.<br />I'm sure it's quite true that North Koreans are kept in ignorance and are manipulated by its leaders.<br /><br />Alas! So is the U.S. and much of the western world.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/09/04/undercover-in-north-korea-all-paths-lead-to-catastrophe/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This is about the U.S. puppets that Canadian leaders have become.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/canada-shies-away-un-treaty-ban-nuclear-weapons-abandoning-nuclear-nag-reputation<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Many journalists, probably most, make it a point to miss the point of most stories. The story of Hurricane Harvey is NOT about how people are helping out or how deep the water is in Houston. The real story is what this warns us about the future of the whole world.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/harvey-coverage-borderline-rescue-porn-little-no-mention-cause-or-prevention<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />This next item is by David Suzuki, Canada's leading authority on climate change. His work is brilliant. I guess that's why the irving press doesn't carry his columns any more.<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/09/06/opinion/more-floods-are-coming-and-were-making-them-worse<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />The first rule of North American journalism is 'never, never criticize Israel'. (Fortunately, Haaretz is more honest.)<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/05/human-rights-group-calls-conditions-gaza-unlivable-one-million-children<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Maybe we should rethink our priorities.<br /><br />http://theantimedia.org/hurricanes-south-western-us-fire/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Back in the 1950s, we were assured that nuclear weapons would create a world of peace since nobody would ever use a weapon so terrible. And those of us who disagreed could expect police intervention to push us aside.<br /><br />But it takes only one person to start a world, nuclear war.<br /><br />Some years ago, a missile controller in Russia was told that American missiles were on the way. His orders were to retaliate immediately. Luckily, the controller thought for himself, and he decided to wait before plunging the world into a nuclear war.<br /><br />The number of nuclear weapons in the world now stands at close 20,000. The number of individuals who could order a strike is at least that many. And many more countries are on the edge of developing nuclear weapons.<br /><br />The warning in that seems obvious. But Justin Trudeau is still living in the world of 1950 - and he refuses to support UN efforts to ban nuclear weapons.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197749.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br /><br />http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2017/853-the-bbc-s-climate-denialism-coverage-of-hurricane-harvey-and-the-south-asian-floods.html<br /><br />We have come to an era in which we cannot possibly survive nuclear war - and with the power of climate change threatening us, we need all our money and energy to fight that.<br /><br />So why do our business leaders and most of our governments believe that what we really must do now is to bomb and kill more people? Oh, and spray more glyphosate on our forests, and build more pipelines.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />The rest is just some history by me that might help to understand our relationship to the U.S.<br /><br />By the 1860s and 70s, Britain was anxious to get rid of Canada. The British were terrified of the prospect of defending Canada in the case of an American invasion - which then seemed quite likely. Then, late in the century, Britain changed its mind.<br /><br />A war with Germany was obviously coming. Britain would need all the help it could get. But their colonial empire was not required to fight British wars. How could Britain change that tone?<br /><br />It asked the colonies to provide troops for a war in South Africa, and it brandished the lure of loyalty to the Queen who, we were told, loved her subjects. Canadian big business immediately jumped on the bandwagon because it depended heavily on British trade.<br /><br />And so Canadians died - and killed - in a war that had nothing to do with Canada, a war dictated entirely by the greed of British big business. Britain didn't need Canada for that war. But it set the precedent for what Britain really wanted - the help of its colonies in fighting World War 1. And that carried over to help Britain in World War Two.<br /><br />After that, the British connection faded because Britain, itself, had become simply a pet poodle to the U.S - sending troops to help the U.S. in Afghanistan, Korea, Libya, Iran, Iraq.....<br /><br />By then, Canadian big business was closely tied to the American market. So we clapped for the new Queen - but we didn't fight for her. No. We fought for the U.S. in Korea (as part of a UN force - but in what was really an American war.)<br />That had alarmed Prime Minister Lester Pearson - perhaps because he knew Canadian history better than our business leaders did. He tried to establish Canada as a peacekeeping nation, a move that built respect for Canada at the UN. But our business leaders soon put a stop to that notion. And so we sent troops to an illegal war in Afghanistan. Some are now in Latvia helping to surround Russia. Canadians bombed Libya - also an illegal war under international law. And Justin Trudeau has made it clear we will do whatever the U.S. tells us to do.<br />That's why we have troops in Haiti - supposedly to preserve Haitian democracy, but really to help maintain the control of American capitalists over Haiti.<br /><br />Then there's, Latvia. And we have troops training the Ukainian army - you know, the army that Ukraine built up after the U.S. financed the overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine.<br /><br />We also have troops in Congo to ensure that European and North American billionaires can continue to starve, murder, underpay, and generally abuse the people of Congo.<br /><br />And we have troops in the middle east to help fight whoever the U.S. says is bad. That's how a Canadian sniper killed a bad guy at a world record 3,500 metres. According to official reports, his shot broke up an attack that was planned - though how anyone could tell that at a distance of 3,500 metres isn't clear.<br />Nor is it clear how we know the shot killed an insurgent. At that range, it's impossible to know who it was - or even whether man, woman, or child.<br />In any case, isn't Canada's parliament supposed to declare war before shooting anybody?<br /><br />This is reminiscent of our CF-18s in Syria. That presence was quite illegal under international law and under the terms of the Canadian constitution.<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />Canada has become a colony of the U.S. empire. The wealthy of Canada like it that way.<br /><br />The real crisis we and the whole world face is the crisis of climate change. But our political and economic leaderships just don't give a damn about that.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-37200314081522015892017-09-04T11:34:00.000-07:002017-09-04T11:34:32.101-07:00A Bad News Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A couple of days ago, some unqualified bootlicker (director of 5 corporations) wrote a column for the irving press in praise of privatizing some of our medical services. And - surprise! surprise! a couple of days later it happened. What an amazing coincidence!<br /><br />Of course, we are told it won't cost more. (not right away). This is part of the steady creep to medical care for profit - not for people.<br /><br />I often wonder what kind of braying ass one has to be to work as an editor for the irving press?<br /><br />http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/extra-mural-tele-care-medavie-privatize-1.4271568<br /><br />And, no, I don't think that commentary column in the irving press by the director of 5 corporations was a coincidence. I'm quite sure it was deliberately placed there by people who already knew that the provincial government was going to do that.<br /><br />That commentary telling us that privatizaion of health is good for us was a piece of scumbag journalism.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />It reminds me of a certain newspaper in Montreal which always sent a reporter to cover talks on current events that I gave at a library in Montreal. I did it every month for 14 years to an audience of some 300. The newspaper served the Jewish community. And my audiences were almost entirely Jewish.<br /><br />I was puzzled why the reporter was always there because, after several years of this, his paper still never had a report on any of my talks. Then it did carry a story. And it was a big one. In it was an account of a criticism I had made of the government of Israel; and it was written in a style to make me appear as a wretched Jew-hater.<br /><br />Of course. That is why the reporter had been sent to cover my talks. The newspaper editor was a front man for the Israeli lobby in Canada. His job was to make sure that nobody in Montreal ever heard any criticism of Israel. I was the evil one, the 'anti-semite' in their midst. He wanted me fired from those talks.<br /><br />(The library - a Jewish library - told him to get lost.)<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's news that's a year old, but hasn't made the irving press, yet. And never shall.<br /><br />https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/9/23/the-troubling-oil-money-behind-dartmouths-new-energy-institu.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Philanthropy very often isn't philanthropy at all. It's buying off institutions like universities. It's people who feed off whole provinces and whole countries, people who don't pay taxes, who demand frequent gifts of our tax money. It's people who throw back a bone from all the chickens they take from us - and then seek praise for their generosity.<br /><br />If we want to be a democracy, we should be the ones deciding where the money is needed - and why. And, for a start, that has to mean making the wealthy pay their share of taxes just like the rest of us have to.<br /><br />We are developing a very dangerous gap between the very rich and the rest of us. The very rich have more than enough to buy governments - and they do. The result is that we are allowing big business to run wild so that poverty is rising, higher education is becoming ruinously expensive, and the wealthy are pocketing the biggest fortunes in history.<br /><br />The greed of the wealthy has led us to continuous wars since 1945. (They have really all been one war - the war for world control by the very greedy.) Those wars have killed millions, are starving millions, and run up such a monstrous debt that the people of the U.S. will never be able to pay it - and will see their backwardness in health and education and their poverty get worse.<br /><br />And the Canadian wealthy have joined hands with their American brethren who have also joined hands with the wackier Christian preachers to publicly pray to God for a blessing on their greed.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />In Saturday's paper, Professor Donald Savoie has yet another column about how making the rich richer will make us ALL rich.<br /><br />Sure prof. That's why Guaemala is rich (and almost all of Latin America) - and Haiti and Pakistan and Greece. That's why Canadians and Americans have so much money in recent years we can afford to get rid of government boondoggles like health care and education.<br /><br />Why, I can remember my early childhood in the depression years when the rich--- the rich we never saw in our end of town --- got even richer while my elementary school classmates got shabbier and hungrier.<br /><br />Stuff it, prof.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Front page, irving press, - Canada&World section - Saturday - "Weekly wages drop in province". This is a case for prof. Savoie. Hurry! Let's give more money to the wealthy, and then we'll get rich too.<br /><br />There's also a big, fast-breaking story from Paris. A car that was stolen 38 years ago has been found. Wow! Tell me more.<br /><br />Yemen? Pakistan? North Korea? China? Russia? Syria? Iran? Venezuela? Who cares? I mean, if the U.S. asks us to send troops to them, we will. You know. Good neighbours.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />While the irving press poured out stories on the ordeal of Texas, it has ignored the far, far greater tragedies - many caused by us in the west - in other countries.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/01/disaster-texas-america-britain-yemen<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The tragedy behind all of them is that we ignored all the opportunities of 1945 to make this a better world. Instead, we made a crippled UN; the U.S. (along with a whimpering Britain) set off on the longest string of wars in history; we turned loose a vicious and unrestrained capitalism that ignores the great problems we now face - climate change with all its ramifications of agricultural loss, refugeeism - we have left hardly a stable government or social system anywhere in the world. No, the quarterly reports of profits are more important than anything else. <br /><br />We know we must get control of climate change now. We know that. But, first it's more important to spend our money on more pipelines and more oil wells and more wars. This is insanity.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Then there's North Korea. The time to come to a settlement with North Korea was back in the 1950s. But we didn't. And we didn't because our leaders only were interested in North Korea as a base to attack China and Russia. You think Kim Jong is a wild man? We created him. We created him by destroying a third of the population of North Korea, and then putting it under sanctions to make recovery harder. And we make it worse by carrying out deliberately provocative war exercises on the North Korean border.<br /><br />And now he has fired a nuclear missile into the sea off Japan. Gee! Who would do an evil thing like that?<br /><br />Oh, yeah. The U.S. did it. Only it dropped its two bombs over cities and people. And it did it after it was clear that Japan wanted to surrender. Then it bombed Pacific islands in tests, making them uninhabitable. But the people on them still have to live there because they have nowhere else to go.<br /><br />Luckily, it's not likely that even the North Korean leaders would launch a real nuclear attack. (For a start, the U.S. has 7,000 bombs to retaliate with.) But any attack on North Korea would almost certainly draw Chinese and Russian involvement.<br /><br />There are things we cannot do. We cannot go on destroying our climate. We cannot risk nuclear war. But we have spent over 70 years doing those things we cannot do - because there's money in them.<br /><br />But we have forgotten nothing. And we have learned nothing.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/return-diplomacy-six-party-talks-north-korea-few-takers<br /><br />Back in the 1950s, the sweet talk was that nuclear weapons would deter war. And we've had nothing but war ever since then. Want to get really nervous? Israel is looking at Iran. Israel needs more land in a climate change that threatens its food supply. So it's looking at Iran, Palestine, possibly Syria and Lebanon.<br />Israel has a very large stockpile of nuclear weapons.<br /><br />But, contrary to what our political masters think, we cannot solve our problems by blowing people up.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This one is a little too kind to Russia - but otherwise good.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47730.htm<br /><br />Oh, a footnote. I'm not sure we should blame Hitler for inventing the murderous Reich. All the major powers were doing that for centuries before Hitler was born. And they're still doing it. Only our history books call it building 'glorious empires'.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Another story that wasn't important enough for the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47731.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Yes, it's really, really true. Climate change is more important than the quarterly report on corporation finances. Yes, I know we just love oil and other fossil fuels. But we can't have them and still survive. Yes. There are things we cannot have.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/04/climate-breakdown/<br /><br />Why aren't we dealing with this problem? Because we have governments controlled by people who can't see the future more than three months at a time.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story I recommend to the editors of the irving press and their dream world of how private business in, say, medecine, is more effective than government is. Prof. de Savoie might find this a stimulating read, too.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/03/cuba-has-a-higher-life-expectancy-than-the-u-s-why/<br /><br />Cuba, a relatively poor country, and kept that way by the U.S. has a lower mortality rate than the wealthy U.S. In fact, it has one of the lowest mortality rates in the world. Gee! And that's with a government medical care system.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Norbert Cunningham of irving press fame often tells us that big business creates jobs and prosperity. In fact, it seldom does. Usually, as in Latin America and Africa, it creates deep and hopeless poverty. And in the U.S. it's even worse than I thought.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/04/cant-survive-725-labor-day-nationwide-calls-15-minimum-wage<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/04/beautiful-moment-socialism-now-killer-capitalism-resumes<br />_________________________________________________________________<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/harvey-coverage-borderline-rescue-porn-little-no-mention-cause-or-prevention<br />________________________________________________________<br />What our news media rarely tell us is that the 'other side' has reasons for what it does.<br /><br />The U.S. has been looking for another reason for war with North Korea since the 1950s. And it's a very dangerous game.<br /><br />https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/04/what-the-media-isnt-telling-you-about-north-koreas-missile-tests/<br />______________________________________________________________<br /><br />Bernie Sanders, the 'socialist' Democrat, is doing well in recent polls. I don't think he can ever win, partly because he'll have a rough time getting election money from the wealthy, partly because we may be watching the public collapse of an American democracy which, privately, collapsed long ago.<br />_____________________________________________________________<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-7669984378978711702017-09-01T10:42:00.003-07:002017-09-01T10:42:50.859-07:00Sept.1: Time is running short.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Today, I'll start with a commentary from this day's irving press. (Actually, I have to mention that today's paper has an excellent column on education by Alec Bruce. New Brunswickers really should read this one. It's far better than the other column on education beside it.)<br /><br />Then there's the main column. It's about health care. This one of by a man who has been a 'director of 5 (count them, five) global corporations.) In other words, he's been a hack for the big kids in the business world. So, obvously, he'd be an expert in medical care. And, of course, he thinks much of it should be privatized. Then those who could afford it would use the private system, and that would reduce waiting times in the public sector.<br /><br />Like hell it would. It would increase the pressure as more doctors slid into the high priced private system. It would also, and this is what the writer is really after, gradually erode and even do away with public health care. And that's what this column is really all about. Big business wants to own health care as it now owns much of the rest of our society. And the interest of big business has nothing to do with the lives and health of ordinary people. It has to do with making profits for itself.<br /><br />I was a child in a Canada that had only private medicine. I watched adults die because they couldn't afford a doctor or a hospital. And I watched the anger of the very greedy when medicare came into being.<br /><br />So why did the irving press publish a big column on health care by a man who has no qualifications to write it? Because the irving press would just love to see the destruction of medicare - and most other social services. Big business thinks only of profits, it's own profits. This may come as a surprise to the chamber of commerce, but big business doesn't give a damn about how the rest of us live or even if we live. Talk about that over coffee in the barn at the Irving Chapel.<br />The writer was a director of 5 global companies? Sure. Sounds good. It really means he's a kissup for the biggies. The Irving press knows what his column is really all about. And it should know that directors of boards are not necessarily experts on medical care.<br /><br />But it ran the column anyway. Of course. The irbing pess exists to serve the wealthy, and to keep the rest of us in ignorance.<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />In fairness, the front page of Canada&World has two, really important stories. one is about a local farmer who cuts his corn stalks to create a tribute picrture to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then there's the big story about some guy in St. John who's famous for supporting the local hockey team.<br /><br />And it doesn't get any better. This paper is an insult to everybody who gets it.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />An, I'm afraid there an even bigger issue lurking in the wings.<br /><br />Democracy in Canada and the U.S. (and other countries) has been staggering for a long time. Our founding prime minister was as crooked as a snake. And almost all of them have been servants of the wealthy, not of the rest of us. The same is true in the U.S. And Trump, even if he talked of changing things, won't. We are governed by people at the service of the very, very rich.<br /><br />Actually, that's been a byproduct of capitalism over the last 300 years and more. General Wolfe and Admiral Nelson died in the service of the very rich - as did the men under them. They were building an empire so the wealthy could plunder it - at whatever cost to the soldiers and sailors and the conquered.<br /><br />As the wealth of the very rich grew, they were named to the aristocracy, and so became the government. And, as voting spread to common people, they held onto the governments by buying them. The crowning touch came in the nineteenth century with the appearance of the cheap newspaper. It was cheap for the buyer, but only the very rich could own it. And they used it for propaganda from the start.<br /><br />In the 1890s, the British papers used their influence as the only source of information to convince Englishmen that they should be happy to die in service of the monarch (so that the wealthy could loot the goldfields of South Africa.) They did the same in Canada.<br /><br />American newspapers did the same, lying about the sinking of an American ship to drive the U.S. into a war with Spain in Cuba and then in The Phillipines.. The wealthy then stole part of Cuba (Guantanamo) to give them a base to threaten all of South America and to control approaches to Panama.<br /><br />The wealthy also took over all the land in Cuba to create sugar fields using the cheap and brutal labour of Cubans to give the American wealthy close to a monopoly on sugar. Later, they would impose a dictatorship - and random murder, theft, and torture for the dictators became common. There's a reason why Cuba rebelled.<br /><br />But our newspapers and most of our TV and rradio never told that part of the story.<br /><br />There is no reason to believe that these people would treat us any better. And we may soon find that out.<br /><br />Big business is now so powerful, it is above most government. In short, Canadian big business is no longer Canadian, and American big business is not longer American. Trade agreements now routinely include clauses that relieve big business of any controls at all. For example, we are acceptiing deals on, say environmental protection, such that Government will have to pay many, many billions to big business to ask it, please, to stop killing people and the environment. And the cases are decided in courts owned by big business, and with judges paid by big business.<br /><br />In short, big business is on a march to be the uncontrolled, unregulated ruler of the world. That's not an exaggeration<br /><br />And what will happen? Expect violence, terrible and widespread violence with super nukes and robot warriors. That will do no good to anybody including big business itself. But big business has never shown a capacity to undestand that it will suffer as much of the rest of us from its uncontrolled greed.<br /><br />It's happening now. The U.S, with Canadian support, has been invading and killing almost without stop since 1945. And, with ownership of almost all our means of gathering news, it murders millions and starves millions, and puts the blame on 'evil' people on the other side.<br /><br />We are on a terribly slippery slope. And the Donald Trumps of this world don't realize that if we slide down, they will slide with us. Wealth breeds arrogance. And arrogance breeds stupidity.<br /><br />The other question is when will our churches react to this behaviour (or even notice it?) I am reminded of the inaction of the churches of Italy and Germany in World War 2. (There's a book on that, "Hitler and the Vatican". It's a tough read - but interesting.)<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a sample of what's happening in these trade agreements. But don't look for news about this in the irving press.<br /><br />https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15e395f51e4b1de2<br /><br />And, on Nov. 11, remember. This world today is not what we told those who fought and died for us in two world wars that they were fighting for.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Why have Trump an other U.S. presidents harped on the theme that Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons programme? They know it's not true. And the UN has repeatedly said it's not true. It's because the U.S. wants control over Iran oil. It has never forgiven Iran for kicking out the dictator that American oil billionaires imposed on it.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/31/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-un<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And, of course, we take some disasters more seriously than others.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/31/global-focus-on-storm-harvey-shows-not-all-suffering-is-regarded-as-equal<br /><br />The even bigger story is that we are going to face much, much bigger disasters as climate change takes hold. For a gentle start, some 8,500 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean in recent years. This is all going to get much, much worse - and we are nowhere close to even thinking about it.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Haitians are trying to flee from the horror that is Haiti and, unwelcome in the U.S., are trying to get to Canada. And Trudeau, despite his smooth-talking image, is pulling out the welcome mat to cut them off. For a over a century, American capitalism has treated Haitians with animal savagery. What's not generally known is that Canadian capitalists have been murderous bastards, too, in Haiti.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/aug/29/welcoming-haitian-refugees-to-canada-isnt-about-generosity-but-justice<br /><br />Such a story as this always reminds me of Norbert Cunningham of the irving press who frequently credits the very wealthy with spreading wealth to all of us. (He never calls them capitalists, though. That's a dirty word.) In fact, capitalists do not spread wealth except among themselves. For centuries, they have spread deep poverty and hunger and torture and death all over the world - especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.<br /><br />And even in the western world they have taken far, far more than they have given. That's why poverty is on the rise.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The U.S. has been just about played out of the game in Syria. And that may spread to Latin America. For over a century, American capitalism has bullied, beaten, impoverished and murdered the people of Latin America. (And, yes, with Canadian help.)<br /><br />It's too early to make predictions. But the U.S. could soon find itself facing many Syrias in Latin America.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47722.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Even our wins can, and probably will, become losses.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47720.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The UN was to work toward a world without nuclear weapons. But Trudeau has been too busy kissing Trump's rear end to support the UN.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/canada-shies-away-un-treaty-ban-nuclear-weapons-abandoning-nuclear-nag-reputation<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's an item that is (relatively) kind to the irvings and their newspapers.<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/07/06/news/irvings-media-monopoly-and-its-consequences<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />There is much misunderstanding of what Israel is. Contrary to popular belief, most Jews of European origins are NOT the descendants of the ancient Jews of Israel. They are called Ahkenazi Jews, and they and the hereditary Jews of Israel don't like each other very much.<br /><br />And the Palestinians, a people who did no harm to Jews, are getting punished - largely by the Ashkenazi - for what the Euopeans (and Canadians and Americans) did to the Jews.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/31/the-zionist-exception/<br /><br />Israel, with U.S. money, has taken a very aggressive stance not only against Palestinians but also against Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians. And Isael has a large nuclear arsenal.<br /><br />Israel treats Judaism as a race. And that is was Hitler did, too. But Judaism is a faith, not a race of any sort.<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Most of our news media seem not to have noticed. But there are huge numbers of refugees in the world, some fleeing wars and some fleeing climate change (and watch for the latter figure to rise in the U.S).<br /><br />What are we going to do? Kill them? Let them drown? Make more refugees by building more pipelines? So far, our actions haven't helped at all. The U.S. kicks them out. Trudeau will soon follow suit. (And, if he doesn't. expect serious riots in some Canadian cities - starting with Montreal.) Europe lets them drown in the Mediterannean; and if they don't, it sticks them in tents in vile camps, and leaves them there for the winter.<br /><br />https://www.undispatch.com/climate-refugees-explained/<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />We live in a world that is changing, and changing very rapidly. We don't have the time to play footsie with oil barons and other forms of evil and greed. Indeed, it may be essential to do what we said we would do in 1945 - to create the beginnings of a world government with the UN.<br /><br />We have, instead, torn off in a frenzy of making the rich unspeakably and unendingly richer. The result has been seventy years of wars, near-wars, rebellions, starvation, rising poverty ... and a steady increase in the number and types of weapons of mass destruction. We have effectively handed over control of the world not to the best qualified but to the greediest among us. Neither we nor they can survive that.<br /><br />And I know of no political party in Canada or elsewhere that has anything resembling an adequate plan to deal with that.<br /><br />And the Christian churches? They are reduced to the spectacle of the Irving Chapel with the best preachers that money can buy, with 'special' music, and coffee in the barn. Yep. Everybody's there.<br />Except Jesus.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-29450522759624046242017-08-30T10:06:00.001-07:002017-08-30T10:07:13.755-07:00August 30: Telling the Truth is Dangerous<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">.<br />So here goes.<br /><br />It was May 8, 1945. I was late for grade 6 - again. So the teacher sent me home - with a note. I was one frightened kid.<br /><br />But my mother ignored the note. And she didn't even listen to me. Without a word, she took me to downtown Montreal on a tram car that was packed with jubilant people. The streets were packed, with a mob following a man strutting in front with a wire litter bin over his head. Then I saw the signs.<br /><br />VE Day! Germany had surrendered! The war in Europe was over! My father would be coming home.<br /><br />And, oh, there were there were still the wartime signs up. "Loose lips sink ships", "Buy a bond for freedom today"...."We've won the war. Now we've got to win the peace."<br /><br />Oh! That last was a new one. But it made no sense We'd won the war. It was over. My father was coming home. We'd won the peace...hadn't we?<br /><br />It certainly looked that way. We formed the UN to establish a sort of world government that would keep the peace. We formed NATO as a defence against Russian expansion.<br /><br />And we threw it all away. The first use of NATO was to invade North Korea, an operation that killed a third of all North Koreans while making no gain whatever. Even the idea of preserving tthe freedom of South Korea was pure propaganda. South Korea was a vicious dictatorship.<br /><br />No. The real purpose of that war was to occupy North Korea as a base to attack China. U.S. big business desperately wanted control of China as a capitalist's wonderland of cheap labour and markets. That's why President Truman seriously considered the nuclear bombing of North Korea when Chnese troops intervened.<br />Generally, the major powers, prominently the U.S., have pretty much ignored the U.N. And when Afghanistan offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden to international courts for trial on 9/11 charges, the U.S. refused - preferring to punish a whole country, killing far, far more than were killed on 911 - and most of them just as innocent as those who died on 911.<br /><br />In fact, the biggest aggressor since 1945 (and perhaps the biggest in history) has been the U.S. with over 70 invasions, with uncounted CIA murders, with the CIA creation, training and equipping of al Quaeda. with drone bombers that have killed thousands, with the creation of dictatorships as it did all over Latin America, in Iran and in Africa, with the creation of chaos, refugees and horrible suffering in Africa.<br /><br />All of this has been to make billionaires richer. And, like Britain in its fading days, the U.S. wants its empire to join its wars. That's why Canada and Britain fought in Korea and Afghanistan and Libya. That's why Britain fought in Iraq. That's why Canadian soldiers are on a very dangerous duty in Lavia and, possibly, in Iraq and Syria.<br /><br />And our news media reports it as though the world is made up of evil countries that are always picking on us. Yes. Guatemala was picking on the U.S. So was Castro. So was Vietnam. So was Iran. This is why Canadians are on dangerous duty in Latvia (and without our news meda paying much attention to it.) Same for Iraq and Syria.<br /><br />The world of today is many things. But there is one thing it is not. It is not what our soldiers, sailors and airmen fought and died for in World War Two. It is not a world of peace and sharing and freedom. And our soldiers did not die so that billionaires could plunder oil in the Middle East.<br /><br />We now have a world in which the most dangerous aggressor (by far) is the United States. And that's not because of the American people. It's because of those very, very wealthy Americans who own the American government - and almost all the news media.<br /><br />No. It's not just Trump. It's every American President since 1945. .<br /><br />(The American people can be propagandized by the news portrait of foreigners as evil; but there's an almost subconcious reaction, as well. They're fed up with wars. That's why the American army can't get enough volunteers. So now, slightly over half of the U.S. army is make up of mercenaries from all over the world. And they are extremely expensive, most earning more in a year than an American general does and, commonly, with the promise of American citizenship at retirement.)<br /><br />On, November 11, let us, most certainly, remember those who served. Let us think of the debt we owe them. But let us also, for the first time, remember how we betrayed them, how we broke all the promises we made about the world they were fighting for. And let's promise to change, to honour the promises we made as they honoured our need for to risk their lives.<br /><br />And let's stop making a propaganda show out of Nov. 11. For a start, let's take loaded words like patriotism off the table. That's a vague and misleading word. Patriotism is one of those words that can be good - or terribly evil. The Naziis who killed Canadians and who operated death camps for Jews were patriots. So were the Italians who killed for Mussolini, and the Japanese who starved Canadians in their work camps.<br /><br />The Japanese were not only patriots serving their country. They were serving their emperor - as Canadians served their king and as Italians served Mussolini (who actually thought he was a caesar) and as Germans served Hitler.<br />There is nothing necessarily good about patriotism or serving your country. These are just propaganda words.<br /><br />So let's get reasonable. From the age of six, I can remember the 'boys' coming to our place to say goodbye. I can remember their happiness. This was adventure. I remember the fellow who helped my father with the scouts, proud of his navy uniform, and thrilling me by letting me hold his jacknife. He, like many others of 1939, was joining because there were no jobs. This was the Great Depression, an almost universal plague of poverty and hopelessness. (He was blown off the bridge of HMCS Sackville on D Day.)<br /><br />None of this detracts from the service he gave us, and the respect and honour we owe him.<br /><br />My father joined because he had a family to feed. And that just wasn't possible in the Great Depression. The same was true for thousands, especially of the first contingent to go overseas.<br /><br />My uncle joined to get away from his wife and children. It was no secret. He was at Dieppe and D Day. And he talked about the war for the rest of his life. But all the war ever meant to him was the great parties in England.<br /><br />And Bertie. Poor Bertie. He was only 16 when he stole his brother's draft papers to join up. But he was big and strong and looked older. Intellectually, he was four or five. That's why he played with me. And he just loved marching because of the sound of the steel clips on his boots hitting the sidewalk. His family said they would tell the army his real age. But they didn't. They were a family of poverty and ignorance and alcohol and indifference.<br /><br />In his first action, Bertie was lying down under machine gun fire. I met a man who was with him.<br /><br />"He was cryin'. Yeah. I could see he was crying. Then he jumped up and was cut in half by the machine gun. Craziest thing, when he jumped up he was screamin' for his mother."<br /><br />It wasn't all patriotism and God blessing the King.<br /><br />Let's not lose ourselves in wonderland.<br /><br />They were a generation raised in the dreadful 1930s, a period of suffering and hunger and fear and dreadful exploitation by the wealthy. And, for those ten, dreadful years, they got no help, none, zip from the government of this country. And less than no help from the wealthy of this country. Indeed, the wealthy used the hard times to cut salaries, cancel holidays, and even to put the unemployed into remote 'work camps' that were really concentration camps.<br /><br />We most certainly should remember those who served, and remember with respect and gratitude for what they suffered. What we should not do is to romanticize November 11 as though it were a sort of revival of King Arthur's knights doing good deeds.<br /><br />We should remember all - including the promises we made to them - the promises that we have since dishonoured - of the better world they were sacrificing for.<br /><br />And the worst offender in that respect is The Canadian Legion. It has a record of romanticizing war, and forgetting about the promises. The greatest honour it could do to those who sacrificed would be to remind us of what it was all supposed to be for. Instead, it invariably plods into a dream world of big words and small actions.<br /><br />With fond memories of Jack and Bertie and Howard, of my father who was away so many years of my life, of my mother who had to live through all the fears and loneliness of a wartime world - and with a son who couldn't even get to school on time.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Just a brief glance here at the ghastliness of the irving press in this province. Today, Norbert Cunningham gives us a commentary on how the public service is full of faults. In ten years of reading his gutless columns, I have never seen one in which he criticizes the big corporations who actually run this place.<br />Then we have a 'commentary' on how phones have changed in the last fifty years. That's not a commentary. That's an utterly useless piece of information. A commentary analyzes the news so we can better understand it. Real commentaries almost never happen in the irving press.<br /><br />The Assistant managing editor of the commentary page is Rod Allen who used to write commentaries in ponderous humour about stirring topics like "what I did last summer."<br /><br />Then there's the usual 'commentary' which really comes from a propaganda house for big business. This time it's the Fraser Institute.<br /><br />Even Alec Bruce, the best (and only) intelligent columnist on the page feeds us material from a propaganda think-tank (the most eminent one), the Conference Board of Canada - which is really an offshoot of a similar propaganda house in the U.S.<br /><br />Canada&World? That's a miserable four pages, half of them about Houston. There's also a big story that a man who murdered his parents and grandparents will not get bail. There's a bit on North Korea and how evil it is. But there's no mention that the U.S. has for sixty years been provoking North Korea with war exercises on its border, and with routine bomber flights over North Korea.<br />North Korea has a nuclear bomb. OOOh. What a threat to the world! The poor little U.S. has only 7,000.<br /><br />There was also a brief note that North Korea has the largest standing army in the world. If it does, the U.S. has a lot to learn from it. The North Korea military budget this year is seven billion 500 million dollars. The U.S. military budget is eight hundred and forty-six billion. Sounds like its time to take a look at U.S. military spending.<br /><br />In any case, and as a good reporter should know, size of a 'standing army' doesn't tell us a whole lot. The term can have quite different meanings. And, in any case, when one looks at military power rankings, North Korea isn't even in the top thirty. Too bad the news editors of irving press don't know that.<br /><br />These are disgraceful newspapers by any standard I have seen. They're trivial, irrelevant, lying propaganda for big business.<br /><br /> Strange. The editor-in-chief has an MA in journalism from an excellent school.<br />Coincidence. His family name is Irving.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />As you get indignant at the next video, remember that this is not a horror created by those awful Chinese. I saw this - and worse - when I was working in a Hong Kong that had been under British rule for over a century.<br />I loved Hong Kong. But it was not all honey and roses.<br />https://www.theguardian.com/travel/video/2017/aug/30/life-inside-one-of-hong-kongs-coffin-homes-video<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story about Hurricane Harvey that the irving press would be unlikely to carry. It's too busy cheering for more oil pipelines.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/climate-change-hurricane-harvey-more-deadly<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />All these years after the Canadian government's official apology to its native peoples for deaths and other damage in residential schools for their children, nothing has been done. Justin talked a good game. But that was it.<br /><br />It may well be we shall have to go much further in making this country livable for native peoples - as far as making their own land really theirs - and more.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/aug/30/our-society-is-broken-what-can-stop-canadas-first-nations-suicide-epidemic<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />War poisons all of us, not just the ones our 'our' side.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/30/syria-disappeared-murdered-industrial-scale-un-must-step-in<br /><br />(Some reader is sure to read this and to say we must go to war against Syria. Well, no. We won't end wars by making them.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The nature of war has changed radically over the last century. One of the greatest changes was the bombing of civilians ordered by Winston Churchill in 1920 (against the Kurds). And so civilians and children have become the major targets of war. Then there came nuclear weapons, chemicals, drones - and now robot killers.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/29/the-guardian-view-on-killer-robots-on-the-loose<br /><br />In the fullest sense of the word, we can no longer afford war. But the governments that, in democracies, are supposed to rule for us actually rule for some of the greediest and most pig-headed people in history.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This may explain why people read the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47708.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This may help to partly explain why New Brunswickers are suckers for the Liberals or Conservatives in every election. Added to that is their fear because they know who really has power in New Brunswick.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47705.htm<br /><br />Only here could a man who demands massive favours and tax rebates from the government be hailed as a philanthopist for giving a much smaller sum to a public service group - and only if it's a harmless one.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's story that wasn't important enough for the irving press. It needed the world news space for a big story about two Ontario men who are driving to Houston.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/28/entire-families-are-being-killed-by-u-s-airstrikes-in-raqqa-syria/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />David Suzuki has long been persona non grata in the irving commentary columns. They needed space for propaganda 'think-tanks'.<br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2018/08/study-finds-exxon-misled-public-withholding-climate-knowledge<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This one, too didn't make the irving press.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/29/harvey-triggers-unbearable-pollution-refineries-spew-cancer-causing-chemicals<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a rarity, a commentary crediting Trump with doing something right.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197618.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />With thanks to a reader who supplied me with this one.<br /><br />https://www.undispatch.com/map-day-freakish-weather-events-linked-climate-change/<br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------l<br />And this is the new way of war.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/30/the-terror-next-time-the-daesh-story-is-not-ending/<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />With all respect for Jews who were murdered in Hitler's Germany and Europe (and horribly discriminated against in most of the rest of the world, including Canada), Israel's treatment of Palestine for the last 60 years has been beneath contempt, and is a dreadful distortion of Judaism. It has stolen much of Palestine, kept its people as a nation of prisoners, abused them..... And Trump, to his credit, is showing signs of taking a more honourable stand. And the UN is showing even stronger signs.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.809812<br />_________________________________________________________________</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-34808464223532878822017-08-28T10:13:00.001-07:002017-08-28T10:13:08.086-07:00August 28: The worship of war.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">First, a third and final piece on what the wars of the last 150 years have been about. Then excerpts from various news media.<br /><br /><br />The Nature of Warfare Since 1871<br />________________________________________________<br />After World War 1, the new enemy for western business became the Soviet Union. It wasn't really communism it feared. (The Soviet Union was not really communist, anyway). But it was feared that it's alternative to capitalism might gain popular support in the west. This fear became acute in the 1930s depression.<br />The response of German big business emerged in the form of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. (Consider. How did Hitler build support if he had no money? How was he able to campaign? How come the major newspapers were not more critical of him? How was he able to set up all the apparatus a political party needs?)<br /><br />He was funded, of course.<br /><br />He called his party National Socialist. But it wasn't socialist, either. It was a capitalist party, and it was enthusiastically supported by big business in Germany----and by big business in other countries, notably in the U.S. Until the U.S. declared war on Germany at the end of 1941, a hugely oversized portrait of Henry Ford hung on the wall behind Hitler's desk. Ford and Hitler had everything in common.<br /><br />Ford supported capitalism. Ford hated government controls on business. Ford hated Jews; he owned a newspaper - the Dearborn Intelligencer - that spewed his hatred of them.<br /><br />But western business became nervous as German industry revived under Hitler, and as it became obvious he was looking for a much wider war. This was the World War 1 German threat to western big business all over again. The breaking point came in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, after making a deal with Russia for it to get the eastern half of Poland.<br /><br />But the U.S. did not join the war until more than two years later. Why not?<br /><br />Because the eyes of the U.S. were on, above all, China. With its huge market and cheap labour, China could be the pot of gold to the U.S. that it had long been to Britain. Its competition for that was Japan. That's why the U.S. had spent the years since 1919 in building a fleet specifically to beat Japan - particularly with its supply ships and aircraft carriers.<br /><br />As well, if Britain lost to Germany, then the U.S. could also hope to pick up valuable British colonies in, for example, the Middle East, and French ones in, say, French Indo-China (Vietnam). So the U.S. watched Europe - and waited for its chance at Japan. To shorten the wait, it cut off almost all oil supplies for Japan. The Japanese would have to respond - and when they did, the U.S. was ready.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union. Suddenly, documentary films and newspaper stories appeared about what nice people the Soviets were, how courageous, how just like Americans...<br /><br />When the war with Germany ended, the U.S. gave money to the European countries to rebuild. It not make such an offer to Britain. The intention was to keep Britain poor, and unable to hold onto its empire.<br /><br />When the British closed in on the Japanese, the U.S. ordered them NOT to recapture Hong Kong. Churchill ignored it to recover a piece of its empire. But most of the rest would be lost soon after the war.<br /><br />The U.S. would succeed in moving in on parts of the British Empire, notably on Iran after the war as a marvelous source of oil. The U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected government, and installed a dictator. But the Iranians fought back to overthrow the dictator. And that's when Iran became evil in American news media.<br /><br />But the U.S. failed in its greatest ambition - the conquest of China. Mao beat them to it. That's why there was a Korean War. North Korea seemed an excellent base for the invasion of China. And that is still the dream. The U.S. killed at least 30% of the North Korean population in that war, mostly by the heaviest bombing campaign in history. It is also the highest killing percentage I know of in any war.<br /><br />American business after World War 2 immediately embarked on its greatest ambition. Conquest of the whole world. Thus the U.S. invasions of some 70 countries since 1945. This is the dream that was revived with the web site, Project for the New American Century.<br /><br />Finally, a frightening note on the nature of warfare. Modern terror-bombing of civilians began in 1920 with Churchill's bombing of Kurd villages the Middle East. Hitler picked it up in the Spanish Civil war with the infamous bombing of Guernica. Canada, the U.S. and Britain adopted it in World War Two.<br /><br />The U.S. has used it intensively ever since. It's effective, and the folks back home like it because the casualties for our side are low. That explains why the casuaties for a whole population in World wars one and two were in the range of 1 or 2 percent. That's why in North Korea, they were 30% or more. And if would have been far, far worse if President Truman had followed his plan to nuke the north.<br /><br />Since then, the U.S. has provoked North Korea constantly with a large invasion army kept in South Korea, routine "war games' on its border, constant sea patrols just outside Korean waters, and even bomber flights over North Korea.<br /><br />North Korea knows an American attack is coming. The U.S. has been looking for that war for over 50 years. That's why North Korea developed a nuclear bomb. It knows that attacking anybody with it would bring annihilation by just a few of the 7,000 bombs the U.S. has. Its only hope is that simply having a bomb might to deter an attack.<br /><br />Yes. Kim Jong un is an unpleasant character. But no more so than almost all U.S. presidents since 1945.<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story about climate change that obviously isn't true. I mean, if there were really climate change going on, our oil barons would be first to lead the way in tackling the problem. Wouldn't they?<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/28/how-climate-change-is-death-sentence-afghanistan-highlands-global-warming<br /><br />And, for climate change deniers, here's another story to read.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/28/uk-on-course-for-hottest-august-bank-holiday-monday-on-record<br /><br />When will we figure out that, with these challemges, we cannot waste time and money on wars to make the rich richer?<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This is a quite horrible story. Worse - our treatment of most of the world is still vile. Western companies routinely murder environmentalists and others when they are looting the resources of, say, Latin America. (And they routinely rob us.)<br /><br />Capitalism itself is not necessarily evil. But, oh, it can create evil and greed on the part of the major capitalists. Like almost everything else, capitalism needs controls. It does not, as the irving press insists, necessarily produce wealth for all. Indeed, it more often feeds on poverty and slavery - and murder.<br /><br />We face monster problems of climate change, robotization of the work force, loss of food supplies, refugees. But an uncontrolled capitalism has shown no sign of being interested in these. It would rather create more wars to satisfy the greed that can never be satisfied.<br /><br />Capitalism, including the Canadian form, kills and impoverishes people all over the world.<br /><br />Now, the weakening of controls on capitalism has reached a crisis. It has effectively destroyed democracy. That's why the crisis in the U.S. is not a crisis of Trump (however big an ass he may be.) The crisis is the rise of capitalism to absolute and uncontrolled power.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/28/slavery-reparations-west-wealth-equality-world-race<br />_______________________________________________________<br /><br />The U.S., since 1945, has invaded over 70 countries and killed millions - all to respond to the greed of its leading capitalists. The cruelty of these wars has been unmatched in history. The death toll of North Koreans in the Korean War was the highest, as a percentage of total population, of any history I have read.<br /><br />In the Second World War, which was terrible enough, 40,000 Canadians lost their lives. That was just over 1% of the whole, Canadian population. Britain's percentage of dead was only a little higher. In Korea, the U.S. killed over 30% of the whole population. A second Korean War would almost certainly be far worse.<br />The Iraq war was short. But it still killed about 7% of all the men, women and children in that country. And all so billionaires could make even more money out of oil<br /><br />Think of that next time you're having coffee and socializing in the barn at the Irving Chapel.<br /><br />I wonder how our churches have failed to notice the horror that we are inflicting on the world and, ultimately, on ourselves and our children.<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a story about a Canadian mining company in Guatemala. It's called Tahoe. And workers who complain get beaten and/or killed. In the 1970s, the CIA and the Guatemalan army worked together to murder 200,000 indiginous men, women and children - as well as many priests and nuns who supported the Maya people. That's when Raoul Leger of New Brunswick was murdered.<br />The irving press has still never mentioned this.<br /><br />The Tahoe mining company has quite a record of violence and brutality. That's what happens when we allow capitalism, or any ism, to go uncontrolled. That lack of control, if it's allowed to go on, will destroy us.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/the-canadian-company-mining-hills-of-silver-and-the-people-dying-to-stop-it<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's the same story - as carried by a paper for businessmen. Notice the difference in tone?<br /><br />http://business.financialpost.com/investing/tahoe-resources-plunges-20-after-guatemalan-courts-back-mine-suspension<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The next story tells us just how evil those Muslims are. Yes, it does.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41491.htm<br /><br />That's just Muslims. So it doesn't count the millions killed in North Korea and Vietnam.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story that the irving press hasn't noticed.<br /><br />https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/15/banning-killer-robots-2017<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The following site is stunning.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47701.htm<br /><br />And almost all of those wars were fought in the interests of big business. Big business understands only profits. It does not exist to make us rich or to 'create jobs'. In fact, its record around the world is for creating poverty.<br /><br />But it does control. And that could be tragic because I have seen no evidence that the leaders of big business are gifted with either morality or brains.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This article contains a powerful message. In the U.S., Naziis and evangelical Christians have a lot in common.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/pulpit-and-politics/2017/08/donald-trump-appeals-neo-nazis-and-white-evangelicals<br /><br />Makes one wonder at the damage Christians have done to Christianity.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />The next one is to be taken very seriously, indeed. Transnational corporations DO rule the world.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2017/08/corporate-pr-experts-see-consumers-herd-waiting-be-led<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br />The following is not surprising. Like most western news media, the irving press has not carried this story. But then, the irving press seldom carries ANY storty. Its purpose is to keep New Brunswickers in a stupor.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/25/north-korea-keeps-saying-it-might-give-up-its-nuclear-weapons-but-most-news-outlets-wont-tell-you-that/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's an unusual one.<br /><br />https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/26/the-human-side-of-war-criminals/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This next one reminded me of today's irving press in which commentator Norbert Cunningham launched his routine attack of the New Brunswick government for going into debt. As always, he ignored the reason for the debt - the failure of so many wealthy to pay taxes, and their constant demand for more giifts from the rest of us. (There's also the story about the closing of a local home for the destitute because it ran out of funds. So of course we cannot afford to house the destitute. But we can afford to give irving a huge tax reduction in the millions for a property in St. John.)<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/23/increasing-profits-in-any-way-imaginable/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />It looks very much as though the U.S. is getting ready for an invasion of Venezuela to "restore democracy". And it looks as though it will be dragging in NATO. That very likely means that Canada will be asked to fight another American war.<br /><br />Expect Trudeau to buy in..<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197571.html<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />Most people use words like capitalism, communism, socialism, and use them with great sincerity one way or the other - though most have no idea what they mean.<br /><br />I don't think communism can work. That doesn't mean it's necessarily evil. I think it's just too idealistic. That's why no country, not even the Soviet Union, has ever been communist. Capitalism can work. Socialism can work. A mix of the two can work. What cannot work is a rabid hound tearing loose. But a rapid hound tearing loose is what we have.<br /><br />And we have very little time to get the beast under control.<br /><br />Christian churches - do you seriously believe that indiscriminate mass murder and the creation of poverty and deliberate starvation all over the world is what Jesus was talking about? Do you seriously believe that we are good and the rest of the world is evil?<br /><br />If not, what the hell are you clergy doing standing around with your faces hanging out while every principle of your faith is being destroyed?<br /><br />Yeah. I've seen you demonstrate against birth control. How courageous!</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-15055383069546321462017-08-25T11:28:00.001-07:002017-08-25T11:28:27.585-07:00Sept.25: The Forces of Evil.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Part 1 of 2 parts on the causes of war since the late nineteenth century.<br /><br />The fears about the rise of German industry proved correct. It was soon serious competition for British and French business. And it also maintained a pretty effective army. War became likely - not a war because one side was evil, but because both sides were motivated by profit to be made from trade all over the world, not just at home. The British embarked on a massive fleet building campaign. So did Germany. The British reached 1914 with the biggest fleet in history.<br /><br />By the 1890s, Britain was also changing its mind about getting rid of Canada. In a war with Germany, it would need all the troops it could get. So, suddenly, there developed a surge of worship of the Empire and the Queen. It was really a one-way love affair since few British felt any closeness to Canada. Certainly, they would not have gone to war to defend it from the U.S. But the Canadian attachment to Britain was strong, and it was encouraged by lots of Union Jacks, visits from the aristocracy.....<br /><br />This really took off as Britain neared a war with the Dutch settlers of South Africa. It was a typical imperial war to plunder a nation. South Africa had huge quantities of gold and diamonds - all controlled by the Dutch settlers (Boers) who were plundering it from the native population. It would be so much better if English billionaires controlled all that wealth.<br /><br />Britain asked Canada to send troops.<br /><br />That was an odd request. Colonies were not required to fight wars for Britain. Certainly, South Africa was no possible threat to Britain or Canada. The British army was expected just to roll over the small, Boer population. But wealthy Canadians immediately stepped forward. Of course. Their trade and their profit depended on the good will of Britain (just as it now depends on the U.S.)<br />Lord Strathcona paid the entire cost of a cavalry regiment, a thousand men and their horses and equipment (now the Lord Strathcona Light Horse). Ordinary Canadians, the ones, I suppose, whose descendants now buy magazines about the home life of the Royal Family, were wildly in support.<br /><br />But why did the British want help for such a minor opponent?<br /><br />They wanted to establish a precedent that anyone who went to war with Britain was going to war with the whole empire - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India.... In my childhood language of the Montreal street gangs "You fight me, you fight my gang."<br /><br />And so 270 Canadians died.<br /><br />It was much worse for the Boers and the natve Africans. Something over 90,000 of them died died - most of those were civilians, whole families in concentration camps. Many thousands of those deaths were in camps operated by Canadian soldiers. But we won't talk about that. We'll do what school history books do - remember how nice it was of Lord Strathcona to be such a philanthropist.<br /><br />Another thing that would have a profoud effect on World War 1 was the American civil war. It had shown that the railway was now a requirement in w ar. It made possible a massive and swift movement of troops to catch an enemy off balance. Europe plunged into that as a requirement for its armies.<br /><br />But the times tables were massively complex, so complex it was impossible to stop or change once started. And that could provoke a war rather than preventing it.<br /><br />And by 1900 at the latest, everybody was preparing for a big war - a war that was really all about profits, and which country's very wealthy would make them.<br />Many school history books tell us that the war began in 1914 because a student shot the archduke of Austria and his wife. That's not quite true.<br /><br />The assassination was taken to mean that some country, not named, was about to start a war. That set off a storm of nations calling up their armies and sending them to defensive points by those dreadfully awkward and unchangeable schedules. And once any nation began that mobilizing, everybody had to follow. Nor could they risk the formidable and slow process of backing off. That's why the war started.<br /><br />The war was guaranteed to come with those rigid schedules. But even that wasn't the real reason it started.<br /><br />It started with the eagerness for wealth no matter what the cost to millions of people. The war was something to satisfy the wealthy. That would be illustrated just after the war ended in 1918,<br /><br />By 1918 a revolution had broken out in Russia against the Czar (a monarchy that was hopelessly greedy and incompetent, and well past is 'best before date' .) But the revolution was a threat - no, not to any country - it was a threat to capitalism. And in those days as today, the world's major capitalists were the ones to decide when a war was necessary. And it was certainly necessary against a country that challenged capitalism.<br /><br />That's why Britain, Canada and others sent armies to Russia in 1919 to fight the communists. (But most school books don't mention that.) And that is what took us to World War 2.<br /><br />Oh, and what did the U.S. do in World War 1? It made lots of money out of lending money to Britain and selling it war material. But for the most part it had been occupied with building its own empre in South America and - in major expansions - The Phillipines and the annexation of Hawaii.<br /><br />And why would the U.S. build its major naval base way out in the middle of the Pacific? That was awfully far away from the U.S. for a defensive base. Along with The Phillipines, that base was aimed at building an empire in Asia. The US had begun its hunger to get rich out of China.<br /><br />It didn't care about Britain, so it waited until 1917 to join the war. I'm not sure why it joined. But it may well have been hoping to pick up the crumbs of the weakening British and French empires - especially in the Middle East.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />TODAY'S NEWS<br /><br />The UN condemnation of racism in the U.S. is not simply a reminder of its misbehaviour. Racism is steadily leading to a downfall of the U.S.<br /><br />And it's a situation the whole world will be facing at a far, far higher level very soon as the number of refugees skyrockets due to war and climate change.<br /><br /> Racism is going to run wild.<br /><br />The reality is we are all the same race. And we had better get used to that very soon. As a sobering start, get a DNA test. I did, and learned that one, at least, of my ancestors was a west Asian barbarian.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/25/un-warns-us-racism-but-trump-era-bigotry-not-blip-charlottesville<br /><br />For almost forty years, I taught students of just about every 'race' on earth. If there was some profound difference between them, I missed it.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Most of our news media have been less than helpful in reporting on the North Korea crisis. The reality is that the U.S. has been deliberately looking to provoke a war with North Korea for decades. But we never read about that - just about how those 'evil' North Koreans are threatening us.<br /><br />Our level of ignorance of that was reflected by the note of panic in a column by Norbert Cunningham of irving press. - "..Wow, a North Korean nuclear bomb could reach northern New Brunswick.."<br /><br />That, to say the least, is nonsense. And even if it could, who would bother bombing northern New Brunswick?<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Isn't it awful the way those little, poor countries are always attacking the U.S.?<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47682.htm<br /><br />The reality is that American big business is still hot on ruling the whole world. This was the theme of Project for the New American Century - which you can find on google. That group led straight to George Bush and the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I'm an historian. I know that much of the history we learn in school is not true. It's propaganda to produce unthinking 'patriots' who will kill when they're told to.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47672.htm<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />The following has a good deal of truth to it. But I think it is too easy on the role of the very wealthy in controlling the president.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47677.htm<br /><br />And remember - the U.S. will try to suck Canada into taking part in it unending wars. And think what would happen to Canada if the U.S. did conquer the world? (we'd be part of the conquered world.)<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/24/trump-labor-department-announces-it-will-honor-ronald-reagan-the-man-who-broke-american-labor/<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />Tearing down statues is fine. But it does nothing to help African-Americans who have been abused by Whites for centuries.<br /><br />https://www.blackagendareport.com/blacks-should-not-become-uncle-sams-clean-crew<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The following deals with the most dangerous development of our time - and the failure of almost all governments to deal with it.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/25/time-redistribute-wealth-1-thriving-while-78-living-paycheck-paycheck<br /><br />We, like the U.S., have serious problems in financing education, health care, living wage - dealing with climate change. adequate housing.... But we can't deal with them because the wealthiest of our capitalists won't allow us. They want more money for their own, glutted selves. And there's more money for them in continuing to destroy the environment, to kill people in countries with resources the very wealthy want to own, and to make more and more increasingly destructive weapons because the war industry stuffs their wallets even more.<br />We are heading straight into wars that will end only when all of us are dead.<br /><br />Think of that the next time your chamber of commerce kisses up to its real boss with a salute to his 'philanthropy'.<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The irving press hasn't noticed it, but the most popular politician - by far - in the U.S. is the mildly socialist Bernie Sanders. (No. he's not a communist. A socialist is not a communist. In fact, very, very few people know what a communist is.<br /> Russia was NOT communist. China was NOT. So let's either find out what that word means, or stop using it. And I would happily debate any billionaire of your choice on that topic.)<br /><br />Sanders wants to tax the very wealthy, to put controls on big business, to provide Americans with essential services like education and health care----(OOOOh, how dangerous!)<br /><br />Is there a chance he could be president? Not likely. The billionaires will, as usual, buy the election as they have bought most of the news media, by financing their political friends who understand that billionaires need money more than the rest of us need food, education, or even life itself. If you want to find evil in this world, that's who to look for.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/25/bernie-sanders-nations-highest-profile-socialist-once-again-voted-most-popular<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Capitalism in itself is not evil. Unless it becomes greed. Love is not evil. Unless it becomes rape.<br /><br />The U.S., Canada, Britain, China, Russia are all controlled by capitalists with the wealth and power to buy governments. That is combined with destructive power never before seen in history. And we are into war without end.<br /><br />We need governments that represent us - not billionaires. New Brunswickers might think of that when they next vote for a provincial government. (And no, I am not suggesting they should vote Conservative.)<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />Check your Moncton Times and Transcript for news that is "up to the minute..and..breaking" (How do they do that "up to the minute stuff" with a paper that goes to press many hours before it's sold?) It also has an "exclusive" story about how a local elementary school has had to relabel its washrooms 'boys' and 'girls' instead of 'gender neutral'. (Hold me back.)<br /><br />This is a newspaper deliberately designed to keep readers in ignorance. And guess who owns it.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-18512304693560981602017-08-23T11:47:00.001-07:002017-08-23T11:47:18.851-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">With apologies, I am going to try something different today. To understand current events, it's important to understand them in a very broad context of years and places. It's not possible to fully understand, say, the American invasions we read of today without starting way back to at least 1871 and the unification of Germany. So - I'll take a stab at creating that bigger picture. each day as I start the daily blog.<br /><br />It's, in some ways, a personal story that begins with my birthday at age 12 when I was given the mutivolume set of Winston Churchill's History of the English-speaking Peoples. I was enchanted by it.<br /><br />It was filled with an oratory that bellowed from the pages. An oration to the magnificence of the English people, the glory, of the need for all the English-speaking people of the world to unite. Churchill was, himself, hugely admired as the saviour of Britain and the Empire and his vision of the continuance of it through Uniting all the English-speaking people of the world. I was transported to a world of ecstasy.<br /><br />In fact, his book, as I would later learn, was highly romanticized crap. Nor was he the prophet of a new world. He was, in fact, the last defender of a brutal England that had mudered and plundered all over the world - and for the satisfaction only of the very wealthy English. He was the last defender of an ugly past.<br /><br />Churchill was born into a family of the highest British nobility, His grandfather was the Duke of Marlborough. Alas! his father (since he was not a first son) was only a Lord (a title he could not pass on to his son), and did not inherit money. So, in the fashion of the time, he married a very wealthy American woman with both living it up in a world of palaces, the highest society, gala dinners - and endless sexual encounters. Winston rarely saw them or spoke to them, being raised by a servant in his grandfather's magnificent palace.<br /><br />He grew up, like others of his class, with a monstrous arrogance toward everyone, including even the aristocracy. The working class simply didn't exist in his mind. No, he was not a prophet of the world of the 20th and 21st. centuries.<br />For that, we have to go back to the mid-nineteenth century and a Prussian nobleman named Otto von Bismark. Prussia was then the largest and most powerful of many German states.<br /><br />There was no Germany at the time. By force and political skill, Bismarck united them as an empire under his rule in 1871, naming Wilhelm 1 as the Kaiser. (Caesar)<br /><br />And that sent a shockwave through the European powers, especially Britain. A united Germany could outclass the industrial power of Britain and France, for example, and severely cut into their profits. And it might look for its own empire in Africa and Asia, further cutting into British and French profits. It might even build a navy to challenge the British navy.<br /><br />(As an aside, the British had been moving toward getting rid of Canada. It feared an American invasion of Canada (which was certainly possible). Such a war would be expsensive and unwinnable.<br /><br />No. Britain had to be friends with the U.S. in face of a rising Germany. That's why, by late 1870s, the British were speaking of how nice the Americans were and how Britain and the U.S. should start getting together as a friends to rule the world. (You'll find it mentioned in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Noble Bachelor". ) That was the real beginning of Churchill's reason for writing "History of the English-speaking Peoples".<br /><br />Yes, it seemed clear that Canada was just a burden on the empire.<br />To be continued..unless there is a reader rebellion against it.....<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I couldn't resist this one- it's such a wild idea that I laughed at first. But this IS the future. How will we be prepared for it? Will we vote for governments maintain our standards of living? Or will we let big business do what it has always done - make huge profits by firing people and cutting the salaries of those left?<br /><br />Will Mr. Irving tell us he plans to cut working hours to two hours a day - while raising salaries?<br /><br />How come our politicians aren't talking about this? How come we aren't make plans. This is not the distant future. Comic as it may seem, this is one hell of a serious matter, and it's happening now.<br /><br />Note at the bottom that a robot priest has been created, too. And here I've been thinking that many of our clergy have been robots for a century and more.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/23/robot-funerals-priest-launched-softbank-humanoid-robot-pepper-live-streaming<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />It is almost unheard of for the UN to issue a warning to the U.S. It is absolutely unheard of for it to warn any country in the western world for its racism.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/23/charlottesville-un-committee-warns-us-over-rise-of-racism<br /><br />This is a sign of concern of general U.S. behaviour - and not just related to Trump.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />A warning for those who think the generals will bring down Trump. In fact, there's no use in having generals or Republicans or Democrats take him down. The U.S. is way past the point of cosmetic surgery. It needs massive change - and only the American people can do that. But, oh, they don't have much time.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/dont-expect-generals-save-you-donald-trump-white-house<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />The story below is British - but it applies to Canada and the U.S. And it's one I feel strongly about because I began my working life with a heavy debt for university education. The record of Canada, Britain, and the U.S. for this is shameful. In many countries poorer than us, universitty education is free.<br />Part of the problem is that our universities have come to be dominated by the wealthiest businessmen on their boards. They run them as if they were businesses. And the effect of the wealthy has been make universities extremely overburdened with support staff, puppets of the very wealthy, and even propagandists for them. (Most profs aren't propagandists,but a very few are sell-outs.)<br /><br />And, symbolic of the destruction of the university as a free and thinking place are the huge salaries of their executives.<br /><br />I was once offered the presidency of a large university. The terms were stunning - a hugely oversized salary that I would get for life even if I got fired second day on the job. Huge gifts on the side. I was hammered at by a team of lawyers. It seemed too good.<br /><br />And it was. I realized I was being bought by one of the Irvings of this world. So I turned it down. A disgusting sample of what can happen did happen in New Brunswick almost ten years ago.<br /><br />The Irving of the time announced that he was (illegally) going to become a member of the government and plan our economy. And he named the usual boot-lickers to serve under him, starting with the univesity presidents, chambers of commerce, etc. And the university presidents were the first ones to ask him which cheek (behind him) they should kiss.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/23/resigned-vice-chancellors-pay-student-debt-university-of-bath<br />Our university system is a disgrace when it has all the potential to be one of the best in the world.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />ALL of information Clearing House for the last two days is a good read.<br />Just google Information Clearing House.<br /><br />In particular, note the the clips on Afghanistan. The Afghani government (the one on our side) is made up of unspeakably corrupt warlords who long ago destroyed the significant progress Afghanistan was making to democracy, and who are now the biggest drug lords in the world. Funny how that never made the Irving press.<br /><br />Be warned that sending 3000 or so American troops is most unlikely to work. And it will certainly not make more Muslims love Americans. Be warned, too, that Trump is very likely to ask for Canada to 'do its share'. And watch for all the kissups in Ottawa - and the irving press - to support it.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/23/boston-alt-right-police-black-lives-matter-counter-demonstration/<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />This could be the final act of the terrible war that U.S. oil barons have inflicted on Syria.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/22/syrian-civilians-brace-for-humanitarian-disaster-of-a-final-confrontation-between-assad-and-jihadists/<br /><br />I hope it is the final act. The problem is it shuts out the U.S. oil barons, and it weakens their hold on the rest of the middle east. It is possible the U.S. will look for extensions of this war, perhaps helping other middle east states to join in against Assad.<br /><br />But don't worry. If you stick to the irving press you'll never know what happened, anyway. Its sense of news stops at 'man arrested for spitting'.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />There was a racist riot in Quebec City. The Irving press didn't pay much attention to it. It should have.<br /><br />The province of Quebec, like all provinces,, has quite a history of racism. (Toronto was famous for its anti-Jewish demonstrations in the 1930s). I've been at more than a few anti-English riots in Montreal - and other violence like the torching of the offices of the english-rights group. Racism is a powerful force in the history of both English and French Montreal.<br /><br />At my last visit to my home town, I was suprised at the hugely growing racial mix of Montreal. I was happy to see it. But I very much fear a violent reaction.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/nora-loretos-blog/2017/08/police-and-journalists-hand-victory-far-right-racist<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Below are letters to an editor of a blog. It's about the Dieppe raid.<br /><br />I don't entirely agree with the first writer. And it think his responder is hopelessly out of touch with reality.<br /><br />One of my students wrote a book about the raid in which he claimed it was a success because it made possible the success of a small group that had piggy-backed on the raid. (I don't agree that made the raid worth all those Canadian lives.)<br /><br />And there's the old story that we learned valuable lessons from the raid. Yeah. We learned you shouln't continue a raid when you've been spotted by an enemy ship while still a long way from your target. You shouldn't continue after the enemy has been wirelessed in time to set their defences to shell and machine gun your toops before they even land. <br /> <br />The truth is that the Dieppe Raid was one of the worst planned military raids in history. Field-Marshal Montgomery saw the plan - and advised that it was a terrible one. (and the story that we learned valuable lessons for D Day is a crock.)<br /><br />We should, indeed, remember those who were killed or imprisoned in their hopeless attack. But we should not kid ourselves it was a triumph of any sort - except for those who had to have the courage to face it.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/was-dieppe-aug18-failure-helped-allies-postpone<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Disaster - my favourite newspaper, Haaretz, is going to charge me for future copies. - And I'll probably do it.<br /><br />For today, it has broken the big story that Israel has recently built 3,000 Jewish-only homes on land stolen from Palestine.<br /><br />Does that mean Jews are evil?<br /><br />Alas! No. It means like the Jews, Africans, Muslims, Chinese, Russians we're all human.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-11599981581082001102017-08-21T12:51:00.000-07:002017-08-21T12:51:07.584-07:00August 21: Damn!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br />"If Rural NB Wants Better Public Services, It has to Pay More"<br /><br />That's the headline on Norbert Cunningham's column today. Yeah. They want bread? Let them eat cake. It's smug, arrogant - and servile.<br /><br />In this case, the service referred to is a community centre.<br /><br />Norbert. We, all of us, spend $10 million dollars a year so that the ownder of that wretched newspaper you write for can get free spraying for the forests we gave him at a bargain basement price. This is also the owner who has received many, many millions of tax forgivenous. (But how wonderful him to give to charities.)<br /><br />The gift of forest has given him such a stranglehold on forestry, that small woodlot owners have to sell at a far, far lower price. That is what is called jobs lost. Billionaires do not, despite the half-wit views of your newspaper, create jobs and wealth for us. They create jobs at the lowest possible salaries and as few as possible. But they give themselves magnificent paycheques, and they avoid many of those nasty taxes that us peasants have to pay.<br /><br />Moreover, we are paying 10 million a year for spraying that may have disastrous effects on our forests, their wildlife, and us. And when our chief medical officer pointed that out, she got fired. And nobody at your paper had the guts or integrity to find out who ordered that firing. <br /><br />"If Rural NB Wants Better Public Services, It Has to Pay More."<br /><br />Norbert, Grow some.<br /><br />P.S. Explain to commentator Steve Malloy (on the next page) what 'social media' means. (It ain't just arguing with people on Facebook.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Some reliable studies place the rate of Illiteracy in New Brunswick at 53%. There's a good deal of truth in that - but literacy studies vary a great deal in their standards. Some require evidence not only of being able to read - but to actually do reading, and to do it with pretty serious literature. That's why some studies rate Canada at 100% literacy. Those studies are absurd of course. It's not a hundred percent, not even if you include those adults who still read the Dick and Jane Reader of grade 1. "See Dick. See Dick run. Run Dick run."<br /><br />I researched dozens of studies to get a sense of reading by people who can read, who do read, and who do serious reading.<br /><br />And guess who leads for the world?<br /><br />Nope. It isn't Canada. We're well down the list. The U.S. is even lower. And BRITAIN is within sight of the toilet.<br /><br /><br />The winners? Get ready.<br />North Korea and South Korea. The older people of those countries do suffer illiteracy. Of course. They grew up in a dreadful war and then, especially the South, in total rebuilding of the whole country. That's an amazing<br /><br />accomplishment. Gee. Funny that story never made our papers. The only stories I ever see about the North feature a fat little man with a wacky haircut. And millions of citizens who spend all their time clapping hands for him.<br /><br />Take a look at North Korea, in particular. It suffered the most intense bombing in history. It had to rebuild the whole country from scratch. It's a very poor country. But its accomplishment in education - and rebuilding - is amazing.<br /><br />But all our news media have taught us about North Korea is it's evil.<br /><br />And why is our literacy rate so terrible? It's not because of the schools.<br /><br />When I was an elementary school child, I read heavily from the start. That was because my father read - so I read Kipling and Service from age 6. By high school, I was deep in cowboy novels. That put me way ahead of my friends, most of whom were functionally illiterate.<br /><br />Then I moved on to a new school - and a class that was half Jewish. One of my new, Jewish friends looked at my book, picked it up, threw it in the garbage, and gave me books of plays by Sean O' Casey, G.B.Shaw - and Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And that changed my life.<br /><br />Kids in poor communities are much slower in learning how to read. They aren't stupid. It's that the atmosphere of poverty discourages reading. The very poor become resigned to poverty. They know the dice are loaded against them. So they, like their parents, give up. There is no room for expectations. Thus my illiterate friends. But This is not for all poor communities.<br /><br />My Jewish friends were as poor as I was. But Judaism encourages learning. It runs through the whole society. (It's no accident that so many of the apostles of 2,000 years ago, most of them poor, could read and right. Judaism requires discussion and debate in the synagogue. And to do that, you have to read the Talmuhd and the Torah. (Lucky for them they weren't living as Christians in New Brunswick.)<br /><br />I had a similar experience with Chinese students. I found a profound respect for learning among them. Indeed, I had to threaten one of them that I would put him in hospital if he didn't stop studying at dangerously late hours (sometime all night with no sleep.)<br /><br />That may be the reason for the success of North Korea and South Korea. So, rather look down on other groups, we should be learning from them.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />The following item appeared on CBC News.<br /><br />http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/defending-canadian-satellites-1.4253614<br /><br />Yes, we have nukes by the thousand.. Now we have rocket satellites in space to kill with. That means we'll soon have nukes in space, too.<br /><br />This is insane.<br /><br />We knew, in 1945, that a war with nuclear bombs would destroy the planet. That's a big reason why we needed a UN, and the gradual creation of a world government. And we didn't do it. So we now have bombs - more of them, and far more powerful.<br /><br />(Okay. That's a problem because the other side is evil. Right. We aren't evil. The U.S. has fought at least seventy wars since 1945, and killed millions. But that was to spread democracy and basketball.)<br /><br />The UN was effectively destroyed by the major powers, especially the U.S., from the start. Instead, NATO became a device for American dominance of Europe. And the U.S. embarked on its quest for world dominance. (google Project for the New American Century, a more recent American plan to rule the world - and the reason for the wars in Afghanistan and the middle east.)<br /><br />There will be no winning of anything as a result of this. Whatever excuse you may think of for carrying on as we are, the reality is it CANNOT happen. As in the case of dealing with climate change, there is no room for choice.<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />This article deals with British universities, but much of it would apply to Canadian ones. I find my own university for most of my career has gone wild with more and more bureaucrats wasting time and money by copying business methods. That, I guess, is the result of the dominance of major businesspeople on thier boards.<br /><br />One of the sillier offshoots of this is the struggle to look good in the Annual MacLean's issue on ranking Canadian universities. It's a crock.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/universities-broke-cut-pointless-admin-teaching<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The U.S. problem is not Trump. Yes, Trump is ego-driven and fundamentally incompetent. But he's not the problem For years, American democracy has been crumbling. The major cause the big money that owns the government, and that has been driving for years to make the American people incapable of standing against them. The big money has pressed from change that take the U.S. back to the nineteenth century, that impoverish millions, that want to conquer the world, and that don't give a damn for the American people.<br /><br />(That's something to think about as they also spread poverty by not paying taxes and as we are busying negotiating a new NAFTA deal that will almost certainly make it impossible to enforce urgent controls on big business.)<br /><br />Trump did not cause all that, though he's no sweetheart. And Clinton would have been worse. The U.S. is now big business running wild all over the world without respect for any nation or its laws.<br /><br />But the problem is not Trump. The problem is that a fearful and angry public voted him into office. The American people, both Democrat and Republican have an intense dislike of what is being done to them. They are against the government, any government. But they have no idea of what an alternative should be - largely because their news mediahas never even told them there are alternatives. (see the irving press for an example.)<br /><br />That means big trouble. And it almost certainly means very big and very thoughtless violence.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47649.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />There are Muslim terrorists who hate the U.S. That's because the U.S. (and Britain and others) has spent close to 70 years murdering them.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47647.htm<br /><br />More killing is not going to make them love us. The "war against terrorism" is a dead end for all sides.<br /><br />In fact, the origins of Muslim anger go way back to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The Afghan fighters who fought off the Russians were trained, eqipped, and financed by the CIA. Yes. It was not Osama bin Laden who created All of bin Laden's ideas were copied from that American intervention. And we are now paying the price.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a reminder of why North Koreans dislike the U.S<br />.<br />https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/21/we-burned-down-every-town-in-north-korea/<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />Cimate change? Nah, says Mr. irving. Ain't happenin'<br /><br />https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/21/the-national-climate-assessment-and-national-park-neglect/<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's another sample of President Truman's plan to use nuclear weapons against North Korea in the Korean War.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/16/truman-put-nukes-in-guam-and-gave-the-order-to-nuke-north-korea/<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />And there's a lot of truth in this one. A lot.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.807487<br />_________________________________________________________________________________</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-84988181006575059132017-08-18T12:27:00.001-07:002017-08-18T12:38:33.159-07:00August 18: What a terrible day!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The lead story in Canada&World News for August 16 was 'N.B. cabinet minister condemns U.S, violence'.<br /><br />Actually, racist hatred was what I first noticed about the maritimes when I came here as a student at Acadia University. In that whole, Baptist school, there was only one person who was not white. And he was the first non white in the history of the school. And I well remember the day I turned off into a country road near Halifax. Isolated in that wilderness, I saw a brick building that had the stench of Dickensian England about it. The sign said Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children. It might as well have read Abandon Hope all Ye Who Enter Here.<br />Nova Scotia was (and in some respects still is) a racist province. So were all the others. I grew up in a Montreal in which African Canadians could not get work except at the most menial level, and were forced to live in a run-down district. So were Chinese. In fact, even Irish-Catholics were regarded with suspicion and disapproval and, until the 1950s, and many of them had to live in their own run-down ghetto.<br /><br />And an African-Canadian playing in the NHL? Forget about it. A friend of mine in Montreal was a pro quality player but who knew he was the wrong colour to hope for the NHL. So he tried, instead, to get accepted to play at a Canadian university. He couldn't. Like Acadia, most of them accepted white folks only. Finally, it was an American university, Princeton, that accepted him. Yes, An African-Canadian had to go to the U.S. to escape Canadian racism.<br /><br />And New Brunswick? A superb poet said it well.<br /><br />https://cogswell.lib.unb.ca/odetofredericton<br /><br />So it's nice to hear a New Brunswick cabinet minister speaking out fearlessly against racism -(though he was careful to refer to it somewhere else). But I don't believe he knows what he is talking about.<br /><br />The recent Swastika-waving and racial violence in the U.S. is not simply the result of Trump's bizarre behaviour and his recent interviews. It has been standard behaviour for every imperial power I have ever heard of. Britain did it. All the major European powers did it. The U.S. was founded as a racist society. The only recent change is the addition of the Swastika. But even that isn't really a change.<br /><br />Hitler's Naziism used racial hatred to sell his party to the German people. (After all, he couldn't tell people to vote for him because he was going to create massive profits for capitalist business.) And he used racial hatreds to get support for many of his invasions. (Most of the occupied countries provided troops for Hitler's armies.)<br /><br />And racial hatred is what the U.S. has always played on. So has Canada. The enemies we fight against are always evil. All of them. The Boer farmers of South Africa were evil. The North Koreans were evil. The Afghanistanis were evil. The Libyans were evil. To brand a whole society as having such a quality is a racist statement. Well, if they're all like that, it must be racial.) And so the native peoples of North America were all evil. (But they're over it now, so long as they keep quiet.)<br /><br />The native peoples of Latin America are genetically evil, too. That's why we have to kill them as we did in Guatemala and so many other countries. Evil can even affect Christian countries - like Germany and Italy. But they're better now.<br />Really, Naziism and Fascism have been standard forms of government forever. Both distracted people by directing their frustrations at a disliked group. It sill works to distract people from their real problems.<br /><br />Capitalism can work. Of course it can. It's not working now, though. We are seeing a decline in living standards, and a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of the already wealthy. Almost all of our wars are dictated by the wants of the very wealthy (though they carefully avoid service themselves - and also leave it up to us to pay for those wars because most of them refuse to pay taxes. )<br />Capitalism, like any system, will work. But it has to work under controls that we set. Instead, we are sitting with our thumbs in our mouths as major capitalists own most of our governments. We don't control them. They control us. That's a system that can only lead to disaster.<br /><br />The world of 2050 - and maybe much earlier - will be very different from today's. By then, climate change will be forcing millions of refugees in our direction. It will certainly cause more wars. Automation will have replaced most jobs. (Will that automation be used to give us shorter work hours while keeping a decent wage? Not if Mr. irving has anything to say about it. And he will have something to say - to whichever Liberal or Conservative leader that people are foolish enough to elect. And if automation results in massive unemployment, what are our plans to deal with that? Do you seriously think the major capitalists will give a damn?)<br /><br />There is every possibility that the greed of the wealthy may create another Great Depression. And what was notable about the depression of the 1930s is that the wealthy really didn't give much of a damn. Despite the tales of them jumping from windows, they did not suffer. Of course not. The depression gave them a chance to reduce wages, increase work hours, cut staff, cancel holidays with pay, cancel pension plans...... The rich did well in the depression. And almost all Canadian governments did nothing whatever to help. Of course not, almost all were bought by the wealthy.<br /><br />Prime Minister Mackenzie King used 'work camps' to 'help' the unemployed and homeless. Actually, they were prison camps in remote areas. And their purpose was to prevent the unemployed from demonstrating where the rich people lived.<br />Government did nothing to help because the rich had no intention of paying taxes to help the poor. But, surprise, when war was declared, it suddenly found the money to create war industries and military forces.<br /><br />I was a very young child in the depression. But I can remember my father walking many, many blocks every day to get free milk for me. His pay was cut to three or four dollars a week. But our rent was eleven dollars. So I remember him putting on pair of battered boots, and going out to shovel snow for the city in the late afternoon to earn fifty cents in a couple of hours. Breakfast was chunks of stale bread with milk in a bowl. As a child, I watched people die because they couldn't afford food or medical care.<br /><br />But big business did well in those years. Very few millionaires, I suspect, had stale bread chunks for breakfast. Very few watched friends and relatives dying of malnutrition or curable disease.<br /><br />The Canadian people were as thick then as they still are. Most voted Liberal or Conservative, just like New Brunswickers today. That gave us nothing in the past. Expect nothing in the future.<br /><br />https://opentextbc.ca/postconfederation/chapter/the-great-depression/<br /><br />Naziism, fascism, uncontrolled capitalism, Trump, swastikas, bought politicians - they're all part of the same bundle, with the racism used so we won't think of what should be done.<br /><br />We're so lucky to have a cabinet minister who can spot it when it happens in a different country. Now, if he would only look around him and into a mirror....<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/aug/18/barcelona-cambrils-terror-attack-suspects-killed-latest-updates<br /><br />Notice the language of this story. Notice 'terrorist', 'atrocity'. Those words are quite true. The killers were using terror, and their act was an atrocity.<br /><br />Now, try to think of a news story which has referred to American mass murder of civilians right down to babies, deliberate starvation of millions as in Yemen, saturation bombing, agent orange bombing, cluster bombing which goes on killing for years, saturation bombing as in Vietnam and Cambodia.<br /><br />Can you think of any news report that referred to those as 'terrorist' or 'atrocity'? I can't.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Again, it's not Trump who's the problem. For example, every American government for the last century and more has interfered in Latin America to destroy governments and install dictatorships. It's hard to think of any country that has been better off as a result of American intervention.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/donald-trump-venezuela-crisis-military-intervention<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story about the climate change that the irving press doesn't talk much about.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/18/kuwait-city-hottest-place-earth-climate-change-gulf-oil-temperatures<br /><br />Hey! build more pipelines. It'll create jobs.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />I was very sorry to read the following story. I worked in Hong Kong for some time. It was an exciting city, and I liked its people. What is now happening in Hong Kong is terrible, and I agree we should help all we can.<br /><br />But how come we never read stories about dictatorship in Hong Kong when the British were the dictators?<br /><br />In a century of rule, the British permitted a limited democracy only in the closing days of their rule. For almost the whole history of British rule in Hong Kong, it was a dictatorship by a British governor (with wide powers to his arrogant and racist secretary.) Most Hong Kongers lived in dreadful housing. Social services were few. I can remember seeing people who lived in wire dog cages that were stacked three deep. And they had NO weather protection. But it never made our news.<br /><br />If Hong Kongers were to come here, I would be delighted to see them. They're good people who have been terribly abused by both Britain and China.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/17/hong-kong-democracy-campaigners-jailed-over-anti-china-protests<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's something that is quite true - which is why it never made it into most of our news media.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47632.htm<br /><br />Trump is certainly a wretched and vile person. But he is not the cause of the 'American' problem. That problem goes back a long, long way.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Writing history - and hiding it. Onward Christian torturers.....<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47629.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's one that may come as a surprise. Funny how our news media missed this.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47618.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />No. We never learn.<br /><br />When the National Film Board made a film that mentioned the Canadian airforce bombing of Dresden in World War Two -a bombing deliberately aimed at civilians - The Canadian Legion was furious. But the film was quite right. Everybody in that war deliberately killed large numbers of civilians. Since the war, reliance on massive bombing of civilians has become the American normalcy in war.<br /><br />And Americans wonder why some countries don't like them. But not to worry about it. Our news media will prevent us ever from hearing about it.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47633.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />As I was writing all the above, a memory came back to me. I was runninig a camp for the Young Men's Hebrew Association. One of my counsellors was a man who, in 1945 at age 8 or so, survived a Nazi death camp. He was discovered by his sister who took him to Italy, then to a kibbutz in Israel in its early days. He was a very, very lucky guy. I came to know him well. But there was an oddity I have just remembered.<br /><br />He had no bitterness toward Germans. All his bitterness and hatreds were spent on arabs. And that has reflected the general tendency of Israeli thinking. That's why a normally compassionate and caring people are now treating Palestinians as they had been treated by the Naziis. We're all vulnerable to irrational and murderous hatreds. It seems to be a part of being human. And leading politicians of this world know how to capitalize on that.<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's story you're not like to see in your daily paper.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47633.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Is the U.S. deliberately (and with cooperation from other countries) encouraging climate change as a means of genocide? That, quite likely, is true. You think Hitler was bad? We're heading into worse. We're heading into unprecedented numbers of refugees, wars..... The oil companies encourage this out of sheer greed. But there are others who see it as a good way to reduce this world's overpopulation.<br /><br />Rising temperatures and drought will produce starvation and death. It's happening now.<br /><br />Will capitalism prevent this? Not a chance. It exists only to make money. That's why we have to bring capitalism under control. Certainly, capitalists will never bring themselves under control.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/04/22/climate-change-as-genocide/<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a reminder that you won't learn nuthin' if you just read commercial media.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2017/08/trudeau-gives-billions-questionable-energy-projects-while<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Christian churches have some thinking to do. They, especially the evangelical ones, have always been willing to support some very questionable leaders. Hitler had strong support from German Christians. Billy Graham touted for Richard Nixon. Now Trump has a religious following.<br /><br />Most churches prefer to stay away from political issues, and to tip-toe through the tulips. I guess that's why most of our churches prefer to be boring and irrelevant.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/09/megachurch-pastor-says-trump-has-gods-approval-start-nuclear-war<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />1. We are living in a time when most power is in the hands of a very small group of capitalists in the U.S., Canada, China, Russia, Britain. And they exercise that power with no sense of responibility to the rest of humanity.<br /><br />2. They play on our racist attitudes. Thus the rise of a Trump - and a Bush and an Obama.<br /><br />3. They have no sense of long term goals.<br /><br />4. In the long term, we face spreading droughts, crop losses - and we are using these to kill off the poorest people on this earth.<br /><br />5. We are facing many wars as a result of this process. We are also facing the high possibility of our own destruction.<br /><br />6. Our leading political parties are part of the problem. Indeed, I don't know of any party that is prepared to deal with the whole problem. The Charlottesville riot is just a taste of what's coming - and not just for the U.S. There's a worldwide rage of frustration with our leaders.<br /><br />7. To add to the load, we are facing an employment crisis as automation spreads.<br />It's really time, more than time, to wake up and do some serious thinking and discussion about what is happening, and what is likely to happen.<br /><br />Luckily, we have the Irving Chapel to encourage our thoughts with special music, and the offer of fellowship in the barn. That'll fix everything.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-63088580258103294472017-08-16T12:56:00.001-07:002017-08-16T12:56:23.576-07:00Words, Words, Words...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br />We use them every day without understanding them. Take the words Nazi and Fascist. We all agree they're bad. But I've never met anyone who understands what they mean. That's why I've known journalaists who, with straight faces, say that Hitler was a socialist. That's nonsense. The word socialist was in the name of his party - National Socialist Party. But Hitler was fiercely anti-socialist and procapitalist. Hitler was the leader of a fervently pro-capitalist party. Funny how our news media miss that. And western capitalists just loved him until 1939 - and some for several years after.<br />And Facism? Even scholars can't give that word a clear meaning. Mussolini and HItler were both capitalist dictators. Both served the interests of the leading capitalists of their countries. Both gave high status to the wealthy.<br />Oh, but Hitler's Naziism was the first to attempt to destroy a whole, social group in the Nazi holocaust of Jews......<br />Uh, no, actually. In that category, you will find France, Britain, Spain, Portugal (and the United States) in their days of racist slaughter. (That are still going on). What do you think happened to the native peoples of Canada, the U.S. and Latin America? A major reason why George Washington led Americans in revolution was so he could expand the annihilation of native peoples in order to steal their land. Washington had a big stake in it. He was the largest slave owner in the U.S. He wanted more land. And he was also a land speculator - big time.<br />The killing of native people in Latin America, usually by the U.S. or its allies, goes on to this day. (Our news media just don't pay much attention.)<br />Other western powers, notably Britain, did the same to Africa, the middle east, and Asia. Actually, those western holocausts killed more people, far more, than Hitler's death camps.<br />In fact, if you look at the behaviours of Britain, the U.S., Spain, Canada, Portugal, The Netherlands, you will find everyone of them guilty of racist holocausts. How would we react to a story of a Hitler or a Mussolini starving a whole nation to death?<br />That's what the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are doing now in Yemen. And that one, alone, could exceed the Nazi Holocaust. Forty years ago, 200,000 of the Maya people of Guatemela, men, women and children, were murdered by the Guatemalan and American governments. It never even made the news. One of the dead was a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government knew - and never said a word. Nor did the irving press, not even on the obituary page. That should tell you something about the integrity of the irving press.<br />This is the result of uncontrolled capitalism. We talk about fighting wars on the racist claim those 'other' people are evil. I'm sure some are. So are we. Now, count the dead, and tell me who's the most evil.<br />We are duplicating all the empires of the past. A key to justifying all those empires was racial contempt for the colonials. That contempt was carried on to a massive contempt for the British and American and other people by their own leaders. It was most notable, perhaps, in the attitudes of the British upper classes. The British people understood that. That's why, in the final election of the war, they voted Churchill out.<br />Our dukes and earls and lords are our major capitalists. (Not surprisingly, the old-time dukes and earls and lords weren't very bright, either. Just greedy.) They have interfered in every election in the western world for centuries. Now, they demand freedom from government controls. That's it. But not freedom for us peasantry.<br />They want freedom to pollute - and to demand billions of us if we ask them please to stop it. They want freedom to skip taxes - and to demand that we pay them That's what's payihg for American wars. Billionaires get richer. But the wars maket rest of us poorer because we have to pay for them. They demand the right to take over public services like health and education. And, in the U.S., the billionaires are winning.<br />It's not surprising that the U.S. is seeing far-right, even Nazi rallies. We're going to see them in Canada. Americans are lost because they're afraid to see the truth about who their enemies are. It's not the Jews, Muslims, Africans or Mexicans. But those are the targets. Of course.<br />The behaviour of Hitler and Mussolini was not unusual in history. it's been duplicated many times for centuries all over the world. Britain did it. Spain did it. France did it. And now the U.S. is doing it - both Democrats and Republicans.<br />So, in its feeble way, is that wimpy collection in New Brunswick that we call Liberals and Conservatives. <br />And they are are courtiers to the wealthy exactly as their spiritual fathers were to Hitler and Mussolini.<br />(In fact, not all that long ago, we had a brief period of fascist rule in New Brunswick. But that's another story.)<br />Hitler and Mussolini are still with us. They just changed their names to - well - Trump, Clinton, Bush, and others.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />The Korea crisis is stilll very real. The big question is - why has the U.S. maintained such a powerful presence in South Korea, and in the air and on the seas of North Korea? In anybody's language those are provocative acts. Why has China shown so much interest? (Because it's a 'friend' of North Korea? No. There are no friends between nations.)<br />No. The American interest is because South Korea would be a great launching pad for a nuclear war or a conventional one against China. And China knows that.<br />And why didn't the U.S. come to terms with a badly battered North Korea 60 years ago? Because it was still obsessed with conquering China.<br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/15/north-korea-guam-strike-pause-donald-trump-negotiations<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />With their agendas set by the very wealthy, governments are paying no attention to the major problems that face us. This planet is trunning out of food. Not in the distant future - now. And, yes, this world means us, too. But governments' only answer so far is to poison what productive land we have left with pesticides.<br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/08/food-policy-canada-show-us-goods-please<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Nor do I see any significant progress on other climate problems. We haven't because the big money is in oil and other forms of destroying the planet. Look at what we are allowing big business to do all over the world. We have allowed the greediest and least public spirited people in the world dictate to our governments. And we repeatedly elect politicians who are, at best, pimps for the wealthy.<br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2017/08/wildfires-are-climate-change-wake-call<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Still happy you voted for Justin Trudeau?<br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/08/16/inside-oil-spill-followed-trudeau-china<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />I include this one because it will be getting a lot of attention - Trump as the racist. And I do this as a warning. Trump is not the problem. Let's not get hooked on that miserable wretch. He is not the problem. The Problem is a U.S. that is raised in admiration of the myth of what a wonderful people Americans are.<br />They aren't worse that others. But they certainly aren't better. They're a nation that abuses the world - and abuses itself quite dreadfully.<br />Its behaviour in the world is exactly like that of Hitler and Mussolini. And for the same greedy reasons as Hitler and Mussolini - to enrich the already rich.<br />Trump did not create that United States. It's a U.S. that has existed to serve the rich from its earliest days - mass murder, theft, and greed. And that makes it a lot like other countries. Trump did create that. He's a product of it. And voting for somebody else is not likely to help. There is, I think, much, much worse to come.<br />And keep an eye out for the same disease in Canada.<br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/15/donald-trump-has-been-a-racist-all-his-life-and-he-isnt-going-to-change-after-charlottesville/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This is the reality of why the U.S. supports Europe.<br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197480.html<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The problem is not Trump. It's the American people. It's a capitalism (like ours) that thinks always of the greed it must have satisfied, and nothing of the population it must serve.<br />http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.806571<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The irving press thought the reaction of Trump to Charlottesville was worth only a short glance. Here's what a more intelligent news service thought.<br />https://www.commondreams.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6q3vnbrc1QIVDp7ACh1o7AENEAAYASAAEgL8IPD_BwE<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a list of countries invaded by the U.S. since 1945 in its efforts to bring peace to the world.<br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39625.htm<br />Wake up and smell the roses.<br />Canada has, very foolishly and unthinkingly taken part in some of these wars. Canadians have died so that American billionaires could plunder. Watch for more, and possibly for many more.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here are a couple of stories that tell a lot about our lying news media.<br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47607.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Well, this is a story I never knew about. The U.S. was prepared to nuke North Korea during the Korean war. North Korea had already lost a third of its population. And there was a Chinese army in it, so the bombing would have triggered a war with China. Indeed, it's hard to see how nukes could have been used without harming the South Koreans we were supposedly there to protect - and our own troops.<br />Even for his time, Truman was an enhusiastic killer of civilians. He was/is also the most popular president since Roosevelt.,<br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/16/truman-put-nukes-in-guam-and-gave-the-order-to-nuke-north-korea/<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />We are in very, very dangerous times. Trump is a new Hitler, yes. But so was Reagan and both Bushes and others. And Canada has its own Hitlers and Mussolinis and their wealthy friends to worry about.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-51143599340958397352017-08-14T12:26:00.000-07:002017-08-16T09:31:52.416-07:00August 14: Retardation as a product of wealth...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have often seen letters in the irving press suggesting that we should elect more private business leaders to run out governments. The argument is that they have more understanding that politicians because they are accustomed to run large corporations.<br /><br />Well, their dream has come true with the election of Donald Trump.<br /><br />The reality, of course, is that it doesn't take brains to run a large corporation. What it takes is being born into families that own large corporations, or into a social milieu which is obsessive about piling up wealth. Offhand, it is hard to think of any billionaire who has shown a superior intellect. (They are not notable for their writing of great books or for their thoughts on the world and its people. In fact, they tend to have educations below the level one would expect from people who have all academic doors open to them.) <br /> <br />It also helps to be devoid of any caring about the needs of the general public - and to be willing to murder innocent people in the millions.<br /><br />Africa has been under the control of western corporation bosses for well over a hundred years. And in that time, Africa has been a hell of starvation, mass murder, torture, slavery. Corporations destroyed whole societies, redrew the maps to create new countries which had nothing to so with native needs, but only a savage looting of those new countries. Today, Africa is a chaos - and there is not the slightest reason to believe it's going to get better. Greed rules. And millions die.<br /><br />The same hell is being visited on Latin America, with enthusiastic support of the Canadian and American governments - all to keep up the profits of the very, very wealthy. And it's going to get much worse.<br /><br />Both Africa and Latin America are starting to suffer from climate change. Tens of millions will have to flee - only to be blocked by our navies, or held in death camps like the ones we don't get much news about in France and Greece.<br /><br />Yes, climate change is happening. Just about every scientist of any stature recognizes it's happening. But, to the best of my knowledge, all the oil barons are playing it down. That does not suggest to me that they are highly intelligent. And it's not an accident that a billionaire U.S. president should be encouraging more and worse climate change. Can you name for me any oil billionaire anywhere in the world who has become a leader in dealing with climate change?<br /><br />No? Of course not. They are, all too commonly, marked by low intelligence and insatiable greed. And are all served by those politicians with no sense whatever of what humanity requires. (Yes, that includes both federal and provincial levels.)<br />And that takes us to nuclear weapons and North Korea.<br /><br />I still remember that day when I was a very young child, and saw the newspaper headline with a photo of a mushroom-shaped cloud. It was Hiroshima. And we were all assured that this terrible power would be a deterrent to war.<br /><br />Well, it hasn't been. If it were a deterrent, then everybody should have it - and we'd never have a war. In fact, we've had nothing but war since Hiroshima. And every one of those wars has been caused by commercial ambition, almost all of them caused by American (and Canadian and British) commercial ambition. In fact, when North Korea just recently used it as a deterrent, the U.S. promptly jumped to a threat of nuclear war. Apparently, you are allowed to used it as a deterrent, but only if you're an American government.<br /><br />We are close to that final war. And the most aggressive people on his earth are billionaires of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Russia, China...<br /><br />We cannot afford to allow that aggression to run loose. For the same reason, we cannot allow capitalism to run loose. Uncontrolled, capitalism is a terminally destructive force which will destroy us as it has Africa, the middle east, and Latin America. And climate change is the final force that will destroy us - as well as it will the capitalists.<br /><br />Even now, the tragedy of the U.S. is not due to Trump. He is a product of a society that has lost all sense of direction, and is now fracturing itelf. Capitalism has effectively overrun American democracy and overrun any sense of social order.<br /><br />We are watching the crash of American society, a crash induced by greed and corruption, and lack of consideration for the needs of the American people. Replacing Trump won't change anything. This is a process that has been going on for many, many years under both Republicans and Democrats.<br /><br />The root of it is a capitalism that controls us instead of us controlling it. And New Brunswick is well down the same road. Such a capitalism will destroy us. The fact that it will also destroy the capitalists is pretty slim consolation.<br /><br />In World War Two, we told our armed forces that we were fighting to create a more secure and peaceful world. With the United Nations, we seemed on the way to that. But the major powers, all of them, have crippled the UN so they can carry on war and plunder as usual. And we have done nothing about that.<br /><br />In short, we have betrayed all that our veterans were told they were fighting for.<br />It's decision time. And well past decision time.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Even a good paper could be carrying propaganda. Here's an example of a blatant case in The Guardian.<br /><br />The "White helmets" of Syria are essentially a propaganda organization for the Syrian rebels (most of them from ISIS and many not Syrian at all) who pretend to be rescuers for the wounded. From the start, their only function has been as anti-Assad propagandists. The American government also helped them with a very unusual and questionable academy award.<br /><br />Here, The Guardian treats them as honest rescuers, and hints at the reality only late in the story.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/14/syria-white-helmets-protest-against-killings-of-rescue-workers<br /><br />Americans, of course, would never, never kill rescue workers. Americans are famous for bombs that kill only enemy soldiers..<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And climate change, as we know from our oil bosses, isn't happening. So there's no need to read this next story.<br /><br />vironment/2017/aug/14/tagus-river-at-risk-of-drying-up-completely<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Trump has said me might use the military to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Yes, the U.S. is famous for spreading democracy all over the world, especially in Latin America.<br /><br />Come off it! The U.S. has supported and created dictatorships all over Latin America.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/donald-trump-venezuela-crisis-military-intervention<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a chilling reminder of the past.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/14/1939-second-world-war-fascist-thundering-approach-hitler<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />I'm an historian who specializes in the history of Canada. And I can assure you that much (most) of what Canadians think they know about our history is bunk. It happens all over the world, not just in dictatorships. Perhaps the most spectacular offender is the United States which has lied to itself about its history from the start. That ignorance of their own history is an important factor in building support for Trump. (He was also hugely helped by evangelical Christians. His cabinet now meets for prayer every week with an evangelical preacher - though I see no sign of Christian impulse in anything its has done.)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/14/1939-second-world-war-fascist-thundering-approach-hitler<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This article gives a pretty balanced view of what is causing fear of a nuclear war in the Koreas. It's proposed solution, however (supplying the south with nuclear weapons), does not seem to be a very useful one.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47582.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I am finding contradictory statements about China's stance on the Tump-Kim Jong-un confrontation. The one that I hope is true is that China has notified North Korea that it will intervene if the U.S. attack North Korea first. It will not intervene if the North Korea. attacks first.<br /><br />This is an intelligent and helpful position in a world which doesn't see many intelligent and helpful positions. It puts a lid on any foolish war started by North Korea. Alas! it will not stop foolish war started by Trump.<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />And a sobering reminder that the rise of a small number to great wealth in hands of people who keep it all for themselves has been a great destroyer of societies in the past. And we're now in the late stages of it.<br /><br />The wealthy accumulate (and hide) their wealth. That progressively impoverishes everyone else. And the society collapses. That's the history and future of, for example, New Brunswick.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/28/jeff-bezos-global-elites-and-the-coming-revolution/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />This comment is about the Canadian government's habit of throwing billions of dollars as gifts to the wealthy - no matter how incompetent they are - while withholding money from people who need it.<br /><br />Sorta reminds me of New Brunswick.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2017/08/trudeau-gives-billions-questionable-energy-projects-while<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />When New Brunswick's chief medical officer raised concerns about the use of pesticides in the province, she was fired on the spot. No reason was given. And the people of this province said not a damn word. Chemical sprayers are now free to poison us and our children and our grandchildren as long as they like. This is not a province marked by people of intellectual and moral courage.<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/08/09/news/ottawa-ignoring-hazards-top-pesticides-sold-canada<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I should write a column about how the wealthy really suffer from being overtaxed. I could probably sell it to the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. Or, alternately, I could start a philanthropic society for starving billionaires, and so win a lifetime of free, honorary dinners at the chamber of commerce.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/11/corporations-complain-their-taxes-so-high-new-study-busts-myth<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />This is an interesting site. Essentially about medical issues, it puts them into a context with social issues.<br /><br />http://www.thinkupstream.net/pov_reduction_submission<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Now, here's an interesting story from New York Times via Russia insider.<br /><br />http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/new-york-times-ukraine-source-north-korean-missile-engines/ri20673<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here, I include a whole issue of Haarretz because it has far more coverage of the Charlottesville riot Than any other paper I have seen. In particular, Haaretz picks ups on the role of neo-Naziis in the affair.<br /><br />And open, Nazi role in this was prominent, so much so that Jews in Charlottesville hired private security firms to protect their homes. Chalottesville was largely a product of the rise of Naziism in the U.S. - and notably so among supporters of Trump. Our press largely missed that. The Israeli press, understandably saw that immediately.<br /> <br />________________________________________________________________<br />The purpose of government is to serve the people. It is almost unheard of for a government in Canada to do that. Almost of them, since 1867, have been in the service of the wealthy. Even confederation was accomplished to serve the interests of the wealthy in Canada and Britain. The concept of serving the people is quite absent in both the Liberal and Conservative parties. It still survives with the Greens and the NDP, but in both in quite inadequate form.<br /><br />The wealthy have only one interest -making money for themselves. They have no interest whatever in the spread of poverty, the decreasing value of salaries, the looming chaos of climate change - and no interest whatever in human life except, perhaps, in their own social circle.<br /><br />For the rest of us, one reaction is to blame foreigners and to approve of killing them - a reaction which suits the wealthy just fine since it can be used to knock off their foreign competitors. That reaction includes "foreigners" who are treated as if they were foreigners though they have been in North Ameica for centuries. Thus the recent violence, largely against African-Americans, in the U.S. Watch for much more of this as American society melts down.<br /><br />There is no industrial country that has treated its poor as shabbily as the United States has - though there are Canadians who would like to do so. Watch for more from them, too, as they chip away at health care and education.<br /><br />The Christian churches are no longer of much relevance in this world. Surveys in the U.S. show that observant Christians, especially the evangelical ones who support Trump, blame the poor for being poor. (They have no understanding, Christian or otherwise, of the impact of physical or mental illness or simply of childhood social environment in the creation of poverty.) And, certainly, they have shown almost no interest the issue of mass murder all over the world.<br /><br />Christianity has become pretty much a dead letter except for those who think that getting dunked into a pool will guarantee them a spot in heaven.<br /><br />Those political leaders who make a show of their Christian devotion (Trump and Bush spring to mind) are not heartening examples.<br /><br />But Trump is not the cause of it all. We've been going in this direction long before Trump was even born. He is not the cause of social rot in the U.S. He's the product of it.<br /><br />There are things we cannot do - and still survive. We cannot fight more wars That will inevitably lead to total destruction. We cannot create even more poverty without creating massive violence. We have to deal with climate change (and these isn't much time to deal with it.) We have to deal with world overpopulation - not to mention its companions - masses of refugees, and severe food shortage.<br /><br />We are ignoring the things we must do. We are embracing the things we cannot do without destroying the world.<br /><br />The answer should be obvious. But we don't look for the answer. We follow the lead of our billionaires who have never shown much intelligence.<br />Norbert Cunningham's commentary for today puts all the blame for the current crisis on the 'deranged' Trump and Jong-un. Nonsense. It would make far more sense to the put the blame </div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-70476034602653446152017-08-13T08:17:00.001-07:002017-08-13T08:17:43.342-07:00Sunday Sermonette<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A friend of my high school days was very, very religious. He belonged to the Pentecostal church and, after getting a degree he entered the Penecostal clergy to become a missionary in Congo where he would bring the savages to God.<br />Congo. That's the subject of a novel by Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. It's not considered one of the hundred best novels in the English language.<br /><br />Conrad spent some time there in the late 19th century after the European powers that had been conquering Africa generously gave Congo to the King of Belgium. And Conrad wrote of what he saw.<br /><br />Congo was and is a land of magnificent resources. Many a billionaire was created by Congo. But none of them was ever a native of Congo. The Belgians proved to be perhaps the most vicious imperialists in the age of vicious imperialists that we still live in.<br /><br />Conrad writes of the millions who were killed, tortured, or enslaved while digging up their own resources as gifts for the Europeans who, in return, sent them Bible stories. Heart of Darkness is the story of one of the most brutal periods of history.<br /><br />And nothing has changed.<br /><br />Though the Belgian influence has lessened, the brutality still goes on, and not just in Congo. I've been reading a sort of up to date version of Heart of Darkness. Conrad's novel was about Congo. The new book is about mining in Latin America. It's by Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber; and it's titled "The Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America". And it's all about Canadian big capitalism on that continent, companies like HudBay, Goldcorp, Barrick Gold, Nevsun, and Tahoe Resources. All of them are owned, I'm sure, by respectable church goers.<br /><br />And the Canadian governments have not been innocent onlookers. They have worked hard to discredit local protest against dreadfully low wages, highly destructive environmental damages, violence against protestors - and a discreet silence about the killing of protesters. No Canadian government has lifted a finger in the case of the murder of Raoul Leger - though they have all known about it. Indeed, the Canadian government has been a very active player in destroying democracies, and being a full partner of the mining companies. (That's why it never announced the murder of Raoul Leger of New Brunswick.<br />This book would a great gift to the special preachers at the Irving Chapel, and a fascinating topic for coffee and fellowship in 'the barn'.<br /><br />And these Canadian mining companies operate all over the world. We are a major player in creating "Hearts of Darkness".<br /><br />Makes ya wonder, don't it? Wouldn't it make more sense to send missionaries to the people who really need them? You know, the mining company executives. I think that's what Jesus would have done.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-12235977912368812382017-08-11T12:20:00.001-07:002017-08-11T12:43:22.453-07:00August 11: Thinking....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Nobert Cunningham, in his daily commentary for the irving press, says on Thursday that our schools should be teaching children to think. That was a brave thing to suggest because, if they did think, nobody would buy his paper. (One of Thursday's big, world news stories in his paper is that a truck in Arkansas spilled it's load of frozen pizzas all over the road. Wow! Gotta think about that.)<br /><br />In all my life in education as student and teacher, I cannot think of any level at which I was taught to think. To memorize, yes. But think - very rarely. And, when I tried to teach students to think, I could expect fireworks from angry parents and educational authorities. Many parents - most - wanted their children to think as they did - which was not thinking at all.<br /><br />As a university professor, I tried to build learning to think into my courses. But it's not as easy as it might seem. Inevitably, I was often teaching students to think as I thought - but, like other people, what I thought was affected by my social outlook and values. It was by no means the truth carved in stone.)<br /><br />We are not computers. What we think is shaped profoundly by our religious, political, economic views - and by our natural wish to fit in with everybody else.<br />All of us are shaped by daily propaganda from our news media, by hatreds of other peoples for various reasons, and by a forgetfulness about our own, thoroughly unChristian greed and brutality in Canada and all over the world. And what comes out of reading and hearing all this is not thinking, but reaction. The result is that we react with fears and hatreds. (Wasn't it terrible how those Muslims killed 3,000 Americans on 911. But when the Americans killed millions of innocent Muslims and refugeed tens of millions? Dum de dum.)<br /><br />Some Christians will line up in front of hospitals to denounce abortion. Those same Christians really don't care our modern warfare deliberately targets civilians, including babies and pregnant mothers. (Certainly, I've never seen them protest about it.) Today, for example, the U.S. is deliberately starving millions of civilians, including babies - especially babies - to death in Yemen. So how come the anti-abortion crowd doesn't protest that? How come Norbert Cunningham doesn't write a column on how Canadians should send food for the starving in Yemen?<br /><br />I taught high school history early in my career. One thing I taught was World War 2. Let's see now, suppose I had taught what I know to be true. 1. The U.S. did not join the war until 2 1/2 years after it started. Want to know why the delay? 2. The U.S., especially big business, supported Hitler in the 1930s and later, supplied him with money and equipment. Why? Two reasons. 1. It didn't give a damn about Britain or Canada. 2. It WANTED HITLER TO DEFEAT RUSSIA. It was afraid of Russian communism (or any form of socialism) spreading. 3.<br /><br />The real interest of the U.S. in World War 2 was to add China to the American empire. This was a long-cherished dream of billionaires - the China market. It's interest in Europe didn't develop until the Soviets started beating the Naziis. Then the concern of the U.S. because limiting the Soviet expansion.<br /><br />In fact, the whole American navy, from 1919 on, was designed for fighting in the Pacific. That's why it turned to aircraft carriers, to supply ships that could keep fighting ships at sea for longer periods, to fighting ships of very long range.<br /><br />After the war, the victorious powers did NOT spread democracy over the world. They all split up the nations of Africa to loot them; and they usually established dictatorships. The U.S. also re-established dictatorship in The Phillipines. And it maintained dictatorships in South America like Cuba and Haiti - and it also established them in what had been democracies like Guatemala.<br /><br />Can you imagine the effect that would have on parents of high school children?<br />I did teach them that in university. But that wasn't teaching them to think. That was just teaching them what I thought. And I was always careful to make it clear that there was a difference between that and teaching them to think.<br /><br />I tried to encourage them to think. I did it by getting them interested, and willing to look at issues with an open mind, by encouraging them to disagree with me. But even that falls short of teaching them how to think. I'm not at all sure there is any mechanism you can create to teach people to think.<br /><br />We aren't computers. We can't be programmed to think. (We can programmed to react by, say, propaganda, or by our fear of thinking differently from everybody else.) We can only be encouraged to think by speaking about things openly, and by encouraging others to respond with their own ideas.<br /><br />But to do that they need to be encouraged to think - encouraged by news media, encouraged by tolerance for their views, encouraged by teachers AND by parents.<br />And that will be tough in New Brunswick because this is a province dreadfully served by most of its news media, and one in which people are afraid to have an opinion that is not exactly like everyone else's.<br /><br />Tell you what Norbert, you wrote a fierce and angry column on how our provincial government is overspending on frills like education and health? How about writing one on how our governments HAVE to overspend because the very wealthy don't pay taxes. They hide their money in tax havens. They also constantly whimper for tax forgiveness on things like millions of dollars worth land, and for handouts for various projects. They're allowed to buy crown land at bargain basement prices.<br /><br />Who knows? That might start people thinking.<br /><br />No. I guess not. Much nicer to go the Irving Chapel where there is no danger one will ever have to think.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I'm not sure why the following story should be a story at all. Civilians have been the major targets in wars going back to World War Two, and rising spectacularly in the Korean War when 30% or North Korea's population was killed. That's the reality of modern war.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/syria-us-led-coalition-accused-of-failing-to-avoid-civilian-deaths<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Most papers, but not the irving press, have noticed the sudden surge of Haitians crossing from the U.S. into Quebec. The federal government has had to create a town to hold some 500 of them just inside the border. Similarly, Montreal's Olympic stadium has been turn into a huge camp for them.<br /><br />Why are they fleeing the U.S.? Probably because of American racism. Why did they flee Haiti? Because it has been ruled by U.S. dictators most of the last hundred years. And the dictators have kept the Haitians in poverty, ignorance and wretchedness for the benefit of American capitalists. (Though I have not seen a news report that says that. Most of them blame the Haitian earthquake of some years ago.<br /><br />Reaching Quebec may not end their problems. Quebec, like most of Canada, has an ugly record of racism.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The general response to the North Korean crisis is that the North Koreans are crazy. Well, yeah, after all they're foreigners. But why are they crazy for wanting a nuclear bomb when the U.S. feels it quite proper to have the world's largest arsenal of them?<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47572.htm<br /><br />And consider another possibility. China cannot afford to allow the U.S. to conquer a country on the China border. How would Americans react if China sent an army of conquest to Mexico? This is no time to play power games.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And here's another story of the U.S. record<br />.<br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47577.htm<br /><br />And why was all this killing done? It was for the usual reason - like the killing in the American revolution, the genocide of native peoples, the conquests in Latin America, in The Philippines, even the U.S. civil war. These were all to benefit the wealthy of the time. (Yes. Even the civil war. It was NOT fought to free the slaves. Lincoln did not announce that until well after the war had started.)<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's an interesting look at New Brunswick. (Sorry. I meant to say Borneo.)<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/11/borneo-kalimantan-a-frontline-for-survival-of-our-planet/<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The irving press is a big buddy to propaganda 'think-tanks" like Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. They also play a powerful role in U.S. politics spreading propaganda for their masters who pay them. I guess that's what Norbert Cunningham would call teaching people to think.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/gulf-government-gave-secret-20-million-gift-to-d-c-think-tank/<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Unnoticed by most of our news media, the lavish apologies and promises of just a few years ago to our indigenous peoples have added up to ---nothing. What do the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Trudeau think about these issues? So far, they aren't thinking about them. It's more important to spread photos of Trudeau jogging.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/indigenous-nationhood/2017/08/inquiry-murdered-and-missing-indigenous-women-has-been<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Geegollywhiz. We should try to get this guy for pastor at the Irving Chapel.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/09/megachurch-pastor-says-trump-has-gods-approval-start-nuclear-war<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The Duran is a very, very extreme right-wing news site. It is often simply a propaganda house - something like the irving press, but much much higher in its range of coverage. Anyway, this commentary in it makes a lot of sense.<br /><br />http://theduran.com/china-says-will-defend-north-korea-in-event-of-us-invasion/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The western powers have been monstrously abusing Africa for centuries. That's what the slave trade was all about - and the British, French, Italian, Belgian, Spanish and German invasions killed many millions, enslaved millions, plundered the land, impovershed the people and that we hailed as glory of god's will, and the splendour of the European military who bravely murdered, tortured, and plundered Africa. "For Britons, never, never, never shall be slaves...."<br /><br />No, indeed. The U.S. joined the parade early with the slave trade, and has now joined in the general plunder and killing. The benefits have all gone to the super-wealthy. But be aware that they would just as happily kill, torture and rob you.<br />That's why today, Africa and the middle east are so unstable and in chaos. We created that. God bless America.<br />The greed of our upper business class has created a wildly unstable world that, if left under their control will destroy all of us - including the very wealthy.<br /><br />https://blackagendareport.com/congo-genocide-54-million-dead-interview-sylvestre-mido<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />If you want to learn what's going on in Israel, don't waste your time on any North American news medium. They are all very much under the thumb of the so-called "Israeli lobby", capable of putting enormous pressure to make sure that only the 'official' version of news comes out of Israel.<br /><br />Though I was routinely a speaker for large, Jewish audiences in Montreal, I was singled out by the "Israeli lobby" to get cut off from speaking, and also fired from radio (to be replaced by an Ultra Israeli lobby supporter.)<br /><br />No, if you want to know about Israel, read the Israeli "Haaretz".<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.800735<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />When the arab country of Quatar wanted to found a newspaper that would move that country into the 21st century, it turned to a Canadian CBC journalist, Tony Burman. He led the building of a news system that was to be a model of intelligence, fairness, and honesty for the world.<br /><br />And he succeeded. Of course, that automatically meant it would be looked down on by the western world.<br /><br />All Jazeera has slipped somewhat since its founding. But, if not as strong as Haaretz, it's still far superior to the commercial press of most of the world.<br /><br />http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/headlines-jerusalem-170809102814269.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And here's Al Jazeera's take on a film that has been praised all over the western world.<br /><br />http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/brown-skin-white-sands-dunkirk-path-glory-170730091218507.html<br /><br />I haven't seen the film. But parts of this review sound reasonable to me. Dunkirk did not save Britain. Quite the contrary, it was at Dunkirk that Britain lost the war. Churchill's speech on carrying on the war from Canada or Australia was absurd. Dunkirk was the crash of Britain and of the British Empire.<br /><br />It would be rescued by no, not by the U.S. or Canada. It was rescued by Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. (No. It was not saved by the U.S. In fact, when the U.S. did enter the war, it did its best to help destroy the British Empire and to destroy Britain as a major power. That's why, in 1945, Britain effectively became a colony of the American Empire.)<br /><br />Still, it might be a good film. We'll see. At the worst, it could be a reminder of how various parts of the world will see historical events quite differently.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Estimates are there are some 13,000 slaves in Britain. (Canadian and American jounalists haven't bothered to look in their own countries.) These are household slaves, sex slaves (many of themm children). Around the world there are uncounted millions of slaves, many of them kidnapped in the turmoil of our wars.<br /><br />https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/uk-slavery-sex-slave-smuggling-investigation/index.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And here's some common sense that no western news medium would dare to deliver.<br /><br />http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/myth-american-greatness-170730115037610.html<br /><br />The world can look very different depending on where you are standing. That's why it can help to read Al Jazeera.<br /> __________________________________<br />And then there's the CBC which Norbert Cunningham from his lofty perch in irving press thinks is dreadfully inferior. <br /> http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/katharine-hayhoe-climate-report-trump-1.4240089<br /><br />Of course this can't be true. If it were, mr. Irving would insist that his newspapers carry the story.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />As a very unhappy footnote, it is quite possible that the U.S. is now making its final turn into fascism. And it's not just because of Trump. It's because capitalism requires fascism. Remember, the economic system that gave rise to Hitler and that supported him was capitalism. Ditto for Mussolini.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-25473840797681873312017-08-09T11:44:00.001-07:002017-08-09T11:46:02.979-07:00August 9: If you want to be socially acceptable - don't think.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />Here's a story that's a year old - one I missed at the time. In fact, It also connects with several stories at the bottom of the reading. It's a story of the absolute contempt the Irving family has for the people of this province - with a few examples of the Irving rip-offs which explain why New Brunswick government's can't balance their budgets.<br /><br />Monday's paper is a prime example Irving contempt. It has no news whatever. The lead story is about hospital overcrowding. It's a story that has little useful information, no sense of anything to be done, but is grandly labelled EXCLUSIVE - as if anybody else would want it.<br /><br />Then there's a story in adoration of a wealthy father (and his son) who are buying an old high school for renovation. And so it goes for page after page of non-news. This isn't a newspaper; it's a sleeping pill. Where is the (intelligent and honest) story about mining development in this province? Where is the story about how Irving (and other) funding makes it impossible for any party but the Liberals and Conservatives to win an election in this province? Where is the big story that we cannoit properly operate our hospitals or schools or universities because the very wealthy skip paying taxes? Where is the story about the health hazards in St. John because of you-know-who's pollution?<br /><br />Then there's a commentary that looks useful, but isn't. It calls for more education aimed at specific job training to meet the needs of business. There's nothing wrong with that. But we also need far more people with training to think and to understand. This world won't last long without that. But all the commentator can see is the needs of big business. (The great lesson for me in some fifty years of teaching is that teaching people to think is discouraged at all levels. We prefer to train robots.)<br /><br />The Canada and World section has no news worth reading about Canada or the world - unless you really, really care That the mayor of Nashville has returned to work after her son died. The whole paper is designed to put the province into a stupor. And, in that respect, it's a great success.<br /><br />The U.S. is in very, very serious political and economic trouble. Some leaders are trying to solve that problem with a world war. Greece has been destroyed by international bankers. The government of Ukraine is an illegal one controlled by international bankers and die-hard Naziis who have pretty much destroyed that country's economy - and the U.S. created it - and Canada has sent troops to the neighbourhood to fend off an invasion by Russia which, almost certainly, Russia has never planned. The real purpose of the Canadians is to be a provocation in the service of the U.S.<br /><br />Trump is seriously thinking of war with North Korea - and guess who will be expected to contribute troops. (And how come it's only American wars we send troops for now?) Europe is getting quite frightened by American behaviour, and much of it is looking to get away from American "protection". American foreign policies have been disastrous since 1945, and especially since 2000. The result is that most of the middle east and Africa is in a hopeless chaos. Noticed any wise words (or any words at all) in the irving press about that?<br /><br /><br />No. These are newspaper designed to keep New Brunswick in complete ignorance. And, what a coincidence, the editor-in-chief is an Irving.<br />New Brunswick makes China look like a land of free speech and lively discussion.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Thanks to a reader, here's a full story of fake news in our time.<br /><br />http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/05/fake-news-us-media-speciality/<br /><br />The same reader also pointed out that my count of countries which offer free, university education was a little short. I should have added Russia (for the undergraduate years), Austria and Belgium. And, as I read his note I remember the year I taught at a Dutch university. ALL students received a living income for their university years.<br /><br />But not Canada or the U.S. we have to feed our very wealthy, first.<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />The big story in the world today was the developing crisis between the U.S. and North Korea. (Any use of nuclear weapons by either nation could turn into a world, nuclear war.)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/08/trump-administration-north-korea-diplomacy-talks<br /><br />It was obvious in 1945 that the world could not survive more use of nuclear weapons. But there has been no attempt by any government to put an end to them. So long as they exist, someday they will be used.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I am still not finding any helpful news about the violence in Venezuela. I'm finding lots of propaganda. But no news. So here's a rough possibility.<br /><br />Venezuela, historically, has been run by a small but very wealthy upper class - much like New Brunswick. Most people were very poor, and were kept poor. However, in the years following the Cuban revolution, Venezuela voters turned to socialism.<br /><br />Living conditions improved enormously as the people of Venezuela got the benefits of the nation's vast oil reserves. The wealthy of Venezuela were not pleased. Nor were American capitalists pleased at this intrusion of socialism. And when its capitalists are not pleased, the U.S. has a long record of interfering.<br />Then, the world price of oil dropped dramatically. (That world price is not affected by the market, but more commonly by the oil bosses who see an advantage in it.) In the case of Venezuela, it made the country poor in quick order. And the poverty turned quickly to anger against the government.<br /><br />Has the socialist government handled the situation badly? Yes.<br /><br />Did the U.S. and the wealthy capitalists of Venezuela fan the flames of that anger? Did they help to create the mobs?<br /><br />Do butterflies have wings?<br /><br />And that, I think, is what is happening in Venezuela.<br /><br />What next? I don't know. A strong possibility is a US military intervention that will be called a "peacekeeping force" may invade Venezuela. Canada may be asked to play a role - as it did when it got suckered into sending 'peacekeepers' to Haiti whose real job was to destroy democracy in that country. And, if asked, Justin will trip all over himself in his wish to obey.<br /><br />Venezuela needs help for its people, not just for its wealthy.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />David Suzuki used to appear twice a month in the iving press. But that ended some years ago. After all, he's just one of those mouthy scientists who don't understand the world as well as, say, the Atlantic Insistute of Market Studies does.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/david-suzuki/2017/08/we-only-have-one-earth-and-were-overshooting-its-capacity<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Our news media don't seem to mention the fact that the NAFTA trade deal gives business the right to pollute to its heart's content. And if we try to pass laws to protect ourselves, It can sue us for millions of dollars on the claim that our laws will reduce its profits. And the case is heard not by a national court but by a court owned by business.<br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/08/instead-giving-rights-or-protections-nafta-has-headlock-canadian-workershttp://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/08/instead-giving-rights-or-protections-nafta-has-headlock-canadian-workers<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />A libertarian is a person who believes in liberty for the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else. They use think tanks like the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies and newspapers like the irving press.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atlas-network-alejandro-chafuen-libertarian-think-tank-latin-america-brazil/<br /><br />Incidentally, today's irving press has a gem from the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. It claims that raising the minimum wage would hurt employment. That's close to the 'thinking' of Norbert Cunningham - if you make the rich even richer, then we'll all get rich. Yes.<br /><br />Gee. That must mean than lowering the minimum wage would create more jobs, and make us all richer. We could try that out by cutting the wages of all staff at the irving press.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And yes, "think tanks" like the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies flourish all over the world.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/intercepted-podcast-atlas-golfed/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a look at what us loving Christians are doing for the suffering all over the world.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/asylum-seekers-face-police-violence-lesbos-greece-moria-camp/<br /><br />If you want a real show, just wait until the refugees from climate change and starvation start coming.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I don't think the great minds at the irving press have noticed this story yet.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47568.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Trump has almost been destroyed by the Washington establishment and big business. At this rate, he cannot possibly survive his term. There is only one person who would be a superior president - Bernie Sanders. But there is no way the Washington establishment or big business will accept Sanders. As for the American people, they have been so long soaked in a propaganda image of what they and America are all about that they are nowhere close to seeing the reality.<br />(And I can assure you that the American news media will never support a Bernie Sanders.)<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47562.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Large corporations just love to pay off university professors who write phony reports about how safe their products are. In my experience, and luckily, there are very, very few professors that will sell themselves like this. But these, not suprisingly, are the ones who get media coverage. All the honest ones, like David Suzuki, are dropped from the pages of the irving press.<br /><br />In my early teaching and broadcasting years, I was approached by oil company pimps to write nice things about them. (And if I had, I might be a rich man today. Damn!)<br /><br />https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-09/monsanto-was-its-own-ghostwriter-for-some-safety-reviews<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I won't vouch for this article's estimate of the numbers killed by capitalism in Congo in the last 20 years. But I do know of the record of over a hundred years of murder, torture and abuse of the people of Congo. And the figure of recent deaths in this article is not an impossible one.<br /><br />https://www.blackagendareport.com/congo-genocide-54-million-dead-interview-sylvester-mido<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />Another article by Suzuki that the irving press protected us from. (The Canada&World section needed the space for a real, world shocker - a woman in Toronto hit a dog.)<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/08/09/opinion/heres-how-many-earths-we-need-meet-our-populations-demand<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />British Columbia is under pressure from oil companies to give them subsidiies to develop more oil fields in Canada. Fascinating how fearless, enteriprising, independent, big money corporations always want subisidies from the rest of us. They hate social programmes for the poor. But they just love them for the rich.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This next is a long one. Please bear with it.<br /><br />We commonly have a false understanding of wars and what we did and what causes them and why. That happens because news media give us a simplistic account, and sometimes a lying one. It also happens because we always assume that our side was a good one, and that it was forced into war - as was the case with the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria......<br /><br />It also happens because us humans like to fit in with mainstream thinking. In fact, we're afraid NOT to fit into it. But the wars against Napoleon did not occur simply because of the aggression of France. They were also cause by the aggression of England. World War 1 did NOT happen because an archduke was murdered. And World War Two was NOT caused simply because of a Hitler turning Germans evil.<br /><br />In fact, Hitler had good friends - on our side.....<br /><br />Of course, it would be difficult for a school teacher to tell the truth about these wars. A problem schools have to deal with is that parents don't want the schools to teach children how to think. They want the schools to teach them to conform.<br />I learned that in my first year of teaching grade 7. I had taught my class some history that was true, but....... the principal called me into his office.<br /><br />"Now, Mr. Decarie, we don't want to cause any disturbance, do we? Of course not."<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/09/27-million-died-in-russia-because-wall-street-built-up-hitlers-wehrmacht-to-knock-out-soviet-union/</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-66734395898022649412017-08-07T10:42:00.001-07:002017-08-07T11:35:23.647-07:00August 4: End Days in the U.S.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I never miss the irving press. It's always a world class stinker. The Saturday editorial, for example, suggested we reduce the cost of university education in New Brunswick.<br /><br />Rubbish! We're already in the hole because the wealthy don't pay taxes. And the irving press wouldn't dare suggest that they pay. More advanced countries, like Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Cuba, Mauritius and Argentina do offer free university education.<br /><br />But here, in New Brunswick, we have corporation bosses who need to live in style. That's why we can't afford free university. It's also why our public school teachers are among the lowest paid in Canada. Hell, we can't even afford shelter for the homeless or a living wage.<br /><br />And that's why our children in university carry heavy, heavy debt loads that will plague them for decades. So much for Norbert Cunningham's constant message that the wealthy make us wealthy. too.<br /><br />Norbert Cunningham has a column criticizing the Trump presidency. Too bad he doesn't understand anything about the subject. His thesis is that Trump has destroyed respect for the U.S. all over the world.<br /><br />Glad you noticed, Norbie. But respect for the U.S. died long before Trump. It was flagrantly destroyed by Bush and Obama - but it was already dead even before that. The greed of American corporations all over the world utterly destroyed any respect the U.S. had as early as the 1970s. And even that is being kind.<br /><br />So let's look at what's happening, using the word populism. It's a word very big among journalists - though few of them know what it means. It's meaning is best understood by starting with why populism happens.<br /><br />It happens when large numbers of people lose faith in their ruling elite. So they turn to leaders who seem to offer an alternative.<br /><br />Sometimes, not often, but sometimes they turn to a politician who does have something different to offer. In the U.S., Bernie Sanders is such a politician. He argues that governments have ignored human needs - like health, education, housing, a living wage - in order to serve the greed of the wealthy. That would called a populism of the left.<br /><br />More often, a politician will invent a threat, meanwhile protecting the privileged status of the elite. Thus Hitler who, instead of addressing the real problem of the very wealthy in Germany, took advantage of the nation's racism and its fear of the Soviet Union. And that's called the populism of the right.<br /><br />Trump is following Hitler's route. He capitalized on a great anger in the U.S. to build his popularity. But his supporters have not shown any understanding at what they should be anger at. Instead of demanding action against the billionaires and the politicians the the billionaire's own, they settle for racial hatreds buttered over with a primitive idea of what Christianity is.<br /><br />So Trump has emphasized things like destruction of medicare, reduction of taxes for the wealthy.... and this is a right wing populism.<br /><br />But Trump is not very good at the game. The elite are not pleased with him -as the German elite had been with Hitler. That's why Republicans who hated Obamacare voted to save it - to humiliate Trump. (I suspect the elite are displeased because they want war with Russia and China -and Trump seemed to be avoiding it.)<br /><br />Result? The US will continue into a worsening chaos. Unless Bernie Sanders gets the next nomination. But, even then, I've seen no signs of Democrats becoming anything but their old, corrupt selves. Americans hate. But they don't know yet what it is they hate. And that means severe disorder.<br /><br />The U.S. (like New Brunswick) is behind most of the civilized world in social services, as in public educaton through to university, the constant attempts to dilute medicare, a living wage... This is the setting for a rise of populism, the overthrow of an elite. But it's not likely to happen. New Brunswickers, and maritimers in general, are terrified of having an opinion on anything. And they don't even want to hear that they have an elite that runs their province.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />There's not much in the irving press. Brian Murphy writes his usual column, guaranteed to say nothing and offend nobody.<br /><br /> Steve Malloy was kind of neat, though, in a column saying goodbye to the Boy Scout movement. My father was a scoutmaster whose boys went off to war coming to our home one at a time to say thanks and goodbye). I was a Wolf Cub (did, dib, dib dib..we'll dob, dob, dob, dob,) a Scout and a Senior Scout. As an historian, I came to reaize what a flake Baden-Powell was. But it was still all a good experience.<br />___________________________________________________________________<br />Let's start looking at the press with that class act, Haaretz.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.805322?utm_content=%2Fisrael-news%2F.premium-1.805322&utm_medium=email&utm_source=smartfocus&utm_campaign=newsletter-breaking-news<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Then there's the story about what country accepted and even welcomed Jewish refugees in World War 2. No. It wasn't Canada or Britain or the U.S. or Spain. After all, they were Christian countries. (Think about that.)<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/1.805093<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I'm running this next story though even the irving press should have enough wit to carry it. But we'll see on Monday. I believe in miracles.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.805402<br /><br />(note - the irving press did miss this story in its Monday edition. It needed the space for the big, world news that Oland's lawyers want more time to set a trial date for him.)<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Trump's sanctions on North Korea are almost guaranteed to make the situation worse. The U.S. is following its favouite policy of threats and aggression - which has rarely worked. Our hopes should be on the more initelligent course taken by China.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/aug/06/korean-peninsula-critical-phase-china-foreign-minister-wang-yi<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And this Canadian story made the British press - but not the irving press.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/canada-international-aid-feminist-women-afghanistan<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a look at the behaviour of Canada's mining companies overseas. And don't assume they become good citizens and sweethearts when they operate in Canada.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-englers-blog/2017/08/despite-abuse-canada-shows-unconditional-love-mining<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a story that has been known since the 1960s, at least - but has never been mentioned in our news media. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing to do with ending the war or saving American lives. It was an experiment in the mass murder of civilians, something which has since become the preferred method of war for major powers. (That's why the U.S. is starving millions to death in Yemen.)<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/07/key-myths-and-facts-about-the-atomic-bombings-of-japan/<br /><br />Wasn't it just terrible how those terrorists killed 3,000 innocent Americans on 9/11?<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's a story that hasn't received nearly as much attention in our news as it should. And it's much worse than this story suggests. Rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere mean less rain, and less rain means severely limited food production - this in a world that seems to have reached its limit in food production. Already, tens of millions are starving and homeless.<br /><br />Add to that a rapidly growing world population. All those will give us refugee problems on a huge scale - past tens of million to hundreds of millions and possibly a billion or more. They would come, largely, from Africa, the Middle East, China, India, Pakistan, South America, southern Europe, the American southwest.....Such massive migrations would flood many countries (like Canada), create wars whose major targets would be starving civilians.... And since the U.S. is already showing symptoms of climate change, it would be one of those countries looking for countries to invade for their water and arable land. (Canada springs to mind.)<br /><br />Now, think of the mentalities (and morality) of, say, oil barons who insist on relying on fossil fuels. And think of a president like Donald Trump.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/31/trumps-fossil-fueled-foreign-policy/<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />In brief, Trump is pretty much destroyed as a president. He has become a comic figure, an emperor with no clothes. That was the meaning of the defeat of his bill to end obamacare. It wasn't that Republicans voted for the right of Americans to get medical care. In fact, the Republicans have NEVER favoured medicare. And they couldn't care less about the needs of any American people except billionaires. The vote was to humiliate Trump, to destroy him as president. And it worked. He'll still be fodder for headlines - but those will just be gossip items.<br />His one chance to survive is to go to war against somebody - say, North Korea.<br />Other than that, he's simply gossip for people who have nothing better to talk about. The U.S. is now completely in the hands of the wealthiest, greediest, and most destructive people in the world.<br /><br />But it almost certainly does not have the power for their intent to conquer the world. They can destroy it, all of it. But they can't conquer it.<br /><br />We are being destroyed by the power of big business that operates far above our elected leaders. Their idea of the future is no regulation of business at all, just absolute power. So much for Norbert Cunningham's idiot belief that the rich create wealth for all of us.<br /><br />As for American democracy, it never was entirely what it claimed to be. And we are now almost certainly watching its end days.<br />______________________________________________________________<br />Oh, big story on CBC news about Moncton. But the Moncton Times and Transcript missed it.<br /><br />http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/seniors-told-to-ration-toilet-paper-at-n-b-nursing-home-a-lack-of-respect-dignity-1.4237831<br /><br />I don't see the problem. Those seniors could at last have a use for their Moncton Times and Transcript.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-56912604224896561142017-08-04T12:02:00.001-07:002017-08-04T12:02:15.747-07:00August 4: Don't Hit Me.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is going to be a very difficult blog for me to write. I know some readers will be angry - mostly because they will read into it things I never said. It's not their fault. It's a natural way us humans think. Not our fault. Instead of understanding what we read, we tend to react to it - commonly without understanding what it was that was said.<br /><br />So please bear with me.<br /><br />On radio, I once had a great argument with a journalist who believed that Hitler was a socialist. His party was, after all, the National Socialist Party.<br /><br />In fact, his major supporters were big business in Germany and the U.S. And Hitler hated socialism with a passion. Hitler's National Socialist party far more closely resembled Trump's followers in the U.S. In fact, it has resembled that of many world leaders before and since - and most of us people.<br /><br />But our press never reported that, and it still doesn't. As is so common, we got fed with myths that shape our thinking to this day.<br /><br />Here's an excellent site on what Hitler was about - and it is certainly a challenge to our attitudes.<br /><br />https://www.thoughtco.com/who-supported-hitler-and-why-1221371<br />At the bottom of the page is a site about Assad of Syria. Again, this is very different image from the man in our newspapers.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />It's important to understand this. Why? It's because news media, propaganda, and the natural desire to see our own actions as good, and to see to see those of other nations as evil. But that image is seldom true.<br /><br />Hitler invaded countries partly so that German big business could loot them, partly for their strategic value for even greater wars of conquest. We spoke then of 'brave little Britain" - which actually had done the same thing to 20% of the world, killing more people than Hitler did.<br /><br />The British certainly never thought of themselves as a brutal and murderous people who engaged in slavery, in plundering resources, in forcing people to work for slave wages, in deliberately allowing huge populations to starve. This was done for centuries by many European countries. Even little Belgium joined in murder, plunder, torture, killing millions in Congo. And that's still going on - with Canadian companies, too, involved. We've seen t he same with the U.S. in South America, the Middle East, Africa - and now with the imposition of starvation on all men, women and children in Yemen.<br /><br />Why do we do this? Because big business wants the power to loot and exploit those countries. These are all the same things that Naziism stood for. Funny how our Christian churches haven't noticed that. Of course, the Naziis killed freely, too.<br /><br />But we are good. And they were bad.<br /><br />We deplored the genocide of Jews?<br /><br />Come off it. From 1900 to well after the war, most Canadians detested and discriminated against Jews. We did nothing whatever to help them though we knew what was happening. We wouldn't even help those who escaped. In fact, Canada has a horrible record of racism. It has heavily discriminated against Jews, Chinese, Indians (from India), African-Canadians and our first nations. We did not go to war to help the Jews. In fact, Canada and the U.S. waffled between hatred and contempt for Jews. That's why, to this day, Israel distrusts us, and has taken such an aggressive stance in the middle east.<br /><br />After the war, automotive giant Henry Ford got the Medal of Honour for his contribution to the war against Hitler. Very nice. But we all forget that, before the war, he got ...<br /><br />http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/<br /><br />And so we forget that Ford had been a major supporter of Hitler. And he wasn't the only one. Many business leaders in Canada and the U.S. rushed to support Naziism. They still do. That's why, when the U.S. overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, it placed a substantial number of Naziis in the new government. (There are lots of photos, never seen on our TVs, of some regiments in the Ukrainian army that have large swastikas on their helmets.<br /><br />And when the world war 2 ended, we righteously held courts that tried and hanged the obvious villains. But our news media didn't notice those who were NOT tried, including the big businessmen in Germany - and the big businessmen in Germany and many countries, including the U.S., who helped Hitler to gain and hold power, commit war crimes, and who even supplied the German army.<br /><br />https://harmoniaphilosophica.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/allies-trading-with-hitler-economic-2jszrulazj6wq-22/<br /><br />Hitler's National Socialist Party was not socialist at all. it was a product of capitalism.<br /><br />And so the world continued after the war.<br /><br />Oh, we're different because we have democracy? Um, not really.<br /><br />The people who own our news media feed us propaganda and ignorance. Nations in which the people have no idea what is going on cannot possibly be democracies. The vote means nothing, especially when so many of the major parties are controlled by big business.<br /><br />And the U.S., which preaches democracy, has been happily destroying democracies all over the world and setting iup dictatorships all over the world.<br />Hitler was nothing new for the world. Many, many rulers have been just like him. Take Trump. The friend of big business who wants to get rid of regulations that control them, wants to get rid of taxes for them, that happily invades countries to meet the wishes of big business. Like Hitler, he plays to a racism - this time Muslims and Mexicans - that is already there. And it's not just Trump. He's the product of years of Naziism, not the cause of it.<br /><br /><br />The reality is we live in a state remarkably similar to that of Hitler.<br /><br />Yes, yes, I know. This is an insult to our veterans. (and if you believe that, it's the old human problem of reacting rather than thinking.) I knew many of the veterans, including my father. There was nothing Nazi about them. They believed (because that's what we told them) they were fighting for a better world And we betrayed them. It's certainly not they who are at fault. It's us.<br /><br />The Canadian Legion, alas, always jumps into these issues on the side of those who really run this country. And when it does that, it lets our veterans down.<br />Did they fight so we could send troops to Afghanistan? It was an illegal war. And, if it was worth the lives of those who died, why did we quit in the middle of it? And why do we illegally have troops in Iraq? And why did we illegally bomb Libya? This is not at all the world we said we were fighting for in the 1940s.<br /><br />And why haven't our news media asked those questions? And why do we restrict our remberance of those who served to one day a year? Why don't we really think of what they died for? And what we should now do in their honour?<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This is no climate change. We know that because if there were the irving press would tell us.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/extreme-heat-warnings-issued-europe-temperatures-pass-40c<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Nah. it's just ignorant gossip. Besides, we need more pipelines. They create jobs.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/melting-glaciers-swiss-alps-could-reveal-hundreds-mummified-corpses<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Nest is a modest statement of what's going on in the world. And, yes, Canadian companies have been involved. We still have lots of Hitlers in this world.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/environmental-defenders-being-killed-in-record-numbers-globally-new-research-reveals<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The tale of murder involves Guatemala where New Brunswick's Raoul Leger was murdered. The Canadian company involved is Tahoe Resources. Think of that the next time you're listening to the "special music" at the Irving Chapel next Sunday. Leger's grave is just down the street.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/the-canadian-company-mining-hills-of-silver-and-the-people-dying-to-stop-it<br /><br />Go to google. Type Tahoe Resources board. See the nice, smiling board members. And be sure to check the section called 'social responsibility' with all its pictures of smiling workers. It makes me proud to be a Canadian.<br />Recently, a BC court agreed to hear a complaint against the Guatemala mine for human rights violations. Funny how it never made the irving press.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Black Lives Matter is aimed abuse of Blacks in the U.S. (Canada could use a version of it.) It can be difficult to find the articles you want. But it's the only good source of its type that I know.<br />http://blacklivesmatter.com/we-dont-want-ice-cream-bbqs-or-hugs-we-want-to-live/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The language in this next piece is a bit loaded, but the general message is quite right. The sanctions against Russia are extremely unwise. Europe is getting very worried about the seeming lust of the American government for war with Russia. Watch for Europe (but not Britain) to work its way out of the American embrace.<br />For Britain, alas, the glory days of empire are gone. It now has to kiss up to the U.S. to survive - which must be particularly galling to many British who know that the U.S. took a major role in destroying the empire.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47561.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I would take the article below on Venezuela with a grain of salt - but also with some respect. I can't pretend to have full understanding of what is going on in that country. According to our news media, the government of Venezuela is bad, bad, bad. Maybe it is. But remember that that U.S. has been interfering in Venezuela in the way it has always interfered with South American governments that want to serve their people. It has routinely murdered, invaded - and the North American press has been obedient.<br /><br />Certainly, the idea that the U.S. would intervene for the sake of the people of Venezuela is absurd. For over a century, it has murdered, starved, and plundered nations all over South America. And it has routinely set up dictatorships. And very murderous ones.<br /><br />I really have no clear idea of what is happening. But this item is here the 'other side we are not hearing about."<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47551.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />This is a left-wing site. I confess to preferring left-wing sites to right-wing ones. For a start, the right is solidly in power across Canada and the U.S. All of our commercial news media are right wing. So left-wing sites are the only ones we have to offer criticism.<br /><br />https://www.blackagendareport.com/washington_one_party_state<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The following report is a warning about Alberta oil pipeline spills that have happened, and which will contiue to happen for firty years of the news pipelines' life. But not to worry. If we go on using oil that long, there will probably be no life to worry about.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/04/new-report-reveals-water-threats-posed-dirty-threes-pipeline-routes<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The Christian churches, particularly those that attack abortion, have been pretty silent on what's going on in the world - as silent as German churches were on the rule of Hitler. Luckily, Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/03/pope-francis-associates-condemn-american-religious-righ<br /><br />How is it possible that Christian societies can be so greedy and murderous? And how come so few of the clergy have noticed it?<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The following story should be food for thought for Canadians. Have you noticed how our own politicians (and news media) have been friendly to the wishes of the energy industry?<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/08/03/epa-staffers-are-being-forced-to-prioritize-energy-industrys-wish-list-says-official-who-resigned-in-protest/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's one that's friendly to Trump. And I would agree that Trump was on the right track in seeking to be more cooperative with Russia and China. But I don't think big business is interested in cooperation.<br /><br />So now we are measurably closer to the war that nobody can win.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197288.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The source of this one is a Russian leader. That doesn't mean he's automatically wrong.<br /><br />http://thesaker.is/dmitri-medvedevs-facebook-post-on-trump-and-us-sanctions-full-text/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The very wealthy are in full control of most of the world. The danger of war comes because they - all over the world - are the ones who see conquest as being good. The world has to re-establish control of its own governments.<br /><br />And be assured the greedy will not do that for us.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-32949875749473858932017-08-02T11:52:00.002-07:002017-08-02T11:55:31.308-07:00August 2: insanity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A new record for the irving press on July 31. All the news of Canada&World is just 4 pages. The lead story, the most important thing in the world to the people of Moncton, is that NB Liquor has not produced as much revenue as the government hoped.<br /><br />Then there's another big story on the front page. An island off Toronto has been reopened after repairs. Wow!<br /><br />And, hold your breath, the airport at Federicton has violated food safety. And there's' more. A man's ashes will remain buried in a nearby graveyard. (In case you''ve been wondering.) And a house burned down in New Brunswick.<br /><br />Most of the last page is taken up by two stories. Prime Minister Trudeau thanks crews for putting out fires in BC. And the ex-premier of BC is quitting politics. (Well, that changes my plans for the day.)<br /><br />Oh, and police in Little Rock, Arkansas are concerned about a rising murder rate.<br /><br />But the paper is a success in educating New Brunswickers in what our masters want them to think. A letter to the editor is furious at the provincial government for having a deficit. That's what happens when you have commentators like Norbert Cunningham who don't tell us that we're short of money because the wealthy of this province pay little, if any, taxes.<br /><br />The Liberal party of New Brunswick is not an inspired gang. It has, so far as I know, no principles apart from kissing up to the very wealthy. But the deficit is not caused by government spending. It's caused by big business skipping out with our money.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />The Canada&World section does have a lead that is important - though perhaps not in the way the paper presents it. "North Korea missile test puts part of New Brunswick within its range."<br /><br />I guess people all over the world are thinking, "They could reach the New Brunswick border? Wow!"<br /><br />It was obvious back in 1945 that the world had to get rid of nuclear weapons. It's now been 72 years. Nuclear bombs are far, far more powerful now. The UN has repeatedly called for nuclear disarmament. But the major nuclear powers (and, now, some minor ones) have never lifted a finger.<br /><br />Is the North Korean nuclear bomb a threat to the world? Not likely. North Koreans are shown in our news media to be a nation of flakes. But they aren't suicidal. They know that firing even one missile at anybody would result in the total destruction of North Korea. And it would take just one of the modern missiles to do that.<br /><br />North Koreans aren't stupid. Their country is under constant threat from the U.S. Their nuclear power will always be relatively tiny. It will never be a first strike weapon. The only people in the 'first strike' league are the Americans, the Russians and the Chinese.<br /><br />What the U.S. needs to do, what it has needed to do since the Korean war, is to talk to North Korea - as the South Koreans are wisely doing.<br /><br />Instead, it is threatening. A very possible result of this is a massive U.S. attack on North Korea, one that China could not possibly ignore - and then the end would begin - for all of us.<br /><br />Oh, yes. The U.S. has anti-missile missiles to shoot them down....maybe. How effective they will be is not known. They are horribly expensive. And our governments have been shy about discussing the effects of thousands of nuclear missiles exploding after defensive missile hits to rain nuclear pollution on the place beneath.<br /><br />Canada is being asked, again, to station anti-nuclear missiles on its soil - as the US has done on its soil. Chretien and Harper both turned that down. Quite apart from the damage they would do to us, they would tie Canada to American policy even more than it is now. And that would be our final step from nation to colony.<br />From 1945 until today, U.S. policy has been to rule the world. And to rule it for the benefit of big business. That's what the many American wars since then have been about. That's why millions have been killed. That why millions in Yemen are being deliberately starved to death. That's why 80 million people are refugees from American wars. That's why the middle east is in chaos.<br /><br />Let's forget the dreadfully immoral nature of what is going on. Let's face the reality that the U.S. cannot do it.<br /><br />Fight a conventional war against China and Russia? Forget it. The most expensive armed forces in the world haven't been able to defeat rebels in Afghanistan. In fact, their only victory in the last 72 years has been over the island of Barbados. And the American people don't want war. That's why the American army has to rely on hired mercenaries.<br /><br />We live in a world that has enormous problems facing it in the very near future. Destroying ourselves is not a good way to deal with those problems. Nor is tagging along with American actions.<br />________________________________________________________________________<br />The following news item might show the U.S. as being more conciliatory. It's not.<br /><br />The UN, at its founding, had as its major purpose to establish a higher control over nation states in order to prevent war. And the major states refused to accept that.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/02/rex-tillerson-more-questions-than-answers-in-us-china-relationship<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Canada makes world news! I'm so proud. Canada, which was not supposed to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia because of its record of human rights violations, and which sold it armoured cars, anyway. And the Saudis used them as we should have expected.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/31/saudi-arabia-violence-canada-armored-trucks-justin-trudeau<br /><br />Hey, selling armoured cars to Saudi Arabia created jobs. Right Norbert?<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Things are seldom what they seem.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/29/dan-coats-north-korea-nukes-nuclear-libya-regime-change/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br /><br />I will not pretend I understand the confusion in Venezuela. For some time, US governments have detested Venezuela because it government placed control on oil companies in order to ensure that some of the money reached the Venezuelan people. But the drop in oil prices has seriously hurt Venezuela And that has led to very serious rioting and disorder.<br /><br />Has the US been organizing the disorder to create a revolution? I don't know.<br />But be careful in anything you read about this in our news media.<br /><br />http://thesaker.is/venezuela-the-national-constituent-assembly-is-in-place-but-the-fight-for-sovereignty-isnt-over/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197144.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here's a word in favour of Trump. He's not a good guy. But he may not be as evil as his opponents are.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197288.html<br /><br />So what happens next? Well, possibly Trump will give up on having a policy and, like other presidents, do what the major corporations tell him to do.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Powerful countries use their power to make the wealthiest even wealthier, while driving the rest of us down. I don't know of an empire that hasn't done that. For centuries overseas slavery and murder made the British wealthy very wealthy, indeed. But the British people got nothing for it. (And you don't have to be an empire. Canada does it, too.)<br /><br />And, as a result, most empires have destroyed themselves.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/08/01/kochs-and-trump-team-cut-billionaires-taxes<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Read this one, with special attention to the last two paragraphs. Those will help you to understand the irving press - and almost all commercial news media.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/08/02/talking-about-revolution<br /><br />It'll give you something to talk about during coffee and socializing in the barn at the Irving Chapel.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And this is right on.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/02/insane-policy-towards-north-korea/<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Russia and the U.S. election. This is a far better source on that than our news media have been.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/02/russia-and-the-united-states-presidential-election/<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />This is a site I had some problems with. the article below has some important truths. It also has some bigotry, and it leans heavily on statistics that may (or may not) mean anything a all. But the part on the U.S. national debt is staggering.<br /><br />The is one of the greatest problems or our time. But it's largely being ignored A major part of the problem in the U.S. and in Canada is the ability of the very wealthy to escape taxes. That not only puts a crushing load on the rest of us; it also leads to one hell of a crash.<br /><br />http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/16-facts-america-deep-trouble/<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />Again, here's a Venezuela story that seems credible. But I'd like to know more. The U.S. is certainly making noises about intervening in Venezuela. In fact, the American press has been denouncing the government of Venezuela ever since it placed controls on big oil. The U.S.http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.804553 has a long, long history of interfering with South American countries, killing on a wide scale.... and setting up democracies? Never, never, never.<br /><br />However, I'd still like to know more about this. But I'm not likely to find it in our commercial news media.<br /><br />http://www.mintpressnews.com/venezuela-what-media-isnt-telling-about-protest-leaders/230413/<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Israel has created a hell for itself by its brutal treatment of Palestinians, it's list of killings of them, it's use of Palestine as a giant prison, and it's massive theft of Palestinian land. This is not what Israel was supposed to be about. This is not what Judaism is about.<br /><br />Over seventy years later, the hatred created by Hitler lives on. And the one commercial news medium to say so is, of course, Harretz.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.804553<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And, unlike our press, Harretz tells both sides of the story.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.804360?utm_content=%2Fopinion%2F1.804360&utm_medium=email&utm_source=smartfocus&utm_campaign=newsletter-daily<br />_________________________________________________________________<br /><br />What to watch for in the near future? Well, watch for a European Union that makes itself into a single state in order to separate itself from the U.S. Britain probably won't join that union because, like Canada, it has accepted becoming the American poodle.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-11664387494954930142017-07-31T16:20:00.000-07:002017-07-31T16:20:20.187-07:00July 31:Hitler and aristocracies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Please note that there is also a new blog just before this one. It's dated July 30 and is intended for New Brunswick readers - but it may have points of interest for others, too.<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />Hitler was nothing new in human history. That may sound strange. But it's true.<br />He invaded countries. He killed on a ruthless scale. He enslaved people. He was profoundly racist. He regarded the German people as a superior race. And, of course, even most Germans were inferior to the business leaders of Germany. <br />It's certainly dreadful enough. But one could spend a whole day of listing countries that did the same.<br /><br />It was characteristic of Ancient Rome. The empire killed and plundered for no reason but the greed of the wealthy. Within the Empire, there was an upper class born to wealth and power. They were superior to all other people, including other Romans. Most of the people of Rome lived in poverty, and were so low in social standing that their burials consisted simply of being dumped en masse into great pits.<br /><br />The later empires - Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, the U.S. - were quite similar with the mass killing of native peoples in the Americas, with slavery of American native peoples and Africans.<br /><br />The sense of superiority often showed up in patriotic songs.<br /><br />"Land of hope and glory,<br />Mother of the free,<br />How can we extol them,<br />Who are born of thee."<br /><br />In this song, the British are a superior people simply by virtue of being born in Britain. That has strong echoes of racism.<br /><br />"Wider still and wider<br />Shall thy bounds be set.<br />God who made thee mighty<br />Make thee mighier yet."<br /><br />Yes, British are superior to others. And God backs them up on that. That's why it's okay for Britain to conquer other peoples and to plunder their resources. (For similar reasons, that's why American (and Canadian) corporations are free to use slave labour or close to it in those countries that are racially inferior - Congo, Guatemala, Haiti.....<br /><br /> The British killed on a massive scale in Africa, India, China.. They forced the people to live on starvation wages, and often in slavery. They created massive waves of starvation (as in India and China). We will never know how many millions were murdered by the British Empire.<br /><br />And a variant of racism extended into Britain, itself. There was a superior class that was entitled to be rich, This was the aristocracy. (It mixed in with - and was often intechangeable with - the capitalists getting wealthy on the empire.) So, in a variation on racism, they looked down on the common people as an inferior race.<br /><br />That justified the wealthy keeping the rewards of empire for themselves, with the majority of the British population living in poverty. Even the army and navy that did all the killing for the upper class got little out of it. Soldiers got a few pennies a day - but were commonly fined for minor offences, with their money going to the colonel. Some colonels also charged the men for the cost of their muskets - a cost it could take years to pay.<br /><br />Marriage was usually an impossibility. However, a thoughtful general staff often sent a large number or prostitutes to accompany the soldiers on expeditions. (And there went another penny.) When their service time was up, soldiers were simply dumped in the street.<br /><br />The navy was similar.<br /><br />Oh, those aristocrats and the sons of the wealthy were automatically officers, no matter how incompetent they might be. The result of that was the rise of some of the wackiest generals in military history.<br /><br />This was very similar to the social structure of Hitler's Germany. It was true all over Europe. Indeed, it still is. The U.S. is no different. And, alas, there is a great deal of this in Canada.<br /><br />Why did Canada send its armed forces to attack Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria? None of those countries was a threat to Canada or to the U.S. (And no, Afghanistan did not set up 9/11). That war was illegal under international law.<br />We sent them because we have an aristocracy of wealth that leans heavily on American good willl. Of course, none of that aristocracy went to the war. They are above that sort of thing.<br /><br />There was, I'm afraid, nothing unusual about Hitler. Trump is an obvious Hitler - but there are other presidents who were very similar to Hitler. You'll find our Hitlers among business leaders who see themselves as a national elite, and you'll find them among the leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties.<br /><br />And that is what has us on the edge of the final war that nobody can win.<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Today's local paper had a letter to the editor attacking the provincial government for having a deficit. It never occured to the writer that the refusal of our upper class to pay income tax, and a government that routinely gives them breaks for other taxes and also hands out grants to them might have something to do with that.<br /><br />But no sweat. We can always cut back on schools, and we can privatize health care.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The one thing Trump did right was to ease relations with Russia. But he's now thrown that away - and for a very trivial reason. I don't know whether Russia tried to influence the American election. But the reality is that is is common for nations to spy on each other, to hack computers, to interfere with elections. In 1954, the U.S. happily invaded Guatemala to throw out an elected government. When Haiti kicked out an American dictator and elected a president the U.S. sent "peacekeepers" to kick out the elected president.<br /><br />It's a little late to get righteous.<br /><br />Oh, if you want to know who really interferes with U.S. elections, check out the Israeli lobby.<br /><br />And now, at a time when we desperately need talking, we're back to snarling.Trump has placed sanctions on Russia; Putin has responded in a hostile way. North Korea test-fired a rocket; Trump is flying bombers over Korea. None of this is going to work. And we don't have much time to come up with something that will work.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/us/politics/putins-bet-on-a-trump-presidency-backfires-spectacularly.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />After all its apologies for the way it has treated the people of its First Nations,<br />Canada still hasn't done a damn thing to help them recover. So much for Trudeau.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/30/canada-first-nations-indigenous-women-inquiry<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />Here is a stunninig sample of what scientists have to say about climate change.<br />But what do scientists know? I put faith in the premier of New Brunswick and Mr. Irving who say it's okay to build another oil pipeline.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />The video here is pretty appalling. But to get a fuller appreciation of the problem, look also at the sites below the video.<br /><br />Slavery is very widespread all over the world. And, yes, it happens in Canada. And it's a huge industry around the world. And the number of slaves is going to grow as the number of refugees grow.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2017/jul/31/why-are-millions-of-people-still-trapped-in-slavery-video<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />A shock for me. Glen Murray has resigned as minister of the environment for Ontario. There's a picture of him on the web - an aging gentleman with thinning and grey hair. "My God,'' I thought. "I taught him at Concordia University."<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Our Hitlers are on the march.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47545.htm<br />_______________________________________________________________________<br />A war with North Korea will not "make America great again." (In fact, what does Trump mean when he says "make America great again?" Is that great as in murdering 200,000 Maya, a million and a half Iraqis, cutting off medicare, cutting taxes for the very rich and so on?)<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47548.htm<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />This has been coming for a while. And it's insane. There is no reason to believe Iran has nuclear weapons. And an attack on Iran almost certainly could not be ignored by China and Russia.<br /><br />(And if the U.S. is so keen on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, why did it allow Israel to built such a huge arsenal of them?)<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47542.htm<br />________________________________________________________________________<br />Send this next one to your local billionaire - if he can read....<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47546.htm<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />For some time now, the European Union has been made uneasy by U.S. aggressiveness. And it's about to get worse.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/with-the-european-union-livid-congress-pushes-forward-on-sanctions-against-russia-iran-and-north-korea/<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />I think t his article is right - that gossip has replaced news. We're encouraged to focus on the trivial. Trump is certainly fun to gossip about. But the real problems we face go much deeper than Trump. The problems are the who social and economic structure of the U.S.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/07/trump-derangement-syndrome-has-americans-fixated-gossip-rather-politics<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Like the U.S., Canada has done almost nothing for the problems of the poor. Why not? Well, there's the problem that governments don't have the money. And that's a result of the fact, still unkown to the irving press, that the very wealthy of these countries dont pay taxes. Nobody knows how many billions are lost to Canada every year. That's why we have seen increases in poverty.<br /><br />The U.S. and Canada are run on pure greed with the wealth of these countries increasingly pocketed by the very wealthy.<br /><br />Do the wealthy, as the irving press tells us, use that money to create jobs? The obvious answer is no. Think hard. If the rich were creating jobs,we wouldn't be getting poorer, would we?<br /><br />This is going to get uglier as we go along. Don't wait for the wealthy or the politicians they own to fix it.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/cathy-crowes-blog/2017/07/we-dont-need-more-studies-homelessness-and-health-we-need<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />And, for a change, here's what could be good news from the Middle East. And it is something favourable to Trump.It's counter to other news I've seen. I don't know whether it's true. ( It contradicts all other reports I've read. But I certainly hope it is true. The best thing we can do now is to leave the middle east alone, and let those people govern their own countries.<br /><br />Bit I can't see the oil bosses allowing a peaceful solution to happen. Trump may be straying onto dangerous ground if he is planning this.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197244.html<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br />Here's the reality of how American and Canadian national governments operate.<br /><br />http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/21872<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />And, yes, we have a variety of Hitlers and aristocrats in our countries. And they behave just like the aristocrats of ancient Rome.<br /><div><br /></div></div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-59501649239144101112017-07-30T10:28:00.000-07:002017-07-30T10:28:00.802-07:00July 30: A Sunday Sermon for New Brunswick.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">To begin this post, go to images on your computer. Type in Raoul Leger Bouctouche. There, probably in the first picture to come up, you will see a handsome and determined young man. That is a picture of Raoul Leger of Bouctouche, New Brunswick, who committed his life to serving others as a lay missionary in Guatemala.<br /><br />That was a dangerous place to choose. Guatemala - and all of South America - was seen by American and Canadian corporations as a place wide open for plunder Notable were United Fruit and several mining corporations.<br /><br />They established brutal working conditions, starvation wages, and were hugely destructive of the environment. Anyone who complained got beaten and/or murdered. The corporations intensely disliked elected governments. Silly governments like that might charge taxes to create schools and hospitals for their people. And the corporations didn't want anything silly like taxes.<br /><br />In 1954. Guatemala had an elected government. That was naughty. So, one day. an army of uncertain origins suddenly invaded Guatemala. It was a pushover. The Guatemalan government had been spending money on its people. It really had no army to speak of.<br /><br />Where did the army come from? That would be the American Central Intelligence Agency, an American government agency widely used to murder, to torture, and to dispose of governments that American corporations don't like. It finances itself with money from the U.S. government, (for intelligence services) and, substantially, from the illegal drug trade in South America. It operates all over the world, but especially in South America.<br /><br />In 1954, it overran Guatemala, and established what billionaires like - a dictatorship. (They would later be involved in the murder of the President of South Vietnam, the country the U.S. army was supposedly defending. In this case, too, they established a series of dictators.)<br /><br />One of the notable chiefs of the CIA in those years was George Bush Sr., one of this world's thoroughly evil men.<br /><br />Our eagle-eyed press promptly printed the official line from the CIA. It was that communists had delivered guns to Guatemala by submarine. Yes. But the guns were all rusted. Haw. Haw. Stupid communists. (Gee! Guatemalans could have used those guns to invade the U.S.)<br /><br />That was the Guatemala that Raoul Leger would go to some 25 years later. It was a country ravaged by environmental damage, by extreme poverty, and by lack of schools and of social services in general. (But United Fruit and the mining companies were happy.)<br /><br />The people of Guatemala were not happy. They wanted their democracy back. They wanted a share of wealth of their country. This was particularly true of the native people, the Maya.<br /><br />And that was a case for the CIA, again. It organized the Guatemalan army to massacre protesters. Before it was over 200,000 Maya. men, women and children would be murdered.<br /><br />The Catholic church in Guatemala, long horrified by the treatment of its people,<br />gave moral and spiritual support to them. But the CIA had an answer to that. It organized a large scale murder of priests and nuns In 1981, Raoul Leger was killed.<br /><br />ALL commercial North American news media ignored the story of Guatemala.<br />All of them. The Canadian government knew what was going on. It knew about the killing of Raoul Leger. It didn't lift a finger or say a word.<br /><br />And the irving press of New Brunswick? Not a word while this was going on. Not a word when activists managed to have his body brought to Montreal for an autopsy. Not a word when his body was brought home to Bouctouche for burial in the Roman Catholic cemetery.<br /><br />Just a few days ago, a woman in New Brunswick was killed in a traffic accident.<br />The fact that she was well liked became the lead headline on page one of the irving press. To this day, if you want to know about the murders of 200,000 people so that billionaires could make even higher profits, you have to go through entries in the web.<br /><br />I thought of this as I remembered that this is the day when the faithful flock to the Irving Chapel to hear an expensive preacher and special music, and to enjoy coffee and socializing in the barn. However, I think it unlikely that the expensive sermon would include any mention of Raoul Leger. But not to worry -<br /><br />- as people leave the chapel, they can turn left and go to the end of the street. There, they will find the Roman Catholic cemetery and the grave of Raoul Leger.<br /><br />And there, I suspect, they are more likely find Jesus.<br /><br /></div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-37565151532011070162017-07-28T12:41:00.000-07:002017-07-28T14:30:08.454-07:00July 28: Extra - and just for New Brunswick.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />This is an extra and unusual edition of my blog.It does not quote any press. And it deals strictly with the press in this province of New Brunswick.<br /><br /><br />The good news is that the letters to the editor section of today's irving press has an intelligent one. It's about water pollution at Parlee Beach in Shediac This letter points out flagrant violations of the law that that extended over years, that denied us information about how dangerous conditions are. We're talking here of illnesses that could already have affected thousands.<br /><br />There's a smell not only of pollution but of gross corruption that allowed the pollution to get out of control. But so far, Moncton Times and Tribune reporting on it has been pretty wimpy. And that's through years of corruption and poisoning. It is not possible that that a newspaper editor, even one with the intelligence of mosquito, could have failed to realize that.<br /><br />We still don't hear of any serious investigation into this. And we are not likely to.<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The irving press no longer carries the commentary columns of David Suzuki or Gwynne Dyer. David Suzuki is Canada's outstanding writer on climate change. (But the Irvings would rather we not think about nasty things like that.) Gwynne Dyer, also a Canadian, is probably the best military analyst in the world. But ALL Canadian newspaper owners, beginning with Conrad Black, fired him.<br />All daily newspapers are, of course, owned by wealthy people. And all of them are used to spread propaganda for the wealthy. The wealthy don't like us to read what Suzuki and Dyer have to say.<br /><br />(As it happens, I had some acquaintance with with both Conrad Black and Gwynne Dyer in my early radio days when the three of us (at different times) were on the same show. I liked Dyer. Black was a man who closed his eyes when he spoke to you because he liked to concentrate on listening to his own voice. He made Donald Trump look humble.)<br /><br />What the irving press does carry regularly is The Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. It's billed as an independent think tank. Like bloody hell it is. In fact, it's not independent. And it doesn't think.<br /><br />Most of these 'think tanks" owe their existence to an extremely wealthy, American foundation called The Donner Institute. And that means most are dedicated to spreading propaganda for the very, very wealthy. Not surprisingly the Irvings have been very prominent in The Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. (Hey! If you can't trust an Irving, who can you trust?)<br /><br />Today's topic is "Higher Minimum Wage Is Bad Policy for Atlantic Canada". Damn right. We don't want all those ordinary people sucking up money that the wealthy want for their secret, overseas bank accounts. These think tanks are, most of them, fronts for the most greedy and disgusting people in our society. And The Atlantic Institute of Market Studies is one of the worst of them. So count on the irving press to carry it forever.<br /><br />Incidentally, AIMS has also supported the movement to united the maritime provinces. What a coincidence! Professor Savoie just a couple of week ago wrote a column advocating such a union. Birds of a feather....<br /><br />Norbert Cunningham writes a column attacking governments for their management of tax assessment. I have never seen a column by Norbie or anybody else at this paper that criticized anything named Irving. For example, Irving worked out a deal with the government to cut the appraised value of over 200 million dollars worth of property in St. John. So now, and for years to come, it will pay only 5 million a year in taxes. (At the same time it is collecting close to 10 million for rental of that property.) The irving press missed that story. But it did run the story that a chamber of commerce hailed Mr. Irving for giving a much smaller sum to a charity. Clap, clap, clap.<br /><br />The Irving official report is that it gives to education, the environment, and the needy. Gee, golly, whiz, if they would pay their taxes, we could look after all that and more. (And Irving protects the environment? really? So the Irving press must have dropped the David Suzuki column because he was to soft on the issue.)<br /><br />The major purpose of commentary columns is to give us a broader understanding than a news column can. But the irving press has nobody competent to do that.<br />_________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />The big, front page stories? A driver was yelled at. Wow! A decision is coming on former Moncton High school. This is news? It's been coming for years. A golfer got a hole in one. Well, that certainly changes my plans for today.<br />A women stole from her employer to buy drugs.<br /><br />Man accused of five sex offences. (What the hell. The story fills space.) Homeless man pleads guilty to panhandling? (How could a modern society have so many desperate people? How could we allow that to happen?)<br /><br />Then there's fearless editorial that we should do better in posting swimming advisories. No doubt. But there's a much bigger story here we aren't getting.<br />Then there's world news. The big, world story is that our elected members of the provincial government did not get a pay raise. The news YOU need to know.<br />Then there's a story that our air force has been flying surveillance planes and jets to fight ISIS in Syrian. Um -that's nice. But it's also illegal.<br /><br />1. To fly anything over Syria without the permission of the Syrian government is illegal. In fact, it's an act of war.<br /><br />2. I do not recall our government declaring war on Syria. But we're a democracy. Our mps are supposed to approve of wars before we move in.<br /><br />3. Even at that, we're still in the wrong because a)Syria has not threatened us and b)the Syrian government didn't ask us. It was the U.S. which (illegally) gave us the orders.<br /><br />I guess nobody at Irving press knows that.<br /><br />One of the t hings our military fought for was the right to declare war for ourselves. But since 1945, we have consistently fought wars as American pet poodles. We have thrown away our independence. And that is going to cost us heavily.<br /><br />It is quite possible the U.S. will nuke Russia and China. They are pushing up to Russian and Chinese borders to equip them with anti-nuclear rockets. The theory is that these rockets would destroy Russian and Chinese missiles but allow American nuclear missiles through.<br /><br />And we have committed Canadian troops to be in the border area. That's called preventing a Russian invasion. More accurately, it's called helping the US to provoke a war. But the irving paper don't tell us about that.<br /><br />But the big, world news story is that a St. John boy says he was born here and wants to work here. This is a news story? In fact, there's nothing in the whole section. This is a newspaper quite deliberately designed to keep readers in the dark, to keep them passive and ignorant of what is happening<br />.<br />We are involved in the dreadful slaughter in Yemen. (We illegally sold armoured cars to Saudi Arabia for that war.) Saudi Arabia are fighting a war for reasons we have never been told about. They are deliberately starving millions of innocent men, women and children to death. And they are saturation bombing towns and cities - the best way to kill civilians in large numbers - and to leave a heritage of millions of unexploded mines and cluster bombs and depleted uranium.<br /><br />(Japan has approved the dumping of massive quantities of nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean. The irving press has not thought that worth mentioning.<br />It seems likely that the U.S. has lost any hope of making Syria and American oil colony. Putin has bluntly told the U.S. to back off. That whole string of wars beginning with Afghanistan has been a strategic disaster. Every one of them has been lost. And, as a side effect, stability in both the middle east and Africa is collapsing.<br /><br />But not a word in the irving press.<br /><br />We are facing food shortages - NOW - in much of the world. They are going to get much worse as climate change destroys farmland. (It's already happening in places like Somalia. but who gives a damn? Right?<br /><br />But it's also happening in the western and central U.S. Droughts are becoming regular. The great, underground reservoirs of water that farmers depended on (that's why they have those little windmills) are almost exhausted. And they're too deep to be refilled in any lifetime. What will the U.S. do for food? What will its cities do for water?<br /><br />Think Great Lakes. Think annexing Canada to the U.S. And that is not by any means just in a distant future.<br /><br />Thinks of the tens of millions of refugees becoming hundreds of millions. Does Canada, New Brunswick, Moncton have any plans for that? Any thoughts from the irving press or the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies?<br /><br />Think of the rapid increase in the population of a world that is already dangerously overcrowded.<br /><br />No. Our newspapers and politicians and the billionaires who own them are not interested in planning for anything. They live in a world they want to go on exactly as it is now except, of course, for lower pay for the poor, and the privatization of medicine.<br /><br />We have enormous problems facing us. You think billionaires can solve them? The you'll just love Donald Trump. (There's no reason for believing that billionaires have any special talent for running anything. Most, like Trump, are billionaires because they were born that way. (My father was a mechanic and a welder. I have no talent as either of those. One of my ancestors was world weightlifting champion. I need help to open a can. The Rockefellers and the Rothschilds have been born as billionaires for well over a century.) What it takes to become super wealthy is to have an obsession fuelled by greed that makes everything else irrelevant. Take a good look at Trump. That's what he's about.<br />The purpose of the irving press is not to inform. It is not even to make money - and I suspect it doesn't make much. The purpose, almost the only purpose, of the Irving press is to keep people in ignorance, to keep them as willing puppets controlled by the owner of the province.<br />_____________________________________________________________<br />Addendum<br /><br />Earlier, I suggest that decisions of the very wealthy are commonly based on greed. I'm not sure that's entirely true. Something more important might be status and recognition. Take Donald Trump, for example. Here's a man who screams for status and recognition.<br />He ran for president without having anything that could be called a political philosophy or a programme. He was born rich, so rich that he had not need to left a finger for anything. Now, look at his personal obsessions.<br /><br />He had to have a beautiful wife. Not just good-looking. Not even just beautiful but a beauty queen. There is no reason to suspect any affection between them. It's a deal. She gets money. He gets status.<br />And note that she does not seem to have permission to get older.<br />He not only likes to fondle women and makes passes at them. He likes to talk about it. That's not greed. That's status-seeking - though admittedly of a crude sort.<br />He loves to bully people in public. Status again.<br />Thought already wealthy, he took on a job on a popular TV show. That's status.<br /><br />If he made a 100 billion dollars, ,he would still be seeking status. his drive for the presidency was not based on a political philosophy. He has no political philosophy. But, oh, he needs status.<br /><br />This, I suspect, is a common denominator in the drive of the very wealthy. Put another way, they are too immature to be greedy.<br /><br /></div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-6190885415232697212017-07-27T10:56:00.001-07:002017-07-27T10:58:04.105-07:00July 27: this time, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad me.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Today (July 26) there was an infuriating letter in Letters to the Editor for the Moncton Times and Transcript. It was especially irritating because it reflects the views of over 75% of the Canadian population.<br /><br />It attacked the Canadian Supreme Court for awarding 10 million dollars in damages to Omar Khadr. It's a vicious letter written in ignorance of Canadian law, international law, and in ignorance of the principle we told our veterans they were fighting for in World War 2. (Remember that when some twit of a politician says on Nov. 11 that we remember their sacrifice and the principles they fought for.)<br /><br />We don't. We never have.<br /><br />1. Omar Khadr, whatever you think of him, was a Canadian citizen. Canada is a free country. He's allowed to have whatever politics he has.<br /><br />2. He was legally in Afghanistan.<br /><br />3. The U.S. military was NOT legally in Pakistan. a. There is no evidence that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11. Indeed, all the signs are that our good friends in Saudi Arabia were behind it. In any case, the American invasion had nothing to do with 9/11. The decision to attack Afghanistan was made some four years BEFORE 9/11. (Check Project for the New American Century.) The early plan to attack Afghanistan was no secret - except, perhaps, to the ace commentators of the irving press.<br /><br />Afghanistan was no possible threat to the U.S. That means the invasion was illegal under international law. Also remember this on Nov. 11 - The US did not seek UN approval. In fact, it ignored the UN as it has in most of its invasions. Think of that when you remember what our veterans died for.<br /><br />The official figure for Afghan civilians killed in the illegal American invasion is about 30,000. The reality is almost certainly over a hundred thousand.<br /><br />http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan<br /><br />So there was Khadr, like him or not, who was legally in the country with a building full of people who were attacked and murdered by U.S. troops. (Yes. Murdered. That's what it's called in an illegal war.) Khadr, badly wounded (and only fifteen years old) was captured.<br /><br />Did he kill an American? I don't' know. The US made him confess to it, but only by extended torture. (Also illegal.) He was also (illegally) imprisoned for years. I don't know whether he killed anybody. But what would you do if you were illegally attacked by U.S. soldiers as everybody around you was killed?<br />Stand up and sing God Bless America?<br /><br />And he was kept in prison for years after though he was never found guilty of anything. (Torture doesn't count in a democratic legal system.)<br /><br />The Canadian government knew all about this from the start. It had a legal obligation to protect a Canadian citizen. And it didn't lift a finger for years. That's why a court in a democratic Canada ruled in favour of Khadr. And democracy, by the way, is one of those little things our veterans fought for.<br /><br />Instead, a majority of Canadians are reacting to the illegal American mass murders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen as cheerleaders. Incidentally, all those wars were fought without UN approval. On Nov. 11, remember that. A UN to prevent war is one of the things our veterans fought for. But instead of standing up for what they fought for, most Canadians are wagging their little tails like the colonial poodles they have become.<br /><br />And there is going to be one hell of a price for that. The British still kiss up to a U.S. that deliberately impoverished Britain after World War 2. But the rest of Europe is getting restless. The U.S. has effectively destroyed the UN. It sees itself not as a leader of the world, but as the ruler of the world.<br /><br />And it can't do it. For a start, the U.S, for all its wealth, has only 4% of the world's population. And the American people don't want these wars. That's why the U.S. army relies on mercenaries (hired killers). In any case, any world war this time would almost certainly go nuclear.<br /><br />If you want to remember our war dead of 1945, do it by demanding that our government preserve what those soldiers, sailors and airmen were told they were fighting for.<br /><br />A footnote to this is the American approved and assisted mass murder of 200,000 Maya people by the Guatemala army. When the Catholic Church in Guatemala tried to defend the Maya people, priests, nuns and missionaries were murdered, too.<br /><br />One of those killed was a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government knew all about it; but it made no attempt to protest on the behalf of a murdered Canadian citizen. The news media of North America never mentioned that mass murder. (with the exception of a brief reference in the New York Times almost 30 years later.)<br /><br />To this day, the irving press has never had the integrity to tell us about that lay missionary, not even when his body came back to New Brunswick for burial.<br />And why were all those people murdered? It was because they were becoming angry at the brutal treatment and the environmental damage they were suffering at the hands of Canadian and American mining companies.<br /><br />But why bother with a murdered missionary where the Irving Chapel is just down the street with coffee and fellowship in the barn, the best preacher money can rent, and "special music". (After all, that's what Christianity is about.)<br />________________________________<br />But we probably won't change our thinking. Us humans are like that. We think in pure emotion, in prejudice, in bigotry. We all do. In 2,000 years, the message of Christ has never been able to get past our prejudice and bigotry. (And our churches have rarely tried very hard to get it past those.)<br /><br />When we think of bigotry, prejudice, greed, mass murder, illegal aggression, the use of armies to help the wealthy loot the world, we automatically think of Hitler. Loosen up. Most of us are like that. Thus the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire - and the American Empire. They were all Nazi. And yes, they all carried the stain of Nazi racism.l<br /><br />Yes, I quite understand that the rulers of China and Russia are very similar in that respect. That's why we cannot afford to go on allowing the destruction of the UN and of the principles that so many Canadians died for.<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />A footnote. Today's Moncton Times and Transcript has one of its ass-kissing editorials. It tells us we must not tighten taxes on the rich because they create wealth for all of us.<br /><br />What an ignorant and servile statement!<br /><br />Throughout history the rich have created wealthy for themselves by impoverishing the rest of us. We had a break after World War 2, but it lasted less than a generation. Since then the wealthy have reverted to the old game of avoiding taxes, and paying salaries as low as possible. And the result is there has been a rapid drift of all wealth into the pockets of the rich. Even an irving press editor should have enough brains to check the figures on that. We're watching it now as Sears get ready to dump employees into the streets while, at the same time, giving lavish bonuses to senior executives who drove the company into bankruptcy.<br />And the rich pay "huge land taxes"??? Did the editor miss the recent story that our provincial government has recently agreed to allow the irvings to skip millions in land taxes?<br /><br />The wealthy do NOT create wealth for us. They never have in all of human history. WE create the wealth. They suck it up. That's why our schools and hospitals don't have enough money. That's why a university education is such a crashing expense.<br /><br />Gee! I wonder who pays the salary for that editorial writer. And who pays for the Liberal and Conervative governments who make that possible?<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Hypocrisy in action. The man who blows up babies in Syria and starves them to death in Yemen takes a stand against birth control and abortion. (So it's okay if you kill them after they're born.)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/27/trump-global-gag-rule-sexual-health-women-ugandan-in-jeopardy<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />And here's some good reading for the editorial writer of the Moncton Times and Transcript.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/27/donald-trump-tax-cuts-rich-america-lower-taxes-deregulation<br />_____________________________________________________________________________<br />Britain is sending its newest aircraft carriers to the South China Sea to counter Chinese claims to sovereignty over those waters. Sounds reasonable?<br /><br />Would it sound reasonable for China to send a fleet contesting the right of the U.S. to claim Hawaii? Would it sound reasonable for China and Russia to send fleets to Venezuela to prevent American interference in that country's turmoil?<br />And if China is in the wrong, is it reasonable to use warships to deal with it? Considering the possibilities of warlike actions going out of control and and even causing nuclear war?<br /><br />Isn't this the sort of thing the UN was intended to deal with?<br /><br />And why is Britain taking the lead? (Because the U.S. told it to. and Britain, the country whose empire was effectively destroyed by the U.S., and which now survives as a colony of the American Empire.)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/27/britains-new-aircraft-carriers-to-test-beijing-in-south-china-sea<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />I don't disagree with the item below. But it seems to fall way short of a mark that Canada implied when it at last apologized for its treatment of native peoples. We were going to do something about the years of abuse and neglect of native peoples. Okay. We got the message.<br /><br />So where is the plan?<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/canada-first-nations-hate-speech-bobby-cameron<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />Not far from where I'm writing this, eight, gigantic Right Whales have been found, dead, this year. It is quite possible that another species is about to become extinct. And we shall all pay a price for that.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/27/only-whales-left-in-museums-natural-history-museum-hope<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />The rich will make all of you rich says the Moncton Times Transcript. That's a crock says the article below.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/policyfix/2017/07/living-wage-has-potential-shift-story-poverty-manitoba<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Gee! Here's a story that even the irving press missed.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/koch-brothers-tax-reform-plan-grassroots-document/<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Now, here's a story about chemical poisons, especially those affecting our forests. The government of New Brunswick, though, has already settled the problem in this province by firing the health officer who raised these issues.<br /><br />This province is almost unbelievably corrupt (and timid).<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/chemical-industry-herbicide-poison-papers/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />I have rarely seen a news commentary as honest as this one.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/john-mccain-fake-maverick-horrible-record/<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />While we are working full time at killing each other and finding new ways for the wealthy to rip off everybody else, there are really some bigger problems that we should be dealing with.<br /><br />http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/27/biological-annihilation-on-earth-accelerating/<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />It's been known for a long, long time that the Syrian rebellion against the government of Assad was created by the U.S. - just as its been known that the "news" agency often quoted by our press for reports on Syria is a creation of the 'rebels'. None of this has made our news, but the information has long been available. And so hundreds of thousands have been murdered, and millions made refugees.<br /><br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47507.htm<br /><br />Think a bit about it. Who stood to gain from the war in Syria? And in Libya? And in Iraq? Big oil. That's who. Who stood to gain by murdering 200,000 Maya? Big mining.<br /><br />I don't suggest that the super-wealthy are evil. (I leave the name-calling and bigotry to them.) But it is surely obvious that we cannot survive if we continue to permit the power of big money to control our governments and almost all of our news services.<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47514.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />I was going to criticize this one at first. But it convinced me. I don't agree that the wealthy are born deranged. But they do become so. And I'm afraid that mechanism is built into all of us - that sense of privilege, of superiority.... And it's triggered by being born into wealth and power. That explains the behaviour of the many, many arrogant twits who ruled the European empires and who now rule the American empire.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47515.htm<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Here, I enter a whole copy of a newspaper because it gives a sense of the chaos in the U.S.<br /><br />Yes, Trump is a disaster. But there has been no presidential choice for decades who was NOT a disaster. The problem is not one man. The problem is a nation that is so brainwashed that it has almost no sense of alternative choices.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/<br /><br />(New Brunswick has been governed by it's own boring Trumps since Louis Robichaud stepped down.)<br />_______________________________________________________________<br />Another story that never made the irving press.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197144.html<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />The U.S. has, for over fifty years, been deliberately impoverishing Cuba as punishment for kicking out the murderous dictator the U.S. had given it.<br />Despite that, Cubans still have things that Americans cannot afford - like health care for all, and free education to the end of university.<br /><br />Gee! It makes me wonder about that editorial about how the wealthy make us all rich.<br /><br />http://www.voltairenet.org/article197183.html<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />And it looks as though the U.S. has lost another war.<br /><br />http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/1.803772<br />_________________________________________________________________<br />Watch for three major problems that are shaping up in Israel.<br /><br />1. Israel has been carrying out a military occuption of Palestine for over 50 years. It has used that occupation to impoverish Palestine. It has also used it to kick Palestinians off their own land, and annexing it to Israel.<br /><br />2. The U.S. has poured money into Israel (because it needs Israel for a foothold in the region.) It has given nothing to Palestine (the people whose land that west happily confiscated to create Israel.)<br /><br />3. As a result, the Palestine is in a severe economic recession. And violence is the only option that has been left open to the Palestinians.<br /><br />I can't think of a better way for the U.S. to produce more recruits for ISIS.</div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373697047018228084.post-18460995823879596282017-07-25T12:45:00.002-07:002017-07-25T12:45:58.017-07:00July 25: A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Sorry for the long intro below. It's a sort of history of the world since 1914. It's necessary because the news media never mentioned most of this.<br /><br />For those who have netflix, there's a wonderful propaganda film of World War Two called Why We Fight (the battle of Russia).<br /><br />In 1930s and even into the forties, Russians were evil, vicious people. Then Hitler invaded Russia. Thus this propaganda film from the U.S. showing Russians to be a gentle, smiling people, much given to charming folk dancing. They were 'folks', just like Americans.<br /><br />That image lasted until the war ended. Then Russia was evil again. Film and the news media are used to manipulate our thinking. and they're very good at if. So let's take a quick look at the reality of the last hundred years.<br /><br />World War 1 broke out in 1914. Why? The official line is that all those countries that went to war had no choice. When Archduke Ferdinand was killed, they all depended on railway schedules to mobilize their troops. So when one side mobilized the others had to follow.<br /><br />Well, yeah. But they had been preparing for that war for decades. It could scarcely have been a war over railway schedules. And it wasn't. Germany had united some 50 years earlier. It quickly became a major industrial power. That made it an economic threat to the factory bosses of countries like France and Britain. If could even cut into the British Empire. That's what caused the war.<br />So why did it take the U.S. so long to got to war against the evil Germans? That's because the U.S. didn't care - until it saw the need to get in on the action to get some share of the wealth that Europeans were moving in on in places like the Middle East.<br /><br />(Oh, I know. The U.S. said it went to war because a German submarine sank an American ship. It's true. It did. But countries need an excuse to get people to go to war. And no country tells its real reasons for going to war.)<br /><br />1939 was 1914 all over again. It had nothing to do with Hitler's treatment of the Jews. The rise of the Naziis, in fact, was watched with happiness by big businesses because a strong Germany would be a barrier against Russian 'communism'. Henry Ford was a big supporter of Hitler for that reason, and because Ford was a rabid anti-semite.<br /><br />But, in the long run, Britain and France could not allow further German expansion. it threatened their own industries, and even their empires. Thus their declaration of war.<br /><br />The U.S. happily sold weapons to Britain. It was good for profits. But, more important, if Britain and France fell, their empires would be wide open to American take-overs. So the U.S. stayed out of the war.<br /><br />But it could not stay out of the Pacific war. For many decades, American companies had wanted control of the China market, the market that had made Britain so wealthy. That's why they took over Hawaii as a naval base way out in the Pacific. I wasn't to defend the U.S., not way out in the ocean. It was to attack China when the time was ripe. The U.S., of course, was quite aware that Japanese business leaders had the same idea. That's why, in 1919, the U.S. began building a navy designed to fight Japan. It built aircraft carriers. It built ships with very long range for Pacific duties. It built a large number of fuelling and other supply ships.<br /><br />Sure enough, the Japanese invaded China. The American empire felt China slipping away. That's why, in late July of 1942, the U.S. put an embargo on oil sales to Japan. The Japanese had to respond because they could not conquer China and most of the rest of Asia without that oil. Their response was Pearl Harbour.<br /><br />The American leadership had not expected that response. But there were those who were pleased because this was the excuse they needed for a war with Japan to be followed by an American conquest of China. Accordingly, when, late in the war, the British returned to the Pacific, president Roosevelt told them not to liberate Hong Kong, the treasure pot that gave the British the enormous wealth of China. The U.S. empire was going to move in and take over that part of the British Empire. (But Churchill ignored the order. The British, led by a Canadian ship, moved in to take Hong Kong.)<br /><br />However, the U.S. was still determined to make China a part of the American empire. So it financed and equipped a Chinese dictator named Chiang Kai Shek, a murderous drug dealer on a huge scale, to defeat Mao's communist army, and to deliver China into the American empire. But Chiang lost. It was a loss that broke hearts all over Wall St. which had been waiting to loot China as the British had.<br /><br />The U.S. also entered the European war at the end of 1942. But it was not to save Britain. It was to add much of the middle east and of Africa to the American empire. In fact, while the U.S. gave huge gifts to help Europe recover from the war, it gave almost nothing to Britain. American leaders joined the European war largely to cash in on the decline of the British Empire.<br /><br />The British empire largely collapsed. And Britain, itself, became a handmaiden to fight American wars (as in Afghanistan and Iraq.)<br /><br />Another reason American big business wanted to enter the war in Europe was to stop the expansion of Soviet Russia. It was Russia that did the greater part of the fighting against Germany. There was every danger it would occupy Europe as part of a Russian empire to compete with the American economy. And that would not please Wall St. because Wall St. in the U.S. leaped to the conclusion that this was the time to make the U.S. the leader of an empire of the whole world.<br /><br />NATO immediately became, in effect, the European/Canadian section of the American Empire. The wars in Korea and Vietnam were fought because they would give the U.S. bases for an invasion of China. The U.S. is now attempting a similar arrangement with Ukraine and eastern Europe.<br /><br />In the late 1990s, very far right wing Americans stepped up the wars for world conquest with their "Project for the New American Century". That is what led to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria.<br /><br />In other words all the wars since 1914 were fought to make very wealthy capitlists into very very wealthy capitalists.<br /><br />And the whole plan is in real trouble. Americans have had enough of war. That's why slightly over half of the American army is made up of mercenaries. (hired thugs, very expensive ones). And the favourite method of fighting is by saturation bombing which kills mostly civilians. But it's acceptable back home because it's just the other side that gets killed.<br /><br />Our great hope in 1945 was the creation of the United Nations to end wars. At best, it would have taken a good fifty years and more to get it working. But that's what our soldiers, sailors and airmen were told they had fought for in world war 2.<br />But the U.S. quest for world domination has seriously crippled the UN as it is helpless to stop the wave of American wars. To top it off, the U.S. itself is a fading power, largely because of the very foolish policies it has followed, especially since 9/11. Trump is not the cause of the collapse of American democracy. No. He (and Clinton) are products of that collapse.<br /><br />And it could well be the collapse of the last western empire. And that would be tragic because the Chinas of this world are as badly governed as we are.<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />Canada in recent years, though full of promises to native peoples, has done almost nothing to repair the damage it has done to them. (You'll note this story was not in my local paper, the irving press. Though the NY Times has been known to have large gaps in its coverage, it is still far the best of the American mainstream dailies.)<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/23/world/americas/winnipegs-treaty-payments-meager-reminder-of-a-painful-history.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=10&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F23%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fwinnipegs-treaty-payments-meager-reminder-of-a-painful-history.html&eventName=Watching-article-click<br />____________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/25/vatican-turns-off-historic-fountains-amid-rome-drought<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/mar/18/worst-mediterranean-drought-in-900-years-has-human-fingerprints-all-over-it<br /><br />Yes. It's happening. And it means human suffering, millions more of refugees, and wars. It means serious reduction of food supply. And, yes, it will effectively destroy much of Europe and Afria and the U.S. and Latin America.<br /><br />But the New Brunswick government has things under control. It favours more pipelines and oil development. Makes sense. I mean, it creates jobs.<br /><br />When do our governments plan to get serious about this? When do we start to take this seriously? When do we take back control of our own countries?<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />Capitalists create jobs and bring prosperity.. Like hell they do. Capitalists are blood-suckers That's the reaction of a leading British businessman as he expresses fears of American takeovers of British businesses. However, it's hard to feel sorry for British capitalists when they have been ripping off the world for several hundred years while doing nothing for their own people.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/22/uk-business-chief-warns-against-us-trade-deal<br />___________________________________________________________________________<br />It is probably better to get old in Cuba than in the U.S.<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2017/jul/18/social-work-cuba-fidel-castro-ageing-population<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />Canadians are so nice.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/07/omar-khadr-forced-surf-wave-canadian-racism<br />________________________________________________________________________________<br />One of the greatest threats facing Canada is the power of Canadian and foreign companies to penalize Canada for protecting its environment. But we don't' see much about that in our news media.<br /><br />http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/06/how-nafta-surrenders-canadian-energy-sovereignty-and-gives-us-control-over-our<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />This one didn't make my local paper.<br /><br />https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/07/25/walking-conflict-interest-fossil-fuel-industry-lobbyist-now-second-command-interior<br /><br />What we are watching in the U.S. is the destruction of all that makes a functioning society possible. All that exists is greed and plunder. We're seeing increased destruction of the environment, medicine acting as a source of wealth rather than of healing, massive redistribution of wealth from almost all the population to a tiny number of very, very wealthy..... And the Democrats are not significantly different.<br /><br />The politics of greed are destroying the U.S. - and Canada and most of the world.<br />You might want to read all of this issue of Common Dreams. And, no, the New Brunswick Liberals and Conservatives are not going to be any help-.<br />And the NDP and the Greens are both going to have to get much more tough-minded than they are.<br /><br />I'm not talking here simply about making improvements. I'm talking of survival.<br />_______________________________________________________________________________<br />It's hard to tell when oil executives are evil or just made stupid by greed.<br /><br />http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/07/24/opinion/big-oil-committing-fraud-stay-business<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />Israel's Netanyahu abuses Palestinians much as Germans abused Jews in the 1930s. It's understandable. Jews have passed through centuries of hatred - and they know the only reason the U.S. supports Israel is to use it help sustain an American position for control of the Middle East. They also know the west did nothing to help them in the 1930s and 40s. Israelis have become a hating and distrustful people - and we made them that way.<br /><br />https://theintercept.com/2017/07/19/netanyahu-tells-european-leaders-concern-palestinian-rights-crazy/<br />_________________________________________________________________________________<br />It's a secret, but only from us. The US has been arming, training and paying the Sytrian terrorists fighting against the Syrian government from the start. It is also arming and paying the ISIS fighters. That's been known for a long time - but our news media have ignored it.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearingh<br />ouse.info/47507.htm<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47508.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />The American wars in Afghanistan and the middle east which began in 2001 have been a series of disasters for the U.S. It has killed, certainly, over two million people. and it has gained nothing at all.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47512.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />In a democracy, whether we like or dislike another country, we have a right to criticize it But the U.S. government is closing in on that with a law imposing heavy fines on anyone who conforms to a UN proposal to cut off trade to land which israel has stolen from Palestine.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47499.htm<br />______________________________________________________________________________<br />Another war is on the horizon, the U.S. against Iran. Is Iran a threat to the U.S. No. It's a relatively small country. Who would benefit from such a war? ISIS would. ISIS gets its recruits and its money from all those Muslims who resent the American slaughters of Muslims. Without that, ISIS would pretty soon fade.<br />As well, the U.S. has a problem it does not seem to have recognized. It has only 4% - that's all - of the world's population. For all its air power, it almost certainly could not beat China or Russia in a conventional war - and they might well feel they would have to intervene if the U.S. invaded Iran.. Such a war would become nuclear. And nobody would win it.<br /><br />http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47500.htm<br />__________________________________________________________________________________<br />Meanwhile, chaos in the Middle East continues as Israel, most recently, has bombed school buildings in Palestine that were designed to also serve as civilian bomb shelters. Israel knew that because it had inspected and approved them. But it bombed them anyway.<br /><br />Whose bright idea was it to plant Israel in Palestine where , after all these years, war still threatens? If we wanted Jews to have a homeland, couldn's we give them part of a big country like Canada or the U.S.? After all, the Jews of Europe had little connection with the middle east. There were Jews in Palestine, But these were Jews who had lived there for several lthousand years, and who lived in peace and even friendship with their arab neighbours. Giving that land to European Jews to control was bound to result in the hatreds and brutality we see today.<br /><br />There were two reason for creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine.<br /><br />1. ALL western Christian nations were Jew-haters. That includes Britain, Canada, and the U.S. None of them would accept Jews. I commonly saw that anti-semitism every day in Montreal. It was especially strong among the wealthy. That's why Lord Balfour proposed a Jewish homeland back in 1917. It was not to help the Jews. It was to get rid of them. (Hitler, though we like to forget it, had many friends and admirers in the west.)<br /><br />2. As a secondary benefit, Balfour felt that Britain, if it created a separate Israel, would provide an ally for Britain as it moved in on middle east oil. Britain was in no position to do all that that after World War 1. So the U.S. stepped in and did it after World War 2.<br /><br />As a result, we have what should have been obvious, a constant trouble spot - and a spark constantly ready for a major war.<br />_______________________________________________________________<br />Oh, something I've been thinking about. Whenever the The Canadian Legion goes public, it's always to take a self-righteous stand - as in the case of Omar Khadr. They should think more about what we owe to those who fought for Canada.<br /><br />They did not fight to capture a 15 year old boy. They certainly did not fight so he could be tortured. They did not fight so that he could be jailed for years with no trial. Those who fought and died for Canada did not do it so that billionaires could destroy our environment. They did not do it so that billionaires could become increasingly rich at the expense of the rest of us.<br /><br />This Nov. 11, let's get past the shallow sentimentality. Let's get serious about what we told them they were fighting for. Let''s really honour them.<br /><br /></div>Graeme Decariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06387255602086172912noreply@blogger.com1 |
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 |
And, We're Back |
Hi. I am back in America. |
Couple things... |
Just in case there was any confusion: |
Being able to SEE Russia does not constitute "foreign travel" nor does Putin flying over your Home state mean that you have experience with diplomatic relations. |
Please vote for Obama. |
Please go register to vote. Like, right now if it is before 5pm where you are. |
Please do not buy a pair of eye glasses that look like Sarah Palin's because she wears them. |
Please do not be enticed by the fact that she is a "MILF." |
Please be afraid that she could be the President. |
Please do not confuse her for a feminist. |
Please go to places like Pennsylvania and Ohio and knock on doors and tell them. |
The whole world is watching. No, seriously, it is, and shooting Moose while various animal species are dying off warms my fucking cockles. I don't know about your cockles. |
(Yes, I understand that she has probably been to Canada.) |
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