It's New Year's Eve,
and I've been chauffering visitors all day. Fortunately, there is
little to be said about the Irving press. There is nothing worth
reading in Section A news. And there is only one opinion column worth
reading. It's on A9, and it's about dementia and altzheimer's. (or
maybe I'm just getting sensitive about the topic.)
What is does have is
an editorial cartoon that is well drawn – but spreads an ignorance
that is already too well-spread.
It shows a
fighter-bomber flown by a grinning Putin. For many years, aircraft
have carried decals to indicate how many of the enemy the pilot has
shot down. In this cartoon, as the bombs drop, the decals are of men,
women and children. There is really quite enough ignorance and hatred
in this world without adding to it.
Aircraft have been
killing men, women and children for over a century. And they have
been doing so deliberately for over a century. But perhaps the great
turning point came in 1942 when Britain, the U.S. - yes, and Canada,
too – decided civilians would become the main target of bombers.
(And, yes, I did say Canada.)
And the biggest
killers by far have been the western powers. They have killed
millions of innocent men, women and children since World War 2. They
are still killing today with bombs and aerial mines dropped in 1960.
Today, Canadians are dropping bombs in Iraq. Could we have a funny
cartoon of them? Today, Saudi Arabia is dropping bombs on children in
Yemen, bombs sold to it by the U.S. How about a neat cartoon of one
of those starving kids with his stomach blown out?
It's bad enough that
we cannot see evil in ourselves, only in others. There is a terrorist
attack in Paris, and the whole of the U.S. is living in an hysteria
of panic, fear, hatred...and never a thought for the millions they
have killed, and go on killing every day.
We don't need any
more fear and hypocrisy and blood lust than we already have. A
cartoonist is supposed to have the guts to show us the unpleasant
reality that we don't want to see.
World News doesn't have any – unless you consider the last page of
it which is one of the biggest stories in the section. It's about how
cute cats are. And it has 6, colour photos of cats being cute.
The only other bit worth reading is in C2. It's a column by student
columnist Aurelie Pare. It's about how young people should be taking
up environmental issues. But they aren't. They've been raised to
believe in only brainless entertainment and consumption. In short,
they are far too much like their parents.
Fortunately, there
are other newspapers in this world.
The Guardian has the
story of severe and unheard of flooding in Northern England and
Scotland. The reason for it, according to the British government and
British scientists, is climate change – very much like the terrible
storms the U.S. is getting. But we don't need to worry. I'm sure Mr.
Irving wouldn't allow anything like that to happen here. Anyway, we
know this is all just a lot of busybodies worrying about nothing.
Anyway, if we get diesel buses, I'm sure that will take care of the
whole thing.
Whenever a nation or
a religion get angry at us, our news media invariably plant all the
blame on them, and they commonly pronounce the other side as driven
by evil. That's, to put it kindly, simple-minded.
The opinion column
below explains how the disruption of Muslim society began a century
ago with deals made by the British and French to create new countries
in the middle east, often with phony kings, and then to exploit those
countries. That's true enough; but it doesn't go back nearly far
enough. The British, for example, ruled their empire by setting
religious groups against each other. That is what has led to Hindu
India and Muslim Pakistan pointing nuclear weapons at each other.
It was all made
worse, much worse, by the U.S.-British invasions of Iraq and
Afghanistan. The best way to understand that is to read books by
people on the other side, or friendly to the other side. For that
purpose, the best book on China I've seen is Wealth and Power. And
I'm just now reading one by an American historian who grew up in
Afghanistan. His analysis of that country's problems and the origins
of them is quite different from the western one. It's Tamim Ansary,
“Games Without Rules”.
I really didn't want
to publish the next excerpt. It's an opinion from al Jazeera. I had
hoped to find something cheerier for New Year's Eve. I can only
remind readers that we are the ones who set all this in motion. It
started with the British in India, the British and French in Africa
and the Middle East, and now the Americans who really blew the lid
off with their very foolish invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm
not sure the author is right about ISIS continuing to grow for years
to come – but there's no doubt we have created a situation in which
that might happen.
So, what's the
biggest problem facing us in 2016? It's not ISIS. It's not war with
China or with Russia. The most immediate problem face is the
political power of big money. When we go rid of most kings and
aristocracies a couple of hundred years ago, we thought we were
establishing democracies. We really didn't.
The dominant power
in our society became big money. I don't call it capitalism, because
it isn't capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system. That's all it
is. When it begins dictating policy to government, it's making
itself a political system as well. But big money's only interest is
bigger money – and making it now. It has no understanding of social
needs, and no morality to make up for that lack of understanding.
Nor does it have any understanding of foreign affairs except as a
means to make money for the already wealthy.
For at least 200
years, big money has dominated almost every aspect of our lives, a
domination that was enhanced by the development of cheap newspapers
just over a century ago, and now by TV and film. Big money is the
force behind imperialism – and the prime beneficiary of
imperialism.
The idea that we
fought two world wars to bring democracy and equality to the world is
simply not true. It is true that we restored democracy to a few
countries, like France, that had lost it to Germany. But the only
country to get freedom and democracy for the first time was India –
and it got them only because the British could not longer stop it.
Africa had to fight for what freedom it got – and it didn't get
much. Latin America remained under the domination of American
dictators and puppets.
We should remember
those who served. But we do nobody any good in pretending that they
died to preserve democracy. We should remember and we should feel
indebted to them – but we should remember the truth.
The world is in
great turmoil. It's in turmoil because so much of the power in this
world is not in the hands of government, but in the hands of greedy
and incompetent and murderous asses who constitute the very wealthy
of this world.
Free trade
agreements have been used to take power away from our governments,
and give even more of it to the wealthy who answer to nobody. 2016,
if it sees the approval of Trans-Pacific and European trade deals,
could see the final step in reducing national governments to
irrelevance. (Even as it is, the power of big money has made the
American leadership race into just another piece of bad TV.)
That power, lacking
in intelligence and morality, has created all the other problems we
face, including climate change and international war. And for proof
of their lack of intelligence and morality, read tomorrow's (or any
day's) edition of the Irving press.
Thanks for all you write Graeme.Have yourself and your family a joyous New Year.
ReplyDeleteThank you. But it doesn't have to be joyous. I'll settle for quiet.
ReplyDelete