It is now 2:15, and
my breakfast copy of the newspaper has still not arrived. I am told
it may come at 3 p.m. It will not be delivered to my door in this
large building. We we haven't had delivery to the door since
December, and never before 11 a.m. or so. Irving press is one hell of
a bad newspaper chain from editing and leadership, to bad (and worse)
news judgement, all the way to top management. The vice-president is
a person who rose from cub reporter to his present position with
remarkable speed. It may be because he is the most brilliant news
manager in world history. Or it may be because his last name is
Irving. (Nah. Can't be that. We all have equal opportunity in this
wonderful land.)
The front page sets
the tone for the rest of the paper. The big, smashing news of the day
is that our premier is going to meet with seniors on Friday. They've
been asking for a meeting for weeks. I wonder how long Mr. Irving
has to wait for a meeting with the premier. (or, perhaps, how long
the premier has to wait for a meeting with Mr. Irving.)
Fans of AC/DC are on
their way to Moncton. Who woulda guessed? And there's a photo of
three people who are organizing a fund-raiser for support of the
families of military and police.
I'd be more
impressed ---
1. if families of
military and police didn't need charity to survive.
2.if organizations.
like “Lest We Forget” would really remember all the veterans and
question why they were sent to risk their lives, health and sanity to
fight American wars. To remember them is to remember all of them, and
to remember our responsibility to make our decisions on whether they
should be sent.
3. if the people of
Moncton were to demand to know who sent three police armed only with
pistols to arrest a man who was known to have at least two rifles.
4. if the people of
Moncton were to demand to know where he got those rifles, how
available such combat rifles are on the market.
5. if the people of
Canada were to demand to know why Harper destroyed almost all records
of who owns such guns.
And the rest of section A news is just as informative.
There's a nothing
editorial on Resurgo Place. The editorial suggests it will revive
downtown and the Main. I have no idea why that should be true.
Norbert writes
another commentary on Right to Information from governments. He
really has nothing to say except to attack university teachers who do
research. I don't know what New Brunswick is like, but in any
research I did in Quebec and Ontario, I was almost invariably allowed
to go to the shelves and get it. And, if I needed advice, it was no
problem to get it. And I was never charged to get it. Such charges
could be quite a burden for research-oriented professors – and
would be a disaster for graduate students doing research.
I really don't
understand why we should require permission to see information about
the actions of democratically elected people. Information we can't
see should be very exceptional. As a general rule, it should be on
the shelves, and we should be allowed to look at it if we want to.
(Yes, of course there will be exceptions that might require
permission. But there's no need to make exceptions the rule.)
There's a
particularly objectionable comment “...much of it is faculty
getting the government to do their research for them – free.” No,
Norbert. It's government providing a service that is essential –
just like parks and sidewalks.
I wonder when
Norbert will write a column on Mr. Irving getting something free from
the government.
Cole Hobson has an
almost childish commentary on how local baseball players do us proud.
I liked baseball. I liked playing it. I like watching it. I had a
brief acquaintance with the best fastball pitcher I ever saw. It's
fun. But why on earth should it make us proud?
He also says team
sports are a great way to build relationships and learn life skills.
That's bunk. The value of sports to build character, life skills,
etc. was an idea invented by the British aristocracy to raise
themselves above the working classes. That's why the Olympics were
originally intended for amateurs only. It was to keep out the
peasantry who could afford to play only if they were paid for it.
That's how football became an important university sport – because
way back it was amateur and for the “better sort” only. To this
day, there are two categories of cricket players in Britain –
'players' and 'gentlemen'.
The guest commentary
is on surgical wait times. It's okay – but doesn't say much.
Alec Bruce has a good column on retirement and the coming bulge of
baby boom retirees in New Brunswick. He thinks many of us should
work past retirement. I think he's right. Retirement is boring. It
just turns us into people who sit in a corner and mumble to
ourselves.
Canada&World has
always been uninformative, but it's become truly awful in the last
few months. Perhaps the most gripping story is on B4 “Pope pops
out of Vatican to get new glasses”.
On B1, Omar Khadr
wants his bail eased so he can visit his family in Toronto. No
response yet from Harper. And there may not be one. Harper is a big
talker, weak on doing. Khadr should never have been imprisoned. He
was fifteen. It is against international law to put a fifteen year
old in a military prison. He should never have been tortured. That's
against the law, too. Did he kill an American? We don't know. He
confessed only to end the torture. And the trial at which he
confessed was a purely military tribunal – which operates well
below the standards of a criminal court. And if he did kill an
American, he was being attacked at the time by Americans who were
shooting at him. What would you expect a 15 year old to do? Throw
flowers?
Under the law ( and
with any decency), Harper should have demanded that Khadr be returned
to Canada immediately after he was captured. But there wasn't a peep
out of Harper. And when he was released to Canada, Harper should have
been him in rehabilitation. Instead, he put him into maximum
security. Khadr should have been a free man long ago. But he still
isn't. And he's not likely to be as long as Harper is still kissing
the American rear end.
(Yes. I know some
readers don't like Khadr because he is accused of killing an American
soldier. But the law has nothing to do with who we like or dislike.
Besides, American soldiers have been known to kill and rape people by
the millions.)
B3 has an important
but incomplete story about a three-year old refugee boy whose body
washed up on a beach in Turkey. His brother died at the same time.
The younger one caught world attention in a photo of his body as it
lay, lapped by the sea.
Next to it is a
story “Harper says beach image heartbreaking, steels resolve to
fight ISIL”
Harper is a callous
liar – at several levels.
His resolve to fight
ISIL amounts to a piddling six fighter-bombers, an insignificant
force in the region. And those fighter-bombers are creating refugees
just like that boy who washed up on the shore. And, for that matter,
they're killing innocent people on the ground. That's unavoidable
with aerial attacks.
To make it worse,
killing ISIL people will NOT bring peace. Western behaviour over the
last century is what created ISIL and what will create worse ISILs if
we go on behaving this way. In fact, there seems to have been direct
American involvement in the creation of ISIL just as there was in al
Quaeda and other 'terrorist' groups.
Harper's 'steel'
resolve has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. And it certainly
has nothing to do with helping the millions of refugees because
Canada has not done a damn thing to help them. The few who do make it
to Canada can expect to find themselves, the whole family, committed
to prison until their cases can be examined in -----maybe six months,
maybe a couple of years. Maybe forever if you're a woman wearing a
veil.
Harper's help, or
lack of help, for these people is contemptible. This is typical of
Harper – the big mouth, and the lack of action unless it's to help
billionaires and the American Empire.
And billionaires and
the American Empire are really what our air force is fighting to
defend in the Middle East. We aren't helping refugees. We're creating
them. We aren't there to bring peace because, for a start, no amount
of killing is going to bring peace.
We're there to keep
control of oil in the hands of western oil billionaires. That is why
a 3 year-old washed up on a Turkish shore. That, and and cutting off
any Russian oil billionaires from getting into the European market by
sending it through Syria, is why tens of millions are fleeing their
homes and dying of starvation, exposure, drowning, disease. And
Harper knows all of that.
In his commentary,
Cole Hobson says our local baseball players do us proud. Perhaps, in
some circles, they do – a little bit. But Harper's behaviour and
our acceptance of it does not make me proud. And it should make all
of us ashamed.
It's possible I know
at last one of our pilots in the Middle East. I taught some of them
in military history. They were good kids, intensely proud of being
Canadian, and intensely proud of heading for a life of service to
Canada. It made me proud just to know them.
But I know they
never planned to serve billionaires, to kill randomly, to create
millions of refugees, to starve innocent people, and to start a three
year-old on the voyage that would lead to his body washing up on a
Turkish shore. They were made to do it by immoral bastards like
Harper and Obama and Bush.
As a footnote to
this, it could get a hell of a lot worse. Harper, with his big talk
and little action in kissing up to oil billionaires has put us in a
terrible spot. We are now committed to two, battle areas that have
nothing to do with us. At least, not unless you're earning at least a
million dollars a year.
We have forces
committed to Ukraine and Iraq. The conflicts there have nothing to
with us. Both conflicts were created by U.S. interference. Both
benefit only the very rich. There is nothing in it for most
Canadians, nothing in it for most Americans. But if things go wrong,
and they almost certainly will, Harper has committed us to the
greatest and most destructive wars the world has ever seen.
And please don't
tell me ISIL is wicked. Think first about the little girl in
Vietnam, running and screaming down a road as she was consumed by the
flames of American napalm. Think, too, about the millions of dead in
Vietnam, Central America, Iraq. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen,
Somalia. Think of the torture cells. Think of the respected
psychologists who trained the torturers. Think of countries like
Haiti held down in deep poverty and short lives by the U.S. with the
help of Canadian 'peacekeepers'.
The Brief, from
nbmediacoop for September has a short but compelling story
A nun, Sister Stella
Matutina talks about Canadian mining companies in The Philippines who
dump their hazardous wastes on the shores and in the waters of the
region. There's nothing new about that kind of dumping, or about
Canadian mining companies being involved in it.
One of my daughters
worked for a time in an African country. The shores were lined with
monster dumps of hazardous wastes brought by ships from Europe and
North America.
In 1993, Canada sent
peacekeepers to Somalia, a country on the Arabian Sea. You should
find the official record if you google Veterans' Affairs Canada. (the
official record dances around an outstanding event of that
peacekeeping – Canadian soldiers tortured, then beat a Somalian
teenager to death for no reason.)
Peacekeepers were
sent partly because of civil war in Somalia, but also because pirates
operating from Somalia were a severe threat to shipping in the
Arabian Sea. That's what our news told us. But it never told us why
so many Somalians became pirates.
It was because
mining companies from around the world were dumping their hazard
waste, mountains of it, along the shores and in the sea off Somalia.
Farming land was destroyed. The fishery was destroyed. And, for most
people, there really wasn't much else in Somalia.
Canadian companies
are big in mining all over the world. And they have a long history of
polluting, impoverishing, and dumping everywhere they go. People who
complain can get killed. And often do. Sister Matutina has been
threatened many times. And it's not just threats. 100 activists on
her home island have been killed just in the past two years. (But
don't worry. No clergy in New Brunswick have ever been threatened.
And, as long as they write tweety-bird sermonettes, they're safe.)
Much of the waste
dumped in The Phillipines comes from Canadian-owned mines in other
parts of the world, including Canada. And the Canadian government is
complicit in it, even though the practice is banned by international
convention.
And just wait for the Trans-Pacific partnership deal to go through.
It will make Canada, itself, a legal dump for hazardous waste.
Then there's an
interesting post. It's in a site I treat with caution, but Paul Craig
Roberts is extremely well-informed, and I have found his columns
thoroughly professional and honest.
And the general
lesson from all this?
No society can
survive an economic system unless there in (honest) governmental
control of it. Invariably, lack of such control leads to unending
wars, and dreadful exploitation. That applies to ANY economic system.
Capitalists who babble about letting the market decide are really
saying “ We will decide.” And the decisions the 'market' makes
inevitably end in suffering and killing.
In a democracy, we
expect governments to decide. If the decisions are made by “the
market”, then we don't have a democracy. That's why we can see the
decay of democracy all around us.
We vote for a
government because we expect it to make decisions for our well-being.
“The Market” doesn't do that. And those people who have come to
make “market” decisions have no interest in us – only in
profit. And you can see the results of that all around you.
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