But the Irving press spares you the pain of too much reading.
It's foreign news isn't
really foreign at all. In fact, I'm not sure there is such a thing as foreign news any more. isn't even next door. And that seems likely to come home to us right here
in Moncton very, very soon. That is a reality of today's world that seems not to have
struck home to the Irving press which still reads like a 1920s,
small-town booster sheet.
Today's front page
has a lead fearlessly explored by two-fisted reporter Brent
Mazerolle. “New Codiac RCMP HQ planned for 2019”. Eat your heart
out, Clark Kent.
Then “Gallant
hopes to bolster climate policy.” That's a pretty wimpy statement
in view of the fact that we have known there is a severe climate
crisis for decades. And we know it will affect even Moncton. (Yes, it
will.)
Then, for the third
day in a row, we have the story about Whoopi Goldberg and the Moncton
firefighters – two days of ms. Goldberg saying “thank you”, and
today's of the firemen saying “you're welcome.” Is this the end of
the saga? I doubt it.
Finally, there is
almost a page and a half about hub schools which tells us nothing
whatever. It doesn't even tell us what a hub school is. It has a
brief interview with Paul Bennett who has more than a little
expertise on this subject. But I guess the reporter didn't have
enough time to listen to him. It tells us nothing, and it's so long
that very, very few will read it. And maybe that's the idea of the
story – to kill interest in defending rural schools.
Oh, and the government says it can't afford to keep the schools open
because of the deficit. Right. We can afford to give away money in
the millions to Atcon, to offer great, forest deals to Irving, to
consider cutting taxes to the wealthy, poor dears. We can even afford
to let them get away with their billions in tax havens. But, sorry,
no seats on the gravy train for the poor, for children, for rural communities.
The editorial
bravely tackles a burning question of the day. How can we sell more
eels?
Norbert gives us
1920s small-town boosterism beginning with the impact that Whoopi
Goldberg will have on the world's view of Moncton and, of course, a
cheer for the events centre.
In a desperately
over-written high school essay, Rod Allen carries on the small-town
boosterism theme. But at least it's not his usual overwritten,
gawdawful humour.
I skipped the guest
commentary. It's from the Fraser Institute, a propaganda agency for
the wealthy.
Alec Bruce has the
only column worth reading.
De Adder has a funny editorial cartoon of a schoolchild writing on
the chalkboard, “Literacy is some good” This is, of course, in
reference to poor literacy scores in our schools. I would suggest
just a small change. It should not be a little boy doing that. It
should be his parents and Premier Gallant writing on that chalkboard.
And I can tell you now, it's going to get a lot worse as we close
rural schools.
Canada&World
News has only two stories worth reading. (Okay, three if you count
the soap opera we call the Oland trial.) The other two are about
Russia.
One is that the
Islamic state is recruiting fighters in Russia's North Caucasus. The
other is that Russian intelligence says Taliban may invade Central
Asia. Contrast these two stories with the American accusations that
Russia is helping ISIS in Syria.
In fact, the Islamic
state is a bigger threat to Russia than it is to the U.S. Its spread
to Russia or anywhere in proximity to Russia would be a direct threat
to the existence of Russia. Like the U.S., Russia is involved in
Syria to protect its interest in access to middle east oil. In
neither case is there a love story here.
Our news media
routinely portray our side as the good guys in a war against evil
guys. Offhand, I can't think of a war that has ever been fought for
love. (Well, maybe Mark Antony and Cleopatra).
People have
certainly thought they were fighting for good causes. And, certainly,
that has always been the message of politicians and news media on all
sides. But it's rarely true. I can remember Hollywood films like
Eagle Squadron about how Americans flocked to Britain in 1940 to
defend Britain, and pretty much destroyed the German bombers all by
themselves.
In fact, the U.S.
had no interest in defending Britain or France or anybody else. If it
had, it wouldn't have waited until 1942 to do it. Even during the war
and after it, the U.S. made strenuous efforts to grab pieces of the
British and French Empires (Hong Kong, Vietnam, Egypt).
Churchill and
Roosevelt told us this was a war to bring freedom, democracy, and
equality to the world. Neither Britain nor the U.S. (nor France)
willingly gave freedom, democracy or equality to anybody. Britain had
to be kicked out of its empire (with the exception of India which was
big enough to tell the British to scram.) The U.S. clung to its
dictatorships and puppet rulers (and still does) throughout Latin
America, overthrew democracy in Iran and Egypt, maintained a puppet
ruler in The Phillipines, fought in Korea to maintain a dictatorship
in South Korea, murdered an elected president in Vietnam to establish
a military dictator. France had to be kicked out of French Indo-China
and Algeria after wars that featured torture on a grand scale.
On Nov. 11, we will
be told, again, that our soldiers, sailors and airmen died to bring
freedom to the world. And that is certainly what they thought they
were dying for. The believed our political and business leaders who
told them that. But our political and business leaders (and our news
media) were liars.
Nov. 11 is a day of
remembrance for those who well deserved to be remembered. But it is not a
day for the glorification of war.
(Tony Blair, by the
way, may soon face a report that could charge him with war crimes and
result in the death penalty. Funny how the Irving press has never
mentioned that. And such a charge would also implicate George Bush.)
Since World War Two, our
political and business leaders have made one hell of a mess. Freedom
is in retreat, led by the U.S. and Britain along with Canada in
Harper's time.
Extremist Islam
exists because we created it with our interference and killing and
greed. Saddam Hussein existed because the U.S. created him to invade
Iran. That invasion is what caused Iran to think of developing
nuclear weapons. Iraq is in turmoil because the U.S. destroyed it as
a nation. That's why it's now turned to Russia for help. (something
else the Irving press has never mentioned.)
The Taliban was
equipped and trained by the U.S. in order to stop the Russians who
were invading Afghanistan. The Taliban became the armed force that the U.S. and
Britain (and Canada) are unable to defeat to the present day. And
now, even the U.S. supported government of Afghanistan is asking
Russia for help against the Taliban.
The “rebels” in
Syria were created by the U.S. in order to destroy the legal
government of that country. As a result of all the interference of a
century, of the games played by big oil to destroy any possible to
threats to its profits, the whole region is fractured by religious
differences but almost united by a general hatred of the west and what it has done to them.
Are there
terrorists? You bet. The biggest one, by death count, is the U.S. Are
there Muslim extremists? Yes. One of the worst is the king of Saudi
Arabia.
The final attack on
what happens to be a largely Muslim world was begun by George Bush
and carried on by an Obama (who has not been a tower of strength).
The future of the U.S. and perhaps of us is in the hands of a small
number of multi-billionaires. And the recent Republican leadership
debates have been no cause for optimism.
Recent news suggests
Israel has entered at least one of the middle east wars with drone
flights over Iraq. There are also stories of Israeli soldiers
attacking ISIS troops in Iraq. In the most recent, there is a claim
that a Colonel of the Israeli army has been captured in Iraq,
fighting on the side of ISIS!
I have no idea how true this is. I do know there have been many other stories of Israeli involvement. And we do know that Israeli drones have been in the war zone.
I have often read a New Brunswick news sheet called Media Co-op, and found it good reading. Now, a reader has told me it appears in a much wider edition on the web. So I read it, and found it quite good. It's URL is below.
http://www.mediacoop.ca/story/meet-canada%E2%80%99s-ruling-oligarchy-parasites-plenty/10917
As a child, I knew that Naziis tortured prisoners because Naziis were evil. But our side would never do that. The reality is that just about every army uses torture. Torture, mutilation, murder and rape are standard practices. For just a sample, google World War Two British torture. It's done to prisoners as government policy. It's done for the fun of it. The US was torturing long before Afghanistan. It goes back at least to the Phillipines War in 1900 - and probably back to the earliest European landings in the Americas. Scratch the 'probably'. Christopher Columbus was a world class torturer, murderer and thief.
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There's piles of stuff to write about today. There's piles of sites I could send you to. But I'm seriously thinking of having a life, too. So here are three papers that are great reads today, and you can get them on google. The Guardian uk, Haaretz, and al Jazeera. All three are excellent. All three have some surprising news, today. And lots of it.
In The Guardian, take the time to look at one of the British news stories as well as the commentaries section. British news has the story of rising poverty in Britain accompanied by the diseases associated with poverty back in Victorian England.
There's a striking resemblance between the government of Britain today and the government of New Brunswick all the time. At the height of the British Empire, very little of the profits from the colonies ever reached the mass of the British people. They lived in dreadful conditions, suffered chronic hunger, and lived short lives. Even the soldiers who made all that wealth possible were simply dropped when they were no longer useful, many of them to die in the streets. All that money went to the already rich who (I have no doubt) occasionally tossed the poor a few coins, and then set up philanthropic halls of fame to congratulate themselves.
The British made some advances (like medicare and better housing) in the early post-war years. But the rich are back in the saddle again. Anyway, these are tough times, so the poor have to pay for them.
And that is exactly the posture of just about any government in the history of New Brunswick, including the present one.
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