Jan. 30: Damn!

The Irving press still runs its useless Wild Readers of the Week on A3. It's a contest in which schoolchildren race each other to see how many books they can read in a week. It's supposed to encourage literacy. It doesn't. All it does is to give the Irving press a chance to lie to us that it cares about literacy. Come off it. If this province did become literate, nobody would buy the Irving press.

I remember this phony education stunt from my own elementary school days, and then from my teaching days. It does NOTHING to spread literacy. The only reason gor this story is to show what a great bunch of guys and gals there are are the Irving press.

Almost all the stories are trivial, of the “Little girl loses school lunch” variety. There is surely real news to report. For example, every province and city is supposed to have some plan to help slow climate change. What's the plan for New Brunswick? For Moncton?

What's the plan for housing in this city? It can't go on just spreading duplexes and bungalows forever. That's a 1950s idea. We need something more suitable for a mass transit city. Which reminds me, when is this city going to stop talking about mass transit, and do something about it?

What is this city and this province doing about the homeless? And why is feeding the hungry left up to charities? When Mr. Irving wants a forest, we virtually give it to him at a low rate. How come the hungry have to go to charities while the rich and well-fed get government handouts? One might say that as well about the new hockey rink.

Any news on the chemicals we're being sprayed with? If (which I doubt) it is true that Dr. McCleary was fired because the specifications for the job were changed, how come nobody at the Irving press has asked what those changes are and why they're been made? There are surely no legal restrictions on that.

Then there's a half-page ad from the government about the coming budget. And it is one hell of an empty, propaganda ad.

It opens by saying we spend more on interest for our debt that we spend on post-secondary education.

So? What's that supposed to mean? It's one of those statements that seems impressive, but actually says nothing. It could mean, for example, that we don't spend enough on post-secondary education. Or, perhaps it could have said we lose more money because of tax-evasion by the rich than we spend to pay the interest on the debt.

Then, also in advertising double-speak, it says WE must choose to make deep cuts to education and health care or fire civil servants and raise the HST.

Those are false choices. It could as well have said, we must make the very rich pay their taxes. Or we must cut things that are less important to our society than education and health care – things like watching a hockey game in a hundred million dollar hockey rink.

Finally, in a display of ignorance of what democracy means, the ad concludes “WE have a choice to make. Let's make it together.”

No, Mr. Gallant. YOU have a choice to make. YOU ran on a platform, presumably one that indicated some sort of principles on your part. YOU are the one who accepted the responsibility of making these choices, and You are the one responsible for them. WE don't have a choice to make. YOU do. That's why I voted against you. Saying we should make these choices together is a cheap fraud, an attempt to dump responsibilities on us. No, baby. You're the one who ran to govern according to your social values (Whatever and if they might be.)

Besides, it's wildly unrealistic to think that the average New Brunswicker has anything close to the expertise this issue needs. For Pete's sake, Gallant, almost half the population is illiterate. To plan and implement a budget, you need one hell of an expert civil service – the very people you plan to fire.

If you're looking for money, Gallant, have the guts to look where it is. You don't once mention the role of the very wealthy in all this.

The editorial is quite a decent and reasonable one.

Alas! Below is another el cheapo column from the rich man's friend, the Fraser Institute. This is another one to push the big nose of private business into our health system.

Brent Mazerolle again contributes a charming story guaranteed to offend nobody except, possibly, the squirrels he reports on.

Below him, in every sense, is a column by the CEO of what he calls a survey and opinion company.

Unfortunately, his topic is not about surveys or opinion. It's about how we need more 'entrepreneurs' (why is he afraid to say capitalists?), and less government. He provides no evidence whatever for this conclusion.

And the reference to survey and opinion work is not entirely honest. The company is much more a servant of the 'enterpreneurial' world than the writer suggests.

Janet Moore's column on New Brunswick families and the oil fields is a slice of reality that is worth reading. I'm not sure it's really a commentary. But it's worth a read.

Canada and World has almost no world – and nothing important about Canada. Well, maybe the story about Canada and the war against ISIS. Obviously, the U.S. is putting very heavy pressure ono us to play a very active and visible role in the fight against ISIS.

John Kerry was very recently on TV in a speech to say Canada MUST join the fight against ISIS. It was obviously designed for a Canadian audience – and Canadians should have been furious, Where the hell does Kerry get the gall to interfere in our democratic process? Can you imagine the fury if Trudeau went on American TV to encourage the U.S. to to get out of Syria? It was outrageous behaviour. But our wimpy press didn't say a word.

Now, really, ISIS comes nowhere close the military power and wealth of the U.S., let alone power and wealth of the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey and The Netherlands. So why all this pressure on Canada not only to take a role, but to make it a prominent one?

Because this is not a war against ISIS. It never was.

The war in Syria began with a “rebellion” by groups who were financed and armed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The 'rebels' were standard terrorists and mercenaries. The purpose was to get Assad out because he maintained trade relations with Russia – and U.S. oil billionaires wanted to control that oil.

That is why so many men, women and children have died, and many, many more have had to flee to a world that doesn't want them.

You want to find what evil means? Don't waste your time on the Faith page. Evil defined the wars on Vietnam and Libya and Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria. Evil was Guatemala, Haiti. Evil was attacks on Cuba which was punished by the U.S. for breaking away from its dictators who were imposed on it by the U.S. Evil was what caused the British and American overthrow of the elected government of Iran, and the imposition of a dictator. Evil was the torture used and still being used by the U.S. Evil is the chaos we have helped to create in the middle east.

Why the hell can't you preachers on the Faith page get out of your tweety bird cages and say that? Luckily, today's Faith page has two stories on Pope Francis – who seems to be the only Christian leader who has something intelligent to say.

Almost every American president from the start has been dripping in blood spilled to please big money. Even the American revolution was fought to give American 'entrepreneurs' the power to expand over all of North America, murdering on the way the native peoples whose lands they stole, murdering Canadians (which we wimpishly celebrate without ever considering the meaning of it). Then murdering Mexicans to steal half of their country and stealing all of Hawaii.

And, as Mr. Kerry has not-so-subtly warned, Canada had better join the parade in Syria.

When ISIS appeared on the scene, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were happy to support it. ISIS could do the dirty on Syria, kill Assad; then the U.S. could take out ISIS. But then Russia stepped in. So now the U.S. has to take out both Russia and Assad.

Peace talks have begun in Geneva. They'll fail because the U.S. wants them to fail. So does Saudi Arabia. Peace talks will work only if they result in Assad stepping down to make way for an American puppet. Russia is not likely to support that. Nor is the bulk of the Syrian population.

Capitalists ( let's skip the entrepreneurs crap) with enormous power want that oil. That's why so many have died. That's why millions are refugees. That's why our governments talk about climate change, but don't do anything.

This is as evil as anything the world has ever seen. And we are being asked to join it along with Britain and France and The Netherlands so the U.S. can give Russia the message – you fight me – you fight my gang. Putin is not likely to be bluffed. Nor is China.

What will Canada do? The Liberal and Conservative parties are made up of people who play machine politics. (and there are more of a similar type in the NDP than I care for.) Justin Trudeau and Dominic Leblanc are simply groomed-for-TV versions of the type, and lightweight ones at that.

To enter this is to take part in evil – and to send Canadians to die for it, just as we did in Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with defending our country and, certainly, nothing to do with God. It is pure greed and evil.

And, with just one more step, this is world war three.

Note to myself – get a black tie to be ready for my invitation to speak at a Chamber of Commerce Black Tie dinner.

A long time ago, I knew some of the old Jewish communists of Montreal. They were a good bunch, and I've often said they were the most Christian people I ever met. They all quit the party in the 1950s when they realized what the Soviet Union was really all about.

Later, I would meet other Communists of Christian descent. They were invariably pompous asses or sadly naive. In general, I have never thought that communism was practical. Its based on an ideal of human character that really doesn't exist, never has existed, and probably never will. There are some useful ideas and principals in it. But I cannot believe it would work as a system.

It's also obvious, or should be, that capitalism doesn't work. It's based on the principal of thinking only of oneself. That's contrary to any religion I have ever heard of. It's caused constant cruelty on a massive scale. It has spread poverty all over the world. It's worship of greed and self-interest has been a major factor in almost every war I have heard of. And it has now created a wage gap that no society, perhaps no civilization, can survive.

Like communism, some principles in capitalism are worth exploring. But, also like communism, it cannot work as our only economic and social principle. As it is, it has already destroyed most western democracy by its power to corrupt, and by its near-monopoly of news agencies The final destruction will be the Pacific and European trade partnerships which free business to do whatever it likes in any country.

And inevitably, it leads to wars because greed has no limits. That's why the capitalist U.S. and the capitalist Russia and the capitalist China are so close to the final war. The big capitalists are every bit as murderous and greedy as the old Stalinists were. And, in the final analysis, just as bound to fail as Stalin did.

That's why I found the site below interesting. It was sent to me by a reader.

http://www.ted.com/talks/yanis_varoufakis_capitalism_will_eat_democracy_unless_we_speak_up?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-01-30&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=top_left_button

Does that sound radical? Possibly. But it's not as radical (or as stupid) as what we have done – to hand over control of the whole world, of our lives, of our children's lives, to a very tiny number of very rich and very greedy people whose impact on the world is undeniably evil.

In today's news, but not in a big time paper like the Irving press, 10,000 immigrant children in Europe are missing. A street gang in Sweden is stabbing immigrant children to death. Europe is choking immigration at the Greek border – thought the numbers are impossibly high for a poor country like Greece. The U.S. is still clutching its skirts at the very thought of immigrants, though it is the country that has created this chaos at the wish of its very wealthy.

These millions of people have fled their homes because of the horror that oil billionaires have showered on them. No doubt the oil billionaires will give generously to help them. (But they'll keep it quiet because they're modest.)

And we haven't begun to reap the harvest of what we have sowed. It's not just the middle east that has been destabilized. It's the whole world. And that sowing wasn't done by the homeless among us, or the hungry, or the poor, or by ten dollar an hour employees. And not even done by civil servants. This is all the work of the greediest people the devil has ever spawned, those same people who were given the right to meet in Davos with the leaders we elected to serve us.

It's worse than evil. And we have all just drifted along with it.

Is there any hope in the Liberal party or the Conservative party or the Democrats or the Republicans? None whatever. In fact, they're part of the problem. And, in Canada, the NDP has drifted much too far to the centre,and the Green Party is too narrow. Worse, the Canadian and American people, for the most part, have no idea what's happening because they are so wretchedly informed and, in many cases, because people just naturally prefer not to know.

Instead, they would rather listen to speeches at black tie dinners sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.