Canada, like Brazil, has it's share of Donald Trumps in political life.
https://cupe.ca/bad-day-students-funding-cut-disguised-tuition-cut-will-cost-students-more-and-hurt-universities
These are people who govern to please the very, very rich. So they wouldn't dream of making billionaires pay taxes and they certainly wouldn't waste money on frills like university education.
The universities are kind of important. Notice how China has made tremendous advances in recent years? it now challenges the U.S. in development and technology. That is happening because of the tremendous rise of education in that country - especially in university education. - and the tremendous rise of access to that education. Meanwhile, we are making it more difficult to go to university. And much of the real power in our universities is in the hands of a small group of the very wealthy who run the places only for their own, narrow interests. The same thing is happening in the U.S.
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A century ago, the British navy ruled the waves and British corporations ruled the biggest empire in world history. That all collapsed in World War Two - and it collapsed with much help from American corporations who are now in pursuit of being the greatest empire in world history. For over half of the twentieth century, Canada fought British wars as it now fights American ones.
Now, it is possible we are facing the sunset years of a Britain. Much of Ireland has broken away with Scotland likely to follow. All that is left of that grandeur is a royal family. Most of the damage was done in just a few years.
Now there's Brexit which seems to signal the formal end of British influence in Europe. I haven't written about this because, alas, I don't understand it - and most news stories are no help at all. I shall keep an eye open for something even I can understand.
Meanwhile, enjoy this.
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/01/brexit-now-what
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http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/ford-flirts-with-private-health-care-at-his-peril/
Doug Ford's proposals would mean the beginning of the end for government sponsored health care. We would, like the U.S., stay mired in the 19th century. (It has long puzzlled me why Americans suffer this abuse.)
From my childhood, i have memories of watching people in our social circle die because of lack of medical care. Tuberculosis was then a major killer. And they always died at home. I had an uncle who died of TB. But there was no hospital care for him.It was out of the question. He died, slowly, in his room.
When medcare arrived, it didn't come from Canada's llberals or its Conservatives. It came because of the churches.
Early in twentieth century, many clergy and their parishioners were angered by the inidifference the Liberals and the Conservatives to human needs (Rather like the U.S. Republicans and Democrats of today.) So they formed a political party - Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. it was to be a party which, instead of pandering to the limitless greed of the wealthy, would serve the average Canadian - and all of them.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-birth-of-medicare
This is what makes health care possible for most Canadians. Alas, corporations didn't make donations to a political party that wasted its time on serving the Canadian people. The CCF had no money. For some kind of a financial base, the party courted Canadian unions to join it.
But Canadian unions were a lot like Canadian billionaires. They insisted on taming down the party platform, cutting down on its ideal of service to people. The result was the NDP, - a very wimpy version of the CCF. And that's why the Doug Fords of the world are out every day with hammer and chisel to divert that money to those who really need it - the very rich. You know. The ones who don't pay taxes.
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I don't entirely agree with this item from Russia Times. But it's more accurate than what is commonly seen in the Canadian news media.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/449138-huawei-china-canada-iran/
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/19/more-than-100-migrants-missing-after-dinghy-sinks-in-mediterranean
People don't risk their lives as migrants because they're evil. And they don't bring babies with them just for the hell of it. They are fleeing from conditions at home too terrible for survival. And, very often, those conditions were created by the nations they are fleeing to.
We create the horror. Then we blame them for it and we abuse them for fleeing.
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What you won't find in most of your news reports.
http://gwynnedyer.com/2019/trump-and-erdogan-bringers-of-chaos/
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Some government will realize we must develop electrically powered cars. But it's not likely to be a Canadian government.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/01/18/news/electric-vehicle-strategy-sputters-provinces-battle-it-out-green-policies
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Privatization of medical services and needs is not a good idea - not at any level.
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/59xm4a/the-more-drugmakers-wowed-doctors-with-gifts-and-lunches-the-more-people-died-of-drug-overdoses-study-shows
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Here's something on Brexit and the impending fall of Britain's Conservative government. It certainly shows the many dimensions of the Brexit issue. But it doesn't do much to help explain it.
https://truthout.org/video/theresa-mays-brexit-deal-goes-down-in-historic-defeat/
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i am finishing this blog a day late because I felt I didn't have enough material. Well, God is kind to hise servant. In this extra day I have understood what Britain's Brexit crisis is about. (I don't know why it took me so long. It's not at all difficult to understand.)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/20/its-compass-smashed-the-ghost-ship-brexit-sails-into-ever-darker-waters
This is a trade dispute very similar to Trump's trade dispute with Canada. But there is one difference.
This could leave Britain very much alone in much of the world of trade. This would be the final drop from it's days of empire and glory. And that could mean the breakup of Great Britain itself.
And the U.S. could find itself in the same position well within a lifetime.
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We have to understand that migrants are not evil people come to rob us in our sleep. They are people - whole families - made desperate by our wars, by our abuse of their environment, by our exploitation of their labour and their resources. Migrants are not people who have suddenly decided to invade us in order to carry out evil acts. They are victims of our greed and brutality.
Oh? They have an alien culture? Almost all Canadians and Americans come from a host of alien cultures. I went to school with italians, Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Chinese.... There was really nothing alien about them. I found the sense of alienation far greater after my school days as I came to know wealthy anglo-Saxons. Yes, the aliens among us, the ones who most threaten us, are the very wealthy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/20/pope-francis-expresses-sorrow-after-170-feared-dead-in-mediterranean
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