Today's headline is
about the premier of Alberta meeting NB premier Gallant to discuss
the delicate issue of a pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick. It's
“in the best interest of all Canadians”. Then there's the
editorial - a scare editorial about our need for oil and for
fracking. “Will we be able to heat our homes this winter?”
O-o-o-h. The front page of Canada&World has the story “Study
finds bans on shale fracking are needless.” Three prominent and
major and favourable stories about fossil fuels. And that's not a coincidence. It's
even possible that the orders for this came from the concerned
'environmentalist' who owns Brunswick.
The editorial and
the fracking story both cite a report from a 'think-tank'. That too,
is not a coincidence. They refer to it as a conservative think tank
and also as a right-leaning think tank. It's actually neither. It's a
greed think-tank, nothing more. Like the Conservative party, it has
nothing to do with conservatism. And the term right-leaning can mean
anything depending on which way you lean.
It's the Fraser
Institute. And what it does is pump out propaganda to please greedy
and irresponsible billionaires. That's what most think-tanks are,
because only the rich can afford unlimited spending to create this
propaganda and to order their newspapers to print it. They're just
like our very own Atlantic Institute of Market Studies. They are
propagandist, and they lie. They also have people with
distinguished-sounding names from the academic world, and even more
distinguished titles the think-tank gives them.
Well, it's always
possible to find a professor for sale. That's part of the untold
story of how our universities have fallen under the control of big
money, usually with leadership roles in university boards of
governors, perhaps with honorary Ph.D.s, and with a crashing
ignorance of what universities should be about.
The thrust of these
three 'news stories' is clear. The big push is on for the Energy East
pipeline, and for fracking in New Brunswick. Mixed in are soothing
words about the environment. Well, we can trust those. After all, our
political and business leaders have done a wonderful job over the
last few decades to clean up and protect the environment. Right?
And it wasn't just
the Conservatives who screwed up. Justin Trudeau works for the same
gang. And he knows he knows they own him. Even the NDP premier of
Alberta is on board – as founders of the CCF/NDP turn in their
graves.
There have been kind
words for the environment in the Irving press. But damn few and far
between. And there's been lots about how it's okay to burn more oil
and do more fracking. It's obvious who owns the Irving press and
everybody who works for it. The modern, mass newspaper dates back to
the 1890s, and it was lying and manipulating from day one. The Irving
press is not the only one. It's just one of the worst – the paper
equivalent of Fox News.
There is a reality
we are not hearing about. The climate IS changing. And it is almost
certainly too late to stop it from changing. The best we can hope for
is to keep it from getting much worse. That's a reality.
We also have to make
drastic changes in the way we live. We cannot go on using the earth's
resources as we do. Every resource, including oil, has limits. There
is no point in babbling about how developing resources creates jobs.
This earth is limited in what it can give us. We have to face what
most of us were told to face when we were children. You can't have
just anything you want.
That's the kind of
world we have to plan for. We aren't doing it because big money
doesn't see any way to make money out of that.
As a tiny example,
Dieppe raised a considerable length of road across the marshes this
summer. That was to avoid flooding. Okay. What's going to happen as
ocean levels rise – and they are rising? That does not seem to have
been taken into account in the planning. Nor did the Brunswick news
story on the building of a bridge across the river mention that.
We've had forty
years of warning – with little action, and with Canada and the U.S.
as leaders in doing nothing. And with most of the news media either
playing down to the need to plan or even saying there is no need to
plan. Our business leaders are among those who are carrying out
massive environmental destruction in places like Latin America and
Africa. I have never seen this reported in most of the news media.
And I have never seen anything about how that destruction affects us,
all of us.
We have to plan for a different kind of world. And we probably don't
have much time to do it. And we should have figured out by now that
big business doesn't intend to do any such planning.
A4 has a big story,
with photo, of a woman who's retiring after 40 years working for Tim
Horton's. It's a gripping tale.
The only story of
interest in Section A is that Notre-Dame-de-L'Assomption cathedral
will be holding a free concert on Nov. 21. ( I have a weakness for
the sound of a good, Casavant organ. I even played one once, but
nobody applauded.)
Sorry, I skipped an
important story on A3. It's a press conference held by the wife of an
RCMP officer who was killed a year ago when he was only recently
returned to work after treatment for PTSD. This is more common than I
had realized among first responders like policemen and firemen.
Apparently, the existing workmen's compensation act imposes severe
financial hardship on them and their families. She's looking for
public support for a provincial Bill 51 to improve on that situation.
This is news. This is the sort of thing we need to know about.
I have already
discussed (disgust?) the editorial. I should add it has a display of
ignorance in the last paragraph. It says too many people speak of the
need for “social licence” to carry out fracking. But nobody knows
what that term means. Well, the editorial writer is the only person I
have read who doesn't know the meaning of that term – or of much
else. The term refers to a community's willingness to accept a
certain corporate activity within its boundaries.
(I wonder if the
editorial writer knows what a community is? Or a boundary? Or any of
them other big words?)
Norbert has a good
column on health care. The only weakness is he can't help blaming the
civil servants for what is wrong about health care. Norbert,
politicians make the decisions.
Cole Hobson doesn't
really have a commentary. But at least it's funny. It's about how
Whoopi Goldberg thought Moncton was in Ontario when she thanked our
firemen. What's funnier is that a commentary just yesterday, was
raving about how this would put Moncton on the map, just like the
events centre.
Justin Ryan has a
column to provoke some thinking. Japan is a very insular society.
The appearance of a foreigner in many parts of Japan is cause for
amazement and curiosity among the locals. He sees Canada, I think,
as a more tolerant place because it has such a mixed population. I
don't think so.
Canada has a long,
long history of intolerance. We certainly have never been tolerant of
our own native peoples. New France would not accept settlers who were
not Roman Catholic. The British accepted Jews after they conquered
New France – but only because they were British Jews, because they
were very few, and because they brought investment. But when European
Jews, mostly poor, began coming in the 1890's, they were heavily
discriminated against. For long periods of time, Canada has also
discriminated against Blacks, Ukrainians, Chinese, Japanese,
Italians, you name it. Nor was this discrimination simply
unconscious. It was enforced by limiting jobs they were allowed to do
– ever notice all the Blacks who were missing for most of the
history of the NHL? Many Canadians of foreign origins were needlessly
put into concentration camps, refused entry to restaurants and
hotels, forced to live in slum areas.
For an illustration
of Canadian attitudes just after World War One, read J.S.Woodsworth,
“Strangers Within Our Gates”. One doesn't expect bigotry of
Woodsworth. He was a political activist, anti-war clergyman of
immense kindness, concern for the poor, self-sacrifice. And this is a
book about how he and the kindest, most intelligent Canadians of 1920
or so thought of people who were different from “us”. Nor have
things changed. Harper ran his campaign heavily on hatred of Muslims.
And hatred of Muslims was almost certainly a big factor that cost the
NDP in Quebec for Mulcair's support of Muslims.
Alec Bruce has an interesting column that begins as hero-worship of
Trudeau and Gallant. Then he points out that we know little about
what they stand for – and that there are some basic issues to be
faced – by them and by us.
For Canada and
world, there is no world – except for one story about more
stabbings and more shootings in Israel.
But despair not.
There's a big story from the bigger world of Prince Edward Island.
It's a speech by that province's premier – in which he says nothing
whatever. Apparently, he will be host of the next meeting of Atlantic
premiers. Bring a pillow, Mr. Gallant.
B4 has a story that
the Quebec government has given one billion dollars to aero giant
Bombardier. That's a lot of taxpayer money. But Bombardier has a
history of getting taxpayer money. Founded as a humble maker of snow
scooters, Bombardier exploded into an industrial giant in the last 50
years or so.
And this has
something to do with Quebec separatism.
The great myth of
Quebec is that the English are all rich, and the French are all poor.
That is not true, and never was. Check the old census figures for
that. Most anglos were at the lowest level of the working class. In
fact, at that level, the French were a little better off.
Both French and
English had wealthy upper classes. But, since big business in
Montreal was trans-Canada and even world-wide, the language of big
business was English. More important, it was the English wealthy who
had muscle in federal and provincial politics. And that meant they
had lots of nice connections to get taxpayers' money. And that often
left the province's wealthy French out in the cold.
This was important
in the rise of separatism. And it is not a coincidence that the man
who rose to a dominant position among separatists was the very
wealthy Jacques Parizeau. Making Quebec entirely French would drive
out the wealthy English whose companies had to operate in English.
Making it a separate country would deliver political muscle to the
wealthy French. The rise of Bombardier, with helps from the
provincial government fits right into that period. But….
Bombardier operated
around the world. As well, Quebec was far from able to produce enough
French-speaking engineers and other specialists. They had to come
from all over the world, too. And most spoke English. And they wanted
their children to go to English schools.
The bulk of the
separatists were not wealthy people. They insisted that all such
technicians speak only French, and send their children to French
schools. So the government told Bombardier to Francizate its whole
business. Bombardier told the Quebec government to stuff it. Then it
bought a disused airfield just over the border in Vermont, and
threatened to move there. The Quebec government backed off.
That's what I like
about New Brunswick. It doesn't use language hatreds to manipulate
people.
I'm sorry to take so
much time on that, but I don't know what to say about a Canada&World
section that has nothing to say about anything. In fairness, though,
it has a big story about nothing in the Oland case, and a big column
on how bicycling is fun.
______________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, there's
some kind of important news from Britain. The Chilcot Enquiry has
been investigating the reason given by Tony Blair and George Bush for
going to war in Iraq. Meanwhile, here's a report from a very credible
reporter. The sources are good. It's from BBC which I often caution
against. However, it sometimes tells the truth – and this is a
story it would not dare lie about.
Tony Blair (and
George Bush) lied to create a war that killed over a million people
and destroyed a nation. That's called a war crime; and it's a hanging
offence. Funny how the sharp-eyed news editor at Irving news missed
this. (Of course, he also needed the space for the article on
bicycling is fun.)
The U.S. has
introduced ground troops into the fighting in Syria. It also demands
that Assad resign BEFORE peace talks are held. I can't imagine a
better way to turn that war into a world war. Here's the take of The
Guardian on it.
Then there's a book
about evil incarnate. I have not read the book. It's new. What's
below is a review of it. But much of the material in it seems to be
about things I have known about but have never appeared in the
press.
The story below is
about the Chinese-American confrontation in the South China Sea over
some islands China is building. I suspect a court would find China in
the wrong. Certainly, an international court is where this should be
handled, and with the UN handling it. The U.S. does not have a badge
to roam the world taking wrong doers to task. All over the world, it
has acted as if it had a moral right to be a vigilante. The U.S.,
pushed by arrogance and pure greed with a strong dose of Protestant
fundamentalism, has killed millions and frequently risked world war,
and always to benefit its wealthy.
Finally, the Irving
press also missed the story about China's abandonment of its one
child per family policy. (Actually, that was the policy only in
cities. Rural Chinese were permitted two children.) I have a certain
gratitude to the system because it gave me a delightful
granddaughter. But it was certainly a terrible choice to deal with a
terrible problem.
The original choice
was done not out of cruelty, but out of fear of a population growth
that the country simply could not feed. Nor was the whole world
craving to adopt Chinese children any more than it is now seeking
Syrian ones.
I'm happy that they
changed the system. I'm also scared because they have not solved the
problem. You've never seen a crowd until you've walked the streets
and the beaches of China. More people is a recipe for terrible
suffering, for violence and, probably, war.
I can't even pretend
to have any idea of what should be done. Abortion, of course, will
continue on a massive scale even with two children permitted. And it
will probably do little diminish the abortion of girls. (Boys are
important to Chinese families – which is why China now has a large
number of men without women.) It's easy, either way, to criticize
China. But that's rather like attacking environmentalists. The
question is – what is the alternative?
One last time, with feeling.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXY23gsHXXo